Sept. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Rita, with winds of 135 mph, headed toward the Texas-Louisiana border as more than a million residents of coastal towns along the Gulf Coast tried to find higher ground, creating gridlock on highways inland.

Texas highways were backed up for miles and gasoline was in scarce supply as people evacuated low-lying areas of Houston and other cities. At least 24 nursing home residents were killed when their bus was destroyed by fire on Interstate 45 near Dallas.

Officials including Houston Mayor Bill White cautioned people who haven't evacuated yet to stay home because of the gridlock on area roads. He said he fears residents will be stuck on the side of the road when Rita hits. Officials are trying to get people off the roads to a safe place.

``I'm not telling people there is a safe place or a guaranteed place for their safety,'' White said. ``There are things that could pose greater risks to people in a shelter situation or those en route to shelters. We are not encouraging the general public to go on the streets looking for a shelter.''

President George W. Bush will visit San Antonio today to meet with emergency officials preparing for Rita's arrival after the government was criticized for its Katrina response.

Tomorrow Morning

Rita is expected to strike the coast early tomorrow morning, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was about 260 miles (418 kilometers) southeast of Galveston as of 7 a.m. local time, the center said.

Rain has been falling in New Orleans and the city may receive 3 to 5 inches. Water stirred up by Rita has begun to flow over the repaired section of a levee protecting New Orleans, flooding the city's 9th Ward, said Lieutenant Colonel Pete Schneider, a spokesman for the Louisiana National Guard.

Katrina's storm surge overwhelmed the city's system of levees and pumps, leading to breaches that flooded 80 percent of the city.

Rita's winds are the same power as Katrina when it came ashore last month, killing more than 1,000 people in Louisiana and Mississippi. It is classified as an ``extremely dangerous'' Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity.

``Rita and Katrina are fairly similar storms,'' said Chris Radda, a meteorologist with Weather Services International. ``Rita is moving a bit faster and it appears to be undergoing some weakening. There's still some time for additional weakening before it makes landfall,'' he said.

Almost 2 Million Flee

The hurricane is moving northwest near 9 mph and likely will approach the coasts of southwest Louisiana and upper Texas late today or tonight, the center said. The center's three-day forecast shows Rita's center hitting land near Beaumont and Port Arthur early tomorrow.

Texas Governor Rick Perry said yesterday that more than 1.5 million residents were asked to evacuate. Four Louisiana parishes, with about 300,000 residents, were asked to move inland, said Louisiana National Guard Major Ed Bush. Rita's current path may put parishes to the east of the storm's center in the way of the strongest winds.

FEMA Ready

``That's the bad side to be on, so they're going to take the brunt of that wind,'' Ed Bush said in a telephone interview. ``They're all heading north because we've run out of places to run.''

The Federal Emergency Management Agency, still addressing criticism of its response to Katrina, has food, ice and staff at the ready, and relief agencies are gearing up to move in and help those who didn't evacuate. More than half of rigs and manned platforms in the Gulf, the base for 30 percent of U.S. oil production, were evacuated.

Rita may dump as much as 15 inches of rain in parts of southeastern Texas and southwestern Louisiana, with 25 inches possible over the next several days in eastern Texas and western Louisiana. Storm-surge flooding of 15 feet to 20 feet above normal tide levels is possible near Rita's point of landfall.

Rita is the second major hurricane in less than a month to bear down on the U.S. Gulf Coast and, like Katrina, has disrupted U.S. oil supply, shutting down refining and production and forcing prices higher. Gasoline and crude oil prices, which last month touched record highs, today fell after forecasts that Rita may skirt the main U.S. refining region near Houston.

About 1.1 million barrels a day of refining capacity are located where the storm is expected to hit, in the Port Arthur area, Societe Generale's Deborah White said. That compares with 2.1 million a day around Houston, where the storm was headed yesterday.

Oil Output

Approximately 20 percent of U.S. refining capacity has been shut down in Texas this week with Rita's approach. Another 5 percent remains closed because of Katrina.

About 92 percent of U.S. oil output in the region and 66 percent of the gas was shut yesterday, the Minerals Management Service said.

Insurers including Allstate Corp. and St. Paul Travelers Cos. cover an estimated $740 billion of property in Hurricane Rita's path, twice as much as in the three states pummeled by Katrina last month, a storm modeler said.

The insured value of businesses and homes on the Texas coast compares with $330 billion for coastal Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, said AIR Worldwide Corp., which uses computers to help insurers gauge risks. The devastation from Katrina may cost insurers as much as $60 billion, another modeler said.

Rita was a Category 5 hurricane early yesterday, with winds as high as 175 mph. Katrina was also a Category 5 storm as it passed over the Gulf, and weakened when it got closer to shore, slamming into Louisiana with 140 mph winds.

To contact the reporters on this story: Heather Burke in New York at hburke2@bloomberg.net; Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 23, 2005 11:05 EDT