Cars clogged Texas highways with more than a million people fleeing Hurricane Rita on Thursday as the Category 5 storm roared through the Gulf of Mexico on a potentially catastrophic course.
Heavy traffic jammed highways from Corpus Christi in southern Texas into Louisiana as coastal residents, heeding the lessons of Hurricane Katrina, headed inland to escape what has become one of the most intense storms on record.
The National Hurricane Centre said the path of Rita, with top winds dropping slightly to 165 mph (265 kph), had shifted toward the north. It appeared to be headed toward Galveston and Houston, the nation's fourth largest city and centre of the US oil industry.
As Rita neared, Exxon Mobil said it was closing the biggest US oil refinery in Baytown, Texas and another in Beaumont, 90 miles (144 km) east.
The closings, combined with earlier shutdowns due to Rita and Katrina three weeks ago, raised to at least 12 the number of US refineries out of commission. Together, they had nearly 20 percent of US refining capacity, raising the spectre of serious gasoline shortages in the days ahead.
A hurricane warning was in effect from Port O'Connor, Texas, to Morgan City, Louisiana. Rita was expected to lose a little steam as it neared land, but was still forecast to hit Texas as no less than a Category 3 storm with winds of up to 130 mph (209 kph).
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