FORT MYERS, Fla._It was a long slog to get into the Germaine Arena near Fort Myers on Saturday, where thousands of shell-shocked locals waited hours on end to claim a cot. Many of them never had expected to be at a shelter. They had taken precautions to avoid it.
But the evacuation zone kept growing and growing, ultimately encompassing many of the hotels where locals planned to take refuge. They had nowhere to go but the shelter. Inland areas that had been declared out of the way of serious harm only a day earlier suddenly became extremely hazardous to inhabit. People there, too, had nowhere to go but the shelter.
Many brought dogs. One family had three of them in tow, two poodles and a poodle-golden retriever mix. But Barbara Sobol, a 70-year-old who had never before been in a shelter, left her cat at home. The commotion at the shelter, she feared, would be more upsetting to her pet than the commotion of 140-mile per hour winds and torrential rain battering their house.
"They didn't tell us we were being evacuated until the very last minute," Sobol said. "I left food for her at high elevations in different places. She'll find it.... This shelter is a strange, noisy place. She'd be scared here."
