Published: September 02, 2008 10:05 am      

Evacuees take up temporary residence in Oklahoma

OKLAHOMA CITY — Sherman Morgan has had enough of hurricanes.

The 57-year-old oil refinery worker from New Orleans has tried to ride out storms before and chose to evacuate this time, before Hurricane Gustav hit Louisiana. But now he wants to move — somewhere he can find a job and there aren't any hurricanes.

"It's been one too many," he said Monday.

Morgan is one of 1,800 or so evacuees who have taken up temporary residence inside a west Oklahoma City shelter. The Salvation Army and the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma are providing meals, and Oklahoma City Police Sgt. Paco Balderrama said local businesses, service agencies and churches are providing donations and volunteers.

"We're honored to be able to serve them during this time," Oklahoma City Vice Mayor Larry McAtee said.

Most of the evacuees are trying to make the best of the situation, and authorities and volunteers who have been working inside the shelter say there have been surprisingly few negative incidents, considering the circumstances.

That doesn't mean those who ended up in Oklahoma City aren't frustrated with their predicament. Morgan, who rode out Hurricane Katrina three years ago, said he understands why some chose to do the same with Gustav, which made landfall Monday as a Category 2 storm — much weaker than forecasters had feared.

"People have been there all their lives, and they didn't want to leave," he said. "I've got a home that I've worked hard for, all of the sudden, they're telling me to grab what you can carry, because you've got to go. A lot of people don't want to listen to that."

Morgan said he's tired of dealing with such hassles, hence his plan to find somewhere else to live. Told Oklahoma has a booming energy sector, he said, "I might end up here. ... Somebody told me there are jobs up here."

He said he's grateful for the way Oklahomans have welcomed the evacuees. That's a sentiment shared by Yvonne Taylor of Lake Charles, La., who made it a point Monday to walk over to where media members were gathered to ask them to pass along a simple message: "Thank you. ... We are just glad to be here."

Taylor said that when she and her 7-year-old daughter, La'Myia, boarded a bus to evacuate, they had no idea where they would be taken. But she said she's glad they ended up where they did.

"It's organized," she said of the shelter, calling that a noticeable contrast to three years ago, when she said the Louisiana shelter she went to during Hurricane Katrina experienced "total chaos."

She said she particularly appreciated the stringent security measures which authorities have implemented at the Oklahoma City shelter, which included color-coded wristbands and a strong police presence. Oklahoma City Police Sgt. Paco Balderrama said there are enough uniformed officers at the shelter that if anyone needs help, "it's just a shout away."

Wearing her nursing scrubs, the 35-yer-old Taylor said she wanted to do what she could to help while she was in Oklahoma, either at a hospital or inside the shelter.

"We don't know how long we're going to be here and I don't want to sit down," she said. "I want to work."

How long it will be before evacuees can return home is still in question. By early Tuesday, Gustav had been downgraded to a tropical storm, with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph. The National Weather Service said the storm was slowly moving northwest but should continue to weaken.

Still, its remnants are expected to bring rainfall of between 6 and 12 inches to portions of Louisiana, southern Arkansas, northeastern Texas and southeastern Oklahoma, and it is expected to have a major impact on Oklahoma's weather throughout the week.

Frank Barnes of the Oklahoma City Office of Emergency Management said state and local emergency management officials are in contact with their counterparts in Louisiana. He said storm damage in that state must be assessed before it can be determined when, or if, people can return to their homes there.

He said the Oklahoma City shelter could remain operational "for at least a couple of weeks."

Those in the shelter aren't the only hurricane evacuees in Oklahoma. About 100 patients evacuated from southwest Louisiana hospitals began arriving at Will Rogers World Airport on Sunday aboard air transports provided through the National Disaster Medical System. Additional patients were expected.

An estimated 2 million people left their flood-prone homes along the Gulf Coast in advance of the dangerous storm already blamed for the deaths of 94 people in the Caribbean.

Gov. Brad Henry has declared a state of emergency as a precursor for requesting federal disaster assistance to help Oklahoma care for evacuees.

Three years ago, about 1,500 evacuees were housed for up to a month at Camp Gruber, an Oklahoma National Guard training center near Braggs in northeast Oklahoma, after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. Another 2,000 were served by a hurricane assistance center in Oklahoma City.