Voluntary Evacuation Stands in Texas Coastal City as Hurricane Harvey Nears

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Evacuation remains voluntary in this coastal city as Hurricane Harvey continues to make its way to Texas. Despite the expected severity of the storm, Corpus Christi has not set up public storm shelters.

Hurricane Harvey is expected to reach the Texas coast in the coming hours, leading Governor Greg Abbott to issue a series of declarations for 30 counties expected to receive torrential rains and extremely strong winds. In preparation, multiple jurisdictions issued orders of mandatory evacuation, telling residents to leave their cities since emergency services would not be reliable due to the storm, Breitbart Texas reported.

In Corpus Christi, one of the largest coastal cities, the municipal government set up buses to ferry residents willing to evacuate in a voluntary fashion. The buses for volunteers out of Corpus Christi were set up one hour after surrounding municipalities issued a mandatory order.

Through social media and public service announcements, the City encouraged residents to voluntarily evacuate the area.

The City has not set up any public shelters, but is encouraging citizens to evacuate in a voluntary fashion.

The only private options are the emergency response shelter set up by the Salvation Army and the local Good Samaritan location. Those were quickly filled to capacity, forcing volunteers to turn people away. Residents who have chosen to stay resorted to panicked shopping to stock up on emergency supplies. 

One day before the storm, Mary, a local homeless woman, slept along one of the main boulevards mere yards from the shore.

“I have nowhere to go … every life is important.” Mary said in Spanish. “I slept on the beach, today I don’t know what I’ll do, I didn’t find a bed (shelter). I don’t know what I’ll do. I hope that an abandoned building will be good enough.”

Tony Aranda is a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.