» All along the coastline, people wrestle with whether to stay put or flee from Laura.
In coastal communities, importance of evacuating was made clear by previous storms
COASTAL TEXAS — Seventeen-year-old Anna Cao and her mom began packing up pictures and clothes in their Oak Island home Tuesday morning. Watching Hurricane Laura updates worried them; Hurricane Ike in 2008 reduced their previous home here to rubble.
By the time Chambers County officials issued a mandatory evacuation for theirs and other low-lying areas later that day, they were relieved for the chance to say to Cao’s dad, a fisherman: We have to go.
“I’m glad we’re evacuating,” said Cao, standing in the driveway in front of their new home while her sister hauled out blankets. “I’m pretty sure the house is going to get blown away again.”
All along the southeast Texas coastline Tuesday as Hurricane Laura neared, people wrestled with the same decision of whether to stay or go. But in at least five east Texas counties under mandatory evacuations, plus portions of two more, many settled on go.
From Galveston, south of Houston, to Orange on the
Louisiana border, people Tuesday hurried to make final preparations and get out of town. They shut their businesses or left work early. They picked up around their homes and packed. They gassed up or boarded government-sponsored buses that joined the traffic headed elsewhere.
Fred Collins, 61, hung plywood over the windows of the Donut Palace in Orange, then intended to high-tail it to Dallas.
“They said leave,” Collins said. “so I’m leaving.”
Store owner Maggie Mao was leaving too — unnerved by the eerie sense of a storm bearing down and planning to head to Houston.
“Last time we got the end part of it,” Mao said of the last strong storm, Imelda, that routed the east Texas Gulf coast in 2019. “But now, this time, who knows? Better to leave.”
For many in these areas, concern centered on what may be Hurricane Laura’s Category 3 strength winds and a significant storm surge. Officials issuing mandatory evacuations — in place Tuesday in Orange, Jefferson, Hardin, Newton and Jasper counties — stressed it meant that those who stayed did so at their own risk.
“We’re giving you the best information that we have,” said Galveston County Judge Mark Henry, who issued a mandatory evacuation for Bolivar Peninsula. “You are most likely going to be cut off, you are most likely going to lose power, you are most likely going to be very uncomfortable… hopefully that’s as bad as it gets.”
Voluntary evacuations were also issued throughout the region, including in Harris County communities of Deer Park, Friendswood and League City.
“All of us need to be prepared for the very real potential of a direct hit from this storm,” County Judge Lina Hidalgo said.
In a storm-weary region where residents have experienced the gamut of hurricanes, from catastrophic hits to sigh-of-relief misses, many needed no more encouragement to get out than memories of Hurricane Ike, which tore through homes in Bolivar and Chambers County with winds and surge like those discussed now with Laura.
Others felt even more motivation to leave because they had children or struggled to get around themselves or just plain didn’t want to deal with it.
Sharon Johnson, 66, didn’t want to leave Orange but felt she couldn’t risk staying because she cannot drive and requires a walker most of the time.
“I’ve got no one to check on me,” Johnson said, hugging a large shopping bag of belongings she grabbed to take with her. “It’s just not safe for me to stay.”
For Ethel Henderson, who waited to board a bus in the city of Galveston and remembered sharing a home with 25 others because of Ike, it was more straightforward.
“I ain’t playing with this,” she said.
At Broadway Discount Furniture, where Gabriel Medellin and two friends filled bags with sand and stacked them at the store’s entrance, a faded water line served as a reminder of the storm that left dozens dead and caused billions in damage.
“We’re in a low level in Galveston; anything can just come over the seawall and just knock us out of place,” said Medellin, who grew up there and delivers furniture for the store. “It’s all about just being prepared and everyone working together, being civilized about it and working together to get us out of here.”
In Oak Island, where homes are now rebuilt high up on stilts, 57-year-old Billie Jean Hisler recalled returning after Hurricane Ike to find the home where she grew up destroyed and the area littered with debris. She could still remember the smell of decay.
She left then and on Tuesday she found herself resigned to packing up again.
But she wasn’t leaving just yet, she said.
“I’ve got a lot to do before I leave,” she said.