Sylvester: Why was there no evacuation order, at least for the areas prone to flooding? The reality is this is unprecedented. There's a lot of rain. So which neighborhood would you have to evacuate? Quite frankly, every neighborhood, every community received water & flooded. Every bayou went over its banks. You cannot put in the City of Houston 2.3M people on the road. It's dangerous. Harris County got a lot of rain. When you combine Houston & Harris County, you literally cannot put 6.5M people on the road. If you think the situation now is bad, you give an order to evacuate, you're creating a nightmare. Especially when it's not planned. Many of us in this city remember when an evacuation order was ordered before & we learned our lesson from that. It has to be very well coordinated all the way from Houston to the destination point. You have to make sure you have proper gas stations, you have to make sure the proper lanes flowing in the right direction. It has to be coordinated. If you do it or attempt to do it & it's not coordinated, not done right, you are literally putting people in harms way. You are creating a far worse situation. In this particular case, the hurricane, we were not in the direct line. It is true we anticipated a lot of rain. A lot of rain. But the best place is for people to be in their homes. Every person is important. But let me tell you, you issue an evacuation order and put everyone out on the highway, you're really asking for a major calamity. Anything we can learn as a result of what happened if it arises in the future? Every storm is different. We've had an unprecedented amount of water. Last night for example, you had water 3 & 4 inches in an hour. I don't care who you are, what city you're in, you're going to have flooding. When it's continuous as it was last night over into this morning, you're going to have major flooding. Recognizing that, we can still manage the outcome. This is a large city. There are a lot of people. When the flooding is occurring all over the city, all over the county, there's not many places for you to go. The safest place is for you to be is in your home. For those homes flooding & people needing to be rescued, we're coming in that direction. For example, your home may be flooding but next door, your neighbor may be in a better situation. That is one instance if you can safely get to your neighbor, go to your neighbor. This is a situation where first responders, we all need to do our part. I want to thank neighbors & Samaritans who have been out there assisting as well. It takes all of us. The answer is not en masse to get in your car & go someplace when you don't know where the storm is going. Bear in mind, up until & even now, no one knew where this storm was going. If you had gone into San Antonio, you would have been running into water. Austin, same thing. The best approach was to stay in the city, in the county & stay in your homes & stay off the streets unless it's an emergency.
It's like that? I feel like we got off on the wrong foot sir. Honestly, I was always on y'alls side in the BBS gang war.
You can't evacuate a whole city for a flood event. That's just stupid. Some places will flood and others won't. If you live anywhere near a creek/bayou/pond/ Wow. That's so sad. I have a few friends in Dickinson and their houses are flooded. My parents house in friendswood has clear creek right up to their house and that has never happened since the 70s! Highest it's ever been.
If you're able bodied and you can help someone next to you, by all means get off your ass and do it! #clutchcommunity
Judge Ed Emmit just said it - if you have a flat bed boat with the right equips and know what you are doing, go help.
My family and friends in CL say the water in the streets is gone. No water reached inside the house. We are now in day 2.
