By Jesse Wright

Jesse.wright@panews.com

 

Friday night 250 people slept easier.

The evacuees who had been sheltering at Thomas Jefferson Middle School had been facing an uncertain future this week.

First they were told the school would open to students on Monday and the shelter would close. With all area hotels filled and with their homes damaged by Tropical Storm Harvey flooding, options seemed few. Then the city announced residential barges would set sail for Port Arthur. Then that plan was nixed.

Finally, the state stepped up.

On Friday, the Texas Division of Emergency Management erected large tents at the Bob Bowers Civic Center capable of holding all 250 of the Thomas Jefferson evacuees. Kevin, the incident commander of the Port Arthur operations for the TDEM, said in the coming days he expects there will be room for 250 more people.

Kevin declined to give his last name to the media as he said he will be leaving in two weeks and is therefore unimportant, said the civic center operations will be here for at least one month and they have the ability to scale up to 1,200 to 1,250 beds if necessary.

Kevin explained that operations would be continued on a month-to-moth basis, though he added that city and state officials will be working hard to get evacuees into more permanent living quarters, including FEMA trailers, hotels and other accommodations.

The tents will be segregated according to gender, though families will be allowed to room together. The tents can house up to 14 people. In addition to housing, the TDEM is providing three hot meals a day, 24-hour laundry services, security, medical and mental health services and outreach personnel to help get evacuees federal aid and better accommodations. There are bathrooms, showers and there will be Wi-Fi available, too.

Kevin stressed safety.

“We will maintain a fairly high law enforcement presence here,” he said. Kevin added that drugs, alcohol and weapons will not be allowed and that people who are wanted on warrants will be picked up on warrants. In addition, each resident will have a wristband according to his or her tent so, while movement will not be restricted, residents will not be able to sleep anywhere they please.

The first of the evacuees to be housed at the Bob Bowers tents are the Thomas Jefferson Middle School evacuees. Mayor Derrick Freeman attended the media briefing Thursday night and he said the next evacuees to move in will be those who were relocated to Dallas.

However, authorities are not certain of just how many residents have been displaced.

Ekland Durousseau a spokesperson for the American Red Cross Red Cross, said she knows of at least “400 to 500” who have been displaced from Port Arthur, though the number is likely higher because it only includes Red Cross shelters.

Bob Howard, the media relations manager with FEMA, said “From Jefferson County there are currently 1,806 families in hotels as of last night.”

Howard could not provide numbers specific to any city—only county numbers.

Finally, Mayor Freeman pointed out that he expects 250-300 residents will be evicted and need a place to stay. The evictions are a consequence of flood damage to rental properties.

Freeman said there will be a way for people who are not current evacuees to access the tents, though that system is not yet in place. He said the city will debut a hotline sometime in the coming days.

However, Freeman said the bigger focus is getting the tents taken down and residents back into something more permanent.

“The lot of (the aid) is getting them transitioned into something better,” he said.

However, neither Freeman nor Kevin would venture a guess as to when that might happen.