“If you have to shelter people, how do you keep them safe during a pandemic?” asked Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston. “It’s enough of a challenge in regular times.”
The coronavirus pandemic has thrown a new twist on emergency preparedness in Texas as officials prepare for Hurricane Laura to make landfall as soon as Wednesday. The state is trying to evacuate residents in high-risk areas in a socially distanced manner, Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news briefing on Tuesday. Officials are encouraging evacuees to head for hotels where they can self-isolate instead of potentially crowded evacuation centers. The state is also providing protective equipment, such as masks, as well as Covid-19 testing services at shelter locations. “We are responding to Hurricane Laura while also responding to a pandemic,” Abbott said. “And we are not taking our eye off of what needs to be done to adequately respond to the pandemic, so several things are being done as we assist those who are evacuating that’s different from what has been done in the past.” Hundreds of thousands of Texas residents have been instructed to evacuate the cities of Galveston and Port Arthur, Abbott said, as well as Jasper, Jefferson, Newton and Orange counties. Still others were told to flee in parts of southwestern Louisiana, which is also expected to be struck by the hurricane. Abbott said more evacuation notices could come. The storm is projected to become a Category 3 hurricane before it makes landfall, Abbott said, adding that “it could increase to be a Category 4 hurricane.
