Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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Louisiana Refugees Fill Hotels, Churches, Shelters in Texas
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(http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=ECE4C8:3919ACA

Many stranded refugees are now wondering when they will be able to go
home and what they will find when they get there As Hurricane Katrina
approached New Orleans, this past weekend, tens of thousands of people
fled the city, seeking refuge in other parts of of Louisiana and in
eastern Texas. Many of them remain stranded in hotels and shelters now
wondering when they will be able to go home and what they will find
when they get there.







Saint Bernard Parish, Louisiana residents, Lynn Majors, back left, her
son, Jerry, 7, front left, and her sister, Linda Becker, right, take
refuge from Hurricane Katrina at the Lexington Hotel in Houston,
Tuesday Hotels in the states of Louisiana and Mississippi are full and
hotels in southeastern Texas are filling fast, as refugees from
Louisiana come across the border. Almost all the 58,000 hotel rooms in
Houston have been booked, at a time of the year when there are usually
plenty of vacancies.

The Red Cross and Salvation Army charity organizations have set up
several shelters in the Houston area and some local churches are
offering free meals to people who fled Katrina's wrath.

These refugees from a neighboring state left almost everything they
own behind them. These are the people who listened to official calls
to get out ahead of the storm. Some may have saved their lives by
fleeing, but now they sit here anxiously wondering when they will be
able to return and what remains of their homes.

A typical story is the one told VOA in a telephone call from a woman
from New Orleans named Angelle Ziegler, who is now ensconced with more
than 20 members of her extended family at a small motel in La Porte,
Texas, just south of Houston. She says they are divided up in four
rooms, for which they are paying the weekly rate of $400 and using the
little money they have left to buy food.

"We cannot afford $400 a week," she said. "Everybody came with the
money they had and we did not even have time to stop at the banks or
anything to get money. We have paychecks coming in that we cannot cash
because we cannot get them."

It is hard for working people like the Ziegler's to seek charity, but
they are now considering a move to one of the area shelters. There are
ten children in the group and there are no kitchens at the motel to
prepare food for them.

Angelle says her husband had a good job at a shipyard in Gulfport,
Mississippi, a short commute from New Orleans. But Gulfport was also
hit hard by Katrina and there is no way of knowing when he will be
able to work again.

"Just when things were looking up for me and my husband, he is up for
a big promotion," she explained. "He works in Gulfport and Gulfport is
under water. I am in nursing school and I have about 18 months left to
finish. We were looking for a new future for ourselves and it is just
down the drain now, you know."

Angelle and the other refugees from New Orleans also worry about
people they left behind in the Crescent City. One woman in another
room at the motel tells her that her firefighter husband set her on
the road out of town and then went back to work. He may working with
the rescue and relief efforts now, but Angelle says there is no way
for this woman to contact him.

"You cannot get through to New Orleans, any kind of 504-number you
cannot reach, or 985 area code, you cannot call out to that," she
explained. "It [a recording] just tells you that due to the hurricane
everything is down, so she cannot even reach her husband."







Tequita May, 13, sits on a cot as her family settles in at one of the
refugee shelters in Nagadoches, Texas, TuesdayThere are hundreds of
thousands of people from the devastated area now living as refugees in
their own country, awaiting word from loved ones left behind,
wondering how they will make ends meet in the coming weeks and
worrying that they may never fully recover from the ravages of a
monstrous act of nature called Katrina.