As Hurricane Harvey has finally left the Gulf Coast and headed north and east, many Texas residents have found refuge in shelters set up across the state.

The George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston began immediately welcoming all people into the facility with an expected capacity of 5,000. That number was quickly overwhelmed and nearly doubled within three days after the convention center began taking in people.

Houston First provided a release on Tuesday and will be updating information later today about the status of the convention center as a mega-shelter. In part, the release shared the following:

•At the moment, Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center is serving as an emergency shelter for thousands who have been left homeless. The Convention Center is fully functional and the convention campus, Avenida Houston, sustained no damage. At this point it’s too early to say how long the facility will be used in that capacity.
•According to the most recent reports, surrounding hotels in downtown Houston sustained no damage and are fully operational.
•Both airports are expected to be operational by the end of the week.
•Many of the facilities in Houston’s Theatre District have sustained damage. Evaluations are currently underway to determine the extent of the damage, and its impact on future operations.

Meanwhile, the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas set up preparations for up to 5,000 more displaced residents. That number was low until several buses arrived overnight to the facility while other people arrived on flights at Dallas Love Field. It is now estimated that the venue is home to about 1,000 people, a number that Mayor Mike Rawlings said will very likely rise. In addition, another 200 displaced residents arrived late last night at in Fort Worth at the Fort Worth Independent School District’s Wilkerson-Greines Activity Center.

The Dallas shelter is expected to remain open for several weeks.

The hurricane has also played havoc on the sports schedule. The Houston Texans were to host the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night. That game was originally moved to AT&T Stadium in Arlington before being canceled so the Texans could return home. A baseball series between the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers scheduled for Houston’s Minute Maid Park was moved to a neutral site in Tampa during the week. Finally, the AdvoCare Texas Kickoff college game between LSU and Brigham Young University scheduled for Houston’s NRG Stadium will take place Saturday at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans.

Henderson Engineers named renowned industry expert Paul Villotti, P.E. as its new Director of Life Safety. Villotti is widely-recognized as one of the leading experts in fire protection and life safety. He began work with Henderson at its headquarters in Kansas City.

“We are thrilled to have Paul join our fire and life safety group,” President and CEO Rich Smith said. “His contributions to the industry are unparalleled — he has literally impacted codes and standards that are used every day nationwide. Just like Paul, we are committed to changing the industry for the better.”

Villotti will be part of Henderson’s fire and life safety team, which includes 39 fire protection engineers, code consultants, former firefighters, and life safety specialists. He previously spent 30 years with Kansas City-based FP&C Consultants, Inc., where he retired as vice president earlier this year.

“I am excited to be at Henderson Engineers,” Villotti said. “After three months, I realized how much I miss working. I am happy to return to what I love the most — mentoring and training the next generation of fire and life safety experts and providing counsel to clients. I like being a resource to the industry and joining Henderson will allow me to continue to serve in that capacity on an ever greater scale.”

With more than 35 years of experience, Villotti has spent his career helping venue managers, operators, and facility owners resolve building and fire code issues, obtain building permits, coordinate with fire marshals, and resolve code issues by providing technical justification for code equivalencies and variances. He possesses intimate knowledge of code requirements and is passionate about sharing the fundamental safety principles behind the rules. A lifetime avid learner, Villotti is known for wanting to understand all facets of a project so he can provide the best counsel while also adhering to the owner’s overall vision.

“Paul’s reputation in the industry speaks for itself,” Senior Vice President Darrell Stein said. “His experience and knowledge of fire fundamentals is unsurpassed and he has proven time and again to be a valuable asset to the teams he’s worked with. His commitment to his work and training others is second to none. I’ve always had the highest level of respect for Paul and come away from our interactions having learned something new every time.”

A registered Professional Engineer in 23 states and the Province of Alberta, Canada, Villotti has broad experience in all types of assembly venues. He is a member of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE), and IAVM, of which he said he would like to be more actively involved in his new position. Villotti is a Certified Firefighter II in Colorado. Villotti has taught code classes for the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and IAVM facility managers. He is a 1980 graduate of the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Fire Protection and Safety Engineering.

While volunteers worked feverishly behind him to set up 5,000 cots and provide each bed with blankets, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings stood on the bare concrete of an air-conditioned parking garage at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, addressing a throng of media about the city’s opening its arms as a mega-shelter for those able to leave the path of destruction along the Gulf Coast caused by Hurricane Harvey, a Category 4 storm that made landfall last Friday night and has lingered in the coast area since then, dumping record amounts of rain throughout southeast Texas.

“We are getting ready to be the neighbors of south Texans that we know we can be,” the mayor said to begin his remarks on how the

city would prepare to accept thousands of displaced residents. That 5,000 number, the mayor admitted, could climb into the tens of thousands and cause other shelters in the area to be looked at for any overflow population.

But that is for a future day. This day was about Houston’s neighbors up I-45 in Dallas coming to the aid of a population that has experienced flooding never seen before. Houston, in fact, set daily record rainfall amounts on Saturday and Sunday and is expected to take on an amount of rain before the week is over that normally falls over the course of one year.

With search and rescue operations in full swing in Houston, nearby Dickinson and in many other cities, and with the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston already sitting at 4,500 residents and nearing its own 5,000 capacity, others are stepping up in the most humanitarian way.

Our job is to be ready when and if individuals need to come to the Dallas area to reboot their lives and get back on their feet,” Rawlings said. “My heart goes out to all the people impacted by this devastation.”

Rawlings said that he has been in contact with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner to assure his counterpart that Dallas is ready to help.

“Houston has a convention center, recreation centers, churches,” Rawlings said. “That area is still 6.5 million people, though. The numbers get pretty staggering.”

Rawlings has also spoken with the mayors of Austin and Fort Worth and said that Austin has been told to prepare for up to 7,000 people.

Kay Bailey Hutchison becomes the fourth shelter to open in Dallas along with three recreation centers. Rawlings said that 47 local firefighters have been dispatched to south Texas to help in the rescue and have been manning some of the boats that have been so prevalent on television coverage.

“Wal-Mart is setting up a pharmacy for us here in the convention center and there will be a medical facility on the other side. We can triage if necessary and send individuals along to hospitals in the area,” he said.

Rawlings said that it is impossible to predict how many people will end up in Dallas.

“We will know more about that over the next few days,” he said. “Interstate 45 is flooded in Houston and it is still raining there. We don’t know when 45 will free up. They have 250 buses ready to move. It could be 48 hours before they can even begin moving people from there. We are preparing, though. We may have tens of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of individuals. If that happens we will be looking at other partners in the county to help.”

Rocky Vaz of the Dallas Office of Emergency Management said that preparations have been made for those bringing their pets.

“The SPCA is getting a base ready just like we’re getting a shelter ready,” he said. “This will likely be on the fourth floor of the old Reunion Arena parking garage.”

Rawlings said that the city and the venue are concerned on the short-term and being ready to immediately help people when they arrive. He added that his team will convene in a couple of weeks to look at any long-term decisions that need to be made.

“Our hope is to stage individuals as they arrive,” he said. “We might put them in one of the rec centers and move them here. Right now there are 200 empty beds between the three shelters.”

With many discussing whether a mandatory evacuation should have been made for the city of Houston, the mayor had his own opinion.

“Thank God there was not a lot of people on the roads when the floods hit,” he said. “There would likely be many more deaths than have occurred so far.”

As Tropical Storm Harvey continues to deluge the Texas Gulf Coast in history-making flooding, the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston is one of some 70 locations that have been set up in the county to serve as shelters for displaced residents.

“The George R. Brown has turned into an emergency shelter for the people from Hurricane Harvey and now Tropical Storm Harvey,” said

Holly Clapham, chief marketing officer for Houston First Corporation. “The Red Cross is running the human scale operation and we’re the facility part of it. We have updated our grbhouston.com website and will continue to update information from Red Cross and how people can help.”

Clapham said that people have been arriving at the venue in “every which way.”

“There are those that live in this area that are able to walk here,” she said. “At the very beginning, we received an a large number of our homeless population. There are police officers present checking for weapons as a precaution. Obviously, we have a mass of people who might be arriving. I want to emphasize that we are taking everyone. Mayor (Sylvester) Turner has stated that this is a welcoming city. We take all. There is no checking ID’s or driver’s license or any type of enforcement of political views.”

Clapham said that she is not aware at this point of events being impacted at the convention center. She added that she is not also aware of any displacements of people from previous events at the venue who flew in to the city but were not able to get out.

The venue’s staff has already begun working round-the-clock shifts and will do so as long as displaced residents are at the facility.

“The operations team was present the first night,” Clapham said. “No one expected it to be this bad, but they were already on hand and still on hand. This is not over.”

Indeed, according to short-term forecasts, the record-setting flooding is not even to the halfway point as the tropical storm stalled out once reaching land Friday night.

“It is hard to predict how long we will have people,” Clapham said. “The Red Cross and the Mayor make that decision. We are operating in partnership with the Red Cross on behalf of our boss Mayor Turner.”

Clapham is also unable to speculate on how many people the convention center will house at its largest number.

“At the beginning there were 350 or so people,” she said. “We’re not planning on any number because we just don’t know. Again, it’s the Red Cross that is able to communicate how much they are able to plan for. The donations are pouring in. The more donations, the more supplies, the more people you can safely accept.”

Clapham said that the greatest need right now is for diapers and formula, among other essentials.

“Long-term the Red Cross has a dedicated donations line for people devastated by, I guess, the largest natural disaster in American history,” she said.

For information on the George R. Brown Convention Center as an emergency center for Hurricane Harvey, items needed, and how to donate to the Red Cross, click here.

SMG, the venue management company that manages Van Andel Arena, DeVos Place®, and DeVos Performance Hall, is moving forward with staff realignment that is aimed to increase efficiency of their business functions. Coming off a banner year for Van Andel Arena, the company looked at how it could restructure departments to continue building on that momentum.

Continuing the commitment to safety and security, Director of Event Services Todd Johnson has transitioned into a new role as Director of Event Operations & Security. “Keeping a secure building has always been a top priority at front of mind for us,” said SMG Regional General Manager Richard MacKeigan. “Creating this position gives us another pillar for our venues to maintain a strong dedication to keeping a safe and secure environment for our staff, patrons, and vendors.”

“We are always looking at additional ways to enhance our security measures to create a safe and enjoyable guest experience,” added Johnson. “We will continue to look at what we are doing now and what we can do in the future to consistently be improving the steps we already have in place.”

SMG has seen staff changes and realignment in other departments as well. Chris Anderson was recently named as Chief Engineer for Van Andel Arena and DeVos Place.

The box office recently created a new Ticketing Coordinator position to add to their staff and welcomed Josh Zeigler into the position. The realignment in the box office will also include the management of group sales and suite/premium seat sales and rentals, which was previously a function of the marketing department.

Following the hiring of new Director of Marketing Hilarie Szarowicz last year, SMG’s marketing department has also welcomed new Marketing Manager Alison Goodyke and has transitioned Group Sales Manager Rebecca Chesnut into a new Promotions and Special Events Manager role and Marketing Assistant Mike Klompstra into a new Digital Marketing Coordinator role.