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Thousands Evacuated in Florida Keys As Hurricane Rita Sweeps Towards Texas Mexico

Posted on: Wednesday, 21 September 2005, 06:00 CDT

Fresh chaos is threatening the southern United States as another major weather system sweeps into the Gulf of Mexico bringing rain and gusts of up to 85mph as it bears down on the area which was recently devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Rita passed the Florida Keys and the southern part of the state yesterday evening as it moved into the Gulf, creating a storm surge 6ft high. Thousands of people were forced to leave the islands while on Cuba almost 60,000 people were moved to emergency shelters.

The biggest fear is what will happen to Rita over the coming days and what its strength will be when it is likely to make land at the end of the week. At the moment, meteorologists believe it is most probable the hurricane will strike Texas " 100 miles south-west of Houston, where much of the state's oil and natural gas facilities are located. But it is also possible that it could turn northwards and come ashore in Louisiana, where officials and residents are still struggling to cope with the aftermath of Katrina.

'Right now, we expect that Rita will remain a category one hurricane as it affects the Keys,' said Chris Sisko, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Centre in Miami. 'Further out, we anticipate further strengthening up to category three, or major hurricane status.'

Officials in the path of Rita were preparing to order the evacuation of residents as the 17th named storm of the hurricane season approached at around 15mph. The Mayor of Galveston, Texas, said if the storm continued on its path she would order an evacuation and tell people to prepare to be away for several months. The Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, warned residents in the south-west of the state to prepare to evacuate.

The New Orleans Mayor, Ray Nagin, has already ordered a suspension of his invitation to residents to return and has instead told people to get out of the city. He said if New Orleans received a wave surge of just three feet if would be enough to flood the city.

Life was just beginning to return to some parts of the city as Mr Nagin made his announcement. Bars, restaurants and shops had just started to open when the Mayor issued his warning that it was no longer safe. The region's oil and gas industries, already hit by Katrina, also face fresh disruption and prices have risen in recent days. A barrel of crude stood last night at $65.40 (pounds 36.25).

Meanwhile, as President George Bush visited the Gulf coast yesterday for the fifth time since Katrina struck, the White House said that a Homeland Security adviser, Fran Townsend, had been appointed to lead an internal inquiry into the widely criticised federal response to the storm. Ms Townsend will look at 'what went right, what went wrong and lessons learnt from the federal response to Hurricane Katrina,' said a spokesman. Democrats said that a fully independent inquiry " not an internal investigation " was needed.

The death toll from Katrina stands at 973, comprising 736 in Louisiana, 218 in Mississippi and 19 in Florida, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee.

Meteorologists said that this was already the fourth-busiest Atlantic hurricane season since record-keeping began in 1851. The record of 21 tropical storms was set in 1933, only four more than this season's total so far.

Source: Independent, The; London (UK)

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