Washington Post:
Thousands of evacuees, exhausted and frustrated after days trapped in flooded New Orleans, continued to pour into Houston and other cities in Texas on Saturday, rapidly filling enormous arenas and small shelters in an extraordinary exodus of humanity that has quickly strained the capacity of the Lone Star State.There is much more. It is about time that the national media recognized what is being done for these citizens of the state of Louisiana by Texans. While the story recognizes the competence of Texas officials, to get the whole picture youneed to follow the links on this blog to the stories from various Texas communities to see the generocity and compassion of Texans at every level.
Over the past six days, Texas has mobilized its emergency relief operations almost as if Hurricane Katrina slammed into its borders, rather than the neighboring eastern states, and in a very real sense Katrina has hit Texas with massive force. About 240,000 Louisianans have found sanctuary in the Lone Star State in hotels and large shelters, state officials said. Many more are in church-run shelters and even some in private homes. Officials are scrambling to stay ahead of what they anticipate could be a long-term relocation of humanity. Almost overnight, officials established one of the largest hospitals in the state to cope with indigent and ailing exiles, and they are planning how to move the evacuees from temporary shelters including Houston's Astrodome and the George R. Brown Convention Center into more permanent housing. In coming days, Houston area schools are expected to absorb 6,000 to 8,000 students from Louisiana
Houston has become ground zero for the exodus, with 100,000 to 200,000 of the total number of refugees in the state sheltered here. To cope, officials have built a virtual organization from scratch, blending the public and private sectors, nonprofit groups and churches to handle the evacuees' needs.
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