Posted on 08/28/2017 4:19:09 PM PDT by PJ-Comix
Despite repeated attempts, Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott has reported that he has been unable to reach Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. Abbott has called Turner's cell phone "several times" to offer aid and whatever he may need in this time of crisis.
(Excerpt) Read more at redstatewatcher.com ...
You at least evacuate the “lower” areas.
Period.
I live in the Houston area myself. I disagree with your take on the governor and mayor. Listen to what they both said. Both of their recommendations were not the best but were not the worst advice either.
Neither wanted mandatory evacuations. Abbott wanted people to leave who were in a position to do so. That’s not millions. Turner wanted everyone to stay put. A lot of people should have left. A lot did.
Here is what Abbott said:
“Even if an evacuation order hasn’t been issued by your local official, if you’re in an area between Corpus Christi and Houston, you need to strongly consider evacuating.”
That was good advice. I had family in Texas City that did just that. Good thing they did too, because the area is under water.
I stayed put because the area I am in traditionally does not flood. There are areas like S Braeswood that always floods. Abbott’s advice applies to these folks.
But what did Turner say?
“Please think twice before trying to leave Houston en masse. No evacuation orders have been issued for the city.”
That’s not bad advice either. I personally evacuated a bus load of people from the area when we did have a mandatory evacuation, and it was a disaster.
On Saturday he Tweeted: “Cannot emphasize enough how much flooding there is on roadways you are endangering yourself and our first responders by being out stay put.”
Maybe some people had to adapt to situation on the ground. This message is not appropriate. If there is not a mandatory curfew, he should have advised of the risks of being on the road.
On Friday he was advising people in low lying areas to rearrange their furniture.
On Thursday he was simply saying “no evacuations.”
The key here is that we did not need everyone to evacuate. But people in low-lying, flood-prone areas should have. People in mobile homes and trailers that could leave town or stay with family elsewhere should have been advised to do so. And they should have been advised to do so by Thursday.
Overall, staying put was the best option for most people because Houston is not below sea level like New Orleans. But many people should have received better, more clear, more succinct advice from the governor and mayor.
But I will add one last point on this topic. The liberal media and leftwing politicians politicize everything. I don’t think Abbott is doing anything other than looking out for people. I think Turner is also trying to help but is also treating this as an opportunity to grandstand and try to one-up the governor with the help of the media.
This should not be a time of playing politics, but for some people politics is their life. It’s all they know.
I looked at Turner’s Twitter feed. He’s retweeted Obama pretending to still be president.
To his credit, Turner did retweet a Univision interview with the Governor in Spanish. Otherwise, I’m not seeing much effort on his part to coordinate with state and national agencies.
If Obama was president, there is no doubt in my mind that Turner and Obama would be sharing photo ops by now.
Wonder if the mystery and dead voters will be able to evacuate?
I've told you a million times not to exaggerate: The population of Harris County is ~4.59 million -- about half the size of the City of New York.
Your timeline is off.
This Wikipedia timeline says that Harvey wasn't even a tropical depression on Tuesday. It was still a disorganized tropical wave.
Harvey didn't become a hurricane until Thursday, which is too late to start evacuating a city like Houston.
-PJ
TUESDAY the highway emergency message signs already said gas up your car.
He’s dead, Jim.
Firstly, none of this is even news worthy of reporting. This is nothing more than "weather". It doesnt make a bit of difference where the Mayor is.
I know from personal experience that, at least going back to the 70s, you all knew that you were living in a flash flood prone hardpan area.
(This goes from all of you living from Texas to Florida and all other hurricane effected coastal regions, also Mississippi River effected areas.)
#1 STOP BEING THE ASSHAT WHO BUILDS A HOME IN A FLOODPLAIN OR ON THE COAST! There is no excuse, you knew it was coming, you deserve it, youre existence is truly a waste of oxygen akin to any other Democrat.
#2 If you must build in a flood plain, build in mitigation efforts. It is not the responsibility of the rest of us to pay insurance premiums for your stupidity. Build your home on a mott or stilts, protect it with a full dyke, or maybe instead of a standard ranch home (the worst ever conceived) you should build an ark. This is America, you decide, dont be a jackass and expect me to pay for your bad decisions.
#3 Make the effort to insure that local government is mitigating flash flood problems. (The rest of us would call that "a ditch" and "interconnecting pond system" for those of you in Rio Linda who might want to investigate an answer that your local clowns havent considered.) I know you havent, Ive been all over these areas and not a one of you have demanded ANY mitigation effort compared to what we have in a "no flood" zone up North. NO! It doesnt matter that this area might during most of the year be considered a desert by most of the population. "Cost" is absolutely no argument in the face of full well knowing you personally are personally and intentionally causing problems for the rest of the population. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Right? Its called responsibility.
The media likes to make fun of us rubes living on the Northern tier when something like a blizzard happens and our families die. Screw all of you Southerners (and Easterners) who laugh at us because we have problems when as a group youre too stupid to help yourself in the face of a problem with far easier answers but are too damned LAZY, CHEAP, AND IRRESPONSIBLE to do anything about it.
These types of threads are no more than sensationalized demands for socialism and should be recognized as such.
Were you not impressed by how far out and how weak Harvey was on Tuesday? Mayor Turner would be accused of panicking if he suggested an evacuation of Houston based on a tropical wave on the other side of the Gulf of Mexico.
You gas up your car as a precaution against losing power, which happens a lot in Houston storms. It's the LEAST thing that someone can do to prepare for the possibility of a storm. You don't evacuate a city over it.
-PJ
I gassed up Tuesday. Bought groceries Wednesday. Got the brakes on my car fixed Thursday (knowing that shops would be crowded after the impending storm). Friday didn’t go to work, did storm prep at two houses.
My goal wasn’t to leave town but it was on my radar on Tuesday and not Thursday which would be poor storm prep.
It was "on my radar" too (we all ARE news junkies after all...), but I doubt that anyone on Tuesday was thinking this was coming.
-PJ
No one saw Allison coming in 2001 and my car flooded on that Tuesday. Wednesday was clear and Thursday night was the torrential downpour that went down in history.
In hindsight, we could probably come up with a number of plans but the problem with all of them would be in execution. Even military commanders have difficulty executing a mass troop movement under stressful conditions. In a city like Houston, it would be virtually impossible to stage a successful evacuation of a diverse civilian population, even if it was limited to designated neighborhoods or facilities. Human beings are just not good at following orders.
I think it can be agreed that property damage would be the same with or without an evacuation. In the last partial evacuation, many people spent a miserable 24 to 36 hours sitting on the highways getting out and another day getting back and there was over 100 lives lost. As insensitive as it may sound, the only real measure is the body count and so far, the shelter in place strategy has a loss of 6. Either way, the person making the decision is going to be criticized. That just goes with job
I was. Thanks for reminding me of that happy ending.
Hard to disagree with you...I’m also here in the rain, but I’m not paying much attention to any of them. I’m just watching the storm track and will make my call accordingly (although I’m probably trapped here by now due to the road closures, LOL).
Based on the timeline I presented of what Harvey was, when and where, what would the "reasonable man" conclude?
Do you call for an evacuation of a city of 2-4 million people because of a tropical wave 700 miles away?
-PJ
Call for an evacuation? No necessary.
Telling people that fears of 40 ounces of rain are unfounded isn’t honest either.
Houston is enormous. There are plenty of people, probably the vast majority, who are perfectly safe in their homes. I think evacuating the whole city would have been moronic.
That said, evacuating by designated section does make some sense to me.
It’s not realistic to evacuate, Harris County has a population of around 10 million people.
I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate: The population of Harris County is ~4.59 million — about half the size of the City of New York.
Houston is much more than just Harris County. According to the Census Bureau, the Houston Metro area consists of NINE counties, and the latest population figures are just south of 7 million.
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