Elderly wheelchair-bound citizens from the Edgewater Retirement Community in Galveston, Texas, get ready to board a bus yesterday to evacuate the city in preparation for Hurricane Rita. The hurricane is expected to make landfall on Friday. - REUTERS
GALVESTON, Texas, (Reuters):
HURRICANE RITA strengthened into a Category Five storm yesterday as it headed for the Texas coast later this week, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said in its latest update.
The storm, packing winds of 165 mph, was projected to make landfall on Saturday after threatening oil and natural gas facilities in the Gulf Coast region. Authorities began to evacuate more than a million people from most of the coast and parts of Houston.
READY FOR THE WORST
"We hope and pray that Hurricane Rita will not be a devastating storm, but we've got to be ready for the worst," said U.S. President George W. Bush, who was heavily criticised for an ill-prepared federal response to Katrina.
Rita headed into the Gulf of Mexico after lashing the Florida Keys on Tuesday. The storm did little damage to the vulnerable Florida islands.
The upgrade makes Rita stronger than 'Katrina' which was a category 4 hurricane. Hurricane Katrina devastated parts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama last month and killed at least 1,037 people.
Markets reacted immediately, with the prospect of more destruction and oil-supply interruptions affecting everything from stocks and the dollar to oil prices.
Rita would most likely hit the Texas coast by Saturday, hitting south-west of Galveston, where in 1900 at least 8,000 people died in the deadliest U.S. hurricane.
RESIDENTS EVACUATED
Galveston, on a barrier island, began evacuating residents on Tuesday. Further inland, Houston Mayor Bill White ordered an evacuation of residents in areas prone to storm surges or major floods.
As many as 1.2 million people were expected to begin leaving Houston by evening, officials said. Katrina displaced about one million people, including nearly all of New Orleans' 450,000 residents.
Stores in Houston quickly ran out of emergency supplies, plywood and food.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry urged Texans along a 300-mile (483 km) stretch comprising most of the state's coastline, to leave.
