Monday, September 26 2005 10:17 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Beaumont (Texas): The Governors of Texas and Louisiana each flew over areas slammed by Hurricane Rita yesterday (Sept 25, 2005), while rescuers in southern Louisiana searched for perhaps hundreds of people trapped by floodwaters and Houston braced for the return of nearly 3 million evacuees.

While Rita didn't match the destructive power of Hurricane Katrina, it still left a massive trail of destruction in Texas and Louisiana. The storm caused 'tens of millions of dollars' in structural damage in the Houston area alone, Harris County Tax Collector-Assessor Paul Bettencourt estimated.

Other, smaller places were hit much harder. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco surveyed devastated coastal towns by helicopter.

Fishing communities in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, were reduced to splinters, with concrete slabs the only evidence of homes that once stood there. Debris was strewn for miles by water or wind. Holly Beach, Louisiana, a popular vacation and fishing spot, was simply gone, white caps on the Gulf of Mexico lapping where camps had been.

"Everything is just obliterated," Blanco told a room of emergency officials in Lake Charles, Louisiana, emergency operations center when she returned.

Rescue crews searched for people still stranded by floodwaters. Hundreds may still be trapped in Vermilion Parish, Louisiana's far-flung regions near the Gulf of Mexico, according to Jason Harmon, spokesman for the Abbeville Fire Department.