Hurricane Rita's toll, damage less than feared

ABBEVILLE, La., Monday (Reuters) Rescuers waded through water or used boats and helicopters to search for people stranded in Louisiana's flooded Cajun country on Sunday, but U.S. officials breathed a sigh of relief that Hurricane Rita's passage had caused little loss of life.

The second powerful storm to strike the U.S. Gulf Coast in less than a month skimmed Houston, heart of the U.S. oil industry, when it slammed into the swampy Texas-Louisiana border on Saturday, and appeared to have largely spared the region's crucial refineries.

Wind, pounding rain and surging floodwater badly damaged small cities and remote swampland towns to Houston's east.

"We've seen the Gulf of Mexico relocate," said Randy Roach, mayor of the chemicals and gambling city of Lake Charles, saying the coastal parish of Cameron had disappeared under floodwaters. "The force of nature is something to behold."

But mass evacuations before the storm had emptied coastal areas, and police, National Guard troops and other rescue workers arrived quickly, so there was no repeat of the looting and chaos that besieged New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

"I have a raggedy house and it didn't blow down," said Dallas Clavelle, who rode out Hurricane Rita in his home in the east Texan refinery city of Port Arthur, hometown of the late rock singer Janis Joplin.

"The house shook a little and I went back to sleep."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said the oil and natural gas industries had suffered a "glancing blow at worst" - good news for U.S. consumers reeling under high gasoline prices. But he said the Lone Star State probably suffered $8 billion in damages.

Perry said he expected the federal government to "pay fully the cost of this."