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Ahead of Hurricane Laura’s landfall, evacuation plans had hit roadblocks as social distancing limited shelters in Texas and Louisiana. Officials in coastal states most affected by the hurricane season have had months to prepare for the summer’s storms. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced shelters and buses would be stocked with hand sanitizer and face masks and shelters would be spaced appropriately. Abbott also said 200,000 hotel rooms would shelter evacuees from Southeast Texas, effectively isolating groups rather than gathering people in a large shelter. (8/27)

With years of experience dodging major hurricanes and months of practice fending off the novel coronavirus, medical officials in the path of Hurricane Laura said Wednesday they are prepared for the Category 4 storm despite the trying circumstances of a pandemic. Evacuations were more cumbersome with the added requirements of social distancing and masks because of the coronavirus. But critically ill patients have been transferred from hospitals and frail patients are out of nursing homes in Jefferson County, Tex., where Laura is expected to make landfall with winds that could reach 150 miles per hour. (Bernstein, 8/26)

As Louisiana officials implore thousands of people in southwest Louisiana to flee ahead of Hurricane Laura, they are faced with a daunting task: Safely transport potentially hundreds of residents infected with COVID-19 to other parts of the state. With the pandemic still raging in Louisiana, hotels and motels have emerged as a lifeline for tens of thousands who are fleeing the southwest corner of the state, and they have become the linchpin of the government’s preparation for the hurricane. (Karlin and McAuley, 8/26)

With Hurricane Laura approaching the Southeast Texas coast during a pandemic, local and state officials are looking to house evacuees in government-paid hotel rooms instead of large, often clustered emergency shelters. The state said it has been preparing for this since March, but as early as Wednesday morning and into the evening, rooms were filling up in refuge regions as Texans left cities and counties that have issued mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders. (McCullough and Pablo Carnham, 8/26)

Before Hurricane Laura made landfall, emergency management responders were already facing unprecedented demands as they juggled wildfires, hurricanes, and ongoing disaster and recovery efforts amid a nationwide pandemic. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, is among those assisting with the response on all fronts. (Santiago and Alvarez, 8/27)

President Trump’s decision to take up to $44 billion from FEMA for extra payments to unemployed workers has sparked concern that the agency might run short of money for its emergency response to Hurricane Laura and other disasters around the country. Trump is using the money from FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund to pay $300 per week in unemployment benefits that will supplement what states give jobless workers. (Louisiana pays up to $247 per week, one of the stingiest rates across the country.) Congress added $70 billion to FEMA’s fund in March to cover additional disaster costs related to the coronavirus. (Bridges, 8/26)