KLAS-TV Channel 8 News Las VegasCambridge Community Center Readys For Evacuees
Contact Reporter Edward Lawrence
FEMA announced today they are finished sending hurricane evacuees to Nevada. Las Vegas was gearing up to receive at least 200 more people from the Gulf Coast. Evacuees arriving on their own still need to go to the Fertitta Center .
(Sept. 9) -- Las Vegas is gearing up to receive at least 200 more evacuees from the Gulf Coast. There is no official word from FEMA when or even if they will arrive, but Nevada is third on the list of states that will take the displaced families.
This community center just off the Las Vegas Strip at Flamingo and Cambridge is being prepared for an influx of people. Two days ago Clark County closed the center to the public and has been converting it into an evacuee-processing center.
Inside the Cambridge Community Center you won't find community groups or any community activities. You will find an assembly line of services being set up. There's a registration area and a communication area so evacuees can send a message to loved ones who may be searching.
Assistant Clark County Manager Darryl Martin is in charge of the relief effort. "All the services that we have at the Fertitta Center, Red Cross, social service, school district, immunization shots. Everything that we have there will be here."
Each evacuee will receive a map to help acquaint them with their new home. Martin adds, "It's a bigger facility where we can have more services here. We can handle the two to three hundred people if they come." The gym floor has been covered for protection. Cots stand ready to be set up in the gym, just in case. The idea is not to use the cots if possible.
Clark County officials saw the overwhelming amount of people flooding the Houston area; they want to make sure they don't get caught underestimating the amount of sleeping areas needed. Martin says, "We have 195 hotel rooms available to us already. If we get the 200 evacuees, we are covered."
More than 800 Gulf Coast evacuees have already been through the Fertitta Community Center. In some cases that process took more than six hours, frustrating those who already lost everything.
Martin responds, "We did not know that the population was so huge that was already coming. We would have been better prepared. We just didn't know. So we learned a lot. It's going to be a quick process. It's going to be a fast process. We want people to get in here, get triaged, and get to a hotel room so they can relax and be in privacy for the first time in a week and a half."
At the end of the day, Clark County Commissioner Myrna Williams is proud of Martin and this community. "God forbid something happens to us. I would hope the rest of the country would respond the way we have responded."
If we get more evacuees arriving at McCarran Airport, the plane will be taxied to the cargo area. Paramedics will board the plane to handle immediate medical needs. Then the group will go to the McCarran quick care for a check up. Finally the Cambridge Community Center to be processed.
If Gulf Coast evacuees make their own way to Las Vegas they should still go to the Fertitta Community Center. The Cambridge center is only for FEMA flown in evacuees.
