Tent City at Racetrack Now Housing Evacuees

As local shelters set up to house those displaced by the ravages of Hurricane Sandy begin to close, hundreds of evacuees were moved to the giant tents erected at Monmouth Park for shelter on Wednesday, according to the Wall Street Journal.

”Owners of the original shelters told us the needed to go back to normal business,” said Red Cross spokeswoman Anne Marie Borrego.

According to the article, about two dozen buses from Monmouth University brought evacuees -- many of them old and disabled -- to be sheltered at the racetrack site that consists of about a dozen giant white tents that are bolted to the ground. They were joined by evacuees from other local shelters, and Red Cross workers were told to expect up to 2,000 to arrive on Wednesday.

The "tent city" was erected to serve as staging and a hospitality site for the thousands of utility workers that have descended in Monmouth County to help restore power to residents following Hurricane Sandy.

Oceanport Mayor Michael Mahon told Patch that he anticipated the tents to remain up and running for a minimum of two more weeks.