Dallas hesitant to take evacuees if Rita strikes

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Dallas hesitant to take evacuees if Rita strikes

Still handling Katrina displaced, officials ask state to turn to bases


07:31 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 21, 2005


By EMILY RAMSHAW and JAMES M. O'NEILL / The Dallas Morning News


While Dallas County and Red Cross officials appeared pumped up and ready to respond to a possible wave of Hurricane Rita evacuees, top city leaders in Dallas were less than enthusiastic.

When the Texas governor's office asked Monday by e-mail whether Dallas could be prepared to house an unspecified number of displaced victims from the approaching hurricane, Mayor Laura Miller and City Manager Mary Suhm fired back with their own question: Would the federal government open Texas' military bases to house evacuees from the Gulf Coast?

"This effort to house and care for these people has been primarily a Red Cross and city of Dallas effort, more than anybody else," Ms. Miller said. "I feel at this point ... they should be evacuating to military bases, where they've got big kitchens, big dining halls, barracks, instead of to makeshift shelters."

Volunteers, city officials and police officers have been working 18- to 20-hour days, Ms. Suhm said, and they're beat. Dallas will do what it has to, she said, but at this point it would be tough to take on any more evacuees.

"The support system here is worn ragged," she said. "People in stress deserve the best support system they can get, and that's not us right now. There have to be other options."

Kenny Shaw, director of Dallas' Office of Emergency Management, said that as of Tuesday evening, the state's Division of Emergency Management hadn't officially requested that Dallas take evacuees. But state officials promised to formally notify city officials before any evacuees were en route – a luxury Dallas didn't have with Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Shaw said Dallas can take in 1,500 to 2,000 people in Reunion Arena, if necessary. Fewer than 30 Katrina evacuees were expected to sleep there Tuesday night. And the Dallas Convention Center, which has already been emptied of evacuees, wouldn't be used, he said.

"It's all up in the air," Mr. Shaw said. "What they've told us is, 'Get as ready as you can. If you've got shelter capability, get it up.' There are going to be some decisions made overnight."

If Dallas gets the call, Mr. Shaw said, city officials are going to make a heartfelt request. "We're going to ask them to send them somewhere else first," he said.

And if that doesn't work?

"We'd get an eight- to 10-hour heads-up, at the least," he said.


County's stance

Dallas County Judge Margaret Keliher, who butted heads with Ms. Miller over how many Katrina evacuees the region could manage, said she has not spoken with anyone from the city about its involvement in Hurricane Rita efforts.

"That's the state's role, not my role," she said.

But she said that the state's emergency management office has been in contact with Dallas County and that the county is prepared to take evacuees.

The Decker Jail, which has fewer than 200 Katrina evacuees remaining, could hold up to 1,000 people. And Ms. Keliher said several other locations prepared for Katrina evacuees, including sites in Duncanville and Richardson, could be used in a second effort.

Ms. Keliher also offered to start calling leaders in other North Texas counties such as Wichita, Hill and Grayson, which expressed willingness to take Katrina evacuees but never received any.

She said the state has not mentioned specific numbers of evacuees, and neither has she offered one to them.

"Hopefully this won't be as awful as New Orleans, and we might only need to shelter people for a very short period, until the storm passes," she said. "Some of them will probably be coming this way."


'No matter what'

Red Cross spokeswoman Anita Foster said the agency stands ready to help with another wave of Dallas-bound evacuees.

"No matter what, no matter how exhausted we are or how active we've been with Hurricane Katrina, we have another hurricane coming that will affect people," she said. "Regardless, the Red Cross will be ready to respond."

And in the end, Dallas will be, too, Ms. Miller said. But now that the city has helped many of its new neighbors out of shelters and into apartments, largely without federal or state aid, it's disheartening to think that shelters would fill up all over again, the mayor said.

Military barracks would have "better conditions than we can provide in a sports arena, where you have the lights on 24/7," she said.

"With any luck, this will not be as catastrophic as the last one," the mayor said. "But if they say that Fort Hood is full, we're not going to turn our back on them."


Staff writer Paul Meyer contributed to this report.

E-mail eramshaw@dallasnews.com

and joneill@dallasnews.com

 

Now is not the time to be bickering and trying to pass the buck. This type of government infighting led to the disaster in Louisiana.

 

Major - you forgot to log out of RM's account earlier in the thread....LOL

 

Bottom line is that Dallas should be rushing to help Houston in this time of need. Instead they're trying to act as a last resort in case the military option doesn't pan out.

I'm not sure why you're being so difficult today, 95...err Major...er whoever is using your account these days...