Hurricane Rita death toll rises
2005-09-27 08:13
Creole - Hurricane Rita's path of devastation along the Texas-Louisiana coast became shockingly clear, as rescuers pulled stranded bayou residents out on skiffs and army helicopters searched for thousands of cattle feared drowned.
Crews struggled on Monday to clean up the tangle of smashed homes and downed trees. The hurricane slammed low-lying fishing villages, shrimping ports and ranches with water up to 2.7m deep. Seawater pushed as far as 32km, drowning hectares of rice, sugarcane fields and pasture.
In coastal Terrebonne Parish, the count of severely damaged or destroyed homes stood at nearly 9 900. An estimated 80% of the buildings in the town of Cameron, population 1 900, were levelled. Farther inland, half of Creole, population 1 500, was left in splinters.
"I would use the word destroyed," army Lieutenant General Russel Honore said of Cameron. "Cameron and Creole have been destroyed except for the courthouse, which was built on stilts on higher ground. Most of the houses and public buildings no longer exist or are even in the same location that they were."
Second devastating hurricane
The death toll from the second devastating hurricane in a month rose to nine with the discovery in a Beaumont, Texas, apartment of five people - a man, a woman and three children - who apparently were killed by carbon monoxide from a generator they were running indoors after Rita knocked out the electricity. A Texas couple was confirmed killed by an uprooted tree that fell on their home.
Houses in the marshland between Cameron and Creole were reduced to piles of bricks, or bare concrete slabs with steps leading to nowhere. Walls of an elementary school gymnasium had been washed or blown away, leaving basketball hoops hanging from the ceiling. A single-storey white home was propped up against a line of trees, left there by floodwaters that ripped it from its foundation. A bank was open to the air, its vault still intact.
Across southwestern Louisiana, many people found they had no home to go back to.
Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said its teams used small boats to rescue about 200 people trapped in their homes.
"This is the worst thing I've ever been through," said Danny Hunter, 56. "I called FEMA this morning, and they said they couldn't help us because this hasn't been declared a disaster area."
A Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesperson said that Terrebonne Parish was declared a disaster area for Katrina but not for Rita.
With the floodwaters going down, officials turned their attention from rescuing people to saving property, including cattle - many of which were seen swimming in the brown floodwaters.
Texas put the damage from Rita at a preliminary $8bn.
At least 16 Texas oil refineries remained shut down after Rita, which came ashore early on Saturday at Sabine Pass, about 50km from Beaumont.
Early estimates were that Hurricane Rita will cost United States refiners about 800 000 barrels a day in capacity, on top of a drop about 900 000 barrels a day because of Katrina. Kloza said the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline could again top $3.
- AP