Just an FYI guys. My sister left with her two kids at 4:00 this morning out of Humble. She just called. They've gone less than 70 miles all day long. She's about to run out of gas and is freaking out. This is an absolute nightmare. Why did so many people decide it was a good idea to leave?
It's unreal to see live Houston city cams on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News at midnight full of cars. The highways are f'ed up. Someone dropped the ball in planning for a mass evacuation. If one person is injured or killed because they couldn't leave the city, that is wrong.
I think that its more that people that didn;t need to evacuate, decided they would rather spend 15 hours in a car, then 10 hours in a storm... unfortuately, that interfered with the people who have no choice but to leave.
I am from here and I know that's the most powerful hurricane I've ever seen come near here. Though it's turned a little east and maybe lightened up a little bit now, last night it had 175mph winds and was no track to go straight through Katy. If that didn't scare you then I don't know.
I live in College Station. I had a co-worker who took 105W today. She said it took her about 2 hours just to get from Conroe to Montgomery. She said 105W was bumper-to-bumper. Hwy6 headed north appears to be busy, but traffic is still flowing in this area.
They did. City officials issued mandatory evacuations first beginning w/ Zone A, followed by Zone B, and finally Zone C. I do remember reading specific times for those Zones to begin evacuation. So it's not like officials told everyone to leave all at once. The problem: because of their location, coastal residents have to evacuate through the Houston Metro area, essentially merging with other voluntary evacuees and regular city/rush hour traffic. Also, the effects of Katrina have weighed heavily on people's minds, creating more of a panic than need be, thus resulting in evacuations of areas that don't necessarily need to be evacuated (at the very least those people that lie outisde the floodzone and storm surge areas could have waited until the coastal residents passed through). Then combine that w/ the Katrina evacuees currently presiding in the area, thus causing more traffic and taken up more hotel space. I mean think about it for a minute. New Orleans residents travel time during Katrina evacuations were double that of normal conditions, and that's a Metro area of 1-1.5 million in which about 40OK heeded the evacuation. Here you're talking about a Metro Area of well over 4 million with about 1.3 million evacuating. People should have expected this gridlock, albeit maybe not to such a catastrophic extent, but they should have expected and anticipated it. And I for one think city and government officials have done a great job of planning and implementing these evacuations and getting these people out. Galveston is virtually deserted now. Katrina evacuees have been moved out. And those needing assistance have utilized the 311 line. And traffic is slowy but surely easing. They have definitely taken lessons from Katrina. And I'm sure they'll be lessons taken from this. The point is, no matter how much you plan for an emergency there are always uncontrollable, unforeseeable circumstances that complicate matters. City and government officials seemed to have responded well to these circumstances and changing conditions (opening contraflow lanes, dispatching gas trucks to stations and stranded motorists, distaching water, sending metro buses, etc). I do think, however, that the city could have done a better job in communicating to Houston area residents outisde of floodzones and storm sure areas that it wasn't necessarily essential for them to leave, and if they choose to leave, to do so once traffic from the southern areas pass through first. But honestly, if Katrina had never hit...this traffic nightmare would not be occuring right now.
Exactly. The storm essentially peaked yesterday, early evening, almost three full days before it exptected to make landfall. Those along the coast should have immediately evacuated, which they did. But those further inland could have easily waited until today to decide whether or not the storm's strength and path merited leaving. And all signs, right now, point to Houston not being in the bad quadrant of the storm (which looks to be a strong Cat 3 or weak Cat 4 but not the Cat 5 from yesterday). Could that change yes. But because so many people evacuated before they really needed too, that created much more of a headache.
so if it did wait it out, turns out it does turn toward us, and everyone decides to leave a day before the storm, that would be better? stupidest thing i've ever read.
Just came back. Me and my friend decided to survey the roads and see if there's any way to get to austin quicker. We took Codell's way (much appreciated btw) but we didn't get far...about 3-4 miles after tomball. Then we decided to take 2920 all the way down to 290. Needless to say, once we got to the intersection, it was jammed. Just driving around and see cars parked at gas stations and then cars on the side of the road camping out made me feel uneasy. Then on our way home on 249, seeing cars just sit there on the shoulder made me more uneasy..it's like the friggin apocalypse is coming or something.... Guess we'll just ride this one out.
I voted "I made it" on behalf of my dad. It took him 29 hours, minus about 3 hours combined to sleep and eat, so 26 hours for a usual 5 1/2 trip... to North Dallas. Me? I got out 3 summers ago.
What's exactly stupid about that. My point is staggered evacuations should have been in place, not only for the storm surge and floodzone areas (which there were), but for those in voluntary evacuation areas as well. People in SL and other higher, non-flood prone areas of the city didn't necessarily need to leave. And because they jumped the gun, the freeways were at a standstill. If people made rational decisions based on the information given to them at the time and projected forecasts made, instead of relying on the fears of Katrina, of having to be "rescued from rooftops" (which btw is a scenario that would not happen here), you would not have seen the panic that engulfed the city yesterday with 2 million people trying to leave. Instead, everybody saw a Cat 5 monster three full days before the storm was projected to make landfall, plenty of time, as all forecasters predicted, for the storm to weaken to a Cat 3, borderline Cat 4 hurricane. Now that's still a strong hurricane and I don't fault anybody that wanted to get out...if they wanna leave then go right ahead. Just don't start complaining about the gridlock, lack of gas and how poorly planned this evacuation was (which it wasn't). When you have a coastal region of 5-6 million people with 2 million trying to leave, there is only so much you can do to alleviate the congestion.
