HOUSTON — Of all the places that have been turned into shelters for Hurricane Harvey victims — a megachurch, a ballpark, a gas station, a bowling alley, among them — the one with the most comfortable sleeping arrangements surely must be the Gallery Furniture showroom.
Owner Jim McIngvale, better known as Mattress Mack, threw open a couple of his stores to anyone in need, offering food, clean bathrooms and, of course, luxury bedding.
“If this is what you call a shelter, I might not want to go home,” said 47-year-old India Jackson, who marveled at the silky pillowcases, the $1,000 mattresses and the atrium with its live ocelot and colorful macaws.
With more than 17,000 people flooded out of their houses, big-hearted Texans, religious institutions and businesses have turned their places into unlikely shelters, giving soaked, frightened and disconsolate storm refugees — two-legged and four-legged alike — a safe and warm place to sleep.
Some of these places have proved a homier alternative to the convention centers that have taken in more than 10,000.
At Gallery Furniture in Richmond, just outside Houston, a clown and a face-painter delighted the children on Wednesday. On Tuesday, an out-of-state businessman ordered a lamb chop dinner from a fine Houston restaurant for the roughly 150 people at the store.
To relieve evacuees’ stress, employees direct them to a meditation area, with soft music and a thousand-gallon fish tank with sharks, stingrays and exotic fish.
Jackson, who was evacuated from her home in Katy, Texas, on Monday, said her temporary bed at Mattress Mack’s is a Tempur-Pedic just like the one she has at home, only nicer. “Yeah, I am going to upgrade,” she said.
“Mattress Mack. He’s the most loving person in Houston,” she said. “He turned his store into a resort for refugees.”
And the pampering didn’t stop at people. A pet groomer was there on Wednesday, offering to clean up any soggy dogs in need of a bath or haircut.
In hard-hit Port Arthur, near the Louisiana line, the Max Bowl bowling alley hosted roughly 500 Port Arthur residents, plus 50 to 100 dogs. And a lizard. And a monkey.
Max Bowl general manager Jeff Tolliver Tolliver said that the monkey “was a little surprising” but that the primate, like any other Texan, wouldn’t be turned away.
The Islamic Society of Greater Houston announced it would offer space at several mosques, and televangelist Joel Osteen on Tuesday opened his 16,000-seat megachurch, formerly the home of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, after getting blistered on social media for not doing so sooner.
The basketball team’s current home, Toyota Center, started taking in evacuees Tuesday, handling the overflow after more than 9,000 sought shelter at the city’s George R. Brown Convention Center.
At least 200 residents of one Houston suburb took cover together for one night in a minor league baseball stadium. Sugar Land Skeeters owners Marcie and Bob Zlotnik said they called the mayor to offer their ballpark as a shelter-in-a-pinch.