Before Katrina victims can move out, Texans trying to outrun Rita are moving in.
Every hotel and motel between the Gulf of Mexico and Oklahoma is booked, Pat Miller of the Texas Hotel and Lodging Association said Wednesday.
"There is no room at the inn," Miller said. "Anything along the I-35 corridor is full. I have a call into Oklahoma City right now to see if they have any availability."
Mandatory evacuations already have been ordered for Galveston and New Orleans while Houston has asked people to leave voluntarily. Residents of other coastal cities, like Corpus Christi, also are expected to travel north.
Texas hotels already were near capacity accommodating people attending fairs, concerts and conventions as well as Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
In searching for hotel rooms, Miller suggests people call the toll-free phone numbers for major hotel chains because they are the fastest at locating a room.
Not only are much of the spaces in San Antonio, Austin, Dallas and Fort Worth booked, but so are those in smaller cities - some nowhere near obvious evacuation routes - including Abilene, San Angelo, Del Rio and Denton. Wichita Falls may have a few rooms left, Granbury has some bed-and-breakfast spaces available and Lubbock has openings, he said.
Otherwise, head to Oklahoma or elsewhere in West Texas, Miller said.
"No one wants to take any chances. Lessons learned from Katrina," Miller said. "For a coastal community to evacuate to Lubbock is unimaginable."
San Antonio is hosting two conventions this weekend while a festival gets under way in Austin. And Dallas is expecting 10,000 people for a national transportation convention, said Sandi Bailey, executive vice president of the Hotel Association of Greater Dallas.
"I'm sure our hotels will be full for the next couple of days," she said.
Some hotels are offering up to 80 percent discounts to people who can prove with identification that they are from affected storm areas, Bailey said.
"We are opening our arms," she said.
Lodging industry workers in Lubbock, about 500 miles from Houston, have been taking reservations all day from Texans fleeing the coast.
"They are coming from Houston, and they are asking for directions," said Christina Cavazos, who has been fielding calls for the Lubbock Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We have about 3,000 rooms but not everything is available because we have some conventions in town."
Not everyone even knows how to find Lubbock. "One lady from Houston asked, 'Where are y'all?'" Cavazos said.
In Grapevine, more than 4,000 hotel rooms are booked. About 1,400 of the rooms are slated for a Mothers of Preschoolers convention, but most others are related to Hurricane Rita.
"We are sold out and are referring people to Oklahoma and Midland," said Nicole Alley, spokeswoman for the Grapevine Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The phones have been ringing all day at the Holiday Inn Express on Main Street in Grapevine, manager Joe Villanueva said.
"They are calling us nonstop, all from Houston, asking if we have anything else," Villanueva said. "Every place is full."
E-mail kdurnan@dallasnews.com
