WASHINGTON: The White House had simple instructions on Thursday for Americans in areas expected to be hit by powerful Hurricane Rita: ‘Get out’.

“Hurricane Rita is an extremely dangerous storm,” said spokesman Scott McClellan. “The best thing that people can do who are in the path of the storm is to get out, to evacuate.”

US President George Bush, under fire over Washington’s widely criticized response to Hurricane Katrina, has spoken twice in two days with Governor Rick Perry of Texas, where the storm was expected to make landfall, he said.

Officials were ‘very much focused’ on Rita’s potential impact on New Orleans, the once glittering jazz capital turned flooded ghost-town in Katrina’s wake, said Mr McClellan.

“The concern with New Orleans right now is the rainfall and the weakened state of the levees, and the additional rainfall that could lead to flooding and pose problems in New Orleans,” said the spokesman.—AFP