Texans from a corner of the state that expected to be hit hardest by Hurricane Laura assembled at Circuit of the Americas on a blazing Wednesday afternoon to see if they could receive shelter in an Austin hotel, courtesy of the city.
“I want to go home. It’s hot, and I miss my house,” said Tanyria Duhon, an 11-year-old from Port Arthur.
Hundreds lined up in vehicles at the race track. One man said he was scheduled to have heart surgery Wednesday before the hurricane canceled those plans. Another said they had slept in their car overnight. Whole families were piled into vehicles, pets included, reports the Austin American-Statesman, which is a part of the USA TODAY Network.
Hurricane Laura roared ashore on the border of Texas and Louisiana as a Category 4 storm early Thursday, ripping apart buildings, severing power lines and clogging streets with debris as a dangerous storm surge trailed behind. Hundreds of thousands were without power.
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Because of the coronavirus pandemic, sheltering from a hurricane in Austin had to be different from previous disasters. Instead of staying in one or a few large spaces, evacuees would be sent to hotels where they could more easily isolate from one another.
So evacuees were directed to Circuit of the Americas to receive information on a hotel to stay in that was paid for by the city, said Austin’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management spokesman Bryce Bencivengo.
But by 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, the city was announcing that it had reached capacity. Hotel rooms were full.
Juan Ortiz, Austin’s director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said the city filled 1,078 hotel rooms with a little more than 3,000 people.
Hotels have also been filling up in Baton Rouge, according to reports from WBRZ and The Advocate.
Some evacuees also headed straight to Austin-area hotels instead of going to the racetrack, heeding the advice of state officials but also filling up the vacancies, said Nim Kidd, chief of the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
“So, while we had believed that we had rooms reserved, those rooms were being filled up by other people evacuating,” Kidd said.
Hotels in Hays and Williamson counties also are being used to house evacuees, and Kidd anticipates that hotels in Bell County will receive more.
He said plenty of hotel rooms across the state are still available.
“The math behind this is there are more people out of harm’s way,” Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday.
Circuit of the Americas was reopened at 10 a.m. for evacuees to use as a rest stop while they waited for more hotels to open up.
“Once confirmed, shelter rooms will be on a first-come, first-served (basis). While at COTA, basic amenities will be provided,” the city said in a written statement.
Ortiz, however, said the racetrack is only an intake facility, and people will be helped to either find a place to stay or asked to continue on to other cities after resting.
“It has been chaotic,” said Raymond Morris, who is from Beaumont. “We got a lot of things to deal with, we have three people in the car that are sickly.”
Morris was scheduled to have stents put in his heart Wednesday, but ended up in Austin on Tuesday night to shelter from the hurricane. When he and his family arrived, Morris said the hotel they booked had given their rooms away.
“Right now, we are stuck out,” Morris said. “We have to get a gas card here just to go to San Antonio because there are no rooms in Austin.”
Officials at the circuit were going from vehicle to vehicle asking people what their gas levels were. Others were handing out water.
Circuit of the Americas was one of the shelter locations that opened across Texas on Tuesday, joining other sites in San Antonio and the Dallas-Fort Worth area as the state braced for Laura, which was a Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds as high as 150 mph as of 7 p.m. Wednesday.
In the past three years, Austin has provided shelter to evacuees in two hurricanes, including Harvey in 2017. During that storm, Ortiz said, Austin sheltered about 850 people who arrived before and after the storm.
Once Laura makes landfall, Ortiz said Wednesday, Austin could see more evacuees, depending on the storm’s severity.
Emergency planners are looking at installing an additional 135 shelter beds at the Austin Convention Center, which will be set up as a traditional shelter with added room to ensure physical distancing to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Austin Public Health Director Stephanie Hayden said the facility also will have a clinic to care for people who become sick, whether with coronavirus or another ailment, and it will provide personal protective equipment to evacuees.
On Wednesday, Ortiz said no coronavirus cases or suspected cases had been identified in any evacuees.
Abbott had announced Tuesday that Circuit of the Americas would be ready to accept evacuees that afternoon.
Some evacuees reported sleeping in their vehicles in hotel parking lots Tuesday night because they could not find a place to stay. One said they waited at Circuit of the Americas for five hours Tuesday.
Around 3 p.m., the city said the Austin Regional Sheltering System for Hurricane Laura evacuees had hit capacity again. Officials said evacuees should travel north for shelter or call 211 for more information about alternate shelter locations.
Paul Bayard III left Nederland with his dog and a friend and arrived at Circuit of the Americas around midnight. The group slept in their car in a parking lot off Interstate 35 because Circuit of the Americas was at capacity and Bayard said they didn’t have enough money for a hotel room.
“This is it,” Bayard said. “If they don’t help, I’m going to be on the side of the road asking for change.”
Bayard and his friend were back in line at Circuit of the Americas on Wednesday afternoon to try again for a hotel.
“I don’t know if we are going to have the gas to get through this line,” Bayard said. “And there’s hundreds of people here.”
Evacuees also were being directed to Ennis, which is about 30 miles south of Dallas, where a Knights of Columbus hall, at 850 North Freeway Service Road, was accepting evacuees.
Evacuees staying in Austin can text “ATXShelter” to 888-777 to be signed up for updates. They can also call 512-978-1510.
Contributing: Ryan W. Miller, Trevor Hughes, Rick Jervis and Doyle Rice, USA TODAY; Dinah Voyles Pulver, The (Lafayette, La.) Daily Advertiser; The Associated Press. Jervis reported from Port Arthur, Texas.
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