"If you have enough policemen to take it from them, take it," Griffith said.
His frustration comes as squabbling continues among federal, state and local over what some characterize as a woeful lack of communication.
R. David Paulison, acting FEMA head, was scheduled to visit the federal headquarters in the region, while local officials met across town to express their anger.
"We are very short on food and water, and the FEMA trucks that were supposed to be here just aren't here," Griffith said.
Commenting on the lack of help from FEMA, Griffith said, "We can't help it if politicans come here and just want to be seen by the media."
Deb Schmidt, a U.S. Forest Service official, attended the meeting and tried to catalog all the needs around the county, but she mostly ended up observing anger from the local officials.
"We hit the ground running with our own commodities and our own facilities, but we have no support," Griffith said.
City officials cited a lack of water pumps, generators, food and water, and they complained about federal relief teams failing to show and fuel deliveries not happening as promised.
Andre Wimer, city manager for Nederland, said he was tired of getting the runaround from federal officials. "We spend the day faxing and talking and we don't get any feedback. We need somebody helping us."
All is not well between local and state officials either.
According to the local officials at the meeting, state troopers were not allowing city employees crucial to the relief effort back into the county.
"I realize that there is a significant logistics issue and I appreciate that," Wimer said. "But there is a significant amount of equipment and manpower sitting at (local FEMA headquarters) and for whatever reason, it has not been released and that is a bunch of (nonsense)."
Tempers also are flaring with local residents.
Officials of Bridge City, which took a hard hit from Hurricane Rita, today urged residents to stay away, following a tense confrontation between angry evacuees and police officers at a barricade on the edge of town.
Most of the 8,600 residents of the Orange County town in the southeastern corner of Texas fled the storm, and the town is still without electricity, clean water or passable streets, said Mayor Bobbie Burgess.
City Manager Don Fields said the situation turned ugly Sunday evening, when a large number of evacuees unsuccessfully tried to convince local police and Department of Public Safety troopers to let them return home.
Fields said no weapons were pulled but that officers were almost forced to do so. He said he also was told that one of the evacuees said, "I have a gun, and I'll get in any way I can."
Fields said the city's 13-member police force and small DPS detachment was reinforced by a few additional state troopers today but noted they could use more help.
The city manager said there had been a small amount of looting in the town and that it was best, from a public safety standpoint, to keep the town closed.
While much of the focus is on Beaumont and Port Arthur, the devastation spreads wide across East Texas.
Rue Fuller, 65, said Town Bluff, a small East Texas town in Tyler County, was destroyed by Hurricane Rita, forcing her to evacuate to Pearland after the hurricane passed.
A huge oak tree fell on her home, Fuller said, crushing nearly half of the rooftop and just missing her husband, James Fuller, 80, who was in the bathroom.
When the tree fell through the roof, Fuller said, it nearly pinned her husband, who was in the bathroom.
"It missed him by a few inches," Fuller said. "If we would have been in the bedroom, we would not be alive right now."
Rue Fuller said most of the town has been without water and power since the hurricane hit Sunday, and town officials have yet to announce when residents will get those services back.
"I know a lot of people have suffered, but this area was probably hit the worst by the hurricane," she said. "And there are a lot of people (in Town Bluff) right now whose houses have been destroyed."
On Sunday, Jefferson County took the first steps toward recovery with relief workers from across the country setting up camp in this hurricane-battered city.
Storm survivors who defied evacuation orders and found themselves stranded without potable water, a working sewer system, electricity or fuel sought help at the Ford Pavilion, a 9,000-seat arena on the west side that recently served as a shelter for Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
They were joined in the area by Gov. Rick Perry, who made his second visit to Beaumont in as many days amid criticisms that relief efforts here suffered from the same lack of communication that hamstrung rescue efforts after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. President Bush will visit the hurricane-affected Beaumont-Port Arthur area on Tuesday.
Beaumont was one of several Texas cities and communities damaged by the hurricane, which roared ashore early Saturday over Sabine Pass. But the most intense destruction was found in Cameron, Lake Charles and Abbeville in southwestern Louisiana.
Relief efforts took hold Sunday in Beaumont, where a small city of Army vehicles, ambulances and tents sprouted up overnight to help local and state officials regroup after Rita.
Sixty percent of the county's roads were rendered impassable; more than 280,000 households and businesses were left without power; and water and sewage systems were knocked offline. It could take weeks to restore water services and more than a month to fully restore power, authorities said.
"I was born and raised here," Griffith said Sunday at the county emergency command center in Beaumont, "and this has been the worst disaster of my lifetime."
As originally published
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