Today we had about 8 families visit our ward - Louisiana refugees fleeing Hurricane Gustav. Our bishop encouraged us to open our homes; and, the response was so overwhelming that they held a sort of lottery to see who was able to invite a family over for Sunday dinner. I was one of the lucky winners :) It was a young couple with a 6 month old baby. It seems their company brought their families to the Dallas/Fort Worth area and is putting them up in area hotels. The husbands will continue working, albeit remotely.
It was just my son and I since my wife is in California with my daughter - who gave birth to my newest granddaughter on Wednesday (mother and daughter are doing fine). We scrapped our dinner plans and I found some pork chops in the freezer which I thawed and threw on the grill. In talking with them, turns out, the husband is friends with one of my sons former mission companions - OK, every sing with me now "it's a small world after all ..."
Anyway, it was fun. Our local newspaper said that they are expecting as many as 45,000 refugees from Louisiana in just the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We're far enough North that Gustav will have little effect on us - other than bringing in a lot of warm humid air up from the gulf and chance of rain on Wednesday.
During Katrina, we had a lot of people stay in San Angelo. I know the air force base there has been evacuated, and they were moved to Goodfellow, here in San Angelo.
ReplyDeleteI imagine that is going to be hectic for the eastern side of Texas though. I heard that during Katrina, they made I-35 one way only. ugh :(