Small, rural towns hit hardest by Rita
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-27 21:45

While much of Texas and Louisiana dodged the worst of Hurricane Rita, the damage to some small, rural towns was virtually complete — and the storm was being blamed for new deaths long after it moved away, AP reported.

Search and rescue personnel walk through floodwaters in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita Monday, Sept. 26, 2005 in Cameron, La. An estimated 80 percent of the buildings in the town of Cameron, population 1,900, were leveled. [AP]

As temperatures climbed well into the 90s and the heat index was near 106 degrees Monday, the damage from the storm was evident in small communities in southwest Louisiana and southeast Texas.

"East Texas needs everyone's attention this hour, right now, and it doesn't matter whether it's the state or FEMA or the Corps of Engineers. I don't really care whose fault it is. It needs help now," said Rep. Kevin Brady (news, bio, voting record). "These communities are the last to complain, but they've reached the end."

The number of deaths rose to nine Monday when the bodies of five people were discovered in a Beaumont apartment. A man, his girlfriend's three children and their aunt apparently were overcome by carbon monoxide from a generator they used to power fans to cool their home.

While residents of the Texas refinery towns of Beaumont, Port Arthur and Orange were blocked from returning to their homes because of the danger of debris-choked streets and downed power lines, authorities in Louisiana were unable to keep bayou residents from venturing in by boat to see if Rita wrecked their homes.

Debris was strewn for miles over Cameron Parish, a coastal, sparsely populated town next to the Texas line. Seawater pushed as far as 20 miles inland, drowning acres of rice, sugarcane fields and pasture.

"This is the most damaged area I've seen in the state, the worst," Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore said of Cameron Parish. "I didn't see anything from Katrina, except in Mississippi, that was as bad."

At a makeshift emergency operations center at a national wildlife refuge, Randy Gary answered a stream of questions from residents trying to find out about their homes or camps. As for his house, he hadn't been able to get to the town of Cameron, but he got an assessment. "There's nothing but a clear lot," he said.

His oyster boats and pontoon boats also had disappeared, a further slap from Rita to his livelihood as a fisherman. The oyster beds he fishes likely are devastated, even if he had the boats to get to them.

But he was still smiling Monday.

"What else we gonna do?" he said, pledging to rebuild his shattered home and work. "It's my life. It's what I do."

An estimated 80 percent of the buildings in the Louisiana town of Cameron, population 1,900, were leveled. Farther inland, half of Creole, population 1,500, was left in splinters.

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