'Big D' offers little help Dallas balks at state's request to shelter almost 40,000 from Harris County By POLLY ROSS HUGHES and JANET ELLIOTT Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau AUSTIN - With hurricane season bearing down, a crucial part of the state's elaborate disaster evacuation plan has already hit gridlock: Dallas is balking at a request to harbor as many as 40,000 of Harris County's neediest evacuees. Read the rest of the article here.
I was reading an article a few months ago about how Dallas' Emergency Management Department is essentially non-existant (it consists of one guy. My significantly-smaller suburban county has 14 people) and has blown the bulk of its budget on the computer system that runs the County Jail (which is a boondoggle unto itself). It's not altogether unlikely that it's true that Dallas proper simply cannot handle that kind of influx because they've so mismanaged the office, city and county.
Houston takes on so many freaking people from another state with out question when Katrina hit, Dallas can't even help people from their own state. A-holes.
Then I propose we send Dallas 40,000 of Harris counties neediest to help spearhead the disaster preparation committee.
this does seem like it sucks, but I don't know why everyone from houston wants to crap on the city of Dallas. I hate the Mavs, but I have nothing against the city.. it's not like it's our version of Flint, MI or somethin
Because the city of Dallas and it's people take any and every opportunity they can to Crap on the City of Houston and Houstonians. They hate us. When I first moved up here, anytime I told people I am from Houston, they'd say "oh I'm sorry" unapologetically. I had NO preconcieved notions of Dallas before that, but my opinion has changed. I live in Ft. Worth now, and I always tell people that the less I have to go east of HWY 360, the better. Funny, Dallas people hate Ft. Worth as well. and San Antonio. Well, they hate just about every other city in Texas. They're snobbish and pretentious, and half of them are born Yankees anyway.
When I was working in a warehouse on Clinton Drive in the mid '90's, a lot of the trucking reps and even my boss were Dallas natives or recently moved from there. All they seem to talk about when comparing the two cities,was how much better Dallas was. Dallas this and Dallas that. I finally said to them "Why don't you go back if you think it's so great?!!!!" Never got an answer. It seemed like they didn't want to go back.
It wasn't close to the number that San Antonio or Austin took. They talked themselves up, but didn't bring in many at all. Dallas = rhinestone cowboys. Phoney.
you mean opening up hotel rooms??? i'm unaware of anything the city of dallas did. i went to dallas...stayed with some cousins. i never once heard of anything dallas did. maybe i missed it.
Well, I would have to defend them and say that SA and Austin are in the 2.5-3 hour driving range while Dallas is in the 4.5-5 hour driving range. Considering what the roads were like (20 hours to Austin 36 hours before it hit)...I can't imagine TOO many people would keep going to Dallas when they could make it to Austin or SA. So I wouldn't think they had the same opportunity. However, I also wasn't in the area at the time so I don't have specific details at all..
Wrong. My sister-in-law works for Catholic Charities and after the hurricanes she and the rest of their staff (plus countless volunteers) were busy non-stop. Reunion Arena was opened up and filled to over capacity, and I know to this very day they're still helping evacuees find homes and jobs...
I think part of the concern was 40,000 special needs people. It wouldn't be good if anyone died in a Dallas shelter because they weren't prepared with the proper supplies. That said, the guy is a d*ck. He could be more neighborly, and Dallas is not w/o it's weather threats (I think I'll be watching that show on a Dallas tornado...not that I would ever want that, but would like to understand what they think could happen to the city) Props to Tarrant county and Fort Worth.
I read that and that is typical...Now granted, 40K special needs is a hell of a lot, but he has to be more diplomatic about it...What an ass... btw, Dallas still sux and I'm glad the Suns won last night...
Mayor Miller was all over the place trying to find space to put evacuees from both Katrina and Rita. And Dallas County Judge Margaret Keliher personally found space for hundreds, if not thousands, of evacuaees. The city got hotel rooms opened. They housed people at the Convention Center and Reunion, as well as some smaller shelters. And they twisted some arms of other area cities/counties to get them to find more space to house people and coordinating some of that effort. Considering how corrupt the leadership in Dallas is, it's a wonder as much got done as it did. But that has nothing to do with the people who live there. As a people, it's been my experience that they're no less willing to help than anyone else. Their leadership is just more incompetent and corrupt than many others.
Dallas is the home of the 30K millionaire! Its funny that Dallas has the highest vacant commercial real estate in the nation and based on a forbes article, one of the fastest growing forclosure rates on homes in the nation.
