Posted on 09/24/2005 1:13:44 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Texas officials sketched a staggered, orderly evacuation plan for Hurricane Rita and urged people to get out days ahead of time.
But tangles still arrived even before the storm's first bands. Panicked drivers ran out of gas, a spectacular, deadly bus fire clogged traffic, and freeways were red rivers of taillights that stretched to the horizon.
In an age of terrorist danger and with memories of the nightmare in New Orleans still fresh, the Texas exodus raises a troubling question: Can any American city empty itself safely and quickly?
Thousands of drivers remained stranded Friday to the north and west of Houston. Many were stuck in extreme heat, out of gas -- as gas trucks, rumored to be on the way, or at least buses to evacuate motorists, never came.
They were frustrated, angry and growing desperate, scattered and stranded across a broad swath of the state as the monster storm bore down.
Houston is a landlocked city, an hour's drive from the Gulf of Mexico. Besides Houston's 4 million people fleeing, as many as 2 million were trying to get out through Houston from the coastal side.
In Galveston County along the Gulf, authorities set up three evacuation zones, beginning Wednesday evening and staggered at eight-hour intervals, with the most outlying areas to be the first to leave. But people in all three zones left early anyway, further snarling traffic.
From Houston, the main roads out of town -- Interstate 10 to San Antonio, I-45 to Dallas, and U.S. Highway 290 to Austin -- were turned into one-way thoroughfares only Thursday, and even then the one-way flow began well outside Houston.
"There were some weaknesses," Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat, acknowledged to KTRK-TV on Friday. "We could have fixed some of the elements ... a fuel truck that works, a mechanical system that works, and opening the contraflow," the term emergency officials use for routing all lanes in one direction.
Later in the day, Jackson Lee told The Associated Press the state should have asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for supplies. "I'm marching people all over looking for gasoline," she said.
Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Friday decision to order one-way flow came after the storm, originally on a track south of Houston, changed course and headed toward Houston instead.
"It's not perfect," he said. "I wish I could wave a magic wand and somehow transport people magically from Houston, Texas, to Dallas or other points, but that's not the fact when you have the type of congestion that you see in the state of Texas on a daily basis."
He added: "I think when you look behind later, it will be almost miraculous that this many people were moved out of harm's way."
State emergency management coordinator Jack Colley said 2.5 million to 2.7 million Texans had already been moved out of harm's way, and the governor said 25 buses would canvass Beaumont, looking for people still trying to get out.
By midday Friday, lanes were restored to normal traffic. Still, many remained stranded beyond Houston's suburbs.
Before the late 1990s, emergency management officials were in charge of evacuations, and transportation engineers had little interest.
But those engineers have devoted great energy to the problem since Hurricane Georges forced an evacuation of New Orleans in 1998, and Hurricane Floyd an evacuation of the Carolinas in 1999.
Rita and her hellish predecessor, Katrina, come in the new age of terror, as authorities try to draw up plans for clearing out cities in the event of deadly strikes with unconventional weapons.
Still, experts say the massive coastal zone that needs to be cleared of people before a major hurricane is far larger than the area to be evacuated after an industrial accident or a terror attack.
In the event of a nuclear accident, federal rules require the evacuation of a 10-mile radius around the plant. After a so-called "dirty bomb" nuclear detonation or the release of chemical or biological weapons, only the region immediately downwind of the release point would have to be cleared.
"Natural disasters just dwarf anything that's manmade," said Reuben B. Goldblatt, a partner at traffic engineering firm KLD Associates in Commack, N.Y.
Brian Wolshon, a professor of civil engineering at Louisiana State University, said Texas officials "will probably see there were things they could have done better."
But he added: "It's not economically or environmentally feasible to build enough roads to evacuate a city the size of Houston in a short time and with no congestion. It's just not going to happen."
It was a point all too clear to Bruce French, who left his home in Clear Lake, Texas, early Thursday, and ran out of gas just past Conroe, far short of his destination of Dallas. On Friday morning, he was stranded, waiting for fuel.
"They're giving $10 worth of gas if you're on empty and $5 if you have some," he said. "That's not going to get you very far."
-- -- --
EDITOR'S NOTE -- Associated Press writers Kristen Hays in Houston, Liz Austin in Austin and Suzanne Gamboa in Washington, National Writer Matt Crenson in New York and photographer Paul Sancya contributed to this story.
"One can imagine what it would be like with no warning if several radition (dirty) bombs were set off in Houston."
No need to evacuate entire city for one (or several) dirty bombs.
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:DuYKSapzK-gJ:www.fas.org/faspir/2002/v55n2/dirtybomb.htm+nuclear+dirty+bomb+effective+area&hl=en
"Imagine that the cesium in this device was exploded in Washington, DC in a bomb using ten pounds of TNT. The initial passing of the radioactive cloud would be relatively harmless, and no one would have to evacuate immediately. However, residents of an area of about five city blocks, if they remained, would have a one-in-a-thousand chance of getting cancer."
It took us 12 hours to drive from Houston to New Orleans 3 years ago, a normal 6 hour trip. It was road construction combined with regular Fri afternoon traffic.
Really? I never knew this. Can you imagine the hysteria of the media, though? These facts would totally be lost in their hype.
One of my neighbors left early Thursday from Houston, for refuge with family in Memphis. They made it there in reasonable time and had no gas troubles... simply by staying OFF the evacuation routes. Another neighbor left for Austin on Friday, the day AFTER the traffic gridlock, and at a time when we were being instructed to stay put, and hunker down. Again, they sailed through with no trouble.
Sometimes it's better to NOT follow the "official" instructions.
Becky, please add: They used the darn BUSES to evacuate the elderly, infirmed & poor!
Unlike you, i will not give Praise to the Democratic Mayors of Houston and Galveston for a Failed Evacuation.
The problem was that people left at the same time. In LA the people in the Lower Parishes left first and then the New Orleans began to evacuate.
I said the same thing last night on one of the hurricane threads and was called an idiot by several people.
On Thursday idiots in Austin were buying all the water off the shelves!
Major Case of Hurricane Envy!
Do you know for a fact that all the elderly and infirmed were evacuated from Houston?
there were people that didn't make it from 610 loop and 290 to the beltway in 12 hours...much less 500 miles to new orleans...there is simply no way to evacuate that many people given the present highways...the traffic jams were over 100 miles long. people sat still idling until they ran out of gas. i think next time they should evacuate the northern portions of the city earlier in the week or only allow cars with no empty seats access to the evacuation routes to cut down on traffic...it was really amazing to watch...maybe a light system like florida has where people can be warned when all lanes are heading out of town during emergencies instead of having to wait for the police to set up all the road blocks.
Yes, by bus and plane.
Where did you get such information that ALL these people were Evacuated safely by the Mayor White (D) of Houston?
It seems to me that there should have been some traffic controls. It should have been possible for those leaving the city to use some of the incoming lanes since they were not in use. It would not take much work at all to make that happen.
Jackson-Lee will use this to pimp for more government spending.
Perry will use this to pimp for his Trans-Texas Corridor.
It was on the news, they used c-130 planes and it showed them using the baggage cars to carry stretchers. Nursing homes were evacuated, etc by bus or whatever other means they needed.
Louisiana had the Contraflow lanes open by 4:00 p.m. on the Saturday before Katrina.
I am no radiological expert (or even amateur), but I did a little net surfing after 9/11 to learn about chem, bio, nuke (dirty bomb) attacks. Obviously if you are very close to the site of the attack you are probably out of luck. It seems like the key thing is not to be downwind (or quickly move upwind) in any of these type of attacks. However, I assume panic could set off a stampede where you would end up with gridlock anyway.
(disclaimer: this is just based on my brief reading of research. do not rely on any of it.)
Won't work. There'll be a discrimination lawsuit the first time some 400-pound fatty can't fit into the tube. Then, of course, there will be a wrongful death lawsuit the first time granny's oxygen tube comes out or she suffers "deceleration trauma".
You can't do anything effective nowadays unless the most feeble and incapable among us are able to access it.
Or go the same way as the rest of the herd. I was suggesting to anyone who listened to go southwest to Laredo or the Valley. There would have been less traffic and a better chance to find an available room. Beats driving to New Mexico.
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