![](http://www.alamy.com/thumbs/6/B758C3AE-E050-4C7F-B240-0C7BE613029F/BP5M92.jpg)
Hurricane Rita making landfall Gulf Coast states USA September 24 2005
On the afternoon of Saturday, September 24, 2005, Hurricane Rita swept past the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and into the Mississippi Valley. Although the storm was neither as destructive as once feared, nor as destructive as Hurricane Katrina, it still caused several billion dollars in damage, killed at least seven people directly and dozens indirectly during the evacuation, and caused over 3 million to flee their homes. As of Monday, September 26, 2005, over a half of a million homes remained without electricity. Once a Category 5 hurricane, and the strongest to ever reach the Gulf of Mexico, Rita had weakened to Category 3 storm before striking the coast. by Jeff Schamaltz NASA Dembinsky Photo Associates www dpaphoto com
Size: 4200px × 5400px
Location: Gulf of Mexico
Photo credit: © NASA / Dembinsky Photo Associates / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
Model Released: No
Keywords: aerial, america, angle, associates, atlantic, blow, blowing, calm, camera, cameras, catastrophic, categories, category, center, centers, climate, climates, clockwise, cloud, clouds, cloudy, coast, coastal, coasts, counterclockwise, cyclone, cyclones, cyclonic, danger, dangerous, deadly, dembinsky, depression, depressions, destroy, destruction, destructive, distance, earth, energy, environment, environmental, environments, eye, eyewall, fierce, flood, flooding, floods, force, forces, global, globe, gulf, hazardous, heat, heating, high, hurricane, hurricanes, killer, landfall, latitude, latitudes, meteorology, mexico, moist, nasa, national, noaa, north, ocean, oceans, path, paths, photo, photos, picture, pictures, planet, power, powerful, pressure, pressures, rain, rainy, rita, rotate, rotating, rotation, satellite, sea, seas, season, seasonal, seasons, september, space, speed, speeds, spin, spinning, spiral, spiraling, states, steering, storm, storms, strong, surge, surges, technology, torrential, tropic, tropical, tropics, turning, twister, twisters, typhoon, typhoons, uncontrollable, united, vapor, velocity, vertical, view, warm, warming, warning, water, wave, waves, weather, wild, wind, winds, windy