US tense as Hurricane Rita blows in

Hurricane Rita was moving west over the Gulf of Mexico with winds nearing 135 miles an hour after it strengthened into a Category 4 hurrican...

Hurricane Rita was moving west over the Gulf of Mexico with winds nearing 135 miles an hour after it strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane, the National Hurricane Centre said on Wednesday. The centre of the hurricane is expected to move through the southeastern part of the US Gulf Coast over the next 24 hours.

The storm churned past the Florida Keys on Tuesday, inflicting less damage than expected. But thousands, from the tip of the Florida peninsula to Galveston, Texas, have left their homes or made plans to, including many who had already fled from Hurricane Katrina.

Hurricane Katrina was a Category 4 storm when it devastated parts of the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on August 29.

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Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff said that supplies were being pre-positioned. In Louisiana, Governor Kathleen Blanco asked US President George W. Bush on Tuesday to declare a state of emergency for her battered state as it prepares for Hurricane Rita. She requested $10 million in assistance.

In New Orleans, a city mostly empty of residents but with its physical core still vulnerable, the possibility of heavy rain and a storm surge prompted officials to make emergency efforts to bolster its weakened levee system

The city’s weakened levee system could be breached by a storm surge as low as five feet, said Brigadier General Robert Crear of the Army Corps of Engineers. The Corps, which has used sandbags, stones and concrete to seal breaches in several levees, does not expect the levees to be fully repaired until June 1, the start of the 2006 hurricane season.

—NYT

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