WASHINGTON, 22 September 2005 — Aiming somewhere from the tip of the Florida Peninsula to Galveston, Texas, Hurricane Rita is gathering fury and could strengthen to Category 5 intensity as it approaches Texas later this week. Hurricane Katrina was a Category 4 storm when it smashed into the coastlines of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama on Aug. 29.

Crude oil prices rose more than $1 a barrel yesterday as traders braced for the possibility that Hurricane Rita could smash into key oil facilities in Texas, while workers evacuated oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico.

“Prices are going to be driven directly by the projected path of the storm,” John Kilduff, analyst at Fimat USA, told reporters. The National Hurricane Center said Rita could reach Category 5 status, and is likely to hit Texas, the heart of US oil production. The Federal Emergency Management Agency already stretched thin from recovery efforts for Hurricane Katrina, is scrambling to prepare for the dreaded arrival of the hurricane.

Forecasters expected Rita to intensify in the Gulf of Mexico by late last night and turn into a Category 4 storm with winds of at least 131 mph. Texas, Louisiana and northern Mexico are threatened.

Perhaps the worst off, at least psychologically, are the thousands of Katrina evacuees in Texas who are now being “retraumatized” by a second mandatory evacuation in areas such as Houston, Texas. Public shelters there had just filled three weeks ago with evacuees and officials there are now sending the still dazed survivors of Hurricane Katrina to Arkansas, to new relocation centers.

Arkansas will accept 4,000 displaced residents, 3,000 will go to Tennessee, and 1,000 may go to Nebraska. But some evacuees were unwilling to be moved again.

“It’s a natural and well-expected reluctance,” Kathy Walt, spokeswoman for Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry said.

Steve Freeman, an oyster shucker with an injured leg infected from walking though New Orleans floodwaters, told reporters he plans to take a free flight to Norfolk, Va., where he heard there were lots of oysters. But he was also deeply suspicious of officials’ motives for the evacuation. “They’ve been trying to get us out,” Freeman said. “They don’t want us here.”

With Rita’s path still uncertain, Galveston officials had ordered a mandatory evacuation by 6 p.m. yesterday. The island city still bears the unique reputation of having suffered the country’s deadliest hurricane in 1900 — when up to 9,000 were killed. Houston Mayor Bill White said his city of two million would also decide about whether to put into effect a mandatory evacuation by late yesterday. At least half of the city’s population would be asked to leave before the storm comes ashore.

Meanwhile, the government is preparing plans to finance hurricane storm relief. Conservative House Republicans recommended on Wednesday to relocate $500 billion in savings over the next 10 years to compensate for the costs of Hurricane Katrina.

Potential cuts being considered include delaying the start of the new Medicare prescription drug coverage for one year to redirect $31 billion; the elimination of the Moon-Mars initiative that NASA announced on Monday, which would save $44 billion; and – an issue of dismay for the media-orientated – a $4 billion proposal to end support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; cutting $600 million in taxpayer payments for the national political conventions and the presidential election campaign fund; and $1.54 billion in savings by charging federal employees for parking.

In the House, Democratic leaders called for establishing a special commission to try to prevent fraud and spending abuse in the recovery efforts.

The Bush Administration is advertising its stepped-up response plans for Hurricane Rita before the storm hits the Gulf Coast, eager to avoid the public pounding it got for its reaction to Hurricane Katrina.

“Why has President Bush placed Karl Rove atop the government’s endeavors to rebuild the Gulf Coast?” asked Harold Meyerson in a Washington Post editorial Wednesday. “Rove knows as much about massive relief and reconstruction efforts as your pet schnauzer.”

Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times: “Bush seems to think that by offering to spend billions of dollars to rebuild one city, New Orleans, he’ll get his leadership halo back. Wrong. Just throwing more borrowed money at New Orleans is not leadership; Mr. Bush needs to frame a new agenda for rebuilding all our cities and strengthening the nation as a whole. What should be the centerpiece of a policy… is blindingly obvious: making a quest for energy independence the moon shot of our generation.”

The arrive of Rita on America’s coast has caused a notable quirk. An international committee of the World Meteorological Organization has preselected storm names for decades, first using only female names, then alternating male and female names since 1979.

For decades, 21 names have been preselected each summer, and after Rita, only four are left to use for the rest of this year: Stan, Tammy, Vince and Wilma. If that list is exhausted, the meterological group will have to revert ot a backup plan: naming storms using the Greek alphabet, beginning with Alpha, Beta and Gamma – which leaves one wondering if an “Alpha Hurricane” would live up to its namesake.