Fire And Rain

Hurricane Rita crashed into the low-lying coastal area along the Texas-Louisiana border early Saturday morning, her 120 mph winds causing widespread destruction, disrupting power and threatening even more damage from heavy rains.

Rita's final path took her east of Houston and Galveston, instead unleashing her might on small towns in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana, which suffered severe damage. "It's unbelievable," Reuters quoted Lake Charles Police Chief Tommy Davis as saying, "There's going to be a lot of destruction out there."

While directing most of her fury east, Rita's high winds whipped up huge fires in Galveston's historic Strand District even while rain poured down. The few buildings that survived the catostrophic hurricane of 1900 are located in The Strand. A one hundred-year-old building in the area was almost totally destroyed and two others were severely damaged . "It was like a war zone, shooting fire across the street," the Associated Press quoted Fire Chief Michael Varela as saying. The Galveston Fire Department had moved most of the fire fighting equipment into the shelter of the convention center to keep it from being damaged by the hurricane.

While the gulf coast began to survey the damage, northeast Texas braced for more flooding as Rita moved up the Texas-Louisiana border. It is feared she may decide to rest in east Texas, dropping as much as 20 inches of rain on the area.