FEMA officials say they realize that they cannot just drop 75,000 people into rural, one-stoplight towns.

Shady characters no longer stalk the streets of the one-stoplight town, where ribbons of blue, Katie's favorite color, hang from utility poles and porches.

New businesses are opening and existing ones expanding in the one-stoplight towns nearby.

Perhaps it was the informality of the atmosphere: a community hall that had clearly suffered some neglect over the years in this one-stoplight town.

Here, 50 miles from Lubbock and 50 miles from nowhere, is a one-stoplight town called Poseyville.

It is not by chance that the country's only Scrabble-tile factory was located in a one-stoplight town in northwestern Vermont.

Al Tomes, director of operations and a 16-year Padnos employee, grew up in a one-stoplight town near here, where his parents operated a campground, he said.

The one-stoplight town of Ludlow is geared toward tourism of the outdoor-sports variety.

The president himself said as much last Friday, when he spoke at a barbecue in Crawford, the one-stoplight town down the road from his ranch.

Traffic load increased, and Bridgewater went from a one-stoplight town to having five.