Rita Lands Weakened Punch

"The risk now is from heavy rains," said meteorologist Chris Landsea in a telephone interview earlier from the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "We may see up to 25 inches in east Texas, western Louisiana and southern Arkansas."

If the storm stalls, Colley said, the affected area would include 64,000 square miles of east Texas in 80 counties with 11.3 million people. Texas may soon be dealing with "an entirely different disaster," he said, " a heavy flood." The National Weather Service warned of possible "catastrophic river flooding," as runoff from "torrential rains" fans out over the coastal plain. Isolated tornadoes also were possible.

But initial reports from relief officials and service providers Saturday were mostly positive. Telephone networks in Texas and Louisiana appeared to have held up relatively well. SBC Communications Inc., the largest provider in Texas, had only one station -- in Sabine Pass -- out of operation, while Sprint Nextel Corp. reported about 4 percent of its 360,000 local telephone lines affected.

Dan Packer, chief executive of the power company Entergy New Orleans, reported that 800,000 of its customers, primarily in Texas and Louisiana, were without electricity, but about 200,000 of these first lost electricity during Katrina. In all, about 1.1 million customers in the region were without power.

Also dodging a major casualty was the region's oil industry. At least four refineries reported some damage, but estimates of insured losses, which had been as high as $18 billion Friday, were reduced -- some as low as $2.5 billion. Energy analysts said the impact on gasoline prices over the coming weeks should be minimal.

"Twenty-five percent of the refining capacity of all of America is sitting in the one area that was targeted by this hurricane," Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) said. "We could have had a catastrophe that would have affected the whole country. That didn't happen."

President Bush, trying to overcome criticism of the federal government response to Katrina, rode out Rita at Peterson Air Force Base, headquarters of the U.S. Northern Command in Colorado Springs, then flew to Austin and San Antonio.

"The federal government knows we have a responsibility to support you in the mission of saving lives first and foremost, and then helping rebuild," he said in San Antonio. Earlier in Colorado Springs, he told reporters that "it comforts me knowing our federal government is well-organized and well-prepared to deal with Rita."

By Saturday afternoon, Department of Homeland Security officials reported that emergency teams poised overnight in Houston were reaching flood-damaged areas on Texas's southeast edge and had succeeded in rescuing some people.

Department spokesman David Passey said airborne "rapid damage assessment teams," grounded much of the day by high winds, were checking electrical systems, roads, bridges and other infrastructure.

He said helicopters were also carrying food, water and satellite phones to affected areas, and crews had no immediate reports of oil or chemical spills. Still, he cautioned that "the storm is not yet over."

For the first time, the military will use a grid system designed for warfare to carry out searches in the stricken area, Rear Adm. Joseph Kilkenny, commander of Carrier Strike Group 10, said aboard the USS Iwo Jima as it steamed for the Texas-Louisiana border. He said all search parties will use the same grids to prevent a repeat of chaotic searches in the aftermath of Katrina.