Evacuees from Hurricane Laura are having to move to new hotels as Dallas' contract with 30 hotels ran out Wednesday. The state is consolidating evacuees at three hotels: the Crowne Plaza, Hilton Anatole and Hyatt Regency.
Mayor Eric Johnson says hotels in Dallas held 1,128 evacuees, but the city expects up to 5,000 evacuees who need a place to stay.
"Dallas is a welcoming city," he says. "This has, without a doubt, been a challenging year for you. We want to make this latest transition as easy and as comfortable for you as we possibly can."
Dallas' emergency management director, Rocky Vaz, says the state has 2,000 rooms under contract at the three hotels, but just 900 people had checked in through Wednesday afternoon.
"We fully expect all these rooms that are under contract with the state will be filled, and we'll have around four or five thousand people who will be staying at these hotels," Vaz says.
While the latest contract is with the state, Vaz says Dallas will continue working with non-profits to provide services to evacuees, such as hygiene products, baby formula and diapers.
"We, as the city, state and county, working collaboratively with volunteer organizations such as the Red Cross, are stepping up to meet those basic needs," Vaz says. "Anything they need to make their stay a little bit more comfortable."
Vaz says almost all of the evacuees are from Louisiana; most areas of Texas have reopened. He expects evacuees to stay for at least another ten days because many parishes in Louisiana still have no power or running water.
"A lot of our landlords are just putting up eviction notices, telling us it's not safe," one woman said while waiting for her room at the Hyatt Regency. "Y'all are going to have a lot of Louisiana people moving to Texas."
Evacuees must check in at new hotels by 3 p.m. Thursday.
