An Iowan who went south to help the Federal Emergency Management Agency deal with the media says he’s preparing to evacuate Houston with the New Orleans evacuees. Tim Albrecht, an aide to Iowa House Speaker Christopher Rants, was recruited to help the feds deal with reporters covering Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. He’s been in Texas for the past two weeks. Albrecht was in Houston’s Reliant Center Tuesday when the 14-hundred evacuees who are still living there were told they’ll be taken to a military base in Arkansas because Hurricane Rita is bearing down on Houston. “Many of them were getting mixed signals, thinking they could wait it out until Mayor Nagin announced that New Orleans was open and ready for business. I’m sure that many of these people thought it could come within a couple of weeks,” Albrecht says. “They did not know that the hurricane was coming, from my sense, and when they heard that, there was a lot of gasps of disbelief and (questions like) ‘Where are we going now?’ They went from the Superdome to the Astrodome to the Reliant Arena. Now they’ll be shipped to a military base.” Albrecht estimates there are 300-thousand evacuees in Texas, with the majority of them in Houston. “A number of them had said they were going to stay in Houston. They liked it here,” Albrecht says. “Now, bearing down on them, is yet another big hurricane.” Albrecht is scheduled to leave for Austin, Texas tomorrow (Thursday). “Now we’re bracing for what could very possibly be a category four or higher hurricane,” Albrecht says. Katrina was a category five when it hit the Gulf Coast. Once he gets to Austin, Albrecht’s not sure where he’ll be staying but knows he’ll continue working for FEMA.”I expect to be working with the media. Obviously there’s hundreds if not thousands of media outlets who will be contacting (FEMA), wanting to know what’s going on and the preparations that are made,” Albrecht says. Albrecht’s tour of duty is scheduled to end in just over a week. He’s scheduled to come back to Iowa on Friday, September 30th. Albrecht says for a Midwesterner, it’s been an interesting experience. Albrecht says he’s never even seen a tornado, and now will perhaps be living through a hurricane. “I came down here to help out,” Albrecht says. “I don’t plan on leaving. I’m going to stay and fulfill my obligation.”
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