Hurricane Crashes onto US Coast

24/09/2005| IslamWeb

Hurricane Rita has crashed ashore with a 20ft (6m) storm surge into low-lying areas along the Texas-Louisiana border.

The US National Hurricane Center says winds of up to 120mph (193km/h) hit land at about 0600 GMT (0100 local).

The towns of Sabine Pass in Texas and Cameron in Louisiana took the initial fury of the hurricane.

Power went down in towns across the region as electricity stations erupted pyrotechnically, though most people in the target zone have already fled.

Rita was downgraded to a category three hurricane before its arrival, but experts warned the low-lying coast could still be swamped by a storm surge from the sea, driving "large and dangerous battering" waves.

The storm was also expected to dump up to 25in (60cm) of rain.

The BBC's Alastair Leithead in Beaumont, Texas, took shelter in his car but found it was being thrown around by fierce winds. When he repaired to his hotel, the glass front caved in, scattering glass around the lobby.

Tree branches and debris were being blown through the streets.

A US television station said walls of water surged through the streets of Lake Charles, in Louisiana, doing heavy damage to buildings.

Texas officials expressed relief that Galveston and Houston would avoid a direct hit after the storm turned east.

In Louisiana, flood surges have already broken through one of the levees repaired in New Orleans, after Hurricane Katrina hit last month.

But US army engineers said the real damage had been done by the earlier hurricane and there was little in the abandoned city left to lose.

By mid-afternoon on Friday, streets in eastern New Orleans that were all but dry 24 hours before were flooded once more, with the deprived Ninth Ward district under 6ft (1.8m) of water.

However, New Orleans is likely to escape the worst of Rita, with a forecast of tropical storm conditions rather than hurricane winds for the area.

Storm surges from Rita pose a greater threat to the Texan coast where officials warn that the oil and chemical complexes around Port Arthur - known as Energy City - could be flooded out.

In the largely evacuated town of Galveston, a fire erupted in the centre, whipped up by high winds.

The blaze spread across at least three buildings in the historic Strand District of shops, restaurants and clubs.

It is unclear what sparked it but an electrical pole was seen lying on one of the buildings.

PHOTO CAPTION

Huge waves crash over a fishing pier on Seawall Boulevard in Galveston, Texas as Hurricane Rita approached September 23, 2005. (Reuters)