Jordan slept in Bayland Park on Friday night, covered by a crocheted blanket and wincing as heavy rain — that she says felt like hail — hit her face and body.
When the Bayland Community Center opened up at 10 a.m. as a warming site, Jordan was among the first to go inside, where volunteers with the nonprofit Precinct 4 Forward were organizing coats, blankets, hygiene packs and socks for distribution.
Hot meals were served courtesy of the American Red Cross at lunch and dinner, and water and snacks were provided throughout the day. Free WiFi and charging stations, with all the cords provided, were available.
Jordan didn’t need a charging station because she doesn’t have a cell phone or a job or a home. Over the past three years, the 30-year-old has lived at a sober living boarding house, a bus stop, parks and the Harris County Jail. She said she was grateful just to be out of the cold.
“This is one of the safest places to be right now,” she said. “It’s going to be a sad night tonight. A lot of people are going to lose everything. A lot of people are going to lose their lives.”
Harris County Precinct 4 employees who were manning the center didn’t ask guests for identification but simply said, “Come as you are.” Mayor John Whitmire told reporters at a Friday press conference to not bother asking whether Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would be at the warming centers, saying that “everyone is welcome.”
CenterPoint Energy’s power tracker showed that at 9 a.m. on Saturday, more than 2,600 customers were without power. By noon, the outages were reduced to 2,125 customers. More outages were expected in the late evening hours as moisture could turn into ice and break power lines, but CenterPoint officials say they’ve spent the past year and a half preparing for a disaster and will respond quickly to any service disruptions.
A man named Keith who lives in Spring said he got a ride to the warming center because his power and water had been turned off since Friday for maintenance. Volunteers said they expected the center would become much more crowded as the day went on and temperatures dropped into the freezing range.
Twelve warming centers across Houston are slated to open at 5 p.m. Saturday. All will remain open 24 hours a day through Tuesday.
Cots provided by the Red Cross were available for about 150 people at Bayland, and families will be in a separate room from people who arrived by themselves, said Marisol Valero, who usually works as the community center’s programs and recreation director but said she’d be spending the night at Bayland and assisting guests. Bayland allows pets but asks that owners bring pet food if they are able to.
“We have a lot of calls coming in,” Valero said. “This morning, we had five individuals waiting outside at 8 a.m., so we went ahead and let them in.”
Precinct 4 Chief Operations Officer Daniel Rodriguez, a U.S. Marine who joined Commissioner Lesley Briones’ team when she took office in 2023, said his team trains for inclement weather events year-round and is committed to serving residents before, during and after the storm.
“Local government is here to serve the people,” he said. “People show up here with absolutely nothing. Our hearts break and people will take off their jackets to give to them, but we want people to have resources.”
A social services wing at the community center is dedicated to ensuring that guests can transition to long-term care if needed, Rodriguez said.
“We’re not just meeting the immediate need; it’s the long-term need,” he said. “We connect them to a social worker. While they’re here, we’re going to say, what is your situation and what can we do to help you? They may be focused on the next meal, but because they’re here, there’s nothing else distracting them from meeting with someone and making a plan that goes beyond that next meal.”
Jordan said she’ll stay at Bayland as long as she can and was hoping to spend the next couple of days connecting with resources like the ones Rodriguez mentioned. She said a staff member offered to open the library for her so she could read a book.
“It’s just one day at a time,” she said. “I’m happy to be warm.”
This article appears in Private: Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2026.