Packing up: Vehicles towed as homeless rush to move from China Hat Road under Forest Service order

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ)-- After nearly five years, J. Smith is leaving China Hat Road. His van was towed away on Tuesday, in hopes of being repaired, as he looks for his next home.

“This is the face of a handicapped senior citizen with a clean record who deserves better than what he's gotten from our public servants,” Smith told KTVZ News.

In just over 24 hours, hundreds of homeless people like Smith must be gone. The Forest Service is beginning work in the area just south of Bend for forest mitigation, called the Cabin Butte Vegetation Management Project.

Some advocates and residents sued the Forest Service in federal court this month in a bid to delay or stop the year-long closure, but a judge denied the plea Tuesday.

“What must be done has to be done," Smith said while packing his van Tuesday. "But there are ways of doing things that are more efficient, and compassionate at the same time.”

Jennifer Noske is struggling to pick up what's left of her home, due to her disability.

“I have fibromyalgia and rheumatoid arthritis and spinal stenosis and myopathy. I have had no help. I don't even know if I have much hope," she said.

As the clock ticks to the midnight deadline Thursday, Noske says she worries fleeing might be the only option, if she's not packed in time.

"The only thing you can control in your life is what's around you, to a certain extent. When you lose that, it's just, it's kind of pretty unbearable and heartbreaking."

KTVZ News will have live coverage of the closure on Thursday, beginning on our Sunrise newscasts.