Texans flee Rita

Cars clogged Texas highways with 1.5 million people fleeing Hurricane Rita yesterday as the massive storm roared through the Gulf of Mexico towards one of the largest American cities and the centre of the US oil industry.

The path of Rita, downgraded to Category 4 hurricane when its winds fell to 240 kilometres per hour, shifted northwards and appeared to be headed slightly east of of Galveston and Houston, the National Hurricane Centre said.

But officials warned the storm remained unpredictable.

Drivers waited hours to move on jammed highways from southern Texas into Louisiana as coastal residents, heeding the lessons of Hurricane Katrina, headed inland to escape one of the most intense storms on record.

As Rita neared, Exxon Mobil said it was closing the biggest US oil refinery in Baytown, Texas and another in Beaumont, 144 km east.

The closings, combined with earlier shutdowns because of Katrina three weeks ago, raised to at least 13 the number of US refineries out of commission. Together, the storms shut more than 28 per cent of US refining capacity, raising the spectre of serious gasoline shortages in the days ahead.

The storm's projected track, which on Wednesday threatened to clobber Galveston and Houston, slowly moved up the coast. The revised path would spare the Gulf Coast's largest population centre Rita's full brunt.

Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco urged coastal communities to evacuate as forecasts indicated Rita would come closer to state than previously thought.

Rita was expected to continue losing some steam as it neared land, but was still forecast to hit Texas late today or early tomorrow as no less than a Category 3 storm with winds of up to 209 kph.

A hurricane warning was in effect from Port O'Connor, Texas, to Morgan City, Louisiana.

Corpus Christi lifted its mandatory evacuation. Officials said Galveston, a barrier island that remains prone to mass destruction despite the new forecast, was 90 per cent empty.

As of midday, the city was braced for a 4.5- to six-metre storm surge. However, its shoreline is protected by a five-metre seawall built after the city was wiped out in a 1900 hurricane that killed 8,000 people in the worst US natural disaster.

Not everyone heeded the warnings, though.

Houston, meanwhile, saw its outbound freeways gridlocked, with fights reported at filling stations and many evacuees running out of fuel on the highways.

The state dispatched fuel trucks to serve stranded motorists. Also, state officials made Interstate 45 a one-way highway for about 80 miles into northern Texas, easing a 100-mile traffic jam leading from the coast.

Wait times were severe at Bush Intercontinental Airport as travelers tried to flee before airlines began curtailing flights..

Federal and Texas officials moved quickly to put rescue efforts in place to avoid the chaotic scenes of death, violence and looting that befell New Orleans when rescue operations there floundered just three weeks earlier when Hurricane Katrina came ashore.

At the White House, President George W. Bush was briefed on preparations for dealing with Hurricane Rita. He was expected to make a pre-storm visit to his home state today.

State authorities said 5,000 National Guard soldiers were expected on the ground by Saturday morning.

The state has asked for 10,000 additional federal soldiers, Perry said. About 1,000 state soldiers also were in place.