On Thursday afternoon, Max Bowl in Port Arthur was filled with the shrieks of children and the dull roar of conversation. 

The place was packed.

But no one was having fun. 

Since Tuesday night the bowling lanes had been converted — quite suddenly —into a makeshift shelter. 

“When the water came Tuesday night, somebody with the fire department forced their doors open because we needed a shelter,” said Paul Arvizo, a Port Arthur Police detective.

Arvizo was not yet on the scene — he was sleeping that night — but for the most part he has been here ever since, overseeing the hundreds of displaced. 

They came in waves.

“As daylight broke on Wednesday, we overfilled this place easy. Three hundred to 400. I would say probably closer to 500.”

And churning within those waves of evacuees were undercurrents of confusion, anxiety, fear and trauma. 

The bowling alley was never an official Red Cross site and so it was never equipped with hygiene kits, cots, blankets and bedding. 

But those things came soon enough. Arvizo said he’s been updating his personal Facebook page, letting the community know what’s needed. Just after noon Thursday Sake, a Japanese restaurant, dropped off hundreds of boxes of food. 

Some people were still sleeping on the ground, but plenty others had small cots or mattresses people donated. 

Overall, Arvizo said spirits have been high.

“You know what,” he said. “Here’s one thing I find very remarkable and I am thankful for. This is a disaster and people are coming together as one. There’s no arguing. There’s no arguing or fighting. People are helping each other. There’s a lot of generosity going around.”

Arvizo said he has also been impressed with the folks who have brought supplies by the bowling alley. 

“People are responding,” he said. “People are donating food and everything we’re asking for. We’re so grateful to have that human spirit out there. It was beautiful.”

But the beauty does not mitigate the anxiety. Most of the people hope to go home; but so far, nobody knows when that might be. 

Thursday afternoon, city officials and police began ushering evacuees into Thomas Jefferson Middle School, a sanctioned Red Cross facility. 

It should be better equipped to handle the crowd, but it is just one more place that is not home. 

Home is where evacuee Elvina Mouton said she would prefer to be She is 87 years old and she said she has never seen a flood like the one caused by Tropical Storm Harvey. 

“Never,” she said. “Never in my life.”

Mouton said she called 911 Tuesday evening when water began creeping into her Heatherbook Apartment. A couple of hours later, a boat came and got her and she was ferried to the bowling alley. 

Since then, she’s just been waiting to see what will happen next.  No one has told her how her apartment is doing, whether it survived or not. 

Mouton said she knows she is stressed because her blood sugar levels have been spiking, for which she takes medicine. 

Indeed, later Thursday afternoon, as the din of screaming babies, screaming orders — “Dallas on standby Dallas on standby”—echoed through the lanes, she slid off her slick plastic lane chair and hit the tiles below. 

“This isn’t the first time she’s done that,” an EMT said, as she made her way to Mouton. 

Later, the same EMT announced, “Your blood sugar is too high; you need to go to the hospital.”

An IV was prepared. 

But a hospital would not have been Mouton’s first choice for destination. That would have been her apartment. 

“That’s what I’m waiting to know, how can I find out about that,” she said earlier in the day.

Home is only one of many worries. Another is family. 

Brigitte Duplechain is another evacuee from Heatherbook Apartments.

“The night that we had to evacuate, I had to fight snakes and spiders and the water was deep. I waited for five hours in the water,” Dulechain explained. “I accidentally dropped my phone. It doesn’t work at all.”

Since Tuesday she’s been unable to tell her adult children that she is OK. 

“I’m stressed, and I’m worried because I can’t get a hold of my kids,” she said. 

The uncertainty and trauma are so severe for some that they have vowed never to return. 

One of those is Mary Haynes, originally of Louisville, Mississippi. 

She moved to Port Arthur three weeks ago to live with her daughter. 

She’ll be leaving as soon as possible.

“This is my first month in Port Arthur and I promise I ain’t never gonna go back,” she said. 

In a word, she said, the storm was terrifying. 

“I thought I was going to die, to tell you the truth. The only time I’ve ever seen that much water was when Hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana on TV. I ain’t never been so scared in my entire life,” Haynes said. 

Haynes spent the last two days with her two children and five grandchildren. If it hadn’t been for her grandchildren, she expects she would have drowned as her youngest and oldest, 8 and 11 respectively, helped her out of her house and into the swirling storm waters. 

“They were trying to hold me up because my legs got real weak trying to walk through the water,” Haynes said. “They were holding me up, and they said, ‘Grandma you got to fight, you got to fight. If you give up, you’re going to drown. You’re going to die.’ And you know how you get so scared you just get still? That’s how I was.”

That was enough Port Arthur for Haynes. 

“I think I am going to leave next week and go back home to Mississippi. Yes, sir, I am going back home and I ain’t never coming back,” she said. 

Other evacuees are leaving Port Arthur more out of necessity. 

While the city is only maintaining three official shelters—the one at the middle school, one at the Carl Parker Center and one at Max Bowl.

Thursday morning, the Port Arthur Police Department reported that there could be up to 700 people at the middle school, 400 people at Max Bowl and 400 more people at the Carl Parker Center. In addition, an unknown number of people are at a church in neighboring Nederland. 

None of this is ideal. 

The projected beginning of the school year is next week and the fact that Max Bowl is a private business means that the city must also find places for evacuees further afield. 

So, on Thursday, at least 50 residents boarded a bus for Dallas. Others held back, waiting for Galveston. 

When it will end, where people will end up and when the water will drain away, all of these remain mysteries. 

Fernando Barahona was at the Max Bowl with his stepfather and mother. He said the family had a home off of Memorial Boulevard. Barahona said he has no idea when they will be able to go home. 

“No, not at all,” he said. “Probably could be Sunday or Monday. But there’s not a lot of hope. Like 1 percent of hope.”

Barahona’s stepfather, Teodulo Alberto Flores spoke up in Spanish.

“He said, no, it’s OK,” Barahona translated. “He said its just materialistic things. What matters is our lives, is us.”

His mother, Martha Hererra spoke up in Spanish. 

“She said the only thing is, we don’t have anywhere to sleep anymore,” Barahona said.