A mad dash for warm accommodations has left nearly every hotel in the region booked up, forcing powerless North Texans to wait it out in cold homes as power outages and sub-freezing temperatures blanketed the region for a fourth straight day Wednesday.
Richardson resident David Burrows, 58, and his wife Margaret finally found a room at the Courtyard Marriott in Addison on Monday evening after sitting in the cold for hours and charging devices in their car as they worked. When they arrived, they were greeted with a dark front lobby.
“We do not have power. All reservations for today will be canceled and refunded,” read a handwritten note on the hotel’s door.
Marriott offered a different hotel downtown but quoted a nightly rate of $700, Burrows said. So the couple remained in their 44-degree townhouse.
Other Texans have reported cases of suspected price gouging at hotels, said Rep. Kay Granger, who represents western Tarrant County. She tweeted that the practice was “unacceptable” and advised residents to report cases to the Texas attorney general’s office.
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The only Marriott hotel available in Dallas-Fort Worth for Wednesday night was the Sheraton Fort Worth downtown, which still had two open rooms at noon.
Hilton posted a notice on its site warning that its customer service was impacted “by the winter storm and power outages in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and is currently operating in a limited capacity.” Of its 123 hotels listed online, only the Hilton Anatole and the Home2 Suites by Hilton at DFW Airport had a few rooms left Wednesday.
Hyatt’s 29 hotels in D-FW were also sold out, except for the Hyatt Place Fort Worth Historic Stockyards, and Wyndham had a vacancy at just one of its 69 area hotels. Extended Stay America’s 23 hotels were also booked.
At IHG-owned Hotel Indigo in downtown Dallas, families have streamed into the front lobby check-in counter carrying belongings in boxes and suitcases every afternoon since Monday.
IHG had zero vacancies at 68 hotels in D-FW on Wednesday, according to its website. Hotel Indigo, however, has maintained power through the winter weather and outages.
Hotels began booking up Monday, and most with power downtown were sold out Tuesday night, according to Hotel Indigo director of sales Dawn Freeman.
The hotel, adjacent to Main Street Garden Park, went from 30% to 40% of rooms occupied during the weekdays to completely sold out Tuesday.
“We’ve had probably over 100 calls [Tuesday] morning from people trying to find a place to stay,” Freeman said.
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She directed people to hotels farther away from their homes but cautioned that road conditions were still icy and unsafe. But even as far north from downtown as Frisco, hotel vacancies were scarce to nonexistent.
Hotel operators are also struggling to staff up for the current demand.
“A lot of [hotels] don’t have the team members here to clean the rooms, to flip the house, due to COVID and the fact that employees can’t get here,” Freeman said.
The hotel industry has been reeling from an immense drop in revenue over the course of the pandemic, leading to reduced staffing levels. Then widespread power outages and burst pipes hit Texans, and a number of hotels, too.
“We’ve had hotels that have had no issues. There have been some that have frozen pipes and stranded guests,” Hotel Association of North Texas executive director Traci Mayer said. “There’s some that have no water, and there’s some that are being impacted by power outages.”
North Texas electricity supplier Oncor was still reporting hundreds of thousands of outages across the region early Wednesday afternoon. Nearly 7 million Texans were asked to boil water before drinking it Wednesday, though some won’t have the means to do that without power. Others are without water entirely.
The state’s electrical grid operator said it can’t put a timeline on when power will be fully restored across Texas. Mayer recommended that people unable to find hotel rooms seek out their community warming shelters.
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February 18, 2021 at 06:29AM
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