Tulsa's hotels are filling up with Texans fleeing Hurricane Rita

Thousands of people leaving Houston are headed north and that means hotel rooms are filling up fast. <br/><br/>News on 6 anchor Terry Hood says the Crowne Plaza in downtown Tulsa says it's almost

Thursday, September 22nd 2005, 10:18 am

By: News On 6

Thousands of people leaving Houston are headed north and that means hotel rooms are filling up fast.

News on 6 anchor Terry Hood says the Crowne Plaza in downtown Tulsa says it's almost at capacity. That is because along with other guests - the University of Houston athletic teams have booked rooms for 115 players and managers through the first of October.

The Doubletree Hotel at Warren Place is booked solid through Saturday and the rooms open on Sunday are going fast. Families started arriving Wednesday night. Many say after Katrina's devastation, they're not willing to take any chances. Also people like cancer patients who have delicate medical needs are making the trip to Tulsa to make sure they have no interruption in treatment.

Even more of the Doubletree's guests are from Houston businesses that used to have offices in Tulsa. They'll continue "business as usual", while working out of suitcases. Doubletree general manager Brett Sundstrom: "So they're literally picking up their operations people from Houston and sending them to Tulsa, so they can just run the business and do what they do on a daily basis, but do it in Tulsa."

Hotel managers say evacuees have been pointed northward. Hotels in Dallas and Oklahoma City are already full, and it won't be long before Tulsa hotels are all at capacity. Managers here at the Crowne Plaza say they'll be pointing folks to hotels in St Louis and Kansas City once things fill up in Tulsa.