Catching some Z's -- the hard way

Posted: Thursday, September 8 at 10:33 am CT by Mike Brunker

COVINGTON, La. –- Our two-day run of luck finding hotel rooms in areas where very few are available screeches to a halt in this city about 30 miles due north of New Orleans.

After finding no rooms available in Slidell after our so-far futile search for Bill Harris’ cat, we decide to roll the dice in Covington since the Streets and Trips software that Andrew uses to help us navigate in unfamiliar territory showed a half-dozen hotels here.

But on arrival, we find there is no safety in numbers when it comes to lodging, given the vast number of souls who are homeless in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Everywhere we stop, signs in the windows say “No rooms available.” At the Comfort Inn, the desk clerk tells us the hotel isn’t just booked for the night, but through the end of November.

Many of the rooms have been booked by utilities to house workers sent from power companies around the nation to help restore electricity in the wide area affected by Hurricane Katrina, but we also meet a number of castaways whose homes are uninhabitable.

Going to Plan B, we ask a National Guardsman where the local Red Cross shelter is, but he tells us it’s full and has been turning away new arrivals.

That leaves us with no good alternative to Plan C -– sleeping in the car. We pull into the back of the parking lot of the Holiday Inn in hopes of avoiding being rousted by the local constabulary, tilt back the front seats of our minivan as far as they will go and eventually drift off to sleep.

No need for an alarm clock, as the utility workers begin rolling out for another long day at 5 a.m.

A very special shelter in Covington, La.

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