I am a Surviver of Hurricane Rita. Me and My family Left about two days before the hurricane hit the vidor/ Beamont area. We evaccuated to Moutain Home,Arakansas. We brought all of our animals, we had six dogs and three cats. We traveled to get to ur destination for twenty hours the traffic was pretty bad. We arrived at our hotel in Arkansas about three or four Friday Morning we unloaded what we could at that moment and we would unload the rest when we got enough rest. We stayed there for about two weeks. Before we went home we lost a dog. After the hurricane hit our home town my brother, my dad, and my brothers father in law went back to get some clean up done they got in after hours because we had a curfew and you would have gotten arrested if you were out after that time so they had to be pretty careful and after they got there they were standing in lines for gas and ice for two to three hours at a time in the meantime we were all still at Arkansas and the about a week after it hit we went back becasue we were tired of being stuck up there without anything to do we were so frusturated. Then after we got home there were trees every were, we could barely walk in what was left of our house the most damage we had was three holes in the roof and our smoke house we had was blown completly down and we lost over twenty trees. We were out of power for about a month and the temperatures were crazy, everyday we would work in the yard to get it cleaned up the best we could, We were scortched by the sun everyday only some days were cool but only in the mornings it would make up the hot temperature by about twelve in the evening after the power company gave us power down our road we made coffee and visited with them for about an hour then they had to go on with there duties... My personal opioion I liked not haveing no power except for not having any water because we have well water. My expericance wax very intersting I got some History Knowledge while we were gone far away from home.