Hurricane evacuees find Dothan

Three years ago, Kirby and Jennifer Houck packed up the kids and left Slidell, La., finding refuge from Hurricane Katrina in Memphis, where they didn’t feel so safe after all.

“There are parts of Memphis that are scary,” Kirby Houck said.

This time, they came to Dothan — a smaller and they believe, safer, community.

“I knew the Dothan area,” Kirby said. “I used to travel through here with my job. I looked at the track of the hurricane and knew this would be far enough east.”

The couple and their three sons, Ben Faure, 16, Charlie Faure, 14, and Johnathan Houck, 7, arrived separately with Jennifer leaving Louisiana early Sunday morning with the children; her husband joined the family Sunday night.

“It looks like this time it is mostly rain,” Kirby said.

Monday the family walked around Wiregrass Commons Mall, watched The Weather Channel in their hotel room at the La Quinta Inn, planned a trip to Adventureland for later on, talked to friends who stayed in Louisiana, and located Wal-Mart.

“I’m bored,” Johnathan said.

New Orleans-area schools closed Monday in observance of Labor Day and are closed Tuesday and Wednesday, Jennifer said, so the boys are a little antsy.

Not having enough to do, the family agreed, is the only bad thing about a 3- or 4-day stay in Dothan, but being in Dothan has allowed Kirby to continue his work as a field manager for TravelCenters of America. Kirby said four of the company’s truck stops on I-10 are closed.

“I do know some people who were not leaving,” Kirby said. “Anything we left behind can be replaced.”

Vehicles with Louisiana license plates were seen all over town Monday, and most Hurricane Gustav evacuees found rooms at local hotels. Rhonda Duncan, guest services manager at the Holiday Inn South, said 101 of the hotel’s 103 rented rooms are occupied by those fleeing the storm.

“I’d say 99.9 percent are from Louisiana,” she said. “They came in Sunday and are staying for two or three nights. They are watching the weather to see when they can go home. It’s funny — they are neighbors, all four and five hours away from home.”

Monday afternoon the Governor’s office reported 12,200 evacuees had sought shelter in Alabama shelters. The state opened up its community colleges as shelters but only about 10 found Wallace Community College.

Nancy Rak and her teenage daughter, Bethany, were among them. Rak was living in Florida when Katrina hit, and was in the process of relocating to Panama City to take a job with a government contractor. The hurricane put her job on hold, so she came to the Wiregrass seeking work. She lived a short time in Headland and in Texas, but now is in Baldwin County in a former FEMA trailer used by Katrina evacuees.

“My daughter says, ‘Mommy, I want to go home.’ and I said, ‘Where is home?’ We have been in two trailers and have lived all over. I think she just wants a house,” Rak said.

She hopes the two, and their eight cats, can pack back into the Chevrolet Cavalier wagon and go back home today. Rak has a temporary position there as a clerk.

She, too, watches the weather, and awaits the all clear.

Local Alabama National Guard units, fire, law enforcement and emergency management workers and Dothan Utilities workers had been on standby Monday, but as of early Monday night, they were not called out.

The Dothan Canteen of The Salvation Army was dispatched to Hammond, La. Monday afternoon, according to a press release from The Salvation Army Divisional Center in Mississippi.

Alabama’s Electrical Cooperatives sent 150 linemen to sister cooperatives in Mississippi and Louisiana, according to the Alabama Rural Electric Association.