For the sick and poor, help seems hard to find
PORT ARTHUR, Texas -- Patricia Marler survived Hurricane Rita. But without her prescription medicine, she realized yesterday, she might not make it through what could come next.
Rita thrashed this port city of 60,000 and neighboring towns, leaving the area without electricity and cloaked in a swampy heat that made it hard for the 55-year-old disabled woman to breathe.
When help arrived yesterday afternoon, in the form of a National Guard soldier, it took more than an hour to get an ambulance to take her to the hospital.
''I've lost my mind," Marler said about not having fled Rita.
She has liver and kidney disease, and she clutched her stomach in pain as she waited to be taken to the hospital.
Yesterday, relief workers swarmed over Port Arthur, two days after the eye of Hurricane Rita roared past early on Saturday. Thousands evacuated, but authorities said that 1,500 to 2,000 stayed, and that others are sneaking back in, compounding problems for those who had remained amid the devastation.
The airport is closed, except to military flights. The shipping port is also shut down, and police blockades along the highway are used to keep residents from returning, said Sergeant Janice Marshall of the Port Arthur police.
Firefighters are investigating several natural gas leaks, police said. Power is not expected to be restored for two to three weeks.
Hundreds of police, state troopers, and state Department of Public Safety officers are patrolling the city, she said.
The National Guard is helping with the cleanup, as units search for those in need of aid.
At a housing complex for the elderly and disabled, Marler and others were found because a Dallas woman called authorities and said her mother, who lives in the complex, suffered from lupus and needed aid. Another man, a diabetic, complained of chills, despite the sweltering heat.
Major Gary Beaty of the Texas National Guard said finding people who had stayed behind was a challenge. In this case, Beaty and other officials made door-to-door visits to find those who needed help, and checked several other residences yesterday.
Port Arthur is supposed to be closed to residents because, officials say, it is uninhabitable. A curfew is in effect from 7 p.m. until 6 a.m., and those who violate it were subject to arrest, Marshall said.
The city restored water service yesterday, but urged residents to boil it because it was not potable.
There were only isolated reports of looting, police said.
Authorities arrested fewer than a dozen people on varied charges, including some accused of breaking into stores for alcohol, electrical generators, and other goods.
Many residents who stayed behind, or crept back in, said they wanted to see their houses, take care of horses and pets, and protect belongings from looters. Others were eager to get back to work.
But unlike the aid before the hurricane, when buses and planes ferried thousands out, now help and supplies seemed hard to find.
Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat and a member of the House Committee on Homeland Security, visited the area yesterday and expressed dismay at the government's relief efforts. She said federal officials had not provided food, water, or ice to those who had stayed behind.
The only area where residents could get basic aid was at Triumph Church in Nederland; the aid was being supplied by the American Red Cross and a number of church organizations.
''This speaks to a faulty homeland security system," Lee said. ''The federal government has to take charge."
Marshall, who was the police spokesman at the Port Arthur command post, said government officials were working to set up supply stations. The Federal Emergency Management Agency had set up an emergency healthcare unit at a nearby hospital because the emergency room had been flooded.
Those who refused to leave town, or who returned on back roads, are turning to friends, churches, and one another for aid.
Jo Ann Parker, 50, a dental hygienist from Nederland, fled the hurricane with her 19-year-old son, but she left him with friends and returned Saturday to check on her house. By yesterday, she was out of supplies.
She made a sign saying: ''Need ice, gas, batteries, candles," and she walked alongside Highway 69. But then she noticed that the nearby Triumph Church, a nondenominational congregation, was giving out supplies.
''I'm so thirsty I can't stand it," she said. Finally, a truck of ice showed up, and the dozens of people in line shouted and cheered when they opened the door and steam hit the air.
Joe Keller, 45, of Port Arthur, said police should let residents into town to aid in the cleanup. He slipped back in on a back road. ''They have to get the chain saws going," he said. ''We'll clean the whole street up ourselves."
Elizabeth Hebert, 45, also of Port Arthur, returned to Moonstone Street to find her gazebo flattened by a branch of her big oak tree. But her house was spared, except for roof shingles scattered in her front yard.
Maria Sacchetti can be reached at msacchetti@globe.com. 
