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Small, rural towns hit hardest by Rita
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-27 21:45
With their car disabled by a transmission problem, they hitchhiked more than
10 miles to a staging area for teams from the Federal Emergency Management
Agency in hopes of finding shelter. Authorities put them on a bus to San Antonio
with a few dozen other storm victims.
"It can't be any worse than here," said Smith, 49, a pipefitter, relieved to
be going somewhere to get out of the heat and insects. "This is the worst storm
I've seen in the 46 years I've lived here."
For people who didn't evacuate before Rita hit and chose to stay in the
primitive conditions, teams from FEMA fanned out Monday over a nine-county area
of East Texas to deliver food and water and ice.
Gov. Rick Perry said the state was projecting Rita's total damage at $8
billion.
The mayors of the Louisiana towns of Sulphur and Vinton pleaded with
residents to stay away until the sewage systems could be repaired, power could
be turned on and hospitals and emergency services could be restored.
"Right now, there's very little to come back to," said
Sulphur Mayor Ron LeLeux, of his town where every major power transmission line
was destroyed, uprooted trees split houses in two and splintered trees left most
streets impassable.
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