Houston/Galveston, Corpus Christi, and Beaumont areas out to Austin and west of San Antonio Which highways did you use to evacuate from Corpus Christi. If I had needed to I was trying to choose between I-37 with three outbound lanes, US181 from CC to Karnes City then Texas 123 to San Marcos then I-35 to Austin, or FM136 from Gregory to Refugio, then Texas 183 all the way to Austin.
Which highways did you use to evacuate from Corpus Christi. If I had needed to I was trying to choose between I-37 with three outbound lanes, US181 from CC to Karnes City then Texas 123 to San Marcos then I-35 to Austin, or FM136 from Gregory to Refugio, then Texas 183 all the way to Austin.
Avoid I-37 at all costs. Look at
this area (Google Maps - you can left-click on the map and while holding down your left button, you can literally drag the map around) - you have several options - depending on where you're at in Corpus, you can head to Orange Grove, Alice, or even Kingsville, and then over to Freer and then north to the San Antonio area, or over to 35 and then to San Antonio, but I-35 can get very busy with just its normal traffic. There are smaller back roads if needed (you really need a good map/atlast), and you could even catch 281 north out of Alice, but it could be busy as well.
The nice thing about going west and then north, is your getting out of the main evacuation routes, and your options open up (not to mention your putting miles between you and the coast).
I wouldn't recommend taking any of the smaller roads to the east of Corpus because you have so many towns between Corpus and Houston that are within 50 miles of the coast that are going to evacuate that some choke points are going to happen, especially around Beeville where you face folks headed north or headed west to 37.
If you had to go towards Austin from Corpus, I would say avoid Kenedy and Cuero if possible, because they would probably be major evacuation points because of 77 and 181. I would almost say head for Yorktown using your best judgement at the time (based on the traffic your seeing) and then upto Smiley or Nixon and then upto Luling. Your going to hit traffic, but if you avoid the straightest line (which is what most people will take), you could actually make better time, and your chances of finding gas if needed would improve (hopefully you wouldn't need it and would have been driving with the A/C off if possible).
The main thing with the smaller roads, is that you can change routes a lot easier if needed, and your not screwed if a bunch of people 75 miles in front of you run out of gas or have a serious accident. Some of the estimates with I-45 were 100+ miles of gridlock (which is to be expected, considering I-45 was never meant to handle that much traffic at once).