Rita leaves a $6 billion mess

LAKE CHARLES, La. -- Rescuers searched for stranded survivors of Hurricane Rita yesterday by air and water along flooded coastal areas of Louisiana and Texas, while the first evacuees began trying to make their way home across a Gulf region hit by a second major storm in a month.

Scenes of ruin were visible from a US Coast Guard helicopter along 130 miles of coastline in Texas and Louisiana. Flood waters between 2 and 12 feet deep intruded up to 30 miles from the shore. Livestock was marooned on islands of muck. The cars of evacuees trying to return home stacked up on roads rendered impassable by fallen trees, silt, and other debris.

Although the major oil refineries were spared a direct blow, an aerial view showed that several ruptured natural gas pipelines were sending bubbles up through the flood waters. Nearly a million homes remained without power, and officials asked thousands of evacuees not to come home until power was restored and roads were cleared.

''Louisiana has taken two tough hits in less than one month," said Governor Kathleen Blanco after touring the coast by air. ''A large percentage of our people today are suffering because of this. They're out of work. Many of them are homeless or are stranded far from home. A great deal of our critical infrastructure is damaged."

In Lake Charles, near where Rita came ashore early Saturday, trees had fallen on houses and windowpanes had shattered. About 15 people had been arrested for looting in the largely evacuated town, police said, but there were no reports of serious injuries.

''This is just overwhelming," said Fire Captain Doug Fuselier, whose department spent the day taking mostly elderly people from storm-damaged buildings to an emergency center set up at a local arena. ''Somebody just came into our city and shook it up and now we're all dealing with it."

Across the state line in Beaumont, Texas, the National Guard yesterday set up a base at the Ford Park arena and distributed water, ice, and food. Some evacuees turned up seeking shelter, including Ann Infante, a cook at a day care center in Port Arthur. She and her family, including a 2-week-old granddaughter, tried to get home after Rita passed by Saturday, but she said authorities turned them away on Highway 69 because the town was still severely damaged.

''We do not have enough food for the baby," Infante said, breaking into tears as her family camped out on the lawn beside the arena, surrounded by bags of disposable diapers and six remaining cans of infant formula.

Despite the trials endured by coastal residents and the damage to the land, there were preliminary indications that the region had gotten through this major storm with relatively little loss of life and property damage.

The massive evacuation succeeded in preventing anything resembling a repeat of the toll last month from Hurricane Katrina, which killed more than a thousand people. The Louisiana National Guard said about 900 people had been rescued in that state since Rita made landfall, but there were two deaths blamed on the storm. The victims were a Mississippi woman killed in a tornado and a Texas man who was struck by a falling tree. The storm modeler Equecat Inc. said insurers could face claims of $6 billion from Rita, a tenth of the estimated $60 billion from Katrina.

Adding to the sense of relief, the remnants of Rita -- now a tropical depression -- moved on rather than stalling and dumping more rain farther north on the Mississippi River, as the National Weather Service had initially predicted. Forecasters said a system with northern winds would come in behind it, helping push some of the flood water back into the Gulf of Mexico.

In twice-battered New Orleans, a few residents emerged on their porches and threw an impromptu chicken barbecue at a grocery store in the historic French Quarter. Pumping resumed in the reflooded lower Ninth Ward after the Army Corps patched a hole in its protective levee, and officials said the city could be dry in a week.

In Houston, where upwards of 2 million people had clogged the roads before Rita came ashore, Mayor Bill White asked residents to obey a staggered return plan, starting with residents of the city's northwest quadrant. Thousands began streaming back to the nation's fourth largest city, which was spared a direct hit.

The return trip of Houston evacuees who had fled to the east presented further problems for officials as they passed through devastated areas of Louisiana. Traffic flowed on Interstate 10 through flooded parishes in the state's southwestern corner, but police blocked all exits from the highway.

President Bush, meanwhile, toured emergency operation centers in both states. In Baton Rouge, he shook hands with Federal Emergency Management Agency workers in a room with posters showing the oil spills, medical supply depots, and water levels.

After Bush's motorcade roared away, Blanco said Louisiana was asking the federal government for $31.7 billion to rebuild. The requested package includes $20.2 billion to upgrade its levee system so that it can protect its coast from Category Five hurricane storm surges; $7 billion to repair damaged highways, airports, and seaports; and $4.5 billion for other road projects.

In Washington, the chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers told a bankers' conference that Rita and Katrina will have a ''relatively modest" effect on the US economy, but Ben S. Bernanke warned that rising oil prices remain a threat to growth.

The Coast Guard said it knew of no major damage to offshore oil and natural gas platforms in the Gulf, or to refineries and chemical plants in the region.

Nevertheless, the storm left major damage to the agricultural sector, swamping the soaring green fields of sugar cane that had been almost ready for harvesting. Along the Iberia-Vermilion parish line, the fields of cane were left twisted and dying, with stalks already turning a dusty brown.

New Iberia Sheriff Sid Hebert said some 20 percent of the local economy depends on the sugar cane fields, and said he feared it would take years for farmers to bounce back. ''If you put salt water in a cane field, it kills the roots," Hebert said.

In New Orleans, Mayor C. Ray Nagin moved forward with his reentry plan for residents as the Army Corps of Engineers succeeded in sealing a breach in the Industrial Canal that had led to the second flooding of the city's impoverished lower Ninth Ward.

The city's 911 system became operational and previously silent streets reverberated with the sound of jackhammers, heavy equipment, and voices as residents who held out through the two hurricanes emerged from shuttered homes.

French Quarter residents sat on porches and stairs, reading and chatting.

''It really feels like the worst is over," said Mike Robicheau, who said he came back to the city a week ago to help a friend salvage items. ''The sun is out. We're seeing lots of people again."

Nagin reiterated his plan to reopen the city, saying businesses and residents in the least damaged areas could return as early as today.

But Coast Guard Vice Admiral Thad Allen, director of hurricane relief operations for the federal government, said yesterday on ABC's ''This Week" that officials needed to be cautious about letting people into other parts of New Orleans.

Savage reported from Baton Rouge, La., Cramer from Lake Charles, La. Globe staffers Brian MacQuarrie over southwest Louisiana, Maria Sacchetti in Beaumont, Texas, Beth Daley in New Orleans and Globe correspondent Keith O'Brien in Delcambre, La., contributed to this report. Material from wire services was also used.