Few Seem to Mind Fleeing Hurricane Rita

KSL.COM ^ | 24 September 2005 | ERIN McCLAM , AP National Writer

[Colonial Warrior]

CONROE, Texas (AP) - In far-flung Texas shelters, where evacuees huddled as Hurricane Rita spared many of their homes, scarcely a gripe was heard. Nobody accused anyone of crying wolf.

Searing images of the helpless New Orleans poor trapped on rooftops, watching their own city die in the winds and waters of Katrina, had sent a clear message to people here as another hurricane roared toward land:

Get out while you can.

And so they did, by the millions, clogging the freeways of southeast Texas in what may have been a sign that city dwellers will never again assume their homes, or their lives, are safe from approaching disaster.

...

The evacuation of Houston and the Texas coast that began three days before landfall was, for the most part, a success: Nearly everyone got to safety, and in time.

Where it faltered, it was because too many people tried to get out too fast, some evacuating before the staggered times set for their designated zones. Gas was scarce, and buses picked up some people who abandoned their cars.

So much of the past week here _ the warnings from public officials, the extra attention from the federal government, but especially the bumper-to-bumper freeway exodus _ bore the lessons of New Orleans.

[Colonial Warrior]

What a difference! Thank God things went as smoothly as they did. Evacuation of a City is a monumental task under any situation.

City and State Emergency Plans will now include more detailed planning and preparation. Politicians will need to be better leaders to survive elections in the future. Hopefully, the Hollywood BS will be far less. People should demand more from their elected officials -- Leaders with vision and experience in making things happen for the people, not just for themselves.

[Colonial Warrior]

[Mister Baredog]

The bitching is yet to come, trust me.

[Chicha Kazembe]

I minded. The media hyped this storm way more than was justified. The government caused a big traffic jam by declaring mandatory evacuation three days before the hurricane made landfall. And the stupid plan forced everyone to take the same very few roads, which soon ran out of gas and became jammed with vehicles.

I wanted to take back roads from Dickinson to Victoria, and left my house on Thursday morning, but my planned route happened to cross highway 36, which is a hurricane evacuation route, so the cops had the road I wanted to take blocked off and the forced me to join the crowd on highway 36 north right back into the traffic of Houston on highway 59.

Luckily, they did not have highway 440 which crossed 36 blocked off and I headed south again until I hit highway 60 and then I took 59 south to Goliad. From Goliad, I took 239 to highway 181 which brought me into San Antonio.

The cops should let people take any road they want to take when it still two days before the storm. By forcing everyone on just a few roads, the cops caused the traffic jams and of course there was no gas available along those routes. I found gas at stations on the back roads with either no lines or very short lines of two or three cars.

I made out OK, but it was despite the government officials and their stupid plans, not because the dumb plan worked.

We already know that thousands of self interested individuals are always going to be able to respond better to changing conditions than some stupid government plan made up months before the problem. The government changes their plan only very slowly, since they have to have lots of meetings and think about how to cover their a**es before they can finally agree that the plan is not working and they finally make some small adjustments.

[Signalman]

Word is that the oil refineries were not hit that hard. If so, there should be continued downward pressure on the price of crude.

That is positive news for the equities markets.

[SamAdams76]

The hype for Rita was so bad that I wanted to drive my family from eastern Massachusetts to central Vermont. But I didn't want to get stuck in those traffic jams so we decided to ride it out.

Wise choice.

[Chicha Kazembe]

Right. I am bit*ching and mad as he** about the stupid plan to force everyone on a few so called hurricane evacuation routes. The state police were busy blocking folks from taking better side roads, rather than doing something useful. Naturally, their was no gas to be found along the evacuation routes, because that was the route that everyone had to take and so everyone sucked up all the gas. The back roads were open and the stations along the back roads had gas, but the state cops did their level best to force everyone onto the official evacuation routes, even though those roads were jammed up and had no glass.

[Colonial Warrior]

Glad you made it safely.

Nothing like this has ever taken place for real, so lets hope we use all the lessons learned to make it better.

There will be a time when we must do this again, someplace else hopefully. Everyone must learn the lessons so as not to repeat the mistakes.

[paulat]

You also has almost NO looting on the side roads. The police were able to keep them shut off for looters.

Welcome to FreeRepublic!!! I see you just joined us!!!

[Paladin2]

Is Galveston 'Rat or Repub. controlled? (Didn't Glen Campbell come from there ;-))

[Sometimes A River]

Im aware of how the media hypes, but, Rita was at one time a Category 5, taking dead aim at the 4th biggest city in the US.

[nmh]

#2

Nicely done!

[nmh]

A category 5 storm is NOT hype.

Be glad it downgraded.

[Chicha Kazembe]

I appreciate your good wishes.

It makes sense to allow people to use every available road to make their way out of the city. It makes no sense to try and force everyone to use just a few roads to evacuate. If the cops allow folks to use every available road, then like water seeking its own level, traffic will divert and flow to the roads of least resistance until the traffic flow equalizes.

Also, by waiting a while, we can see what kind of strength the storm will have and where it will make landfall. Many of the people who evacuated from Houston went to the Lumberton area, since that was the end point of one of the evacuation routes. Then those people were in worse shape than if they had just stayed in Houston.

For goodness sake, the storm is only moving at 10 miles an hour and its position is tracked by the minute. There is plenty of time to leave, if it is justified, and leave in the correct direction, rather than telling everyone to get out of their homes with mandatory evacuations days and days before the storm is fixated to hit land.

While traveling south on 59 to Victoria, a large SUV suddenly swerved into my lane and it would have hit me if I had not pulled my car sharply to the right and over onto the shoulder. Once I was on the shoulder I had to very gingerly correct by car to keep from either hitting the guard rail or to keep from over correcting and end up rolling my car over. All the luggage, water, and gasoline in my trunk made my car handle squirrelly and it was all I could do to keep the shiney side up. So it is not as though staying in your house is dangerous and leaving is safe. With all the crazy traffic and people desperate to get out of town, there is plenty of danger to being out on the road.

[Chicha Kazembe]

"You also has almost NO looting on the side roads."

As if the state police were trying to stop people from looting on the side roads. What was anyone going to loot? A bale of hay?

I am glad to see that you noticed that I has just joint Free Republic. Do you have any more brilliant comments to make?

[NonValueAdded]

Reverse those two photos and the alternate subcaption could be "Red or dead"

[Chicha Kazembe]

Yes, but at Thursday at noon, it was about 500 miles away and moving towards Houston at ten miles an hour, so it was two full days away. By noon Thursday, lots of folks had been sitting in their cars for 24 hours and they were still well within range of the storm, if it had come ashore in Houston.

In the meantime, the path had been adjusted from most likely to hit south of Houston to hitting right at Houston. Logic showed that as they kept shifting the impact point to the north and east, that the way to get out of the path of the storm was to go to the south and the west, but since the started the evacuation so soon and everyone was routed to the north and the east, they had funneled everyone right into the path of the storm.

If you do not live in an area that is likely to be subject to a storm surge, there is no reason to evacuate. The media hype, and the government mandated evacuation orders caused most of the misery, not the hurricane.

[i_dont_chat]

Galveston County has a long history of being a Democratic strong-hold, because of the labor unions. But the times, they are a'changin'.

Unions are not near as powerful as they were. Neither is the Democratic Party.

[Chicha Kazembe]

"A category 5 storm is NOT hype."

A category 5 storm 500 miles off shore is a potential problem, not the end of the world as we know it, which is how the media hyped it.

[OldFriend]

Guess the folks in Texas realized it was better to be stuck in traffic than stuck in your attic with an ax trying to break thru the roof as the water rose.