Hurricane Rita brings widespread power cuts
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.
Rita made landfall at 3.30am local time (08.30 Irish time) as a Category 3 storm just east of Sabine Pass, on the Texas-Louisiana border, bringing a 20-foot storm surge and up to 25 inches of rain, the US National Hurricane Centre said.
