For Rita, officials use Katrina's lessons

NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Rita lashed the Florida Keys yesterday and churned furiously into the Gulf of Mexico, prompting officials from Florida to Texas to apply lessons from inadequate preparations made before Hurricane Katrina struck.

In Florida, the three hospitals in the Keys were evacuated as residents streamed north, and shelters were readied for 1,300 in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

The state mobilized 2,400 National Guard soldiers; 2,500 more were put on alert. The federal government, assailed for its sluggish response to Katrina, set up a military staging area at Homestead Air Reserve Base, south of Miami, for the distribution of food, water, and ice.

During the day, Rita strengthened from a tropical storm to a Category 2 hurricane, with winds reaching 110 miles per hour. The storm passed south of Key West, Fla., overnight before taking a path toward Texas. Early reports from the Keys suggested minimal damage.

In Louisiana, meanwhile, President Bush made his fifth visit since Katrina hit the Gulf coast on Aug. 29.

In addition, emergency officials in Louisiana prepared for the worst: that Rita might make an unpredictable, crippling change of course. Nursing home residents and hospital patients in coastal areas were moved north to higher ground. Navy ships, dispatched to New Orleans after Katrina, prepared to move to open water. And the state government positioned 175 buses in the southwestern part of the state, in a dramatic shift from the slow response to Katrina.

''Even if the eye of Rita does not strike the Louisiana coast, it is likely that its effects could be felt from as far away as coastal southeast Louisiana," said Governor Kathleen Blanco, who urged everyone in the southwestern part of the state to be prepared for an evacuation.

''We've learned a lot of hard lessons," New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin said. ''We're much better prepared this time."

Rita is expected to make landfall late Friday or early Saturday, between Corpus Christi and Galveston, Texas.

The National Weather Center predicted that the storm could strengthen to a Category 4 hurricane today, with winds of 131 miles per hour or more, as it gathers strength from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Katrina, which was a Category 4 hurricane, pummeled the coast of Louisiana and Mississippi with winds of 140 miles per hour.

To date, 736 deaths in Louisiana have been linked to the storm; 219 are reported to have died in Mississippi.

Voluntary evacuation began yesterday in the coastal counties of Galveston and Brazoria in Texas. Mandatory evacuations were scheduled to begin in both counties at 6 a.m. today for nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, and for all residents as of 6 p.m. today.

Officials in the island city of Galveston, Texas, where a hurricane in 1900 killed 6,000 to 12,000 people in the worst natural disaster in US history, concentrated yesterday on evacuating the elderly and sick.

They also began calling every telephone number in the city to offer help.

Texas authorities asked coastal residents who were leaving to bypass Houston, which Mayor Bill White said could lose power and is prone to flooding, and to go instead to Dallas, San Antonio, or Austin. Officials warned that the Houston Astrodome, which temporarily sheltered tens of thousands of Katrina refugees, could not be used in a storm because of its glass roof.

To prepare his state for Rita, Governor Rick Perry of Texas recalled 1,200 National Guard troops and all emergency personnel from post-Katrina duty in Louisiana.

Texas also began moving 7,000 evacuees from Louisiana to other states, including Arkansas and Tennessee, from shelters, homes, and hotels, said Ron Sherman, housing task force leader for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The storm's current path also puts Rita on course to threaten Texas's oil facilities, which has prompted Royal Dutch Shell and other oil companies to pull workers from their rigs.

In New Orleans, officials had 500 buses at the ready.

Some residents were heading to the city's convention center to be picked up. Army Lieutenant General Russel Honore said two busloads of people had been taken out of the city.

Honore declined to answer questions about where these new evacuees were going. ''That's none of your business," he told reporters. Nor would authorities say why such precautions were taking place a few days before a storm, while similar operations were not in place for Katrina as it bore down on the coast.

''Let's not get stuck on the last storm," Honore said. ''We've got to deal with Rita."

In Arkansas, which already has 8,000 Katrina victims in shelters, officials have been warned to expect more evacuees. ''We could potentially be looking at taking an enormous amount of people from Houston," said Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. ''We're going to have to prepare, in the event. It would tax us if we had to, but we would do it."

In all, Arkansas is home to about 50,000 Katrina evacuees, most of whom are staying with friends and relatives.

Although Rita is expected to bypass New Orleans, southeastern Louisiana, beginning today is likely to have tides about eight feet above normal, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The weakened, hastily patched levees around New Orleans have worried officials that even a modest storm surge of three feet or more could push flood waters back into the city.

The state was preparing to respond in case the southwestern part of Louisiana gets swiped by the back side of Rita. Assistant Adjutant General Brod Veillon of the Louisiana Air National Guard said the state is prepared to seek reinforcements from other states for the 20,000 National Guard troops in the region.

Lieutenant Colonel William Doran of the state Office of Homeland Security said the state is better prepared for Rita because of the tens of thousands of soldiers and emergency personnel who responded after Katrina. ''We're already on board with 24-hour operations," Doran said.

Material from wire services was used in this report.