For those stuck in the Port Arthur floods, there is little to do but wait.

While hundreds remain stranded on rooftops and in homes, hundreds more wait in hotels.

Some, fearing the worst on Tuesday, planned ahead and booked rooms on higher ground. However, at the Baymont Inn and Suites on Highway 73, safety is little more than an island of strangers surrounded by several feet of floodwater stretching out as far as the eye can see.

The first floor is entirely flooded. The lobby, once filled with drab couches and chairs is now a cesspool. Someone ripped a refrigerator door off its hinges and the fridge is sitting on its back, floating amid the wreckage.

At 6 a.m. there was a call for a continental breakfast that included plastic containers of sickly sweet doughnuts, breakfast cereal and juice. The residents made quick work of the food.

For most of the hotel, the power is out and so, in the few public areas that have power, small groups hover around the outlets, charging phones, staving off the boredom.

The water is on, but the food is gone. The staff are gone—hiding in rooms or evacuated.

By midmorning, the rain was still falling if not pouring and the water seemed no lower.

Javier Medina, sits in the hall with his daughter, Nancy, 4.

Medina is from Port Arthur, but moved away and came back. He’s lived here for 10 years and he’s survived hurricanes, but he said he’s never seen anything like this.

He and his wife and their two daughters are some of the lucky ones.

On Tuesday, as the storm water crept up his street, he said he realized this time, something was different.

“We thought it was going to get real bad,” he said. “We left our house … and we took whatever we could.”

He described the last 24 hours as a nightmare. The nightmare is not over.

“We ran out of food already,” he said. “I guess just wait for someone to rescue us or something.”

Rescue boats and helicopters circle the hotel. They take the infirm, the elderly and anyone else who needs to get to a public shelter. Some churches have opened their doors and the Carl Parker Center is the city’s official shelter.

But, even stuck without food, Medina doesn’t regret leaving.

“It’s flooded,” he said. “My house my vehicles, everything.  My main thought is, we’re safe and I don’t care about the material stuff, we can always get it back. The main thing is my kids, keeping them safe.”

His friends were not as lucky, he said.

“We were looking at social media last night and a bunch of friends were asking for help last night and still this morning they’re asking for help,” he said. “This is my first time going to something like this and my hope is it’s the last.”

Another woman, Kim Charles, said much the same thing. Charles was in the hotel with her mother, and although she said she is a lifelong Port Arthur resident and though she has survived many hurricanes, she knew on Tuesday that something about Tropical Storm Harvey was different.

“We were here for Hurricane Carla,” she said. “I don’t even think it was that bad then.”

Charles said she considered staying, but when the storm water topped her front porch Tuesday morning, she knew it was time to go.

“It was just a few more inches and it would have been in the house,” she said. “So I called (the hotel) for a reservation.”

Charles thought she packed well. She brought all the clothes she’d need for a long stay and food.

But she left the clothes in the car.

And now her car is under water.

“I wish I had left earlier and had gone to Austin where it’s safe and stayed with my sister or to Dallas and stayed with my cousin,” she said.