Hurricane Rita slammed into Texas and Louisiana early Saturday, smashing windows, sparking fires and knocking power out to more than 1 million customers, but largely sparing vulnerable Houston and already reeling New Orleans.

Rita made landfall at 3:30 a.m. EDT as a Category 3 storm just east of Sabine Pass, on the Texas-Louisiana line, bringing top winds of 120 mph and warnings of up to 25 inches of rain, the National Hurricane Center said. Within four hours it had weakened to a Category 2 storm, with top winds of 100 mph, as it moved further inland between Beaumont and Jasper.

There were no immediate reports of fatalities, or any detailed word on damage to the area's vast oil refinery industry, though rescuers and search teams in many areas had to wait for winds to subside before venturing out.

Hurricane Rita's latest 3-Day Storm Track. (Image from the National Hurricane Center.)

Texas officials warned of a catastrophe and water spilled over levees to flood parts of New Orleans anew on Friday as Hurricane Rita barreled toward the U.S. Gulf Coast with winds reaching 135 mph (217 kph).

The unprecedented mass evacuation of the region turned deadly when a bus carrying elderly evacuees fleeing the hurricane along a major escape route south of Dallas burst into flames and killed an estimated 24 people.

"Be calm, be strong, say a prayer for Texas," Texas Gov. Rick Perry said in the state capital of Austin.

Rita was expected to make landfall early on Saturday near the Texas and Louisiana border, the National Hurricane Center said. It said the Category 4 storm may weaken to a Category 3 by landfall, but would still come ashore as a major hurricane.

A bus carrying elderly evacuees from Hurricane Rita caught fire and was rocked by explosions early Friday on a gridlocked highway near Dallas, killing as many as 24 people, authorities said.

"Deputies were unable to get everyone off the bus," Dallas County Sheriff's Department spokesman Don Peritz said. He said he believes 24 people were killed, but that number could change.

The bus was carrying 38 residents and six employees of the Brighton Gardens nursing home in Bellaire, according to Sunrise Senior Living, the McLean, Va., company that owns the center.

Early indications were that it caught fire because of mechanical problems, then passengers' oxygen tanks started exploding, Peritz said. He said the brakes may have been on fire.

Hurricane Rita's steady rains sent water pouring through breaches in a patched levee Friday, cascading into one of the city's lowest-lying neighborhoods in a devastating repeat of New Orleans' flooding nightmare.

"Our worst fears came true," said Maj. Barry Guidry of the Georgia National Guard.

"We have three significant breaches in the levee and the water is rising rapidly," he said. "At daybreak I found substantial breaks and they've grown larger."

Dozens of blocks in the Ninth Ward were under water as a waterfall at least 30 feet wide poured over and through a dike that had been used to patch breaks in the Industrial Canal levee. On the street that runs parallel to the canal, the water ran waist-deep and was rising fast. Guidry said water was rising about three inches a minute.

Hurricane Rita's latest 3-Day Storm Track. (Image from the National Hurricane Center.)

Traffic came to a standstill and gas shortages were reported Thursday as hundreds of thousands of people in the Houston metropolitan area rushed to get out of the path of Hurricane Rita, a monster storm with 165 mph winds.

More than 1.3 million residents in Texas and Louisiana were under orders to evacuate to avoid a deadly repeat of Katrina.

The Category 5 storm weakened slightly Thursday morning, and forecasters said it could lose more steam by the time it comes ashore late Friday or early Saturday. But it could still be an extremely dangerous hurricane — one aimed straight at a section of coastline with the nation's biggest concentration of oil refineries.

Gaining strength with frightening speed, Hurricane Rita swirled toward the Gulf Coast a Category 5, 175-mph monster Wednesday as more than 1.3 million people in Texas and Louisiana were sent packing on orders from authorities who learned a bitter lesson from Katrina.

"It's scary. It's really scary," Shalonda Dunn said as she and her 5- and 9-year-old daughters waited to board a bus arranged by emergency authorities in Galveston. "I'm glad we've got the opportunity to leave. ... You never know what can happen."

With Rita projected to hit Texas by Saturday, Gov. Rick Perry urged residents along the state's entire coast to begin evacuating. And New Orleans braced for the possibility that the storm could swamp the misery-stricken city all over again.

Galveston, low-lying parts of Corpus Christi and Houston, and mostly emptied-out New Orleans were under mandatory evacuation orders as Rita sideswiped the Florida Keys and began drawing energy with terrifying efficiency from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

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.

The U.S. mainland has never been hit by both a Category 4 and a Category 5 in the same season. Katrina, at one point became a Category 5 storm, weakened slightly to a Category 4 hurricane just before coming ashore.

Searchers smashed through doors in New Orleans on Wednesday, bringing their hunt for the dead to homes that had been locked and to blocks hardest hit by Katrina's flooding. Behind those doors, officials said they expected a sharply escalating body count even as the overall death toll passed 1,000.

"There still could be quite a few, especially in the deepest flooded areas," said U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Jeffrey Pettitt, who is overseeing the retrieval of bodies. "Some of the houses, they haven't been in yet." Officials said searchers are beginning to find more children.

The death toll in Louisiana stood at 799 on Wednesday, an increase of 153 bodies since the weekend and nearly 80 percent of the 1,036 deaths attributed to Hurricane Katrina across the Gulf Coast region. Pettitt and other officials would not speculate on what the final tally could be. They said the effort could last another four to six weeks.

Hurricane Rita 5-Day Storm Track. (Image from the National Hurricane Center.)

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.
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"You can't play around with this storm," Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on ABC's "Good Morning America." He added: "The lesson is that when the storm hits, the best place to be is to be out of the path of the storm."

By early afternoon, Rita was centered more than 700 miles southeast of Corpus Christi, drawing strength from the warm waters of the gulf. Forecasters predicted it would come ashore Saturday along the central Texas coast between Galveston and Corpus Christi. But even a slight rightward turn could prove devastating to New Orleans.

Hurricane Rita intensified into a Category 4 storm Wednesday with wind of 135 mph, deepening concerns that the storm could devastate coastal Texas and already-battered Louisiana by week's end.

Mandatory evacuations have already been ordered for New Orleans and Galveston, Texas, one day after Rita skirted past the Florida Keys as a Category 2 storm, causing minimal damage.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff urged residents to heed calls for evacuation Wednesday.

"The lesson is that when the storm hits, the best place to be is to be out of the path of the storm," he told ABC's "Good Morning America." "There's plenty of (advance) notice about Rita."

Acting Federal Emergency Management Agency Director R. David Paulison said 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.

Bars, restaurants and shops had just begun showing signs of life when the mayor suspended the reopening of the city and ordered nearly everyone to leave town again as a new hurricane headed toward the Gulf of Mexico.

The call for another evacuation came after repeated warnings from top federal officials, including President Bush, that New Orleans was not safe enough to reopen. Federal officials warned that Tropical Storm Rita — upgraded to a hurricane Tuesday morning — could breach the city's weakened levees and swamp New Orleans all over again.

There appeared to be little effort to enforce Mayor Ray Nagin's new evacuation order Tuesday morning, and some National Guard units were withdrawing from the city. The troops have been living tents in the city's Algiers section near a levee that officials fear could break.