Texas residents ride out storm the hard way

An officer with the Galveston Police Department sets up barricades Saturday after an exterior wall of Yaga's Cafe collapsed from the effects of hurricane Rita in Galveston, Texas. Hurricane Rita gave the US Gulf Coast its second pounding in less than four weeks early Saturday, wreaking havoc and floods with driving sheets of rain and threatening domestic energy supplies already at crisis levels. PHOTO: AFP

"I scared myself to sleep," Cormier said as he tried to drive back home from a friend's house in town, impeded by waterlogged streets.

Rita took a damaging toll on this seaport in Texas' southeastern-most corner on the Gulf Coast. The storm crumbled buildings, stripped roofs, swamped streets and seemed to do at least some damage to virtually every structure in town.

Officials estimated more than 90 percent of the population, almost certainly spurred by the horrific images out of New Orleans of those left behind after Katrina struck, fled to higher ground ahead of Rita. As winds and rain continued to whip the city after daybreak, the streets were empty except for the hurricane's debris.

Cormier, 25, and a carload of friends were among the few souls visible.

"It was terrifying," he said of his experience at a friend's house. "The ceiling tiles all fell down, Sheetrock fell down, the windows broke. (Advertising) signs were inside the house."

A friend, Jacelyne Patrick, 22, said a Port Arthur street sign crashed through a window.

Even after daybreak, when the hurricane's destructive forces had passed north, Patrick said she knew some fellow citizens were still petrified.

"There are people that are so scared they're still in their closets," she said about seven hours after Rita's overnight landfall near the mouth of the Sabine River separating Texas and Louisiana.

Damage was consistent across the city. The already depressed downtown, rife with vacant storefronts, had several wall collapses and broken windows in forgotten buildings nobody bothered to protect against the elements.

The only electricity visible was the occasionally dangerous live power line. Natural gas leaks also were a concern.

Ashton Harrison, 38, rode out the storm in nearby Beaumont for part of the night before returning home to Port Arthur. He debated with himself over whether to try to make it to Houston, about 90 miles west, on a half tank of gasoline, knowing there was little fuel to be had in southeast Texas.

He also wondered about the construction site near his home, where items were left unsecured.

"There was a Port-A-Potty back there. I bet it's in Louisiana now," he said.

At the Holiday Inn on Jimmy Johnson Boulevard, named for the favourite son and former Dallas Cowboys coach, police and fire officials set up a makeshift headquarters where they could bunk down and be centrally located to respond to calls.