Rita's Strongest Winds Batter Gulf Coast
By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press Writer
BEAUMONT, Texas - Hurricane Rita's strongest winds came ashore along the Texas-Louisiana early Saturday, battered the coast with stinging rain and pounding waves that threatened flooding across the low-lying region.
The eyewall — the ring of high wind surrounding the calm eye — lashed the coastal area between Sabine Pass, Texas, and Cameron, La., according to the National Hurricane Center.
The storm had already caused new flooding in New Orleans, and as many as 24 people were killed when a bus carrying nursing-home evacuees caught fire in a traffic jam.
Rita weakened during the day into a Category 3 hurricane after raging as a Category 5, 175-mph monster earlier in the week. But it was still a highly dangerous storm.
The hurricane's eye was expected to come ashore on a course that could spare Houston and Galveston but slam the oil refining towns of Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, and Lake Charles, La., with a 20-foot storm surge, towering waves and up to 25 inches of rain.
"That's where people are going to die," said Max Mayfield, director of the hurricane center. "All these areas are just going to get absolutely clobbered by the storm surge."
"That's where people are going to die," said Max Mayfield, director of the hurricane center. "All these areas are just going to get absolutely clobbered by the storm surge."
Blunt. Scary. What will happen to our refining capacity? Are we in for a wild ride? This report was not hopeful at all.