In need of resolution

As large numbers of evacuees return to cities that were spared the brunt of Hurricane Rita, officials in Texas and Louisiana are coping with a fresh round of displaced residents from the smaller towns and rural counties hit hardest by the storm.

In Texas, emergency management officials implemented a multistage plan to allow millions of evacuated residents to return home in controlled waves.

Beginning Sunday, residents living mostly to the northwest of Houston were allowed to return home, followed Monday by those who live within the city and to its southeast and today by residents to the northeast.

"Most people are abiding by the three-day plan," said Jose Villarreal, a state trooper in Texas City, Texas.

"The reason was to try and eliminate the massive amount of motorists on the road. It'll be less stressful, and they'll spend less time on the road."

So far, there have been no repeats of the massive traffic jams that brought Houston-area highways to a standstill during the initial evacuation last week.

Traffic was the least of concerns for many counties near the Texas-Louisiana border, close to where Rita made landfall. Those areas remained off limits Monday.

Emergency officials are beginning to conduct full damage assessments in and around Jefferson and Orange counties, and residents might not be allowed back for days or weeks.

"There are still some search and rescue operations going on because of all the wind and fallen trees," said Ray Perez, a spokesman for the Texas emergency management office.

He said the main task now is to ensure that residents who remained in the most damaged areas are receiving enough food, water and ice while they await restoration of power and basic utilities.

"All the counties affected by the storm have been getting daily shipments of all these commodities," Perez said. "They're estimating maybe two to three weeks before full restoration (of power)."

A similar situation exists throughout much of southwestern Louisiana, where some smaller towns in Cameron Parish were reported to have been almost completely destroyed.

Thousands of people are crowded into shelters throughout Louisiana and neighboring states, in some cases joining those already displaced by Hurricane Katrina.

Just outside the city of Shreveport, La., a group of special needs patients was being housed in the Bossier City Civic Center, after evacuating last Wednesday from the McNeese Arena in Lake Charles, La.

Many of those who fled the arena had been sheltered there since Hurricane Katrina made landfall Aug. 29, said Susan Berry, medical director for the Bossier shelter.

"I was in Lake Charles for several weeks," said Berry, who is from New Orleans. "It's hard to keep track of time here."

She said her twice-displaced patients were unlikely to return to Lake Charles anytime soon.

"They don't want people to return to Lake Charles yet," she said, adding that the city is still without power. "They're still in the assessment phase."

In New Orleans, where heavy rains from Rita were enough to break through patched levees and reflood several neighborhoods, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continued to make steady progress Monday in drying out the city.

"Today was a good day," said Mitch Frazier, a spokesman for the corps in New Orleans. "I think that we're going to be pretty much clear within the next week."

But it remains uncertain when residents will be allowed to return.

"What we want to do is to provide an interim level of protection to get us through this hurricane season," Frazier said Monday night, adding that the levees will hopefully be back to pre-Katrina strength by June of next year.

 

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.