The Rita Book Is Here!

The Beaumont Enterprise photography staff did an outstanding job capturing Hurricane Rita's handiwork. Now, the best images have been skillfully organized into a book, "Rita Captured."
The Enterprise staff had no idea whether anyone but us would buy it. I suspect that for the photographers, part of the motivation behind the book was to help put the catastrophe in perspective and serve as an outlet for sharing with others what they experienced, kind of like I do with this blog.
But then the orders starting pouring in, as did the subsequent telephone calls from customers demanding to know when they would receive their copy of "Rita Captured." As time went on, the calls increased, as did the terseness of the demanding customers' voices.
The books finally arrived over the weekend, and Enterprise staffers quickly went to work taking them out of boxes and stuffing them into envelopes for mailing. Last night, the photo staff had a wildly successful private book signing. This morning, a steady stream of people has come into our lobby to pick up copies.
What they're getting for their money is a moving photo account of what many Southeast Texans didn't see during the storm's immediate aftermath. Evacuees who returned three weeks - or even one week - after the storm saw a lot of damage, but what they witnessed didn't come close to the wild green tangle in the hours and days after Rita passed Sept. 24.
What a mess.
It was anarchy on the highway as the few cars out and about drove the wrong way down streets and up into yards to get around the fallen trees, power lines and street lamps. Beaumont looked like some kind of primitive jungle. It was simultaneously eery, surreal, jaw-dropping and beautiful.
I often wonder what the night was like for the foolhardy souls who rode out Rita in their homes as the symphony of mayhem terrorized with snapping trees, howling wind and powerwash rain. The handful of residents I encountered after the storm were shell-shocked and had the 1,000-yard stare. I'm confident they'll be the first ones out the next time a storm rumbles into the Gulf of Mexico and turns this way. Heck, they might skedaddle every time a wispy mass of clouds rolls off the east Africa coast.
But "Rita Captured" doesn't just focus on Sept. 24 and the days that followed. It chronicles the evacuation as well as the evacuees' return, the spectacular damage and the herculean cleanup effort.
It also shows Southeast Texans at their finest, from humorous yard signs to people helping one another. While the damage photos are stunning, it's the people photos, such as the one of the cute little girl with a Band Aid on her forehead, that make the book compelling and give it a unique personality.
In the end, "Rita Captured" speaks more about Southeast Texans' resiliency than it does about hurricane power.