AP: Texas

09/26/2005

Associated Press

Officials say the Intracoastal Waterway from Houston to Louisiana should reopen this week.

The channel was closed because many aids to navigation were washed away or damaged by the strong wind and waves of Hurricane Rita.

Crews need to evaluate the waterway for silt and debris before opening the channel, U.S. Coast Guard Chief Warrant Officer Adam Wine said. So far, crews found a sunken shrimp boat near the Washburn Tunnel and a ruptured pipeline in Trinity Bay near Anahuac, he said.

Meanwhile, more than 60 ships were waiting to enter the channel or en route on Sunday.

The Port of Houston Authority planned to reopen to truck traffic early Monday. Electricity was expected to return Monday, spokeswoman Argentina James said in a story for Monday's editions of the Houston Chronicle.

___

JASPER, Texas — Hurricane Rita's destructive force on some of the forests in East Texas left areas that looked as if they had been clear cut, U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady said after an aerial tour of the region on Sunday.

"In most of it, it's as if someone pulled a rake through weeds and pull it over the trees," Brady said. "The strands of trees in Texas look like they been selectively pulled."

Brady, R-The Woodlands, flew over portions of his district and stopped in Jasper, where he talked to county officials.

Jasper Mayor David Barber told Brady the city's power grid has to be rebuilt.

The power loss is especially troublesome because the city was a destination point for evacuees from Hurricane Katrina and residents from the Texas coast and western Louisiana during Hurricane Rita.

"These are small communities with huge hearts but they are at the limit," Brady said.

Brady said the first thing officials in the East Texas communities asked him for was ice for diabetic patients.

"I think the biggest challenge has been to shift the focus and resources from the coastal areas in Houston to East Texas and the Orange and Beaumont area," he said.

___

BRIDGE CITY, Texas (AP) — A local convenience store didn't have the electricity to run the cash register in this small Southeast Texas town, but that didn't stop the manager from letting some of his regulars pick up some groceries on the honor system.

"I don't want business, I just want to help them," Stop and Drive manager Momin Qumruddin said in a story in Monday's editions of The Monitor in McAllen. "I am selling stuff and writing it down."

Robert Johnnie had a generator at his house to run a refrigerator, but needed some bottled water and other supplies. He said he appreciated Qumruddin letting him into the store.

"I caught him walking down the road," said Johnnie, 49. "He said, `Come in and get what you want.' He told me to come back later and pay for it."

Qumruddin said he didn't know when he would open for regular business.

"I have gas, but without electricity I can't pump," he said.

___

LUFKIN, Texas (AP) — Seventy-year-old Harold Richey spent Sunday evening cutting the limbs of a tree he estimated to be 100 to 150 years old. The tree had fallen on two of his vehicles and the roof of his porch.

"I heard one heck of a noise on Saturday morning around 8:30 or 9 in the morning and saw this tree crush the vehicles," he said in a story in Monday's editions of The Lufkin Daily News.

Doris and Tom Tatum called a tree service to remove the tree off their house.

They were sitting in their den Saturday morning when they heard a loud noise and glass breaking.

A large tree in their front yard had uprooted and crashed through a window in the front of their house and damaged a part of their carport in the backyard.

"We've lived in this house for 43 years, and this is the worst anything ever happened," Doris Tatum said.