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Busloads of evacuees find room
Published September 24, 2005
Brazoria County officials received word Friday morning that 150 county residents who left on school buses Wednesday had found shelter in Austin.
The residents were taken to College Station through gridlocked traffic, only to be told there was no room there. They were set up in a temporary shelter in Bryan while officials tried to find a place.
Kent Burkett, administrative assistant to Brazoria County Judge John Willy, said the group will leave Bryan at 2 p.m. today with sandwiches and water and go to the Hutto Center in Austin.
Meanwhile, a group of about 50 residents who were turned away from College Station and Conroe on Thursday were making their way to San Antonio’s Randolph Air Force Base.
They were among 127 people in seven school buses that left Thursday and ended up returning via southbound access roads on Interstate 45, arriving at Angleton High School just after midnight. They left for San Antonio about 3 a.m. Friday.
The seven school buses left Brazoria County at noon Thursday bound for College Station, but they were refused shelter there.
At that point, county officials made the call to bring them back to Brazoria County because of concerns some of the passengers with health problems had been sitting in the buses — which do not have air conditioning — for too long.
Before coming home, the buses traveled to Conroe, where they were told all the shelters were full. It is unclear who instructed the drivers to go to Conroe. The buses made much of the return trip on a southbound access road on I-45, which has traffic flowing north on all lanes.
Five of the buses are from Angleton, one is from Clute and one is from Lake Jackson. The people got off the buses at Angleton High School shortly after midnight Friday and were tired, hungry, hot and angry.
“Nobody is telling us anything,” said Melanie Mooney of Clute, who took the bus because she thought her truck wasn’t safe. “I want to go home. I’ve got a 14-month-old baby. I’ve got a 9-year-old daughter.”
Mooney was one of several people who worried they were coming back into the path of a Category 5 hurricane, unaware that Rita had weakened slightly and changed course since they left.
Ralph Adkins fled his home in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approached. He was staying at a hotel when a call for mandatory evacuations came. He took the bus because he didn’t have his own ride.
Adkins said the trip through gridlocked traffic was miserable.
“We couldn’t get nowhere,” he said. “It looked like the end of the world.”
Adkins was traveling with his brother, Bruce, who had hernia surgery a week ago. As he spoke Ralph kept glancing over to Angleton Area Emergency Medical Corps workers examining his brother.
Bruce Adkins had staples from his hernia removed Wednesday.
“Right now I don’t care what happens to us,” Bruce Adkins said.
Charles Wilkinson, 77, of Freeport, exited the bus weary and thirsty. He didn’t understand why the bus was rerouted back to a danger zone on the brink of a Category 4 hurricane.
“Why take you out of a storm and bring you right back,” Wilkinson said.
But after officials announced some school buses would take people to Randolph Air Force Base, Wilkinson decided to reevaluate.
“I’m going to San Antonio. I’m going to get out,” Wilkinson said.
Tracy Trammell, 34, of Clute also decided to go to San Antonio. She sat crying on the curb, waiting to board a bus.
“We’re confused. They’ve told us about six different things already,” Trammell said.
Angleton Police Capt. Katherine Davis said she had great concerns about the bus passengers’ health.
“You’ve got sick people. You’ve got people throwing up. You’ve got diabetics. You’ve got to get them out of there,” Davis said.
Tiffany Brantley of Freeport said passengers were helping other people on the bus.
“One of the ladies, she needed an oxygen bottle and people were helping her change the bottle out,” Brantley said.
Angleton Police Lt. Mike Jones said two nurses were on the scene to greet the buses and a doctor was on call but wasn’t needed.
Brazoria County Sheriff Deputy Phil Tolbert, who drove one of the buses, said despite the travails he was impressed by how calm and polite his passengers remained.
County and city officials were frustrated as they tried to find a shelter for the people. During a 10:30 p.m. conference call Thursday, a state emergency management official instructed cities not to turn anyone away, but to call the state if they didn’t have room.
Shortly after that, state officials specifically told Angleton police not to turn the bus around, Davis said. But by then it was already in Brazoria County. They had left Conroe at about 10:30 p.m. Thursday.
The passengers were greeted with food and water that Angleton police officers and staff put together when they learned the buses were coming back, then loaded back on the buses for trips home if they wished.
Some weren’t planning on testing Hurricane Rita.
Darnell Williams of Angleton said he was going to catch a Greyhound bus if he could.
“I want to get out of here,” Williams said.
The seven buses of Brazoria County residents originally headed north at 1 p.m. Thursday, said Brazoria County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Randy Rhyne.
With thousands of motorists stranded on Interstate 45, 36 hours after the mandatory evacuation was called for Brazoria County, the shelters were filling up quickly, said Beth Traxler, an operator for the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department. The Red Cross opened the doors of Conroe schools and churches to anyone fleeing from Hurricane Rita late Thursday.
“All of the shelters are full here and only two are left in Magnolia, one in Porter and some in Huntsville,” Traxler said. “By the time anyone stranded in Conroe reaches them, they will probably be full too.”
Facts reporter Lucretia Fernandez contributed to this story.
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