More hurricane evacuees from Louisiana making their way to North Texas
MESQUITE, Texas - Hurricane Laura has been blamed for 14 deaths, and the city of Lake Charles, Louisiana was hit the hardest.
The mayor there said that along with power problems, water treatment plants were damaged.
That means some homes are only seeing a trickle of water out of faucets.
Some evacuees who temporarily left Lake Charles are now staying here in North Texas.
It's been a difficult journey for hurricane evacuees as they waited in their cars overnight in hopes of getting shelter and food.
“As of right now, we don't know. Hopefully, maybe a week or so,” said Megan Goodly, who evacuated from Lake Charles. “A lot of people lost a lot of things.”
As the sun came up Friday morning, the line of cars at the state-run receiving center in Mesquite continued to grow.
A lot of folks came from hard-hit Lake Charles, and some of them let after Laura made landfall.
“A lot of cleanup that has to be done. They've got to check the grid to make sure electricity and water. All of that in going to have to be in play before we can even think of moving back,” said Kevin Piert, who evacuated from Lake Charles.
“I have a tree on the house, a tree on my car, a lot of trees in the yard. A lot of debris everywhere,” said Leodis Carter, who evacuated from Lake Charles.
The category four storm left entire neighborhoods in ruins, and almost 900,000 homes and businesses without power. It also sent large numbers of evacuees to the Lone Star State for help.
“From looking at the pictures, I've got a lot of damage, but I don't know how much because I haven't been there,” said Kimberly Wright, who evacuated from Lake Charles. “The area is so bad. I'm sure that mine is just as bad as everyone else's around there.”
The Texas National Guard is giving hurricane evacuees food vouchers and a hotel voucher good through the weekend.
Rooms have been difficult to come by, with growing demand leading to long lines at the processing center.
As of Friday, Dallas County officials said they had provided hotel rooms to more than 2,000 people.
The city of Frisco is sheltering another 2,200.
Those numbers are expected to rise through the weekend.
“It takes you down because you have nowhere to go at this point. You don't know what you're going to do,” Wright said.
Other cities, like Fort Worth, Richardson, and Irving, are also providing hotel rooms.
Many are making COVID-19 tests available for evacuees as well.