Some Rita victims in Texas blocked from homes

Damages in Texas put at $8 billion
For people who didn’t evacuate before Rita hit and chose to stay in the primitive conditions, teams from FEMA fanned out again Tuesday over a nine-county area of East Texas to deliver food and water and ice.

Gov. Rick Perry said the state was projecting Rita’s total damage at $8 billion.

The mayors of the Louisiana towns of Sulphur and Vinton pleaded with residents to stay away until the sewage systems could be repaired, power could be turned on and hospitals and emergency services could be restored.

“Right now, there’s very little to come back to,” said Sulphur Mayor Ron LeLeux, of his town where every major power transmission line was destroyed, uprooted trees split houses in two and splintered trees left most streets impassable.

Vinton Mayor David Riggins begged people over the radio not to return home yet because it was straining the food and water supplies he needed for fire, police and emergency crews.

Authorities said at least 16 Texas oil refineries remained shut because of Rita. A refinery in Port Arthur and one in Beaumont were without power, and a second Port Arthur refinery was damaged and could remain out of service for two to four weeks.

Five die in an apartment
Quanishia Haynes, whose father died in the Beaumont apartment, said he and his girlfriend’s family evacuated to Mississippi as Rita approached. She said they returned about 1 a.m. Monday because they ran out of money.

She and her boyfriend later found everyone in the apartment unresponsive. She said it looked like her father, Billy Coleman, 46, tried to get out of bed and was walking to the door when he fell.

Three siblings — Crystal Farva, 12, Demarcus Bean, 10, Alliyah Reese, 7 — were killed, along with Coleman and Dianna Bean, 29. The children’s mother and Bean’s sister, Irene Bean, survived along with her 8-year-old son Emery Reese, 8. Both were hospitalized in critical condition.

A neighbor said initially the generator was running outside the apartment, but he said he overheard Coleman and Bean debating over whether to move it indoors so the noise wouldn’t bother other neighbors or get stolen. An apartment manager said the generator was found in a closet.

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