Gridlocked exodus as Rita howls towards Houston

HUNDREDS of thousands of people across the Houston metropolitan area struggled to make their way inland in a vast, bumper-to-bumper exodus as Hurricane Rita closed in on the fourth-largest city in the US with winds howling at 241 kilometres an hour.

Drivers ran out of petrol in 14-hour traffic jams or looked in vain for a place to stay as hotels hundreds of kilometres in from the coast filled up. Others got tired of waiting in traffic and turned around and went home.

An estimated 1.8 million residents or more in Texas and Louisiana were under orders to evacuate to avoid a deadly repeat of Katrina.