To the (NO) Convention Center---or else!!!
 

.......The handful of managers left at the hotel told guests they had booked 10 buses for $25,000 to evacuate them and those from the Crowne Plaza Astor Downtown. Each passenger paid $45. The hotel staff began lining up elderly and ill people outside about 7:30 p.m.

"I couldn't count how many wheelchairs you saw," Dewey said.

The guests waited until 9:30 p.m. when a manager told them the buses were confiscated by the military.

Also planning to leave on one of the buses was Bill Hedrick, a Houston oilman, and his family, including his mother-in-law, who uses a walker.

"We kept hearing they were coming, they were coming," he said. When the crowd learned the buses would never arrive, "everyone was totally stunned," said Hedrick, who moved on to the convention center.

Dewey said she was ordered to head to the convention center.