"Rita Upgraded to Category 3 Hurricane" sayz Yahoo! News

She threatens Louisiana and Texas. Things do not look bright:

Residents of the Florida Keys exhaled after Hurricane Rita largely spared the island chain, while those in Texas and already-battered Louisiana fretted the strengthening storm could become a Katrina-esque monster and target them by week's end.

Rita was upgraded to a Category 3 storm early Wednesday with 120 mph winds and forecasters said it could further intensify, sparking an order for mandatory evacuations in New Orleans and Galveston, Texas.

Federal officials told Gulf Coast residents to begin bracing for a blockbuster storm. "Up and down the coastline, people are now preparing for what is anticipated to be another significant storm,"
President Bush said.

Acting FEMA Director R. David Paulison told reporters that the agency has aircraft and buses available to evacuate residents of areas the hurricane might hit. Rescue teams and truckloads of ice, water and prepared meals were being sent to Texas and Florida.

"I strongly urge Gulf coast residents to pay attention" to the storm, he said.

Update: Reader Ron Rolling writes that Rita became a catagory 4.

Update II: Rita is now a Catagory 5 hurricane! Notes the AP:

As many as 1 million people were ordered to clear out along the Gulf Coast, and hospital and nursing home patients were evacuated Wednesday as Hurricane Rita turned into a Category-5, 165-mph monster that could slam Texas by the weekend and inflict more misery on New Orleans.

Forecasters said Rita could be the most intense hurricane on record ever to hit Texas, and easily one of the most powerful ever to plow into the U.S. mainland. Category 5 is the highest on the scale, and only three Category 5 hurricanes are known to have hit the U.S. mainland - most recently, Andrew, which smashed South Florida in 1992.

All of Galveston, low-lying sections of Houston and Corpus Christi, and a mostly emptied-out New Orleans were under mandatory evacuation orders, one day after Rita sideswiped the Florida Keys as a far weaker storm and caused minor damage.

Having seen what Hurricane Katrina - a Category-4, 145-mph storm - did three weeks ago, many people were taking no chances as Rita swirled across the Gulf of Mexico.

"After this killer in New Orleans, Katrina, I just cannot fathom staying," 59-year-old Ldyyan Jean Jocque said before sunrise as she waited for an evacuation bus outside the Galveston Community Center. She had packed her Bible, some music and clothes into plastic bags and loaded her dog into a pet carrier.

"I really think it is going to be bad. That's really why I'm running. All these years I've stayed here, but I've got to go this time," said 65-year-old Barbara Anders. "I don't have but one life, and it is time for me to go."

Please, if you live in the Galveston or Texas Gulf Coast, get out of there! Rita is now ten times as powerful as Katrina was! May God in his infinite mercy protect the poor and most vulnerable in this time of great disaster! Lord, sheperd your people!