NN, I'm looking at that map, and I'm thinking this thing is going to hit Louisiana. The High has pulled out, and there is a path right up the back side of that ridge.
WE have room... so come to Lubbock.. we are ready for you all...
Lubbock's shelter plan put on hold
BY ELLIOTT BLACKBURN
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL
City officials shut down Lubbock's shelter for Hurricane Rita evacuees Wednesday evening, planning to direct Texans fleeing the coast to local hotels or Salvation Army shelters.
After a conference call with state officials frustrated by technical difficulties and disconnects, emergency officials did not believe that the state would fly any evacuees into the Hub City, City Council chief of staff Dixon Platt said.
"We're willing to help, ready to help, but they just don't know it," Platt said.
Jim Watkins / Staff
Lubbock codes inspector Gregg Richards reahces into a box full of pillows as he sails one to co-worker Dian Taylor as Lubbock sets up its Hurricane Rita evacuee center in an airconditioned airplane hangar at Reese Center, Wednesday.
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Lubbock will instead direct evacuees that are already trickling into the city to hotels and motels with vacancies. Only 65 rooms were available Wednesday afternoon, a number that was dropping fast, but Lubbock would be working with hotels in outlying areas to help find evacuees somewhere to stay, Platt said.
"Where would you rather stay?" he said at Lubbock's shelter command post at the Reese Technology Center. "This is pretty nice if you don't have anywhere else to go, but I'd rather take a Motel 6."
Lubbock had only last week closed down a shelter in the north hangar of the center set up for victims of Hurricane Katrina. More than 400 evacuees from New Orleans were flown to Lubbock in early September after the storm ravaged the Louisiana and Mississippi coastlines.
The hangar was quiet Wednesday evening. City staff put the finishing touches on 595 cots and air mattresses, tucking in sheets and laying out blankets.
A police command trailer laden with communications equipment and satellite gear was powered up outside. In another nearby hangar, city employees moved between stacks of water bottles and soft drinks, baby carriages and wheelchairs, donated supplies from Lubbock's response to Hurricane Katrina that had not yet been moved from the center.
But those choosing to leave the coast probably had the means to care for themselves, and unless hotels and charitable private shelters filled, there was no way to know whether the shelter would be used, Platt said.
"If they don't have any other choice, then yes, we'll open it," he said.
Two burn victims being treated at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston arrived at University Medical Center on Tuesday evening, but emergency officials no longer expected to handle critical care patients, said Greg Bruce, local chairman of the American Red Cross.
There were few burn centers dotted across the state, but plenty of hospitals between the coast and Lubbock, he said.
"It makes sense for your burn patients; it doesn't make sense for your general hospital population," Bruce said.
Shelters had opened in several major cities in Central and East Texas, and Houston evacuees were being directed to College Station.
Mayor Marc McDougal and Mayor Pro Tem Tom Martin did not believe Lubbock would see many evacuees until after the storm had struck.
"Right now, everyone evacuating are people in personal vehicles. ... I don't really look for that this far north," McDougal said. "Most are going I-10 and I-35, and that doesn't bring them into Lubbock."
Relief workers were expecting healthier evacuees who would need less counseling or care than victims of Hurricane Katrina. Any Houston-area residents who fled to Lubbock would be people who made it out ahead of a disaster instead of facing the shock of the storm, said Danette Castle, Lubbock Regional Mental Health and Mental Retardation chief executive officer.
"Hopefully, these are people who got out ahead of a disaster," Castle said.
The fast turnaround from the previous storm was helping Lubbock and groups like the American Red Cross swiftly restart their shelter operations, Bruce said.
"It really has allowed us to ramp up quicker," Bruce said.
Officials had improved communications at a command center set up to handle the shelter, and would be more efficient in how it would use volunteers and other workers to care for any evacuees at the shelter, Platt said.
But the improved communications were for naught during a planned conference call between 500 cities and counties and state emergency operations officials. Top administrators in Austin, local emergency coordinators and other cities frequently lost contact with each other, and city officials new little more than they did before the call, Platt said.
"I bet we didn't hear but five minutes of the conference call," he said.
In the shelter, city employee Terri Martinez finished with the last of the air mattresses. She wasn't concerned that the shelter was being closed, and hoped those fleeing the powerful storm would find refuge in Lubbock.
"If somebody needs to be evacuated, this would be the place to come," Martinez said. "We're prepared.
