The hurricanes that slammed into the Texas, Louisiana, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast in 2005 resulted in the displacement of nearly a million people.1 Among the evacuees were residents with special needs, residents of nursing homes, and group home residents with mental retardation and physical disability. With very little warning, shelters had to be created in an East Texas community in anticipation of the arrival of an unknown number of evacuees.
In late August 2005, approximately 4 shelters were opened for persons being evacuated from New Orleans owing to the damage from Hurricane Katrina. Before the shelters closed from Hurricane Katrina, a second hurricane, Rita, hit the Southeast Texas coast area, necessitating more evacuations to safer communities hundreds of miles inland. Despite being saturated with Katrina evacuees, the East Texas area soon began to receive Hurricane Rita evacuees as well. Some Louisiana evacuees who had sought shelter in the South Texas Gulf Coast region were relocated again because of the threats from Hurricane Rita.
