Millions tried evacuating Houston before Rita hit shortly after Katrina.
That was a disaster in itself.
Posted on 08/28/2017 9:52:23 AM PDT by Enlightened1
HOUSTON—A split between Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner over whether the metropolis should have been evacuated is raising questions about officials’ response to damaging floodwaters as a catastrophe continues to engulf the region.
Mr. Turner, a Democrat, and other local officials urged residents to stay in their homes as Hurricane Harvey, which has since downgraded to a tropical storm, approached Houston on Friday.
But at a Friday news conference, Gov. Abbott, a Republican, suggested otherwise. “Even if an evacuation order hasn’t been issued by your local official, if you’re in an area between Corpus Christi and Houston, you need to strongly consider evacuating.”
By Sunday, the storm had poured as much as 24 inches of rain in 24 hours onto areas that had been soaked the previous day. Five fatalities have been reported in the Houston area, according to the National Weather Service, though Mr. Turner said Sunday that only one in the city was confirmed so far as storm-related. More than 3,000 water rescues had been performed by Sunday afternoon, officials said.
The offices of Messrs. Turner and Abbott didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
In other words the Democrats create and exploit tragedies for political gain.
I really think that the Mayor was hoping that a lot of his constituents would stay in their homes and drown. Then he could blame Trump — to make an omelet, you must break a few eggs.
Yep I wonder when the media and liberals will blame this on Trump.
Has anyone blamed the hurricane on global warming yet? Anyone blame it on Trump pulling out of the Paris agreement yet???
Evacuation would have been much worse, imo. I’d have stayed anyway.
“You can sure as bet your bottom dollar that the Democrat Mayor stood down on purpose, even though he was told this is the storm of the century, in order to get the Fake Stream News to blame President Trump. “
Nonsense.
No matter what the guy decided he would have been criticized.
In these days of social media there is a lot of armchair quarterbacking going on.
.
Millions tried evacuating Houston before Rita hit shortly after Katrina.
That was a disaster in itself.
The DemonRats would rather cause chaos than see Trump be successful.
Sylvester should be a police officer in Berkeley.
The unfortunate reality is you cannot evacuate a city of 6.5M.Many would have died as happened in 2005. There also would have been many who stated behind to steal their neighbors blind.
That is EXACTLY when I would be in urgent need of a ladies room.
.
The ultimate responsibility for one’s security belongs to the individual, not the state. If your mental faculties do not allow you to make an informed decision, you play the hand dealt to you.
You take the best information that you have and then you make a decision.
The weather people were predicting big rain from this a ways out.
1. Save lives.
2. Save property.
3. Make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Mayors running their mouths about diversity and global warming and immigration don’t do a damn thing to help #3.
Sorry I strongly disagree.
Democrats are notorious for exploiting tragedies for political gain.
Why else would the mayor disagree? Who was telling him it was safe?
Exactly. Now imagine that picture with 10 inches of water on the freeway and 4 FEET of water in the feeder roads adjacent.
That’s what would have happened over hundreds of miles of freeway in Harris County to a noon Thursday mandatory evacuation.
I agree but he could have advised people to leave as the Governor and the President said to do.
Make no mistake the FAKE STREAM NEWS will blame President Trump.
I've been watching Turner since he'd been elected (I live north of Houston proper and out of his jurisdiction), and he never struck me as the type to do that. He's a local who "grew up" in the Houston political machine, and has been wanting to be mayor for a very long time. I've been impressed with his appearances during the hurricane press conferences. He seems to know what he's doing, and marshalling all the agencies at his disposal. He does not appear to be behaving like Ray Nagin.
During the storm, many local jurisdiction leaders were stopping short of mandating evacuations, saying they didn't want to put emergency responders in danger over stubborn people who refused to leave.
I've been told by long-time locals that, because Houston is so flat, the highway system was designed to become water catch-basins during severe storms. This was intentional to keep the water out of neighborhoods. This is why the roads become impassable and the city gridlocks, but the homes don't flood.
I think this is so much bigger than anyone expected. I hear people say that when Houston evacuated from Ike, people only made it as far as Conroe because the roads were stopped. It may be that it is just too impractical to evacuate a city the size of Houston in such a short period of time.
Today's situation is aggravated by the release of water in the dams. Yesterday, officials were thanking the citizen responders with flat boats, saying that today "professional" help would be arriving. However, the citizens are not stopping, and they are proving useful as their boats can get into areas where the flooding is not deep enough for many of the new vehicles that are arriving.
Now we are waiting for the water up north to flow down through Houston as it makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico.
-PJ
NAGIN II
I am of the opinion that the mayor wants FEMA money so he can use it as a slush fund to reward his dem voters
It’s not just preventing death from the immediate storm.
Now you have a large number of people that need electricity and water and food and medical attention and it’s hard to get stuff to the site.
This response from the Mayor is a coverup for his poor decision making.
Millions tried evacuating Houston before Rita hit shortly after Katrina.
That was a disaster in itself.
***************
People that haven’t been in something like that have no idea of the problems.
Housing becomes a major problem for hundreds of miles in order to place that
many people.
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