As the Louisiana Department of Children and Family Services is preparing to consolidate evacuated flood victims at the Baton Rouge River Center shelter later this week, downtown leaders are gearing up for the changes that will come from having several hundred temporary residents—maybe more, initially—housed in the exhibition hall for the foreseeable future.
DCFS Deputy Secretary Terri Ricks says the some 433 evacuees who have been sheltered at Celtic Media Centre since floodwaters began rising Aug. 14 were told late Sunday that they can begin relocating to the River Center as early as today if they have their own transportation.
Those who do not have transportation will be moved beginning Wednesday. Families with children who are scheduled to start school later this week will not be relocated until Friday afternoon.
“We tried to schedule the move for the families with school age children on Friday after school so they can go to school from the community they now know in the shelter and then have a couple of days in their new space before they go back to school in Monday,” Ricks says. “We’ve really tried to think through the needs of those in the shelter.”
As of 10 a.m. today some 865 evacuees remained in the River Center. If all the evacuees from Celtic relocate to the River Center, the total number would approach 1,300. But Ricks says the daily census count at shelters has been declining and she expects that trend to continue through the week.
It’s unclear what the short term impact of the sheltering will be on events planned for the River Center. The River Center’s director of sales, Rhonda Ruffino, referred a request for information to her regional vice president, who did not respond in time for publication. No national concerts appear to have been scheduled for the month of September. A sold-out Elton John concert is scheduled for Oct. 5.
Ricks cannot say how long the state is planning to keep the River Center shelter open, which will eventually be run by the Red Cross.
“We’ll have it as long as it is needed, but that doesn’t mean it will always make sense to have it at the River Center,” she says. “When that population falls to a place where, one, we determine we still need a long term shelter and, two, it makes sense to move it elsewhere, then that’s what we’ll do.”
In the meantime, Downtown Development District Executive Director Davis Rhorer has been preparing maps and signage to help direct traffic flow into and out of downtown and to make sure evacuees at the River Center are aware of downtown’s grocery store, pharmacy and clinic. River Road is currently closed at North Boulevard to prevent traffic from crowding the River Center. Downtown employees are encouraged to use alternate routes.
The DDD and other organizations have also partnered to organize activities, particularly for children stuck in the shelter. In recent days they have showed movies at the Manship Theatre and in Town Square and organized games on the greens near the levee.
—Stephanie Riegel
