Hurricane Rita roared toward the Texas and Louisiana coast with 135 mph winds today, creating monumental traffic jams along evacuation routes and raising fears of a crippling blow to the nation's oil-refining industry.
"We're going to get through this," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said. "Say a prayer for Texas."
In rainy New Orleans, Rita sent water gushing over a patched levee, swamping the city's hard-hit but largely empty Ninth Ward just days after the neighborhood was pumped dry.
"Our worst fears came true," said Maj. Barry Guidry of the Georgia National Guard. "We have three significant breaches in the levee and the water is rising rapidly."
The storm was expected to come ashore early Saturday along the upper Texas-Louisiana coast on a course that could spare Houston and Galveston a direct hit. But Rita could plow into the oil and chemical centers of Beaumont and Port Arthur, about 75 miles east of Houston. [Read more - Houston Chronicle]
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