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Governor orders evacuation of Keys

More than 5 million Floridians in Rita's projected path

Rita heads for Florida in this satellite image taken Monday at 7:45 p.m. ET

Gallery: The Keys prepare

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ALPHA STORM ON HORIZON?

Only four names remain on this year's National Hurricane Center list of storm designations: Stan, Tammy, Vince and Wilma.

If those are exhausted, storms will be named in order from the Greek alphabet: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and so on.

Source: National Hurricane Center

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MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Gov. Jeb Bush ordered the Florida Keys evacuated in anticipation of Tropical Storm Rita, which was forecast to become a hurricane Tuesday morning.

A mandatory evacuation order was issued for the Keys, and a voluntary evacuation was issued for Miami-Dade County's barrier islands and low-lying areas, he announced Monday.

More than 5 million Floridians are in Rita's projected path, Bush said.

In addition to three acute-care hospitals, patients from nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and rehabilitation centers in the Keys were being moved, he said.

"The intent here is to make sure that all special-needs people and frail Floridians are taken care of, first and foremost," Bush said.

Bush also ordered mobile home residents in Miami-Dade and Broward counties to evacuate. (Watch as governor asks Floridians to prepare -- 3:54)

Bush said he's asked President Bush, his older brother, to issue an emergency declaration.

The governor declared a state of emergency Sunday, activating National Guard troops, authorizing the use of public buildings as shelters and invoking state laws against price-gouging.

The 11 p.m. ET advisory from the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Rita's top sustained winds were clocked at 70 mph -- just 4 mph short of hurricane strength -- as it churned toward the Keys and the Bahamas.

Moving west-northwest at nearly 14 mph, Rita was centered about 120 miles south-southwest of the Bahamian capital, Nassau, and 270 east-southeast of Key West, the center's advisory reported.

Rita was expected to become a Category 1 hurricane Tuesday morning and possibly a Category 2 hurricane as it approaches the Florida Keys, the center said.

Category 1 hurricanes on Saffir-Simpson scale have winds of 74-95 mph; Category 2 storms have sustained winds between 96-110 mph.

A hurricane warning was in effect for the Exumas and for Andros Island in the Bahamas and for four Cuban provinces, including Havana, which means hurricane conditions were expected within 24 hours.

In Florida, a hurricane warning extended from Golden Beach on the southeast coast, southward to East Cape Sable on the peninusla's tip and northward to Chokoloskee on the southwest coast. The warning included the Keys from Ocean Reef on Key Largo to the Dry Tortugas west of Key West.(Watch preparations for Rita in Florida Keys -- 1:07)

Tourists were told to leave on Sunday. There are about 80,000 residents of Monroe County, which includes about 27,000 people in Key West.

Traffic along U.S. 1, the main north-south thoroughfare from the Keys, was heavy but moving smoothly, with tolls waived on the Florida Turnpike and other heavily traveled highways.

"It seems that people are in fact following the evacuation order," Key West Mayor Jimmy Weekley told CNN.

"We're looking right now at a Category 2 or 3," with sustained winds of at least 96 mph, Weekley said. "We're planning for a worst case scenario here, where we think there will be 6- to 9-foot storm surge."

By Monday evening, Weekley told reporters about half of the city's residents had left, but the other half, about 13,000 people, had decided to try to ride out the storm.

National Hurricane Center Director Max Mayfield said people in some areas recovering from Hurricane Katrina should be watching Rita. (Watch the video of where Rita might be heading -- 2:23)

"This is definitely becoming a concern for the northwestern Gulf of Mexico," Mayfield said. He said the storm could threaten Texas and Louisiana within five days.

"What will determine the steering there is this high pressure system that currently is anchored over Louisiana and Texas -- but with time that's forecast to erode and move to the east and that may let Rita turn up more towards the north.

"So at this point in time the folks in Texas and even the Louisiana coast need to monitor this very carefully."

Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman Justin DeMello said FEMA has moved medical assistance teams and search-and-rescue teams into Florida, and was working with the Department of Defense to move in heavy-lift and medium-lift helicopters.

"It's a seamless approach to disaster response," he said.

Lyda Ann Thomas, the mayor of Galveston, Texas, called Monday for a voluntary evacuation should the weather forecast remain the same. The evacuation would begin Tuesday at 2 p.m. CT (3 p.m. ET), the mayor said.

Galveston Island is about 50 miles southeast of Houston.

President Bush: 'Deep concern'

As recovery efforts from Katrina continued along the Gulf Coast, the possibility of another storm prompted reaction from President Bush.

"There is deep concern about this storm causing more flooding in New Orleans," Bush told reporters Monday during a Homeland Security briefing.

Rita is the 17th named storm of this year's Atlantic hurricane season, and with water temperatures in the Florida Straits in the high 80s, it has plenty of fuel.

Forecasters predicted the storm would move over the eastern and central Bahamas on Monday night.

In the Bahamas, Earnel Brown, manager of the Baycaner Beach Resort, told The Associated Press that few people on Mayaguana Island had bothered to board their windows or stock up on emergency supplies.

"I don't expect that much trouble," Brown told the AP. "I don't think we're going to have that much damage from it."

A storm surge of up to 5 feet is forecast for extreme southeastern Florida and the northwestern Bahamas. The storm surge could reach up to 9 feet in the Keys.

Rita is the third tropical system to emerge from the Atlantic in two weeks. Tropical Storm Philippe was upgraded to a hurricane Sunday night, while Tropical Storm Ophelia faded into the North Atlantic as it chugged northward off Newfoundland.