WON'T LEAVE HIS BEST FRIEND: Christopher Thomas (11) clings to his dog, Harley, as neighbours plead with him and his mother to leave the dog and evacuate their home to a safer building before the onslaught of Hurricane Rita in Lake Charles, Louisiana. — Photo: AP

Who knows what she will find. Maybe her home has been tossed on to its side by the hurricane, its expensive innards flapping across the neighbourhood. The chances, though, are that the suburban family in Houston will be just as Abbie Huckleby left it.

Hurricane Rita may have brought winds up to 120mph, flooded low-lying areas, brought down power cables and started fires, collapsed some of the south's flimsier buildings and sheared off the front porch for more than one unlucky soul in Louisiana, but on Friday the initial reaction as America surveyed the aftermath at daybreak was one of relief.

The sentiment was short-lived, before everyone remembered that Rita had precipitated one of the biggest civil evacuations in history, a move that on Friday night still saw families displaced in emergency shelters hundreds of miles from home. Almost three million citizens such as Huckerby remain stranded.

In the face of acute petrol shortages and excruciating gridlock, Rita has provoked more misery for millions than her rains ever could. The first signs of unrest surfaced on Friday night amid criticism that too many people were forced to move for a storm which never came close to mimicking the brutality of Rita's predecessor. A month after Katrina's devastation inspired near-hysteria throughout the U.S., public safety officials are already wondering whether they can ever persuade so many to evacuate again.

Even as the Pentagon announced it was sending five mortuary teams into Texas, the situation remained that the massive evacuation had claimed more fatalities than Rita. Responding to orders to flee the coast, a bus carrying elderly passengers exploding late on Friday killing 24 passengers, the inferno intensified by oxygen tanks they needed to help them breathe.

Rita arrived as suddenly as she was to fade away. The first images of a white catherine wheel appeared on weather maps last Monday afternoon. Her strength soon becoming apparent after she buffeted the Florida Keys and the northern tip of Cuba on her way into the Gulf of Mexico. As she moved west, so she grew, feeding voraciously on the unusually warm waters in the Gulf. By this stage, experts at the Florida-based National Hurricane Centre were starting to describe a "monster." Still she grew.

Then came the news that the U.S., still in a state of near-panic from the aftermath of Katrina, had been dreading: Rita had outgrown her brutal predecessor, and a swirling vortex that could bring destruction was heading to the already ravaged Gulf Coast.

Winds had reached 175mph. Rita was a category five hurricane, the most dangerous of all. And she was heading right for one of the most populous corridors of President Bush's home state. In its track lay Galveston, scene of America's worst natural disaster, and America's fourth largest city, Houston. So too, the rich heart of the U.S. oil-refining industry. Rita was heading for a direct hit on the section of coast where America's biggest concentration of oil refineries lay exposed to the elements.

Mr. Bush, seen strumming a guitar in the sunshine of San Diego when New Orleans woke up submerged, seemed genuinely panicked. The sentiment was shared; calls for a mandatory evacuation wrought havoc. By last Thursday night, a large swathe of the central U.S. was malfunctioning. Major airports were shut, freeways stationary as 100-mile traffic jams built up. Red brake lights streamed out of Houston. A total of more than 2.8 million people fled Rita. Motorists complained of travelling four miles in 12 hours.

As one resident John Bridges pointed from the safety of a Houston barstool on Friday night: "The real disaster is being stuck on the highway for 24 hours in 100-degree heat. It floods all the time."

Yet what many experts appreciate is that the majority of hurricane fatalities do not occur from the initial storm, but the flooding that follows. Up to 20 inches is expected to fall on the Texas and Louisiana border this week, and large areas will be inundated.

When Rita finally struck in the pre-dawn darkness, it was to the crackle of exploding electricity transformers. Power lines felled by gusts of up to 120mph sparked a series of fires across the region, including the destruction of historical houses in Galveston. Those caught in the eye of the category 3 storm described rain so intense it was akin to being roughed up in a "giant carwash." Yet the catastrophic devastation never came. Rita had veered towards the Texas Louisiana border and away from the populous Houston region. Empty coastal highways and small deserted towns were blasted with Rita's most ferocious winds and rain. Clumps of cattle huddled in fields. As Rita's damage is assessed this week, already it seems her lasting legacy ultimately belongs to Katrina. The initial storm surge of Rita again inundated New Orleans, barely recovered from the devastation inflicted by Katrina when she came ashore on August 29. Weakened levees finally succumbed, sending vast quantities of water into already-devastated neighbourhoods just days after they had been pumped dry. Forecasters expect the city to receive up to four inches an hour for the next few days, leading to an increased likelihood of further flooding.

Other hazards throughout the region will come in the shape of tornadoes spawned as Rita moves further inland. With a more highly developed infrastructure, a wealthier population and a political elite with stronger ties to federal agencies in Washington, Texas was never in danger of repeating Louisiana's mistakes, whatever Rita's strength. The concern remains about whether so many will ever respond to evacuation orders when the next major hurricane strikes America.

The U.S. is on course for the worst Atlantic hurricane season since records began in 1851, with more storms are expected in the next month or so. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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