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By Lana Robinson
Field Editor
Gulf Coast evacuees seeking shelter from Hurricane Rita found it in a number of deer camps across the state. The number of those welcomed by ranchers is unknown, but Blanco County Farm Bureau President Don Casey of Cypress Mill, who hosted Houston-area residents, believes it could be significant.
"There are literally thousands of deer camps in Texas," Casey said Sept. 23. "I'm guessing there are at least 1,000 deer camps in each of the counties that lease for hunting. I wouldn't be surprised if 100,000 evacuees were sleeping in a deer camp somewhere tonight."
Casey, who has three deer camps located on his Hill Country ranch, said he received a call from one of his hunters who resides in the mandatory evacuation area.
"He asked if he could come, and of course he's welcome, but he wanted to know if he could bring his family and one of their friends. I said, `Sure, anything we can do to help,'" said Casey. "These camps are not the most luxurious things in the world, but they all have power and water and most of them have air conditioning. And besides that, it's a beautiful place to stay, and it's also safe."
The Blanco rancher said the traffic jam out of Houston took it's toll on the evacuees.
"It took one of them 23 hours to get here from Houston, and we're just an hour west of Austin. It took them a day to recover," he said.
According to Casey, ranches of size typically divide their properties into 500-acre pastures with a deer camp in each pasture. Accommodations range from plywood shacks to "houses people would love to live in."
Casey said he had talked to six or more friends and neighbors and found that more than half of them also had hunters and their families camped out in advance of the storm.
