Port Arthur officials are working closely with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help the city recover.
One plan is to shuffle FEMA representatives from local hotels to base camps that will be set up in Port Arthur, Beaumont and other affected areas, Kevin Hannes, FEMA federal coordinating officer, said.
“We want to empty the hotels for the evacuees to use,” Hannes said.
But, as FEMA looks at long-term rebuilding, some area residents remain displaced, housed in shelters or hotels.
About half of a million people have registered with FEMA across all of the impacted areas, tens of thousands are in shelters and about 16,000 families are in hotels following the catastrophic flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey.
Port Arthur Mayor Derrick Freeman said they are working on a long term housing solution for those who lost their homes and that shelters will likely be open for another three-to-four weeks.
There is currently a shelter at Thomas Jefferson Middle School housing more than 200 people in the two gyms.
Hannes asked that residents register with FEMA. There is no cost to file.
FEMA representatives, along with Freeman, fire department officials and media rode out to the Park Place II addition of the city where residents had been gutting their homes and placing flood damaged items to the curb.
On Willowick, resident Gonzalo Alvarez recalled his terrifying time escaping the flood and of how his neighbors, mostly senior citizens, kept in contact.
“We left the minute we saw the water coming into the house. I said, ‘it’s time to save my family and my neighbors,’” Gonzalo said. “Things can be replaced. A life can’t be replaced.”
Gonzalo was in contact with his neighbors, stressing the urgency to leave.
He eventually got his family of seven to his Hummer, driving through five feet of water.
“I prayed, ‘please God don’t let it (vehicle) die because I don’t know what to do,’” he said.
His neighbor, Sue Williford, is one of the neighbors he was in contact with.
“The Cajun Navy came to save us,” Williford said from the shade of her carport as family members pulled damaged items out. “I didn’t recognize anything in the neighborhood when we left.”