RATS, raw sewage and a no-excuses curfew await exiled residents who try to return to storm-wrecked Galveston Island when it reopens next week, officials have said.

Thousands of victims of Hurricane Ike huddled in shelters for what could be weeks and others queued wearily for food, water, ice and petrol as the misery of the disaster along the Texas coast became increasingly clear.

Hurricane Rita ploughed into the Gulf Coast early today, lashing Texas and Louisiana with driving rain, threatening to flood low-lying regions and knocking power out to half a million people as transformers exploded in the pre-dawn sky.