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Fatal bus fire snarls Rita evacuation
The evacuation of the U.S. Gulf Coast turned deadly on Friday when a bus carrying people fleeing Hurricane Rita caught fire a Texas highway, killing at least 20 people along a major escape route, local officials and news reports said.
The bus caught fire on Interstate 45 south of Dallas and closed the highway, officials said. Television footage showed the charred bus with a long string of cars stuck in traffic behind it. Dallas television station WFAA reported 20 dead.
The accident came as authorities struggled to complete one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history in the final hours before the expected landfall of Hurricane Rita, carrying 140 mph (220 kph) winds toward the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.
More than 2 million people were leaving the Gulf coastal areas and Houston, the fourth-largest U.S. city, was deserted, with stores closed, roads emptied and few people on the streets.
More
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050923/ts_nm/weather_rita_dc
Hundreds of thousands of would-be evacuees faced long lines of traffic and short supplies of gasoline on Friday as they crept away from the Texas coast to escape Hurricane Rita's fury.
Highways leading out of Houston and other coastal cities were lined with cars, vans and 18-wheelers that had pulled over -- many had broken down, run out of gas or their drivers were simply too tired to go on.
On gridlocked Interstate 45 near Dallas, a bus carrying Hurricane Rita evacuees caught fire, killing one and injuring others, according to a witness.
The Category 4 storm was expected to reach the coast late Friday or early Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said.
More
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/23/rita/index.html
The accident came as authorities struggled to complete one of the largest evacuations in U.S. history in the final hours before the expected landfall of Hurricane Rita, carrying 140 mph (220 kph) winds toward the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.
More than 2 million people were leaving the Gulf coastal areas and Houston, the fourth-largest U.S. city, was deserted, with stores closed, roads emptied and few people on the streets.
More
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050923/ts_nm/weather_rita_dc
Hundreds of thousands of would-be evacuees faced long lines of traffic and short supplies of gasoline on Friday as they crept away from the Texas coast to escape Hurricane Rita's fury.
Highways leading out of Houston and other coastal cities were lined with cars, vans and 18-wheelers that had pulled over -- many had broken down, run out of gas or their drivers were simply too tired to go on.
On gridlocked Interstate 45 near Dallas, a bus carrying Hurricane Rita evacuees caught fire, killing one and injuring others, according to a witness.
The Category 4 storm was expected to reach the coast late Friday or early Saturday, the National Hurricane Center said.
More
http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/09/23/rita/index.html
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"We believe it's going to be closer to 20 fatalities," Dallas County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Don Peritz said.
The bus was engulfed with flames, causing a 17-mile backup on a freeway that was already heavily congested with evacuees from the Gulf Coast. Dallas television station WFAA reported 20 persons were killed.
"There were 45 souls on the bus ... at this point we believe we have about half accounted-for," Dallas County sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Don Peritz said.
"The early indications are this is a mechanical issue. The driver did survive the accident," Peritz said. "It's my understanding he went back on the bus several times to try to evacuate people."
He said there were indications that oxygen used by elderly evacuees could have had a role in the fire.
A large, burned-out shell of the bus was to the side of the interstate, where cars were backed up for miles, surrounded by numerous police cars and ambulances.
http://www.wwltv.com/sharedcontent/nationworld/hurricaneRita/stories/092305ccRitajcBus.bd97bc3e.html