BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 22 (UPI) -- Louisiana began a mandatory evacuation in coastal parishes Thursday as the immense Hurricane Rita moved over the Gulf of Mexico with winds of 165 mph.
Almost all parishes between Interstate 10 and the coast were under either hurricane warnings or watches at midday.
Gov. Kathleen Blanco asked all evacuees to head north, not toward Baton Rouge, which is already crowded with Hurricane Katrina evacuees, the New Orleans Times Picayune reported.
Hurricane-force winds extended out from the storm's eye 75 miles in all directions, while still damaging tropical storm force winds sprawled up to 180 miles out, forecasters at the National Weather Service said.
If Rita makes landfall as projected on the Texas coast near Galveston, the National Hurricane Center in Miami warned the storm could dump as much as three inches of rain in the New Orleans area, which the Army Corps of Engineers has said may overwhelm the city's levee system damaged by Hurricane Katrina.
