Parts of the US Gulf coast lurched back to life after Hurricane Rita today, although many areas remained buried under rubble or water after the onslaught of a second major storm in less than a month.
Evacuees streamed back into Houston, the fourth-largest US city, although shops were low on bread, milk and other perishables, power outages continued, and gasoline supplies remained limited.
The Rita-related death toll jumped to six, when five people were found dead in an apartment in Beaumont, Texas, from breathing carbon monoxide from an electric generator, district chief Jeff McNeel of the Beaumont Fire Department said.
South Texas resident Dallas Clavelle
One person had earlier been killed in a tornado. In Washington, President George W. Bush said about 1.8 million barrels per day in Texas and Louisiana refining capacity shut by Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina, which struck in late August, would be back on line soon.
And he repeated that he was prepared to loan crude oil to refineries from the government's emergency stockpile, to ease shortages related to the storms.
A line of cars was trying to get back into New Orleans, which was decimated after Hurricane Katrina and partly flooded again by Rita.
New Orleans authorities said residents were being allowed back into the Algiers neighborhood, and business owners were allowed back to other areas that had not flooded. Mayor Ray Nagin's office warned those returning not to drink or bathe in the city's water, except in Algiers, and not to expect medical services.
In Houston, Mayor Bill White urged grocery stores, gas stations and transit lines to get their employees back and working as quickly as possible as the region's population swelled toward normal levels.
Dr David Persse, head of emergency medical services in Houston, urged residents to use hospitals sparingly because of an influx of patients evacuated from the east. "Hospitals operating through this entire operation are really filled to the gills," Persse said.
Over 2.5 million people fled the Texas and Louisiana coasts to safety from Rita, one of the most intense hurricanes recorded over the Gulf of Mexico before coming ashore on the Texas-Louisiana border with 120 mph winds.
Houston was spared the worst, but more than a half-million homes in southeast Texas remained without power. Life was nowhere near normal in the strike zone on either side of the state line.