Millions who fled Rita told to halt return
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-25 11:09

The Texas Department of Transportation dispatched a 30-vehicle convoy from Beaumont to clear a debris-covered highway to the north toward Lufkin. Authorities used military helicopters and a bus to move some nursing home residents who had been stranded since Friday at an elementary school without power in the small town of Fred.

Some of the worst flooding occurred along the Louisiana coast, where transformers exploded, roofs were torn off and trees uprooted by winds topping 100 mph. Floodwaters were nine feet deep near town of Abbeville; farther west in Cameron Parish, sheriff's deputies watched appliances and what appeared to be parts of homes swirling in the waters of the Intracoastal Waterway.

The region was largely evacuated ahead of Rita, but some residents stayed behind and were rescued by helicopter. Among them were a pregnant woman and her 4-year-old son stranded in Port Lafourche, a Gulf Coast outpost about 60 miles south of New Orleans.

Resident Michelle Thibeaux (C) directs volunteers Tim Stelly (L) and Jay Roy Bernard (R) aboard a boat to her home in a neighborhood flooded by overflowing waters of the Vermillion River in the aftermath of Hurricane Rita in Erath, Louisiana September 24, 2005. [Reuters]

"Most of the town was already under water from Katrina," said Coast Guard Lt. Roberto Torres, the pilot who airlifted the woman out. "And what wasn't got flooded by Rita."

About 500 people were rescued from high waters south of New Orleans, some by helicopters. Another 15 to 25 people were reported stranded farther west along the shoreline of Vermilion Parish, but searches were postponed until Sunday because of high winds.

Elsewhere, a portion of Interstate 10 over the Calcasieu River in Lake Charles was closed after barges broke loose from their moorings and slammed into the bridge.

New Orleans, devastated by Katrina barely three weeks ago, endured a second straight day of new flooding that could seriously disrupt recovery plans. The Army Corps of Engineers said it would need at least two weeks to pump water from the most heavily flooded neighborhoods — notably the impoverished Lower Ninth Ward — after crews plug a series of levee breaches.

Some New Orleans residents who had evacuated to Houston because of Katrina were forced to move again as Rita approached.

"We're tired of being pushed from place to place," said Cora Washington, 59, as she and her family sat on cots in Texas A&M University's basketball arena in College Station. "We want to try to go back to New Orleans and pick up the pieces."

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