Hurricane Rita becomes a 175mph monster

Gaining strength with frightening speed, Hurricane Rita swirled toward the Gulf Coast as a Category 5, 175-mph monster today as more than 1.3 million people in Texas and Louisiana were sent packing on orders from authorities who learned a bitter lesson from Katrina.

Forecasters said Rita could be the most intense hurricane on record ever to hit Texas, and easily one of the most powerful ever to plough into the US mainland