TYLER, Texas—Hundreds of homesick Hurricane Gustav evacuees began emptying Texas shelters Wednesday, while others bided their time waiting for buses to take them back to the homes they fled when the storm chased away more than 2 million Gulf Coast residents.

State officials said they hoped to have the Texans among 8,000 evacuees in shelters back home by today, and those leaving East Texas were ready to go.

“We’re going back!” cheered one woman, clutching a pillow and blanket, before climbing aboard a bus idling outside a Tyler shelter Wednesday.

The buses in Tyler returned four days after dropping off Southeast Texas residents far from the Beaumont and Port Arthur areas, where mandatory evacuation orders were issued Sunday with the then-mighty Gustav possibly headed that way.

Gustav instead plowed ashore Monday in Louisiana—weaker than everyone feared—and did little to the Texas coast but sprinkle showers. But it still tested the state with its largest hurricane response since the disastrous evacuation of Rita in 2005, which moved several million people out of the hurricane zone but caused 130 deaths, most of the Rita-related fatalities.

The state hoped to have Texas evacuees in shelters home by 6 p.m. Thursday, said Steve McCraw, the director of the Governor’s Office of Homeland Security. That includes evacuees from the general population and those with non-medical special needs.

“That’s a planning goal,” McCraw said. “That’s not a promise.”

McCraw said there the state still had about 2,000 evacuees from Louisiana in shelters, about 60 with medical special needs. Texas was still working with Louisiana to coordinate their return, McCraw said.

Evacuees anxiously packed for the trip home, stuffing trash bags and grocery sacks with dirty laundry. Some wore clothes they had to buy after evacuating because they didn’t pack to be gone so long.

Freddie Jones picked at his last shelter meal of raviolis and canned peaches, scooped from a plastic foam box, while sitting beside a tall pile of packed luggage and neatly folded blankets.

“I was kind of worried we weren’t going to catch the bus,” said Jones, 59, who has been at the shelter with his eight children since Sunday. “It’s good to be going home.”

Others weren’t so lucky yet.

In a shelter in the Dallas suburb of Irving, about 140 Louisiana residents continued to wait Wednesday for word on when the buses would take them back home. Children were watching movies or playing basketball, while adults tried to stay occupied.

Donald Polk, a 47-year-old cook who lives in Houma, La., passed some time cleaning out one of the two cars he and relatives had driven to Texas while following a bus carrying other family members.

“Just trying to keep us busy, you know?” Polk said with a chuckle as he wiped down the car. “We’re just staying busy.”

At a church shelter in downtown Fort Worth, some evacuees tossed a football in the parking lot while others lounged on cots inside or walked to a nearby drugstore.

“It’s frustrating,” said Roxie Raymond, 23, of Raceland, La., who has been at the shelter with 10 relatives, including five children, since arriving Saturday after the 10-hour bus ride. “We’re playing the waiting game.”

In Tyler, Gov. Rick Perry toured the shelter with McCraw and boasted about the state’s response to Gustav. He defended mandatory evacuations despite Texas not being directly hit, and described the state’s disaster planning as something others try to emulate.