Rita Madness: Getting Schooled On An Evacuation

Not all the buses were empty. Now 20 have died in one that was engulfed in flames. . .

By wrong, I mean unnacceptable if true, I’m not passing judgement on the truth of the governor’s statement.
Sorry for the ambiguous phrasing.

The car culture strikes again. Surely if the objective is to evacuate *people* there should be at least one lane devoted to buses, and a continuous stream of buses traveling at highway speed would be ferrying hundreds of thousands of people out of harm’s way and returning to pick up more.
Nope, we have to take our cars. And pickup trucks, motor homes, RVs, …
(One other obvious question springs to mind: are there Amtrak trains being used? That’s an even more efficient way of getting people out of harm’s way.)

RE: JustZisGuy
”
(One other obvious question springs to mind: are there Amtrak trains being used? That’s an even more efficient way of getting people out of harm’s way.)
”
NO WAY am I getting on a train to the nearest FEMA camp…I’d rather die in the streets…

Anyone know why there don’t seem to be any contraflow plans in Texas? It is bizarre to see so much roadway unused for the evacuation.

Read recently that at least two bus industry groups offered buses to FEMA but were refused outright or jerked around. Heard on the radio this morning, from a caller, that it turns out the famous drowned buses were a) refused by FEMA b) many were not usable due to mechanical difficulties. The image will become iconic but the reality of the situation on the ground at the time will be ignored.
A picture is worth a thousand words and a lie goes around the world before Truth can put boots on.

OK, Gasket, I don’t know where you see panic in my story, and I’m not claiming anyone saved my life. There was zero panic in my neighborhood, although the projected path of the storm passed through my house overnight. Again, most of my neighbors are still there. The view out my front window was as calm and normal as could be at 8am Friday.
Most of the Katrina evacuees in the city came in their own vehicles (gee, daddy, there are a lot of Louisiana plates in town). The ones who were in the convention center and at Reliant were transported out well before everyone else (to Arkansas, for example) and many carless locals were transported to the convention center later (they were supposed then to be taken further out, but I left town before that happened, so I can’t confirm it). However, nothing in my message should have suggested that Katrina victims were a significant problem here,
but I’ll repeat: White et al got the carless ones out ahead of time, and used those places as waystations for locals.
When I say that most of the people in the evacuation zone were not Houstonians, I mean that the evacuation zones are mostly outside the city. White is the mayor of Houston, not of Galveston, Port Arthur, etc. He is also not the mayor of the Woodlands, Katy, or any of the other places where the highways narrow. He is also not the mayor of Flatonia, where the state supposedly had a plan to deliver gasoline for something like this (this was not “damage control” on White’s part).
I assume you have passed through a big city by highway before. I guess, then, you may have noticed that they are wider inside than outside. You need to open contraflow lanes _outside_ the city, which is where they were eventually opened. Even as late as I left, they were needed all the way from Sealy to Seguin (look em up on a map).
Current official estimates are that over 2 million people got out of the area over a period of less than 2 days, with 24 hours to spare. Anyone who thinks about it has worried about what will happen when 5+ million have to go in a hurry over the highways, but if you have a solution to that, I’d like to hear it. If we want to scream about lack of contraflow lanes and empty gas stations, slow emergency responce, etc, all at the same time, I hope we can see that the problem is not simple (contraflow could not be done on 290 for this sort of concern).
I watched locals interviewed on highways and at gas stations for two days. MANY people loaded up everything they had in three cars and drove their families out in all three with half a tank of gas in each. To get people out, a plan will have to improve public transportation (violently opposed by, for example, our esteemed Tom Delay, not to mention a lot of the public) but will also have to mandate that people use it, and will have to control when people leave, how much they take with them, etc. Just a few years ago, the Katy railway was surreptitiously ripped out in favor of 9 or 10 (or 20) more lanes of freeway. Nice, if you can make it that wide all the way to San Antonio…
I’m glad you’re more on my side than I am, and I appreciate your condescension.

Hmmm.. well, ok. This will be my last post on the subject.
Had you read my post, I think you’d know I’m not pissed.
“The news media” may have reported all kinds of interesting things. I watched the press conferences in real-time.
Initial reports had a cat-4 or cat-5 hitting Matagorda, and doing a lot of damage to west Houston on the way, meanwhile making an escape to San Antonio look questionable. SA floods like hell in a case like this. Wednesday night moved the prediction to Galveston Bay, including a 20-foot surge that would put the entire island under water, and push a lot of water up the bayous to Houston as well. People took all their cars because they thought they would lose them otherwise, and Bill White didn’t have to say anything to get that point across. Weather reports alone did that. Do you think people in Galveston need more? Can you provide a few quotes to demonstrate your point? No? I didn’t think so. Only force would have stopped it, and I don’t think we have the stomach for that.
The bit about calling in troops is hilarious. If we are to get out by car, there must be a plan to stock fuel stops along the way, and that responsibility lies at least at the state level.
So, here’s your problem: Wednesday night, you have information that a hurricane is coming, and maybe will go toward Louisiana, maybe toward San Antonio. 1.5 million people need to get off the coast, and through your city of 4-5 million, and they need to go where the hurricane won’t. Meanwhile, a million or so need to get out of Houston, too. Consider that in rush hour, it can take 3 hours to get from Galveston to Conroe (on I-45) if you’re lucky, on a good day.
A 100-mile traffic jam is an accomplishment? We accomplish a lot around here all the time.
I really am curious, and have to come back to it: how exactly do you think Bill White panicked people?
If you can do a better job, come pitch your plan in Houston. If it doesn’t involve a total change in lifestyle, it won’t work, and otherwise, I don’t think you can sell it. If it’s based on the kind of stellar understanding of the situation that you’ve displayed here, I’d suggest you just stay home.
Mad at you? Don’t be ridiculous. It’s not worth it.

Thanks Chris. Been trying to figure out who’s been evacuating and why “Houston” had to. Google and news searches have told me nothing. Seems “Houston” is west and the suburbs?? Even the 24 hour news channels showing nothing but the same one or two shots of broken windows and aluminum siding flying around.
Can you tell us the danger in the evacuation zones?
And all the military, ice, doctors, etc. poised to go in…. what for? who for? how long?
Would be a big help! Thanks.

I had meant to give a little timeline to try to explain what went
on, maybe to explain why people went a little nuts. Of course, we had
150,000 Katrina refugees in town (several times the number who had been
rescued and encamped at Reliant and the convention center), so everyone
was a little too aware of that event. Houston really doesn’t have any
trouble absorbing that many people, and the Rodeo crowd causes a much
bigger impact on daily life than this did, but seeing New Orleans taxis
on the road was a little different.
People started cleaning out water, peanut butter, charcoal, etc from
the stores pretty early (Monday), even before we really knew it was coming
to us.
I didn’t keep a journal, so I hope I get the days straight. The following
is a bit me-centric, but I can’t really comment on other peoples’ experiences.
Check The Houston Chronicle for some of their
local blogs for more interesting coverage than I can provide.
Tuesday evening, it was projected to go through Matagorda. That would
have taken the eye to the West of Houston, and would have been pretty nasty
for people on that side of town (like me). Since they tend to curve North,
we had a good chance of Hurricane-force winds, and flooding; water flows
to the southeast.
As for Galveston, it would have been a hell of a storm, too, since they
could get most of a 20-foot surge (the seawall can handle something like 12 feet)
and an enormous amount of rain. All that water also gets pushed up the bayous,
especially Buffalo, which goes through downtown Houston and then winds its way
by many peoples’ houses, such as mine.
During the night, the track moved up to the North side of Galveston bay.
That’s absolute hell for Galveston, and there was a good chance of a cat-4
hurricane hitting them directly. The evacuation zones, including parts of
Harris county, are those areas that are more or less guaranteed to flood in
this case. For me, this track was worlds better than the Matagorda one, but
one has to realize that the track crossed over Houston overnight, and the whole
city was of course in the high-probability zone at all times. We would have
taken a real wallop from this thing.
Anyway, up to this time (Wed), Galveston was more or less guaranteed to be
entirely under water, and the same goes for much of the coast. Downtown
Houston would be pretty sure to be flooded, if not from the surge, then from
the rain that came after. So, if you’re in those areas, you have to get out,
but you still don’t know where to go. You know you can get stuck on the road,
and you don’t know if the hurricane will catch you in Beaumont or on the way
to San Antonio. A lot of people did head for Louisiana, and at some point
on Thursday (or Friday night), they were stuck on the highways in Beaumont,
many not knowing the storm was now heading their way.
For many people in that area, they own their cars and maybe enough stuff
to fill them, and none of it is insured in this case. If it hit, they would
lose anything left behind, and that is why they drove all their cars out,
even if they didn’t have enough gas for all of them. People who have more
expected to lose sentimental items, and some people I know down there were
totally panicked at this point, with nothing more than weather reports to go
on.
Sometime Thursday, the track moved further up the coast, and the storm
started to weaken a bit, and people on the west side of Houston more or less
relaxed. The roads were already jammed, and there were the aforementioned
folks stuck in Beaumont, etc, but for me at least, the only real worry was
that power would be out for a few days (our power goes out if too many people
sneeze) with 100-degree weather, more mosquitos than most people can imagine,
a three-year-old, a pregnant wife, etc. So, I watched I-10, and figured if
it cleared, we would leave. It was down to less than 10 cars per minute on
Friday morning, so we left for San Antonio. From Houston to maybe a little
outside Katy, there were a lot of abandonded cars, and a lot of refuse.
By the time we got to Columbus, every gas station, rest stop, etc, was
full of cars with people, and we started using contraflow lanes. The rest
of the way to SA, traffic all the way across was thick enough that it would
have been good and slow without the extra lanes.
As it happened, power stayed on at my house, and there was no need to
leave at all, which was the case for a lot of Houston. My parents, my brother
and uncle, and most of my neighbors stayed. I had my reasons for leaving,
but we were prepared to stay without too much worry if traffic hadn’t cleared.
Actually, something people forget is that you also have tornadoes along with
hurricanes; Alicia produced 23 of them I grew up in Oklahoma, so tornadoes
seem “normal”.
As for Houston’s mayor. I was ambivalent about him until the post-Katrina
thing. He did a lot to make sure that Houston took as many evacuees as we
could hold, and I can tell you there was resisitance. I learned more than I
wanted to know about the depths of racial hatred from comments I picked up
from SOME locals, and a lot of businesses had various complaints. All in all,
though, I felt proud of Houston’s response, and I started to feel that the
national press was not giving a fair shake (weird articles about FM radio
stations at Reliant, etc).
When Rita appeared, Katrina evacuees were moved out to places like Arkansas
pretty early, and the convention center, for example, was used as a waystation
for getting carless locals out. Thankfully we don’t know, but I think you would
not have seen thousands of people on rooftops begging for water in Houston. I
really don’t know what happened to people who evacuated East, and I haven’t
heard anything about it. The national press will concentrate on a few pictures
of Port Arthur and Lake Charles, and maybe one or two human-interest stories.
I watched White every few hours for 2 days (I know he didn’t sleep more than
I did) fielding questions (some in Spanish) with all the nasty things good reporters
should ask about failures, responsibilities, etc. I didn’t see him once show any
irritation, and he answered them all as well as he could. He also resisted many
attempts to get him to blame state or other officials for problems with contraflow,
gasoline, etc.
I think many people don’t realize that in June 2001, we had a mild tropical
storm called Allison that flooded the bejeezus out of most of Houston. It just
backed over us a few times and dropped a lot of water. I got out of bed that
morning, turned on the TV, saw the pictures, and looked out my window to see…
dry pavement. West Houston was absolutely clear, but near downtown, tractor-trailers
were completely submerged. People were boating up and down their streets. All of
those people were advised to find higher ground, just in case.