Evacuee Offers Insight On Gustav

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MELISSA BLOCK, host:

Thousands of Gustav evacuees were bused to Shreveport in northwestern Louisiana. It's about 350 miles from New Orleans. About 2,600 of those evacuees are at an old Sam's Club warehouse that's been converted into a state-run shelter.

Wayne Ross arrived there with his fiancé by bus from New Orleans on Saturday night. He says conditions are bad and tempers are wearing thin. Ross says there's no running water, so people are using bottled water to bathe.

Mr. WAYNE ROSS: We don't even have facilities to take a shower. We have to use the sink to wash off, and if you can imagine 2,600 people who has four sinks to a bathroom; for a majority all the toilets are outside, and it's unbearable. Two thousand six hundred people using Porta-Lets on a day-to-day basis is tremendous.

BLOCK: Where are you sleeping?

Mr. ROSS: We're sleeping on the floor here, but they've given us cots to sleep on. I'll give them that. They actually have cots enough to distribute to everyone that wants to sleep on a cot. But it's just - I'm talking - you got tuberculosis or anything else, you're going to get it, you understand what I'm saying?

BLOCK: You're all squeezed in there.

Mr. ROSS: Yes. We're within about two inches away from each other, sleeping. The medical unit here, they will supply you with medication. That's fine on that level, but the human condition is not adequate.

BLOCK: Is there electricity there?

Mr. ROSS: Yeah, we have electricity. It's air on one half of the building, and the other half is not, there's no air, but it's circulating enough to go through the entire building.

The mayor came here yesterday and gave a reassurance that things are going to change, and I think they've got some handicapped Porta-Lets yesterday; that's it. Everybody's just basically living on their own here. Anything can pop off in this place at any given time.

BLOCK: Sounds like a place you'd want to get out of pretty quickly. When have you been told you can go home?

Mr. ROSS: We have no idea.

BLOCK: No idea at all.

Mr. ROSS: Maybe the earliest, maybe from the news maybe, but not from this facility, no one's, you know, talking to us about anything other than they make announcements for names when medications come in. That's it.

BLOCK: Mr. Ross, do you think you made the right choice to evacuate from New Orleans?

Mr. ROSS: Oh, I know I did, but I'm not sure if this was the right choice getting here, but I had no choice. I was being evacuated, you know, so six, half-dozen of the other. I'm where I am, but things can be a lot better. This is not as bad as it could be, but it could be a lot better.

BLOCK: What would be the biggest things that would help, do you think?

Mr. ROSS: One, well, they did make provisions. Now they've got a bus that'll come by and take you somewhere else to go take a shower. That provision just happened today. I've been here since Saturday. What's today now? Wait, Monday or Tuesday?

BLOCK: Tuesday.

Mr. ROSS: Tuesday, okay. That gives you an idea how long I'm thrown off. From what I've seen of the results of the hurricane, I think I did best staying at home, even without electricity and gas and power. I can survive just as easy.

BLOCK: Mr. Ross, thanks very much for taking the time to talk with us. We wish you the best.

Mr. ROSS: I appreciate you even listening to it, and God bless all y'all.

BLOCK: And that's Wayne Ross, an evacuee from New Orleans, speaking to us from the shelter set up at an old Sam's Club warehouse in Shreveport, Louisiana.

We did call the state's emergency operations center for a response about the shelter. We haven't heard anything back yet.

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