Shelters Weather the Storm

Sept. 1, 2008 — -- This time around, most of the shelters were prepared for the exodus of more than 2 millions evacuees fleeing the onslaught of Hurricane Gustav, according to emergency management personnel and officials.

There were sporadic reports of overcrowded shelters and lack of enough food at some shelters but in general, there was no repeat of the debacle at the Superdome in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when thousands of evacuees starved and grew sick in atrocious conditions.

And tension is building in some shelters where evacuees are already itching to go home, now that the storm has passed through the Gulf States.

Despite a curfew in parts of New Orleans and Baton Rouge and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal's warning that it was too early to return home tomorrow, some evacuees have indicated their plan to return home immediately. In isolated cases, shelter volunteers had to convince some evacuees to stay put.

"Some people are restive and wanting to get home," said Cheryl Michelet, communications director for the department of social services in Baton Rouge. "And folks in shelters have had to tell them, 'It's too early.' They can't stop them but they can warn them about curfews established in some parishes to allow authorities to do damage assessments. When they say strictly enforced, that means you could be arrested for being out in the street."

Bumpy Start: Toilet Problems, Lack of Showers

From Texas to Tennessee, most evacuees were able to find room at shelters run by the Red Cross, Salvation Army, churches and other nonprofit groups.

But things got off to a bumpy start at the critical needs shelter in Bostrup, La., filled with 1400 evacuees squeezed into a former Wal-Mart buildling, with reports that some people weren't being fed and that not enough showers had been set up.

"The buffet line is long but they're running them through the best they can," Morehouse Parish sheriff Mike Tubbs tells ABCNews.com.

"It took some time to set up the showers but that's being worked on, the children's coalition is on hand dealing with the kids and they set up enough cots and special-needs beds for some folks."

Some evacuees were turned away at shelters in Shreveport, where an 800-capacity shelter was full and 1,300 people filled a state fairgrounds.

"Well, they said we couldn't get in because it was overbooked, so they tried to tell us someplace to go, but we don't know nothing about Shreveport," Tamara Williams, an evacuee and Katrina veteran, told ABC News. "Now, we running again and we come here and we got nowhere to go."

Evacuees complained about inadequate shower facilities and surrounded mayor Cedric Glover when he showed up to view conditions at one shelter, a converted former Sam's Club store.

Glover promised to take care of the problem and he also sent work crews to fix the air conditioning and toilets at another shelter in the city housed in the former Sports Mall.

Learning Lessons from Katrina Experience

Some 44,588 evacuees spent the night in more than 300 shelters in 10 states, according to a spokesman for the Red Cross, which deployed 3,000 volunteers and prepared 115,500 cots, 226,000 blankets, 700,000 meals and 119,000 toiletry kits.

"The rumor mill is that the shelters are overloaded, but they're not," says Kendell C. Herbert, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Capitol Region Red Cross. "We definitely have plenty of room at 10 shelters in our four parishes. And there have been no health-related emergencies as far as I know. We're just hunkering down and praying for the best and preparing for the worst."

Herbert emphasizes that her Red Cross chapter made changes in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, preparing food and water in advance and bringing in emergency response professionals from as far away as California last week.