NATCHEZ &045; The Miss-Lou has seen the worst of Hurricane Rita, the National Weather Service said Saturday afternoon, but it’s not out of the woods just yet.

Power outages, fallen trees and other debris kept local utilities and work crews busy Friday night and all day Saturday, and while the preliminary assessment was that Rita was no Katrina, there may be more Rita to come.

As the outer bands of the storm work their way up, as much as three inches of rain could fall and the threat of tornadoes &045; while greatly diminished &045; will persist through the day, meteorologist Alan Gerard said in a conference call with county and parish officials.

Entergy Customer Service Manager Stephen Caruthers said 6,100 customers in the five-county area &045; Adams, Amite, Franklin, Jefferson and Wilkinson &045; were without service as of press time Saturday. Some 3,500 of those were in Natchez alone.

&uot;Our crews are out and contract crews are out working and assessing damage,&uot; Caruthers said. &uot;This is going to go over into Sunday and could be Monday on some of them.&uot;

Caruthers said most of the Louisiana and Arkansas crews that would normally be available to help out are in Texas and southwest Louisiana, working to restore power to 278,000 customers there.

Natchez is the hardest hit area in the Entergy Mississippi service area.

Caruthers said a transmission line on U.S. 61 fell Friday night but was repaired shortly after.

The rest of the repairs are to individual lines, meaning that fewer customers could be restored with each repair.

By press time, Southwest Mississippi Electric Power Association estimated 450 of its customers were without power. SWMEPA’s Jimmy June said they were working through the night and hoped to have everyone restored by today.

Vidalia Mayor Hiram Copeland said there were no power outages in his area.

Concordia Electric Cooperative General Manager said 15 poles were broken and 2,000 customers in Concordia, LaSalle and Catahoula parishes were without service.

The clerks at Kaiser’s Mobile Mart in Concordia Parish lost power for about half hour Saturday, but cashier Mildred Keys said they were still able to serve customers because a generator was powering one cash register. They didn’t worry much about the ice cream freezer, though; no one has delivered ice cream products since before Katrina hit four weeks ago.

Natchez public works director Ronnie Ivey reported more than 20 instances of downed trees or power lines in the city.

Abigail McCary saw one of those trees go down. Standing on the back porch of her family’s house on the corner of St. Charles and Main in Natchez, she heard the terrible crack as a large tree was uprooted.

&uot;I ran back inside screaming,&uot; she said, recalling that the tree seemed to be in slow motion as it fell. &uot;And I fell like I was running slow motion,&uot; she added.

Abigail’s mother, Penny, said the roar was so loud as the tree hit the back porch and the roof of the kitchen she thought it was a tornado.

&uot;It could have been a lot worse,&uot; said Penny McCary, whose husband Tim runs a photography studio. &uot;I would rather it fall on the house than the studio.&uot;

Adams County Road Department Manager Clarence Jones estimated it would cost his department $40,000 to cut, clear and haul away the debris from the storm.

&uot;It’s not worse than Katrina, but we hadn’t completely gotten through Katrina&uot; before having to turn around and begin cleaning up after Rita, Jones said.

With more storm systems coming our way, Jones, Ivey and the utilities may not have seen the end of their to-do lists.

However, Gerard did have some good news concerning the future of Rita.

&uot;Most of the computer models are now not stalling Rita out, but rather taking her slowly across Arkansas and into Mississippi within the next 24 to 36 hours and then pushing the remnants of the storm to the northeast and into the Ohio Valley,&uot; he said.

If the storm keeps moving, widespread flooding in the north of the state becomes less likely.

Natchez recorded just more than two inches of rain for the day. Civil Defense Director George Souderes said sustained winds were between 20 and 30 miles per hour with gusts up to 50 mph, as predicted by the National Weather Service.

Kerry Whipple

Bean contributed to this report.