After Katrina had made her visit to the middle of the Gulf coast the last thing we wanted to see was anohter lady come traveling west into the Gulf. We watched closely and at the time I was working nights and just about to restart the unit at the plant. They were calling for landfall around Freeport when I got off that Wed. morning and I stayed up moving trailers, tractors and othere equipment out of Sabine. I knew we would get water beingon the east side. Our ridge here hadn\'t been under water since 1961 when Carla hit the middle Texas coast.\r\nAfter a long day i slept hard but awoke abruptly around 3:30 am with a bad feeling. I had access to the company weather supplier and brought it up on the computer, it called for Rita to make landfall at High Island. I woke everyone and started making preparation to head out of town. Time everything was loaded and we headed out the roads going north were in gridlock so we staged in Nederland Tex. We were going to Longview but we decided to hold out and wait for nightfall as with the heat and road congestion little progress could be made. The wife was starting to get nervous by late afternoon and wanted to head out but i was waiting for something a little more definite in were Rita was going. I got the news at 4:50 PM when the Weather channel called for the storm to go up the Sabine river. That cinched it we had early been offered refuge in Hempstead and 4 hours later we were there. We kept up as best we could and eagerly headed back as soon as we could get back in to Sabine. Even after seeing the destruction that Katrina did would I be prepared to see what my hometown would look like. The estimates were that 80 to 85% of the homes were either destroyed or damaged beyound repair. The area within \r\n1 1/2 miles of the river was really bad, water surged from Lake Sabine to the north of town and devastated it. Think of it after all these years the storm surge that nearly destroys the town came from the north. My daughters home was damaged beyond repair and our new home that replaced one that was struck by lightining in March of 05 was just far enough to the west to escape the water. We had damage from the wind but were fortunate that we didn\'t lose a second home in 2005. As i write this the showing of Extreme Home Makeover has just showed on ABC.Thursday there was representatives from Washington that got a first hand look at Southeast Texas and Sabine Pass between the two I hope that they recognize what has happened here in our area. I will survive but the way HUD did this area when monies were distributed eaflier for relief was a disgrace. These folks endured a terrible event, they understood what mandatory evacuation means, they did the things that were expected of responsible citizens then to be stunned by the response from HUD is a shame. The eye of Rita came in less than 2 miles east of the town and caused terrible damage to the homes and lives of the towns people and as bad as it was here the towns just a short ways to the east in Johnson Bayou, Holly Beach, Cameron & Creole La. which were in the Northeast quadrant suffered great damage also. It\'s been 7 months and things still hasn\'t improved much the town still looks terrible and recovery will take a long time. I\'ve had family that has lived on this ridge since the 1820\'s, I\'m also the last of the bunch as my daughter and son-in-law and grandsons have moved to hopefully safer ground. Will this town recover I hope so but one more storm like Rita may put her down to the point that the only thing left will be the oil companies. Forty four years the ridges stayed dry, storm season starts in about 6 weeks and hopefully it\'ll be the start of another long run for this little town. I never want to see this type of destruction again in my lifetime, it\'s hard for folks to recover and the Gulf coast has had enough to last us many years.