Florida escapes relatively unharmed as Rita aims for Gulf Coast.

Publication: South Florida Sun-Sentinel (via Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service)

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COPYRIGHT 2005 South Florida Sun-Sentinal

Byline: Ken Kaye, Andrew Ryan And Tim Collie

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ Hurricane Rita skirted the Florida Keys Tuesday, doing far less damage than feared on a course that now threatens Texas and storm-ravaged Louisiana.

Bracing for another Katrina-size tempest slamming into Galveston, Corpus Christi or even New Orleans, mayors and civil authorities along the Gulf Coast readied for mandatory evacuations of tens of thousands of citizens.

But in the Keys Tuesday, residents exhaled. Those who evacuated can return Wednesday beginning at 7 a.m., said Monroe County Sheriff Rick Roth. He and other officials urged tourists and non-residents, however, to wait until at least Friday before coming to the Keys.

Threading the narrow Florida Straits while only brushing Key West and Cuba, Rita grew in just four hours from a tropical storm into a Category 2 hurricane with 100-mph winds but stayed on the best possible course for all involved, officials said.

"It maintained a course dead center through the Florida Straits, so that's a positive for both Cuba and the Keys," said Chris Sisko, a meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center in Miami-Dade County.

Rita was also fast, churning past the Keys at a brisk 15 mph. That spared the island chain its full wrath. The eye of the storm passed about 50...

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