Rita May Regain Some Intensity; Continues Texas Path
Houston Residents Get Inland
Hundreds of thousands of people across the Houston metropolitan area struggled to make their way inland in a vast, bumper-to-bumper exodus Thursday as Hurricane Rita closed in on the nation's fourth-largest city with winds howling at 150 mph.Drivers ran out of gas in 14-hour traffic jams or looked in vain for a place to stay as hotels hundreds of miles in from the coast filled up. Others got tired of waiting in traffic and turned around and went home. An estimated 1.8 million residents or more in Texas and Louisiana were under orders to evacuate to avoid a deadly repeat of Katrina. "Whatever happens is going to happen and we are going to have a monumental task ahead of us once the storm passes," Galveston City Manager Steve LeBlanc said. "Galveston is going to suffer, and we are going to need to get it back in order as soon as possible." Highways leading inland out of Houston, a metropolitan area of 4 million people, were clogged up to 100 miles north of the city. Service stations reported running out of gasoline, and police officers carried gas to motorists who ran out. Texas authorities also asked the Pentagon for help in getting gasoline to drivers stuck in traffic, and sent gasoline tankers to take up positions along evacuation routes to help. To speed the evacuation, Gov. Rick Perry halted all southbound traffic into Houston along Interstate 45 and took the unprecedented step of opening all eight lanes to northbound traffic out of the city for 125 miles. I-45 is the primary evacuation route north from Houston and nearby Galveston. An estimated 1.3 million people in Galveston, the Corpus Christi area, Beaumont, low-lying parts of Houston, and mostly emptied-out New Orleans were under mandatory evacuation orders. And about 500,000 in southwestern Louisiana were told to get out as well. Environmentalists warned that the stretch of coast threatened by Rita is home to 87 chemical plants, refineries and petroleum storage installations, raising the possibility that the storm could cause a major oil spill or toxic release. Southeastern Texas is also home to more than a dozen active Superfund sites. NASA evacuated Johnson Space Center and transferred control of the international space station to the Russians. Storm surge projections put most of the NASA space center, situated about 20 miles southeast of downtown Houston, underwater in the event of a hurricane above Category 2. Rita is the 17th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, making this the fourth-busiest season since record-keeping started in 1851. The record is 21 tropical storms in 1933. Six hurricanes have hit Florida in the last 13 months. The hurricane season started June 1 and ends Nov. 30. Watch Tom Sorrells, Larry Mowry and Michele Cimino for more on this story.- September 21, 2005: Rita May Be Most Intense Storm To Ever Hit Texas
- September 21, 2005: Rita Swirls Into 165-MPH Monster
- September 21, 2005: NASA To Close Houston Center Before Rita Arrives
- September 21, 2005: Rita's Winds Reach 140 MPH; Targets Texas
- September 21, 2005: Dr. Gray: Hurricane Rita Is 'Trouble With Capital T'
- September 21, 2005: Rita Expected To Grow To Cat. 4 Storm In Gulf
- September 20, 2005: Hurricane Rita Winds Reach 100 MPH
- September 20, 2005: Rita Squall Capsizes Boat In Banana River
- September 20, 2005: Hurricane Rita Lashes Florida Keys
- September 20, 2005: Rita Expected To Be Cat. 2 Storm In Keys
- September 19, 2005: Rita May Be Cat. 2 In Keys; Projected Path Includes La.
- September 19, 2005: Florida Warns Against Price Gouging During Rita
- September 19, 2005: Florida Prepares For Tropical Storm Rita
- September 18, 2005: Path Pushes T.S. Rita South
Copyright 2005 by Internet Broadcasting Systems and Local6.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.







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