Loose ship is seen near homes off the Falgout Canal on Saturday near Houma, Louisiana, after Hurricane Rita hit the area. Rita pounded the US Gulf Coast causing widespread damage and leaving more than 1 million people without power, but failed to deliver the feared repeat of Hurricane Katrina's devastation four weeks ago.(Xinhua/Reuters)

    BEIJING, Sept. 26 (Xinhuanet) -- Texas on Sunday began the preparation for a long journey home of 2.5 million people who had been troubled by the traffic chaos in their evacuation.

    Meanwhile, troops were conducting search and rescue missions in flooded Cajun towns in western Louisiana, which bore the brunt of the storm.

    In New Orleans, army engineers said it would take two weeks to pump out water in the Ninth Ward after Rita reopened holes in protective levees made by Hurricane Katrina.

    In an effort to avoid the gridlock that trapped hundreds of thousands of Texans in their cars for more than 12 hours during the evacuation, the state authorities called for a voluntary phased return.

    They divided the sprawling 2 million-strong city of Houston into quadrants, with residents coming back to the north-west and outlying areas yesterday, the south-west today and the north-east tomorrow, Guardian Unlimited reported.

    The population from south-east of Houston, from coastal towns such as Port Arthur, will have to wait until flooding subsides and power lines can be lifted from the roads.

::::::	A sigh of relief as Rita shows mercy
::::::	Hurricane Rita hits US Gulf Coast
::::::	Hurricane Rita hits Texas, Louisiana
::::::	Rita maintains Category 3 hurricane, brings floods to New Orleans

    "We're attempting to find fuel wherever we can," a police spokeswoman, Wendy Billiot, said, confirming that petrol could be commandeered. "If it's necessary, we are considering that option."

    Rita on Saturday slammed into lightly populated swamplands at the Texas and Louisiana border, sparing Houston, the fourth-largest US city, but battering the oil city of Beaumont, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana, a gambling and chemicals centre.

    By contrast to Katrina, with its death toll of more than 1,000, only one death had been reported by Saturday night. One person was killed in Mississippi when a tornado spawned by the hurricane overturned a mobile home.

    "The damage is not as serious as we had expected it to be," said R. David Paulison, acting director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. "The evacuations worked." Enditem

    (Agencies)