Birmingham, Ala.--Catherine Lee sits on one of 1,000 fold-out cots crowded into a cavernous sporting arena feeding her five-week-old grandson, Prunell. Prunell has colic, and Lee is having trouble calming him with the formula FEMA has provided. "It's not what he's used to, but when he gets hungry enough, he'll eat," she said.

Lee is one of about 4,000 New Orleans evacuees that were bused here to ride out Hurricane Gustav. Birmingham expected 3,400 evacuees by bus, but the numbers could reach as high as 11,000 for the small southeastern city, including those who drive themselves and may choose to stay with family and friends.

Chris Hartsell, chief operations officer for Birmingham, said that 11,000 evacuees would be easy compared to the 18,000 Birmingham hosted for Katrina, and that the city had opened five of its largest arenas to accommodate both people who were bused in and those who drove but couldn't afford -- or find -- a hotel.

Birmingham, usually a fairly sleepy town of around 240,000, is not known for selling out of hotel rooms unless the University of Alabama plays a home football game, but this weekend, almost all of Birmingham's hotel rooms in a 10-mile radius were sold out, according to Hartsell. Evacuees were being sent to the nearby smaller cities of Gadsden and Cullman. 

One of the reasons Birmingham catches so many Gulf Coast evacuees is because "it's the first place they run out of gas," according to April Odom with the Mayor's Office of Information. "There are a lot of Louisiana license plates in the parking lot, and we try to show them our hospitality as best we can." The distance between New Orleans and Birmingham is about 300 miles.

Like most cities in the Southeast and elsewhere that play host to evacuees, the cost is great, but virtually all of it is reimbursed by the state, and the state is then refunded in full by FEMA. The Red Cross estimates that to set up just one cot and provide food, water, and medical attention to one person for three days costs around $300. Multiply that times the estimated 1.9 million evacuees that might need assistance during their travels, and hurricanes become a huge expense.

The plan to get residents out of New Orleans in the event of a hurricane has been in the works since Katrina struck in 2005. Tim Turner, Senior Director of Emergency Services with the Birmingham Red Cross, said the original plan included taking 6,000 residents by Amtrak to Memphis, Tenn. Memphis is now hosting a number closer to 8,000, with 3,000 of those in the city limits and another 5,000 dispersed into suburbs, according to the Red Cross. In total, the Red Cross has 490 shelters opened in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, with the ability to shelter about 165,000 people and offer about 640,000 meals, according to spokesperson Jennifer LuBrani.

Other Southeastern cities, including Nashville and Chattanooga, have taken on between 4,000 and 8,000 evacuees via bus or plane. Overall, Turner said the evacuee transition in Birmingham had gone smoothly. "Any time you move that many people in the traffic situation, make them stay on buses for hours and stay in places that they're not used to with cots and blankets, there are going to be a few glitches here and there, but overall it went well."

Although cities like Birmingham and Memphis will incur hundreds of thousands dollars of refundable expenses, the lasting economic impact in those metropolitan areas will be positive, according to Turner.

"I have talked to several hotels in the [Birmingham] area, one of them told me they had 200 reservations booked in a six-hour period," Turner said. "That's just one hotel out of about 50 in the area. So I'm sure as far as the hospitality industry is concerned, there are people in our hotels and people in our restaurants, and that's good for the community."

Hotels in downtown Birmingham range from about $70 to $300 a night, according to Hotels.com. One New Orleans evacuee, Brandon Thiel, drove into Birmingham on two tanks of gas with five friends on Saturday evening. Gas for their rented minivan cost the friends $300 one way, and they expect to stay until Wednesday at the Sheraton (HOT), where rooms run $189 a night.

"We'll see what happens. I'm stressed, but there's nothing you can do. It's a natural disaster," Thiel said. "We're mostly worried about our business. If NOLA doesn't make it, our business won't either," Thiel said of his marketing company, Aggressive Promotions, which is located in downtown New Orleans.

Other evacuees who couldn't afford a nearly $2,000 expense chose to take FEMA-sponsored buses from New Orleans and stay in the Red Cross-provided shelters. They are now waiting on word for when the buses can take them back home.

"All I can think about is Katrina. My mother died in the Superdome, and I don't want to go back there in my mind," said 48-year old Linette Smith. Smith spent 12 hours on a bus from New Orleans to Birmingham, and by the time she arrived at shelter, hadn't eaten in 28 hours. Smith said she never found a stable home after losing her mom, and has been staying with friends since moving back to New Orleans two years ago.

And although there are people like Smith who say they never quite recovered from Katrina, at least, she said, it taught them to be cautious. "Everyone took precautions for Gustav. Where we from, ain't nobody riding nothing out."

The good news for New Orleans evacuees is that they'll likely be headed home soon. According to Hartsell, government and Red Cross officials are assessing the damage now. Initial reports reflect that the damage to many New Orleans areas is minimal, and as soon as the city is given the all-clear, residents will be allowed back in again.

Cities like Birmingham usually rely on volunteers to help out in times of natural disasters. Many nurses, off-duty law enforcement and Red Cross officials have been working for free since Saturday. If the evacuees are housed much longer, one of the Red Cross's main concerns is that the time commitment from volunteers will slack. "The hurricane fell on a holiday weekend, so it's already hard to find people," said Turner.

But the volunteers didn't seem to care that they were missing out on their Labor Day barbecues. As registered nurse Elaine Marshall bent down to hand a little girl a bottle of water, she said simply, "They need help. And I'm a nurse."