I have an idea. Probably a bad idea but I’ll go ahead and throw it out.
Is the Astrodome fairly secure as hurricanes go? Would it make sense to turn it into a regional evacuation facility in the event of a large hurricane approaching and hitting the Texas/Louisiana coast?
I understand that there may be a reluctance to do this given all the problems Houston had from all the Katrina evacuees.
But if the Astrodome is strong enough, maybe it would be sufficient as a temporary facility.
Time was that our schools were emergency evacuation centers. You didn’t need to “hunker down” at home or die in a 150 mile traffic jam.
The Astrodome took on Hurricane Alicia in 1983 and Hurricane Ivan in 2008 without suffering any real damage. There was concern when it was built whether it could stand up to a hurricane (the original plans included a bomb shelter in case of nuclear attack but that was never built) but it has endured wins in excess of 90 MPH now without major damage.
The problem with this idea, of course, is that the Dome costs $2.4 million/yr in upkeep while it sites empty. Does the county really want to spend that much on an evacuation center that may never get used again?