Texas coast evacuees -- from both the northern and southern beaches -- again are making their way along evacuation routes to seek shelter in Brazos County, where hotels were nearly booked through the weekend by late Tuesday.

Hurricane Ike even has reshuffled Friday night football for schools in the Brazos Valley as officials moved the games up to Thursday.

Emergency management officials Tuesday afternoon celebrated the grand opening of their new headquarters in downtown Bryan, then got back to the business of preparing for what Hurricane Ike might bring to its doorstep.

The frustration for planners is that forecasters can't yet predict where along the coast the dangerous weather will strike -- some models have it going to the southern tip of Texas, and others show it raging near Galveston. Most agree that the Category 1 hurricane with winds of up to 80 mph will strengthen before making landfall by late Friday.

"No one knows right now, and so it's a sit-and-wait situation," said Jay Socol, a spokesman for College Station-based Texas Task Force 1, the state's primary urban search-and-rescue team, whose members late Tuesday were sleeping on cots at its headquarters in south Brazos County. "The emergency responders are ready to go, but it looks like we won't know in which direction until tomorrow."

It's a drill local authorities and volunteers are getting somewhat used to. Hurricane Gustav filled the 3,700 local hotel rooms last week while church shelters took in several hundred evacuees, mainly from Beaumont and Louisiana.

That's when Texas A&M prepared Reed Arena as a special-needs center for hundreds as doctors from Rhode Island flew in to help. As it turned out, only one patient and family members stayed there, but officials aren't discounting the possibility of many more this time around. Officials said 250 beds would be readied Wednesday.

"We just don't know because of the uncertainty with the hurricane," said Sherylon Carroll, associate vice president for marketing and communications at A&M. "We're preparing for the worst and really hoping for the best."

Texas A&M students are encouraged to go to class early or use alternative transportation Wednesday and Thursday and possibly Friday because Transportation Services will take five buses to the campus of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Wednesday to evacuate 175 students and bring them to the College Station campus.

Officials said that students should be aware that there will be fewer buses on Routes 1, 3, 4 and 36.

Alison Smith, director of information and referral services for 211 Texas/United Way locally, said her agency would work regardless of where the storm goes because it's a statewide information and referral network.

"It's become second nature for us to get into this mode during hurricane season," she said. "Our job is to constantly update information for our callers. Things develop and things change. Even if the hurricane doesn't send evacuees and bad weather doesn't come to Bryan-College Station, 211 will still be responding and answering calls in the coming days.

"We've already seen an increase just today," she said. More than 3,000 calls related to Ike were received across Texas by Tuesday afternoon.

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Posted by: Concerned On: 9/10/2008

Comment Title: Please dont come!!!
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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