Posted on 09/24/2005 1:13:44 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Texas officials sketched a staggered, orderly evacuation plan for Hurricane Rita and urged people to get out days ahead of time.
But tangles still arrived even before the storm's first bands. Panicked drivers ran out of gas, a spectacular, deadly bus fire clogged traffic, and freeways were red rivers of taillights that stretched to the horizon.
In an age of terrorist danger and with memories of the nightmare in New Orleans still fresh, the Texas exodus raises a troubling question: Can any American city empty itself safely and quickly?
Thousands of drivers remained stranded Friday to the north and west of Houston. Many were stuck in extreme heat, out of gas -- as gas trucks, rumored to be on the way, or at least buses to evacuate motorists, never came.
They were frustrated, angry and growing desperate, scattered and stranded across a broad swath of the state as the monster storm bore down.
Houston is a landlocked city, an hour's drive from the Gulf of Mexico. Besides Houston's 4 million people fleeing, as many as 2 million were trying to get out through Houston from the coastal side.
In Galveston County along the Gulf, authorities set up three evacuation zones, beginning Wednesday evening and staggered at eight-hour intervals, with the most outlying areas to be the first to leave. But people in all three zones left early anyway, further snarling traffic.
From Houston, the main roads out of town -- Interstate 10 to San Antonio, I-45 to Dallas, and U.S. Highway 290 to Austin -- were turned into one-way thoroughfares only Thursday, and even then the one-way flow began well outside Houston.
"There were some weaknesses," Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat, acknowledged to KTRK-TV on Friday. "We could have fixed some of the elements ... a fuel truck that works, a mechanical system that works, and opening the contraflow," the term emergency officials use for routing all lanes in one direction.
Later in the day, Jackson Lee told The Associated Press the state should have asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for supplies. "I'm marching people all over looking for gasoline," she said.
Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Friday decision to order one-way flow came after the storm, originally on a track south of Houston, changed course and headed toward Houston instead.
"It's not perfect," he said. "I wish I could wave a magic wand and somehow transport people magically from Houston, Texas, to Dallas or other points, but that's not the fact when you have the type of congestion that you see in the state of Texas on a daily basis."
He added: "I think when you look behind later, it will be almost miraculous that this many people were moved out of harm's way."
State emergency management coordinator Jack Colley said 2.5 million to 2.7 million Texans had already been moved out of harm's way, and the governor said 25 buses would canvass Beaumont, looking for people still trying to get out.
By midday Friday, lanes were restored to normal traffic. Still, many remained stranded beyond Houston's suburbs.
Before the late 1990s, emergency management officials were in charge of evacuations, and transportation engineers had little interest.
But those engineers have devoted great energy to the problem since Hurricane Georges forced an evacuation of New Orleans in 1998, and Hurricane Floyd an evacuation of the Carolinas in 1999.
Rita and her hellish predecessor, Katrina, come in the new age of terror, as authorities try to draw up plans for clearing out cities in the event of deadly strikes with unconventional weapons.
Still, experts say the massive coastal zone that needs to be cleared of people before a major hurricane is far larger than the area to be evacuated after an industrial accident or a terror attack.
In the event of a nuclear accident, federal rules require the evacuation of a 10-mile radius around the plant. After a so-called "dirty bomb" nuclear detonation or the release of chemical or biological weapons, only the region immediately downwind of the release point would have to be cleared.
"Natural disasters just dwarf anything that's manmade," said Reuben B. Goldblatt, a partner at traffic engineering firm KLD Associates in Commack, N.Y.
Brian Wolshon, a professor of civil engineering at Louisiana State University, said Texas officials "will probably see there were things they could have done better."
But he added: "It's not economically or environmentally feasible to build enough roads to evacuate a city the size of Houston in a short time and with no congestion. It's just not going to happen."
It was a point all too clear to Bruce French, who left his home in Clear Lake, Texas, early Thursday, and ran out of gas just past Conroe, far short of his destination of Dallas. On Friday morning, he was stranded, waiting for fuel.
"They're giving $10 worth of gas if you're on empty and $5 if you have some," he said. "That's not going to get you very far."
-- -- --
EDITOR'S NOTE -- Associated Press writers Kristen Hays in Houston, Liz Austin in Austin and Suzanne Gamboa in Washington, National Writer Matt Crenson in New York and photographer Paul Sancya contributed to this story.
What did you say?
Wolf Blitzer went nuts yesterday questioning a FEMA official on this topic. It seemed he thinks a better job could be done moving more than 2 million people out of a city with two major Interstates that were useable only to the north and west. What a dumb shit. The MSM will be doing back flips trying to figure a way to pin the orderly RITA process on bad planning.
"Do you know for a fact that all the elderly and infirmed were evacuated from Houston?"
Don't know about Houston, but everyone south of Houston evacuated the elderly and infirm. That was reported on the Galveston Daily News web site. (They even had one story about buses being at one city (La Marque), with the hired drivers doing a Nagin. They found volunteer drivers -- and the folks got out. The bus that burned was taking people from Bellaire, btw.
Yep a disaster in some peoples eyes....... but few deaths, people not stranded in rising water, very little looting, etc. A little more complicated than moving some 1/2 million or so when you are trying to move some 3 or more million..
Now all that said I doubt any evacuation plan for a major populated area will get the people out in a short time. I think that is evident with the two sister hurricane evacuations.
The New Orleans area has one road out of town and got 1.1 million people out before the storm hit.
The New Orleans MSA has 1.3 million people.
Then there's this: In an age of terrorist danger and with memories of the nightmare in New Orleans still fresh, the Texas exodus raises a troubling question: Can any American city empty itself safely and quickly?
NO, DUMBASS. That's the whole point those of us spouting off about logistics since LA screwed up Katrina so bad have been trying to make to you morons in the press.
uhm . . . yeah . . . I just love being called an idiot, that really helps my self esteem. ;-)
Then the next time some sort of hurricane hits, everybody can just teleport to some other city that is unaffected by the hurricane.
Teleportation is the answer. Either that, or build super-wide highways that are about a half mile wide. Wasn't Texas talking about building some of these wide roads?
Three roads out of town. I-10 East, I-10 West and the highway north over Lake Pontchartrain.
Nagin failed to get the sick and infirm out of town. Galveston evacuated all hospitals, as did League City, Texas City, Webster, Pasadena and south Houston hospitals and nursing homes.
Apparently, New Orleans evacuated no hospitals, and few nursing homes.
You've got a bit of a chip on your shoulder in trying to defend Nagin and Blanco. Anybody with two eyes could see the difference between the Texas mobilization and the "you're on your own" evacaution of New Orleans.
*LOL*
Something went very wrong in the Houston Evacuation.
You're stuck on stupid. It took longer to get from Houston to Austin in Rita because more people were evacuating!
This has been explained to you several times, yet you can't seem to get it.
Very little went wrong with the Houston evacaution, and your attempt to denigrate it won't change what people clearly saw.
The New Orleans MSA has 1.3 million people.
While there are three roads out of New Orleans there are not three that are safe and effective for an evacuation.
I-10 East goes straight to Mississippi and would interfere with the Evacuations from the Mississippi gulf Coast.
The Causeway? Would you take a 26 mile bridge over that lake while a hurricane was approaching? One stalled car and thousands would be killed by storm surge.
That leaves I-10 West as the only viable route out of town.
Well good for you and I'm glad you made it safely both ways. Glad you got to spend some time on the Texas roadways and hope you enjoyed the trip. We always enjoy people spending money with us. Come again and drop a few more dollars.
Lucky I did not have to leave Houston but I had friends and family that did.
"I just love being called an idiot, that really helps my self esteem. ;-)"
Well, before feeling too bad, just remember that your enemies are a measure of your quality. Anyone without any probably isn't worth a bucket of warm spit.
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