Home>News Center>World
         
 

Texans fleeing Rita stalled by traffic
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-23 07:00

HOUSTON - Hurricane Rita closed in on the nation's fourth-largest city and the heart of the U.S. oil-refining industry with howling 145 mph winds Thursday, sending hundreds of thousands of people fleeing in a frustratingly slow, bumper-to-bumper exodus. AP reported.

Cherlyn, left, and Lane McWhorter of Baycliff, TX ride in the back of a pickup truck with their animals in Houston, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2005.
Cherlyn, left, and Lane McWhorter of Baycliff, TX ride in the back of a pickup truck with their animals in Houston, Thursday, Sept. 22, 2005. [AP]
"This is the worst planning I've ever seen," said Judie Anderson, who covered just 45 miles in 12 hours after setting out from her home in the Houston suburb of LaPorte. "They say we've learned a lot from Hurricane Katrina. Well, you couldn't prove it by me."

In all, nearly 2 million people along the Texas and Louisiana coasts were urged to get out of the way of Rita, a 400-mile-wide storm that weakened Thursday from a top-of-the-scale Category 5 hurricane to a Category 4 as it swirled across the Gulf of Mexico.

It also made a sharper-than-expected turn to the right late in the afternoon, on a course that could spare Houston and nearby Galveston a direct hit and send it instead toward Port Arthur, Texas, or Lake Charles, La., at least 60 miles up the coast, by late Friday or early Saturday.

But it was still an extremely dangerous storm — and one aimed at a section of coastline with the nation's biggest concentration of oil refineries. Environmentalists warned of the possibility of a toxic spill from the 87 industrial plants and storage installations that represent more than one-fourth of U.S. refining capacity.

Rita also brought rain to already-battered New Orleans, raising fears that the city's Katrina-damaged levees would fail and flood the city all over again.
Page: 1234



Crippled plane lands safely at L.A. airport
Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi reappointed
North Korea to drop nuclear weapons development
 
  Today's Top News     Top World News
 

Latest coal-safety effort 'not effective'

 

   
 

Central bank to gradually lessen forex role

 

   
 

China bank gets IPO OK from HK bourse

 

   
 

176 flights cancelled for military exercise

 

   
 

Zoellick: U.S.-China relationship 'complex'

 

   
 

Indonesia urged to discipline its navy

 

   
  Texans fleeing Rita stalled by traffic
   
  Powerful cleric backs Iraq constitution
   
  EU backs down on Iran under pressure
   
  N.Korea asks UN to end humanitarian aid
   
  Bush vows to keep US troops in Iraq until job done
   
  Mexico: Bad weather likely cause of copter crash
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Related Stories  
   
Jobless claims related to Katrina surge
   
Names for storms, hurricanes running out
   
Katrina's death toll climbs past 1,000
   
Rita unleashes Category 5 fury over U.S. Gulf
   
Hurricane Rita develops into Category 3 storm
   
Forecasters fear hurricane Rita's strength
   
New Orleans suspends reopening of city
  News Talk  
  Are the Republicans exploiting the memory of 9/11?  
Advertisement