MARTIN DIES, JR. SP -- AFTER RITA: Learn how one state 
park is still trying to recover after hurricane Rita ... we'll 
explain on Passport to Texas.
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Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife

[sfx...chickadee]

This is a sound visitors to Martin Dies Jr. State Park used 
to hear. 

But after hurricane Rita devastated this 705 acre park in 
September, visitors are just as likely to hear this: 

[sfx...chainsaw] 

Dan Odem is park superintendent. 

I didn't come back in until Sunday after the storm. And we had 
three or four crews in here, and it took them several hours just 
to open the roads so we could get into the maintenance 
building to get our equipment out. It took them approximately 
three hours to cut the main road two-tenths of a mile to my 
house. So, it pretty well blew out. It's awful depressing. We had 
some gorgeous pine trees and they're not here anymore. They 
went out on log trucks. :25

The park lost forty percent of its trees ... many of them 
hardwoods, which will be a long time returning.

Meantime, logging is ongoing in the park. Odem says it 
will take a lot of time and clean up before the park 
recovers ... but he's hopeful. 

I don't know if the park will ever be the same; we've got folks 
that have been coming here for thirty or forty years, and they'll 
know the difference. Our big goal right now is to have at least 
half the park up and operating by April 2006. It'll take a little 
longer to get the other unit back up, but we hope by the end of 
2006 we're fully functional again. That's about all. :22

That's our show. We had help today from Tom Harvey. 

For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti.