Sunday brought more wind and rain to Lincoln County as remnantsof Hurricane Rita swept across the area and left the state.

“We had some more power lines down and sporadic outages,” saidClifford Galey, Brookhaven-Lincoln County Civil Defensedirector.

Weather conditions improved after the last tornado watch for thecounty expired at 8 p.m. Sunday. Unlike some other areas of thestate, Galey said there were no tornadoes here and there was onlyone severe thunderstorm warning issued Sunday for the county.

“I would expect there’s some more minor (home) damage from thislast one,” Galey said.

Officials said evacuees were beginning to leave local AmericanRed Cross shelters.

As many as 700 evacuees, including those who remained afterHurricane Katrina and new ones who arrived in advance of HurricaneRita, were at five shelters over the weekend. Galey said the totalwas down to around 380 by this morning.

Louisiana and Texas evacuees have begun returning to thosestates, but some areas remained closed this morning. Galeyindicated the local shelter population could rise again due toresidents attempting to return home being turned back.

“I’m afraid they’re going to get closer and have turn around andcome back and look for shelter,” Galey said.