Louisiana's capital city was a refuge for evacuees after Hurricane Katrina three years ago, but now it's struggling to recover from Hurricane Gustav.

Baton Rougeans on Wednesday patched holes in their roofs while the remnants of Gustav dumped yet more rain inside their houses and apartments.

Robert Mantanaro, 40, said he and his girlfriend spent hours the day before getting branches off the top of his house, then prepared to climb back up to attach a tarp to prevent water damage.

"I haven't gotten too much water in the house, it hasn't been horrible yet, but you can't let it go too far," he said.

Storm damage was overlooked here after Gustav struck on Monday, as the national media focused on the towns closer to its landfall. Gov. Bobby Jindal choppered out of Baton Rouge -- his hometown -- to make his first public inspection of storm damage in Franklin, Houma, Morgan City.

The scene in those towns wasn't much different than in Baton Rouge: hundreds of downed trees and branches, downed power lines, wrecked roofs and storefronts.

The state Capitol is dark, empty and dank after two days with a flooded basement and no air conditioning. The storm's winds shattered windows up and down the skyscraper, leaving shattered glass in legislative offices. Normally pristine, the lawn that surrounds a statue of former Gov. Huey P. Long is now littered with broken tree limbs.

On Wednesday, fewer than 10 percent of households had electricity in the city and surrounding East Baton Rouge Parish, according to state figures. Street lights and traffic signals were blank, and city streets plunged to blackness after sundown. Police sporadically enforced a dusk-to-dawn curfew in an attempt to prevent looting.

The football-crazy town suffered another setback when Louisiana State University announced that Saturday's football game against Troy State game had been put off until November. School athletics officials said they made the decision after spending a day assessing damage to Tiger Stadium and to the community.

"We would have loved to play the game, but it's not possible and the city of Baton Rouge is in too bad shape to take resources away to play a football game," LSU athletics director Joe Alleva said.

Long lines formed Wednesday when the first drug stores, supermarkets and banks started reopening two days after the storm.

Gas stations had the longest queues, causing traffic jams and frayed nerves. Louisiana State University freshman Marcus Arnaud said he waited several hours in a long line to fill up his pickup.

"It's been pretty ridiculous, because that guy in the red car keeps cutting in line," said Arnaud, 18, of Opelousas.

Hair stylist Garrett Lemieux started his day shopping for generators and bought two $700 models. At a filling station he then waited about an hour to fuel his GMC pickup truck, along with four 5-gallon gas cans to fire up the generators.

He said a falling tree limb left holes in his roof and let Wednesday's rain pour into his house.

"I've been through several hurricanes, and this is just the one I got roof damage," said Lemieux, 41, a Baton Rouge hair stylist. "It's just a matter of luck, or bad luck, when the trees start to come down."

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)