AP:
Hurricane Rita, a Category 3 storm, made landfall at 2:30 a.m. just east of Sabine Pass on the southeast Texas coast, bringing with it a 20-foot storm surge and up to 25 inches of rain.The storm, which still has sustained 120 mph winds, was moving toward the northwest near 12 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. Landfall was about 80 miles east of Galveston.
The hurricane center corrected the landfall time from 2:38 a.m. to 2:30 a.m. per radar reports and Air Force Reserve hurricane hunters.
The storms slow march spread worries it would dump nearly 2 feet of rain on flood-prone parts of Texas and Louisiana, spurring tornadoes as it churned north-northwest.
Rita's heaviest rains - up to 3 to 4 inches an hour - fell in Lake Charles, La., as the storm made landfall, National Weather Service meteorologist Patrick Omundson of Shreveport said. Other heavy rain was falling in a band from Woodville, Texas, east to Leesville-Alexandria in Louisiana at a rate of about one-half inch per hour.
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In Houston, CenterPoint Energy officials reported that about 500,000 regional customers were without power at 3:20 a.m. - about one-quarter of their customers. The company's service area stretches from Galveston into Houston north to Humble.
Entergy spokesman David Caplan said about 55,000 of its Texas customers in the storm-affected area were without electricity.
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