Almost three days after the storm hit the coast, the extent of damage was still coming into focus, with rescue teams finally reaching some of the most inaccessible places, including Bolivar Peninsula, a resort on Galveston Bay where entire neighborhoods were obliterated.

While the number of confirmed deaths attributed to the storm was remarkably low at 39 in Texas and nine other states, including one in Oil City, Pa., the distress was considerable.

Nearly 37,000 people were in shelters in Texas, and there was no word on when those living in the most devastated towns, such as Galveston, might return. About 2.2 million people in Texas alone remained without power. Many service stations had no gasoline, or no electricity to pump it.

With no running water, some residents were dumping toilet waste directly into the sewers. Major highways were still underwater.

Victims grew irritable as they waited for food and water. Some relief stations ran out of supplies, leaving thousands hungry and panicked.

Lines of cars stretched two hours or longer at Texas Southern University for packages of bottled water and bags of ice, the only supplies on hand until three 18-wheelers showed up about noon.

Cheers broke out when it was announced there were boxes with chili, a small bag of Frito chips and a cookie.

"Why didn't they call for volunteers when they knew this was going to hit?" said Irene Makris, who waited in line but was told to drive to a station in another part of Houston, closer to her neighborhood.

There were also signs of progress. Houston assistant fire chief Rick Flanagan said emergency calls dropped dramatically yesterday afternoon. Houston Mayor Bill White said residents of the Clear Lake area, which was under a mandatory evacuation order, could return.

But snapshots of damage were emerging everywhere:

In Galveston, dozens of burial vaults popped up out of the soggy ground, many disgorging their coffins.

Galveston officials guessed it would be months before the island could reopen and warned that mosquito-borne diseases may begin to spread.

Cows that had escaped flooded pastures wandered around a shattered neighborhood. An elderly man was flown to a hospital, his body covered with mosquito bites.

"Quite frankly, we are reaching a health crisis for people who remain on the island," City Manager Steve LeBlanc said.

In San Antonio and Austin, thousands streamed into 284 shelters set up by the state. As local officials warned it wasn't safe to come home, many wondered how long they would be in shelters, how they would pay for meals, and what was happening to their families.

More than 1,300 people, who had spent several nights at Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center, complained they could not get information about how to find food and clean clothes.

Michael Stevenson, 37, said that at one shelter, he had barely eaten. "They give you a little cup of water every four hours," he said. "They feed us one peanut butter and jelly sandwich."

Gov. Rick Perry urged people to be patient, calling rescue workers "heroes."

"Here are the facts: You never are going to get ice and water into an area that's been impacted like this hurricane," Perry said after touring damaged towns.

President Bush, who plans to visit the region today, directed the Energy Department to release crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help relieve a shortage of fuel.

FEMA said it had supplied millions of bottles of water, hundreds of thousands of cots and blankets, and hundreds of generators.

Rescue crews were still going door-to-door in the hardest-hit neighborhoods, looking for the dead and alive, and the days after the storm were proving to be riddled with their own dangers: Three people were found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning from generators.

A team of 115 searchers flew into Bolivar Peninsula, the last unexplored part of the Texas coast, and feared they would find more dead.

They saw homes that were splintered or washed away in the beachfront community that is home to 30,000 in the peak summer season. But after covering almost all of the western end of the peninsula by dusk, officials said they had found no dead.

Gilchrist, a town on the peninsula, "is almost completely gone," said Aaron Ramon Reed, spokesman for Texas Parks and Wildlife. "Like somebody took a razor and went pffft."