MIAMI (AFP) - US authorities ordered the evacuation of several islands off southern Florida and parts of Miami as Tropical Storm Rita headed toward the United States, amid fears it could soon become a hurricane.
In Cuba, officials told residents of coastal areas and mountain regions in central and western parts of the island to head to safe shelter.
"This storm can gain power very, very quickly ... this is serious business," said Florida Governor
Jeb Bush, telling residents to flee the Florida Keys islands, Miami Beach and low-lying areas of Miami.
 | The governor urged his brother President George W. Bush to declare a state of emergency that would free federal relief funds for Florida. |
Experts said the storm's path could eventually take it to New Orleans and the US Gulf Coast, which were devastated by Hurricane Katrina on August 29.
The likelihood of Rita barreling over the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico sent world crude prices surging Monday.
Rita pounded southern islands of the Bahamas Monday and appeared set to strengthen into a hurricane that forecasters said could reach category three on the five-level Saffir-Simpson intensity scale.
The storm's center was expected to pass over or near the Bahamian island of Andros late Monday and approach the Florida Keys on Tuesday, according to the Miami-based
National Hurricane Center.
While the Bahamas, Cuba and southern Florida were the most immediately threatened, with Texas at risk over the weekend, hurricane experts warned there was also a possibility the storm might slam ashore near New Orleans.
Bill Doran, operations division chief for the Louisiana Office of Homeland Security, said authorities were keeping a close eye on Rita. |
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin suspended the return of the city's residents because of the threat from Rita and warned that people may have to flee again.
He said as many as 30,000 people, most of them national guardsmen and relief workers, might need to be evacuated if Rita were to strike the US Gulf Coast areas recovering from Katrina's wrath.
Florida's governor said a total of 500 National Guard troops were on stand-by in southern Florida. "Weather conditions will grow steadily worse tonight and tomorrow," Bush said.
In Miami, residents packed supermarkets to stock up on food, and long lines formed outside gas stations.
The US National Hurricane Center forecast a track that would have the storm just skirting the Bahamas, Cuba and Key West in Atlantic waters and eventually making landfall in Texas over the weekend.
But experts warned that hurricanes are highly unpredictable, and a "cone of probability" in the forecast indicates the storm might enter Florida near Miami and later make a second landfall between northeastern Mexico and the swamplands of southern Louisiana just west of New Orleans.
Should the storm eventually land west of New Orleans, the city would find itself on the so-called "dirty side" of the hurricane, where winds are the most powerful. |
"There is deep concern about this storm causing more flooding in New Orleans," the US president said. "And again, if it were to rain a lot, there is concern from the Army Corps of Engineers that the levees might break."
Rita also sent jitters on global oil markets amid fears of further disruption of crude production in the US Gulf, which had been severely affected by Hurricane Katrina.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in October, closed up a sharp 4.39 dollars at 67.39 dollars per barrel on Monday. The benchmark contract had climbed as high as 67.50 dollars in earlier trading.
At 8:00 p.m. (midnight GMT) Monday, Rita was 510 kilometers (315 miles) east-southeast of Key West, and packed near-hurricane strength winds of 110 kilometers per hour (70 mph.)
Meanwhile, another storm, Hurricane Philippe, was swirling 570 kilometers (355 miles) east of the Leeward Islands and looked set to remain over the open waters of the Atlantic.
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