Rita wrecks Gulf Coast

Rita wrecks Gulf Coast: "LAKE CHARLES (LOUISIANA), SEPT 25 : Hurricane Rita left the US Gulf Coast reeling on Sunday from two powerful storms in less than a month. New Orleans is again facing floods, widespread blackouts and roads across hundreds of miles closed by debris, although damage was less than feared.

The storm slammed into lightly populated swamplands at the Texas and Louisiana border, sparing Houston, the fourth-largest US City, but battering the oil city of Beaumont, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, a gambling and chemicals centre.

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Some refiners in the region’s huge oil industry were hopeful they would find little harm from Rita, but damage to oil rigs offshore was less clear. “The damage is not as severe as we expected it would be,” said David Paulison, acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, in Washington, who credited the evacuation of more than 2 million people with preventing storm deaths.

But he acknowledged problems that included traffic jams as long as 100 miles leading out of Houston. Two dozen elderly evacuees were killed on Friday when their bus burst into flames south of Dallas.

Emergency workers used boats, airboats and helicopters to try to rescue about 600 people who defied evacuation orders and stayed behind only to be trapped by floods in the heart of Louisiana’s Cajun county, in Abbeville, Pecan Island and Lafitte. Several were plucked from the rooftops of their submerged homes.

High winds continued to push high water inland, making rescue attempts by boat or helicopter perilous, Vermilion Parish Sheriff Mike Couvillan said. “We’re risking lives to save their lives when they had an opportunity to leave,” he said.

Rita cut power to more than 2 million people in Texas and Louisiana, already devastated by Hurricane Katrina on August 29. Rita caused $2.5 billion to $6 billion in insured losses in eastern Texas and western Louisiana, three major catastrophe risk modeling companies said. “Rita has compounded Louisiana’s pain and we are hurting from the west to the east and significant parts in between,” Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said. She urged federal relief efforts for the two storms be combined.

Meanwhile, US President George W Bush has issued disaster declarations for Texas and Louisiana, clearing the way for the federal government to provide financial assistance. —Reuters"

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