Millions Flee Hurricane’s Path

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The New York Sun

HOUSTON – Hurricane Rita closed in on the Texas Gulf Coast and the heart of the American oil-refining industry with howling 145 mph winds yesterday, but a sharper-than-expected turn to the right set it on a course that could spare Houston and nearby Galveston a direct hit.


The storm’s march toward land sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the nation’s fourth-largest city in a frustratingly slow, bumper-to-bumper exodus.


“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 yesterday from a top-of-the-scale Category 5 hurricane to a Category 4 as it swirled across the Gulf of Mexico.


The storm’s course change could send it away from Houston and Galveston and instead draw it 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 chemical plants and petroleum installations that represent more than one-fourth of American 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.


At 5 p.m., Rita was centered about 405 miles southeast of Galveston and was moving at near 9 mph. Its winds were near 140 mph, down from 175 mph earlier in the day. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore somewhere along a 350-mile stretch of the Texas and Louisiana coast that includes Port Arthur near the midpoint.


Forecasters warned of the possibility of a storm surge of 15 to 20 feet, battering waves, and rain of up to 15 inches along the Texas and western Louisiana coast.


The evacuation was a traffic nightmare, with red brake lights streaming out of Houston and its low-lying suburbs as far as the eye could see. Highways leading inland out of Houston, a metropolitan area of 4 million people about an hour’s drive from the shore, were clogged for up to 100 miles north of the city.


Drivers ran out of gas in 14-hour traffic jams or looked in vain for a place to stay as hotels filled up all the way to the Oklahoma and Arkansas line. Others got tired of waiting in traffic and turned around and went home.


Service stations reported running out of gasoline, and police officers along the highways carried gas to motorists whose tanks were on empty. Texas authorities also asked the Pentagon for help in getting gasoline to drivers stuck in traffic.


The traffic jam extended well into Louisiana, with Interstate 10 jammed from Lake Charles through Baton Rouge. State police said the biggest backups were at exits where cars stacked up in long lines of motorists trying to get gasoline.


Rather than sit in traffic, some people walked their dogs, got out to stretch or switch drivers, or lounged in the beds of pickup trucks. Fathers and sons played catch on freeway medians. Some walked from car to car, chatting with others.


With temperatures in the 90s, many cars were overheating, as were some tempers.


“I’ve been screaming in the car,” said Abbie Huckleby, who was trapped on Interstate 45 with her husband and two children as they tried to get from the Houston suburb of Katy to Dallas, about 250 miles away. “It’s not working. If I would have known it was this bad, I would have stayed at home and rode out the storm at home.”


Trazanna Moreno decided to do just. After leaving her Houston home and covering just six miles in nearly three hours, she finally gave up.


“It could be that if we ended up stranded in the middle of nowhere that we’d be in a worse position in a car dealing with hurricane-force winds than we would in our house,” she said.


To speed the evacuation, Governor Perry halted all southbound traffic into Houston along I-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 Galveston.


In New Orleans, Rita’s steady rains yesterday were the first measurable precipitation since Katrina. The forecast was for 3 to 5 inches in the coming days – dangerously close to the amount engineers said could send floodwaters pouring back into neighborhoods that have been dry for less than a week.


Katrina’s death toll in Louisiana rose to 832 yesterday, pushing the body count to at least 1,069 across the Gulf Coast. But workers under contract to the state to collect the bodies were taken off the streets of New Orleans because of the approaching storm.


“Rita has Louisiana in her sights,” Governor Blanco of Louisiana said. “Head north. You cannot go east, you cannot go west. If you know the local roads that go north, take those.”


As for those who refuse to leave, she said: “Perhaps they should write their Social Security numbers on their arms with indelible ink.”


The New York Sun

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