The west Texas town sent busses to Dallas to pickup evacuees and came back empty. The town has prepositioned supplies and arranged housing and medical treatment as well as clothing. At this point the town is frustrated and disappointed that they did not get their share of evacuees. They had hotel rooms and 15 apartment already lined up. Local business had donated to the cause.
At MyWestTexas.com:
"We decided to do this on Thursday, and Friday afternoon we faxed our proposal to the (Texas Department of Public Safety)," Mayor Russ McEwen said, explaining host towns must submit a proposal detailing resource capabilities to the state agency.
Evacuees arrived late Saturday.
"It has to come together fast. The hurricane happened on Monday," McEwen said.
Big Spring's host proposal expressed willingness to shelter up to 100 families with school-age children.
"Our superintendent told me he had seen information that we could have more children per classroom than typically allowed in order to accommodate evacuee students," McEwen explained. "And so when this all came together, we aimed to offer Big Spring as a destination for families and children put out of school by the storm."
Conway said she hopes many of the evacuees staying in Big Spring elect the West Texas town for their permanent relocation.
"Some people have told me they're never going back to Louisiana, others say they have lives and family they need to get back to."
Big Spring has plenty of room should any evacuees decide to stick around, Conway said.
"We have a hundred (unoccupied) homes here that are (Department of Housing and Urban Development) approved and waiting. For those that want to stay, we will try to get them into a home and for others we will help them relocate."
The walks of life represented by evacuees staying there reminded McEwen of a cross-section of people in Big Spring.
"You've got every walk of life," McEwen said. "We've got an attorney and then we've got some people on welfare -- it runs the gamut."
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