US: Signs of normal life returned to Houston yesterday as thousands streamed back into the city after the biggest evacuation in American history. Some shops and restaurants reopened, hotels were back in business and traffic hummed again on freeways that had been deserted for days.
Parts of the city were still without power yesterday but officials predicted that the lights would be back on in the entire city by the weekend.
Schools, public offices and most private businesses will reopen tomorrow as residents return from refuges further north.
Houston's luxury hotels are filled with burly men in heavy boots and work clothes - an army of tree trimmers, electricians and engineers tasked with putting eastern Texas back together again after Hurricane Rita. Texas governor Rick Perry described the lack of fatalities caused by the storm as miraculous and claimed that the evacuation of three million people saved many lives.
"As bad as it could have been, we came out of this in pretty good shape," he said.
Although Houston escaped major damage, parts of the southern coast of Texas received a painful battering and it could be months before Beaumont and Port Arthur return to normal.
On the highway between the two cities, where much of the state's oil and chemicals industry is concentrated, power lines are down, cars stand abandoned and debris lies scattered across the road. Billboards and neon signs have been torn away and a number of the flimsy motels along the road have been destroyed.
Two miles inside Port Arthur's city limits, the highway becomes a small lake in which a car stands submerged up to the roof.
One of the city's oil refineries appeared to have suffered damage that could leave it out of action for weeks.
Across the border in Louisiana, the picture was bleaker still, with entire villages wiped out by flooding that followed the hurricane. Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco has asked for $32 billion from the federal government to help rebuild her state, which bore the brunt of both Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina.
President George Bush yesterday hinted that he was preparing to nominate a single person to co-ordinate the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast.
"I'm considering how best to balance the need for local vision and federal involvement.
"The vision and the element of reconstruction is just beginning and there may be a need for an interface with a particular person to help to make sure that the vision becomes reality," he said.
New Orleans was spared the worst of the latest storm, although some parts of the city were flooded again after levees began to crumble.
The city's mayor, Ray Nagin, has resumed his plan to repopulate the city, however, telling residents of Algiers, a relatively undamaged district, that they could come back.
"With Hurricane Rita behind us, the task at hand is to bring New Orleans back. We want people to return and help us rebuild the city.
"However, we want everyone to assess the risks and make an informed decision about re-entry plans," he said. Mr Nagin plans to bring residents back to other dry districts, including the French Quarter, over the next few weeks. A curfew remains in force in New Orleans from 6pm to 8am and Mr Nagin said that only the able-bodied and mobile should return.
Coast Guard Vice-Admiral Thad Allen, who is in charge of the federal disaster effort in the city and has clashed with the mayor in the past, made clear that he opposes the plan to repopulate the city.
"Where the mayor needs some thoughtful approach to is the areas that have been reflooded and the areas that may remain uninhabitable for safety, health and other reasons. And I think a timetable associated with that still needs to be worked out," he said.
Despite the relief in Texas that the latest hurricane failed to kill anyone, some question the wisdom of an evacuation plan that created 20-hour traffic jams as millions who did not need to leave their homes fled in panic.
Todd Griffith, a contractor from Michigan who came to Houston to help restore power in Texas, described the response to Hurricane Rita as overkill.
"This is all politics. They were caught by Katrina and they overreacted to this one. But the next time, a lot of people will ignore their warnings because they'll say it's all a waste of time," he said.