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Katrina Victims in Arkansas


Mith242

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I know at the beginning there were many people staying in hotels all across southern Arkansas even up towards Little Rock. Although I'm not sure if many of those people have stuck around or not. I've heard that some Arkansas cities have opened their convention centers and such to help shelter Katrina victims. Haven't heard any figures on any of those types of places. But I'd have to think that Fort Chaffee will end up with the most. When it's all said and done they plan to house 20,000 at Fort Chaffee near Ft Smith. I can't I'd heard of any large amounts of victims here in northwest Arkansas. But I am proud to mention that it here in northwest Arkansas where a website was set up to help victims. Not positive on the name but it was something like 'share a home', where people can sign up to take in people into their homes. Last time I heard on Friday or Saturday the website had 40,000 hits. Of course many people are in Texas now and I think I've heard a number of them are in Tennessee also. Arkansas may not be a very big or rich state, but it's great to see us do what we can to help our neighbors to the south.

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I know at the beginning there were many people staying in hotels all across southern Arkansas even up towards Little Rock.  Although I'm not sure if many of those people have stuck around or not.  I've heard that some Arkansas cities have opened their convention centers and such to help shelter Katrina victims.  Haven't heard any figures on any of those types of places.  But I'd have to think that Fort Chaffee will end up with the most.  When it's all said and done they plan to house 20,000 at Fort Chaffee near Ft Smith.  I can't I'd heard of any large amounts of victims here in northwest Arkansas.  But I am proud to mention that it here in northwest Arkansas where a website was set up to help victims.  Not positive on the name but it was something like 'share a home', where people can sign up to take in people into their homes.  Last time I heard on Friday or Saturday the website had 40,000 hits.  Of course many people are in Texas now and I think I've heard a number of them are in Tennessee also.  Arkansas may not be a very big or rich state, but it's great to see us do what we can to help our neighbors to the south.

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It's a good idea to register your home if you have room. I've heard of 10,000 people in hotel rooms in Memphis. They will soon be running out of money for that and be forced to go to the shelters.

I've registered my house up here in Minnesota---it's a looong days drive, but better than 3 months in a shelter.

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4000 in Chaffee, not 20k. Barton Coliseum in LR has a bunch and there are a lot in the hotels. I heard some of the restaurants were giving out free meals, including Bosco's - an upscale restaurant in the River Market.

Dallas is jam-packed. Reunion Arena has 10k refugees and the Dallas and Ft Worth Convention Centers are full as well. Hotels all over town are booked. Hospitals are full of the evacuated.

Lots of restaurants are giving out free meals to refugees and Magic Johnson apparently got them all free movie passes and free food at McDonald's. DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) is letting them ride free.

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4000 in Chaffee, not 20k.  Barton Coliseum in LR has a bunch and there are a lot in the hotels. I heard some of the restaurants were giving out free meals, including Bosco's - an upscale restaurant in the River Market.

Dallas is jam-packed.  Reunion Arena has 10k refugees and the Dallas and Ft Worth Convention Centers are full as well.  Hotels all over town are booked.  Hospitals are full of the evacuated.

Lots of restaurants are giving out free meals to refugees and Magic Johnson apparently got them all free movie passes and free food at McDonald's.  DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) is letting them ride free.

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Yeah I later heard Fort Chaffee is supposed to process everyone in Arkansas then they'll be sent around to other areas of the state. The total number being processed is expected to be around 20,000. Sounds like they got 8,000 the first day at Fort Chaffee.

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Yeah I later heard Fort Chaffee is supposed to process everyone in Arkansas then they'll be sent around to other areas of the state.  The total number being processed is expected to be around 20,000.  Sounds like they got 8,000 the first day at Fort Chaffee.

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Right, they had an overflow of some 5,000 people. I just read that.

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Arkansas' closeness has helped it become a center for people that have been affected by Katrina. Most estimates I have seen have it around 60,000 at the time being with it expected to probably increase to 75,000 to 100,000. Only Texas seems to have taken in more people, of course it's a lot bigger state than we are too. It took a little while but we're starting to get more and more people up here in northwest Arkansas. I'm curious to see what kind of impact all of this will have for Arkansas. It actually could end up being a good thing for northwest Arkansas. We will now have more people to help fill jobs in our area. before all of this happened there was actual talk of bussing people from Ft Smith to help fill jobs at some of the factories up here. One economist even said some of these people coming in might be able to get better higher paying jobs than what they had before. I'm also curious to see how many people will end up staying in Arkansas. Some people will obviously go back when they are able but there are also people who don't seem eager to go back. I've already seen people interviewed on tv in the area that said they weren't going back. Not only that but they were trying to get the rest of their extended families into northwest Arkansas because they've been happy with what they've seen.

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I would like to say one thing,

THANK YOU ARKANSAS

Guys, it is really bad down here...it really is.

I rode out the storm and stayed in Covington for a week before coming up here to Baton Rouge to stay with some friends.

Seeing these poor people in New Orleans and in all of SE Louisiana I realize how important it is that states are helping house the evacuees.

BTW, I was driving through Baton Rouge the other day, and I saw a convoy of power trucks(at least 20) from Conway, Arkansas. I believe that is a suburb of Little Rock, please correct me if I am wrong.

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I would like to say one thing,

THANK YOU ARKANSAS

Guys, it is really bad down here...it really is.

I rode out the storm and stayed in Covington for a week before coming up here to Baton Rouge to stay with some friends.

Seeing these poor people in New Orleans and in all of SE Louisiana I realize how important it is that states are helping house the evacuees.

BTW, I was driving through Baton Rouge the other day, and I saw a convoy of power trucks(at least 20) from Conway, Arkansas. I believe that is a suburb of Little Rock, please correct me if I am wrong.

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It is, a town of 55k 25 miles north of Little Rock.

Glad to hear you're hanging in there. Things will change but New Orleans will be back and it might end up being a better place overall. Hope all your friends and family are safe.

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Just glad you're doing okay NCB. I hope this will help forge better ties between our states. I've also noticed Wal-mart actually getting some pretty good press from how they handled the situation. People down there have even stated that if the government had handled the situation like Wal-mart had things would have been so much better.

I have wondered how things will end up around the New Orleans area. It doesn't sound like everyone will go back. It will take some time but I figure New Orleans will be back up on it's feet. At least after something like this has happened you'd thing they will be much better prepared for any future disasters. I've also wondered if maybe they could try to raise some areas of New Orleans above sea level. Although I'm not sure if any buildings were hit badly enough to condemn and perhaps rebuilt and raise any areas of New Orleans.

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Not sure how many Katrina victims are staying in Pine Bluff, but if they can get some of them to stay them maybe they can finally get a little population growth after all these years of decline. Now I know most of the people that have left Lousiana aren't cajun but it's too bad Pine Bluff couldn't get back some of it's French presence back. Pine Bluff used to have a small French population back in the 1800's. There are still a number of streets with French names around the downtown area. But of course it never developed like New Orleans and never got any type of "French Quarter' or anything like that.

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Governor Huckabee got an interesting call today. Apparently FEMA called and wanted to know if Arkansas had gotten any evacuees from Katrina. Of course he had to tell them we had around 75,000, second only to Texas. Nice to see that FEMA is finally on top of everything that's going on now.

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Apparently Little Rock had offered to host New Orleans Saints games but were turned down. Little Rock did have the advantage of being closer to Lousiana than some of the other cities but I think War Memorial Stadium wasn't considered good enough to host NFL games. I have been surprised that I haven't heard Little Rock trying to host the Hornet's games. Alltel Arena is a pretty nice arena and Little Rock would be closer to Lousiana than some of the other cities that have offered to host games like Kansas City and Nashville.

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Don't know if any of you caught it but Arkansas had a 2.5% population increase due to Katrina evacuation, CNN wrote a nice article about it other than calling us a "poor state" twice.  We took more evacuees per capita than any other state.

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Unfortunately I missed it but it is nice that someone has finally noticed us. From what I hear Arkansas hasn't even recieved any federal funds yet for all of this whereas Texas has gotten funds twice already. But they have taken the largest amount in, but they are also more able to handle it better also than Arkansas. I'm still wondering how many people will end up staying here in Arkansas. With the job market here in northwest Arkansas I think there's a good chance we'll keep a fair percentage of the evacuees up here. Haven't heard much about the rest of the state. Anyone have anything to say on how things are going in the rest of the state with the evacuees?

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Arkansas has done what it could to keep people out of large groups and camps but we do have 400 people in a church camp near Siloam Springs in Benton County. The problem is that it's a summer camp and it isn't set up for heating. It does appear to be warming up again but we did have that cool spell over the weekend. Fayetteville got down to 50 one morning. While people around here are used to it many people from New Orleans aren't. There has been talk of trying to 'winterize' the camp. But seeing that Arkansas' share of federal money seems to keep going to Texas and we haven't gotten much I'm not sure anyone is going to have the money for it. So they're looking to try to find other areas for them, hopefully homes. Things have warmed back up again so it might be a little while before this becomes a problem again. Fall does officially start later this week although that doesn't always mean a whole lot to Arkansas. But northern Arkansas is most likely to start cooling off before everyone else.

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Looks like even more evacuees are on their way to Arkansas now. Some evacuees that went to Texas are now being relocated to Arkansas to avoid hurricane Rita. I've seen several others mention some frustration and I've tried to steer away from that. I hated to mention anything because I didn't want to give people the idea that Arkansas should get more attention. Because we're obviously helping the evacuees because it's the right thing to do, not to get attention and such. Texas so far has gotten most of the attention and granted they have taken in the most. Although I've noticed recently Oklahoma seems to also be getting attention now even though Arkansas has taken in more than everyone but Texas. But I guess even more frustrating is that Texas seems to be getting most of the funds. It would seem Texas would be able to shoulder it better than Arkansas. Even worse though is that it seems many of the evacuees here in Arkansas aren't getting the help from FEMA they should. Evacuees seem to have a better chance to get federal aid if they are in Texas rather than Arkansas. Hopefully this will change soon because apparently President Bush will be visiting evacuee areas here in Arkansas on Friday or Saturday.

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Just a few changes to my previous post. President Bush won't be coming to Arkansas just yet because of hurricane Rita. Arkansas has started getting more federal funds for the Katrina victims. But it still remains a small fraction of what Texas is receiving. Maybe Bush is making sure his state gets taken care of first. Although it looks like Texas is going to need more money after Rita hits their state.

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So what's new?

Hmmm...we've picked up some more evacuees from Rita, but I don't think that many came to Arkansas from what I've heard. Federal money is coming to Arkansas but not very quickly and not much compared to some states like Texas. I don't think many populated areas were hit too badly from Rita so I doubt many people that did come to Arkansas to escape Rita will be staying long.

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Well things are getting a little more complicated here in northwest Arkansas. I believe there are still people that need to find more suitable housing from the church summer camp near Siloam Springs. Especially since they are predicting some low 40's as lows later in the week. There's also been people that have been staying in hotels since Katrina and now the rooms have been reserved for the BBB Festival this weekend. Some of which were reserved about a year ago. There's also 2,000 more evacuees that have arrived at Ft Chaffee. Many of which are Katrina evacuees that had been finding shelter in southwest Louisiana and have had to move again after Rita.

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Well things are getting a little more complicated here in northwest Arkansas. I believe there are still people that need to find more suitable housing from the church summer camp near Siloam Springs. Especially since they are predicting some low 40's as lows later in the week. There's also been people that have been staying in hotels since Katrina and now the rooms have been reserved for the BBB Festival this weekend. Some of which were reserved about a year ago. There's also 2,000 more evacuees that have arrived at Ft Chaffee. Many of which are Katrina evacuees that had been finding shelter in southwest Louisiana and have had to move again after Rita.

Hard to believe that a month after the storm, evacuees are still staying in some sort of "camps", rather than regular housing with heat and normal facilities--even trailers would do.

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Hard to believe that a month after the storm, evacuees are still staying in some sort of "camps", rather than regular housing with heat and normal facilities--even trailers would do.

True, although with the way the weather has been I don't think that has proved to be too much of an issue. I'm not sure if is more of an issue of finding enough places for them to stay because of the housing market here or what.

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