Fires and floods hit hurricane-stricken US
Hurricane Rita ploughed into the Gulf of Mexico coast early today, lashing Texas and Louisiana with driving rain, flooding low-lying regions, knocking power out to nearly a million customers and sparking fires across the region.
Rita made landfall at 3.30am local time (0830 BST) as a Category 3 storm just east of Sabine Pass, on the Texas-Louisiana border, bringing a 20-foot storm surge and warnings of up to 25 inches of rain, the US National Hurricane Centre said. Within four hours it had weakened to a Category 2 storm, with top winds of 100 mph, as it moved further inland between Beaumont and Jasper.
