With Rita there were people from Houston that headed east and people from Beaumont that were headed west.
The Highway patrol were trying to direct people north but the amount of people on the road all at the same time the small towns couldn’t handle it people were stranded.
Along a major road in a major city there are more gas stations in 1 mile than there are in an entire small town.
Food, get an extra 100,000 people moving through and it’s gone even for a city with 20-30,000.
You are right. The best time to bug out of a city the size of Houston is to not live there to begin with.
If you don’t have a place to go, everything you need to get you there including 3 to 4 times the amount of fuel you think you need, and a vehicle you can take offroad because the roads will be blocked with cars out of gas, then you are better off staying put as long as possible.
Fact is things might be worse where your going.
I stayed during Ike. But I live way out on the NW side of town so all I lost was power for 8 days. We had plenty of food and we had ice chests to keep our refrigerated stuff until we could cook it. We still had gas and water.
A road map that shows all the county roads comes in mighty handy. You don't need the Interstate to get where you're going...