Were There Evacuation Orders for Houston before the Storm?

[MineralMan]

I don't remember hearing about any. And, as it turns out, now, Houston may be the place that needed them the most. On the coast, people were told to evacuate, but not in Houston, as far as I know.

The potential for casualties is growing.

[virtualobserver]

1. they have only been predicting 4 ft of rain there for 3 days

Don't worry, Trump will save them.

[Warpy]

52. Asshole is planning a visit

and his guide will be Blake "ducky pajamas" Farenthold.

Look him up sometime if you don't recognize the name, just make sure eye bleach is handy.

[virtualobserver]

75. I've seen that instant nausea inducing photo

Trump's FEMA cuts should really help the people in Houston. Heck of a job, Trumpy.

[LeftInTX]

2. No, there were not

The mayor didn't want a Rita situation.

My son and his wife are in San Antonio for the weekend.
They won't be going back to Houston until everything settles.

[MineralMan]

5. That's what I thought. That was a mistake, I think.

Now, there's basically no way out of the city, really. I saw the freeway map this morning and just about every freeway was blocked at some point by flooding. The only road I could see that was actually open, going North was Hwy 8 on the Eastern Side of Houston, but I'm not sure people could get to it from most parts of the city.

[LisaL]

29. So instead of sitting in their homes they would be sitting on the road in their cars?

And somehow according to you that would be better?

[defacto7]

47. Actually yes. Many would be taken in, have help...

instead of waiting for people to risk their lives to rescue them, wait for possible disease breakout.. and thousands don't have homes to sit in. There are other morbid reasons why evac would have been better.

I'm not blaming. It's a natural random event and there are no perfect predictions.

[LisaL]

62. What are you talking about? Taken in by whom?

If they are stuck on the road, who is going to take them in?

[defacto7]

71. Who's going to dredge them from 8'6" of water depth now in Houston?

Again, I don’t think the mayor made a wrong decision. He didn't call for an evacuation, he did encourage people to leave if possible. Honestly, I may change my mind on our discussion looking at the forcast map. This is truly unprecidented. Maybe you're right.

[X_Digger]

53. No, there wasn't enough time for an evacuation.

Due to the nature of the distances involved, it would have meant gridlock, with people running out of gas, food, and water, on empty stretches of road with nothing around them.

[angel823]

88. disagree

I don't post often, but I logged in to specifically reply to this thread. All due respect MineralMan, because I agree with you 99.9% of the time, I must disagree.

I have lived in the Houston area for 40 years. I was here during Alicia, Allison, Rita and Ike, when many folks attempted evacuation.

If your area normally floods, you should have had enough sense to leave if at all possible, regardless of what Mayor Turner did or did not order. Logistically and economically this isn't possible for everyone.

People panic, and if you order an evacuation for those in flood-prone areas, many folks who probably don't need to evacuate WILL evacuate in panic, further clogging the roads.

I have an 11 year-old daughter, 3 dogs and 5 cats. No way I would evacuate and get stuck with them in a car on a freeway overpass somewhere for 12-24 hours or more. Not that being stuck in a house with rising water would be better, but there are no "good" options here, just educated guesses for everyone at a public and private level, based on history and experience.

I support Mayor Turner and his handling of this event.

Angel in Texasperated

[tibbir]

96. I live in Houston and I think you're missing something

When Hurricane Rita approached the Gulf Coast in 2005, Houston was given the order to evacuate and, having seen the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans just before this, a great portion of the city's population attempted to leave. My son and I did as well. We didn't even get halfway out of town before being stopped by a MASSIVE traffic jam. Luckily we were able to turn around and go home to ride out the storm, which turned out to be very minor in the scheme of things. I believe that there were about 120 or 150 deaths from Rita and, of that, about 100 were from people trying to evacuate.

Gas stations ran out of fuel and cars ran out of gas. People were trapped with their cars on the side of the road in 95-100 degree heat - which Houston's humidity can feel like as much as 110 degrees. Being in the middle of nowhere or by businesses that were closed for the storm, there was nowhere for them to go.

People who live on the coast, where there could be a storm surge, NEED to leave if a hurricane threatens but Mayor Turner made the right call (and I'm NOT a Mayor Turner fan).

[dalton99a]

6. Yep, local officials were afraid of 2005 and didn't want people to get stuck and drown in their cars

[Cattledog]

77. Exactly, 107 people died just trying to evacuate during Rita.

[dalton99a]

3. There were no evacuation orders in Houston.

[malaise]

4. No

And while they have finally opened the Convention Center, they are still telling people that their homes are the best places to be.

Check the comments section here for great updates

[KatyMan]

7. Where would 6 million people go?

And Rita was awful, all that happened were people were stuck on the freeways and interstates for hours and hours. Dumb Ass Governor Gregg Abbot said people should leave the other day and Houston leadership was quick to back that out saying, no, stay where you are. Freeways have been underwater since Friday, and tens of thousands of people (if not more) would be stuck in a terrible situation if they evacuated--stuck on the freeway, likely for days, pummeled by rain, wind, and tornadoes with no food, water, bathrooms or protection. Much safer at home or in shelters near home in flood prone areas.
This is an unreal extreme situation, but Houston and surrounding areas have experienced some pretty serious storms and flooding before, and I believe the city and county know how best to handle this, especially after Allison when a lot of building codes were changed to reflect this possibility. I trust them way more than the state government wrt this situation.

[elehhhhna]

10. 7 million if you count the outlying areas

but everybody have fun blaming the victims. Why not ask where the hell FEMA, the National Guard, and the Coast Guard are?

They did order an evacuation pretty much from Galveston down past Corpus Christi which is about 200 miles. Had we all tried to get out of here in our cars many many many people would have drowned.

[Hortensis]

35. Scary thought, that last. I wouldn't blame FEMA or the National Guard

either, though. What are they supposed to do as far as evacuating millions who hadn't already chosen to leave, after all? First duty for all of us is to take care of ourselves so that emergency workers can tend to those not capable of that.

[elehhhhna]

91. We need then now for high water rescues , people are on the roofs

[Hortensis]

95. Of course. But this is a few thousand, not a few million.

This is what they can do and should do well.

[MineralMan]

11. Where are they going to go now?

Where can people whose homes are flooded go within Houston, and how will they get there? Those who decided on their own to get out of town are the lucky ones. Those who stayed may be in big trouble as time passes.

I can tell you this: If 40" of rain were predicted anywhere I lived, I'd have loaded up my car and gotten the hell away from there before the first raindrop fell. From Houston, I'd head for San Antonio and I-35 northbound and not stop until I was out of Texas. Maybe in Oklahoma, or Wichita or even Des Moines.

There is no urban area in the United States that can handle 40" of rain successfully. I'd have gotten out of there very early.

[herding cats]

17. I made my family leave.

My costal relatives went to family in Houston initially, but I made them all come here to my house in Austin. We have them divided up now between two family houses in the Hill Country.

My family is lucky. We have places to put people, but most are not as fortunate. Also, even with it being a voluntary evacuation my family was in traffic for hours trying to get out of Houston.

[LisaL]

31. The reason they could leave is because there was no mass evacuations.

If everybody tried to leave, it would be impossible to manage.

[herding cats]

33. It would be a logistical nightmare.

It's 6.5 million people. That's an insane amount of people to try and move out and shelter in other places.

[LisaL]

40. Harvey didn't even really gave enough time for mass evacuations.

It intensified so quickly.

[Hortensis]

55. Hmmm. About how far ahead did they leave, Herding?

If a hurricane threatened when we were down on an estuary close off Tampa Bay in Florida, we and a couple of extended family members in the same situation would plan to drive straight home 9 hours or so north, but we'd have to evacuate from the Tampa-Sarasota area and have no feeling for the relation between the notice forecasters are able to give and evacuation conditions.

Having family can be a wonderful comfort, all right. So, for that matter, is having no local family to care for, no jobs, children or schools to consider, and 60-year-old MHs chosen with the possibility of total loss in mind. Extremely different situation, to put it mildly, from what so many are facing right now.

[herding cats]

67. They headed up from Houston Friday afternoon.

Which was when it became obvious were we're going to be dealing with a monster of a storm that was going to stall out over Texas. At the time we were just planning to err on the side of caution, but now I'm greatly relived I kept prodding them. While I'm pretty sure my Houston proper realatives homes are ok right now, my more costal realatives homes have sustained flooding and damage most likely, which we had already expected.

In this case it's just good to have them out of the mess down there. It's going to be weeks before everything is functioning even remotely in a normal fashion.

I also have 3 in laws stuck on the cruise ship the Carnival Breeze. They were supposed to port in Galveston this morning. They were told today they're now heading to Miami for fuel and supplies and won't be docking in Galveston until Friday. Which implies they're not expecting Houston roads to be back to normal before then.

Harvey has been a wild ride already and it's not even halfway over if the weather forecasts are correct.

[Hortensis]

73. Thanks. Wow. Glad to hear some of their homes are still okay.

We haven't ever had the comfort and shelter of our home replaced by a giant mess that must be addressed, and I'm thinking it must be much worse than I can imagine, no matter how positive and philosophical one tries to be. Thank goodness for family!

Now, stuck on a cruise ship. Relatively fortunate situation or hell... Hope this one stays adequately stocked until they get to Miami. I didn't realize road conditions came under the cruise line's responsibilities, but nice to know they can't just dump passengers into a crisis zone.

[LeftInTX]

45. Local shelters

There are areas in Houston which should be fine.

There are many low lying areas in Houston, but the N and NW suburbs should be OK.

Once roads are clear, they will either return home or possibly San Antonio.


San Antonio population surged post-Katrina.

[herding cats]

14. If I recall people actually died in their vehicles while stuck in traffic during Rita

Also, there were all the other people from down the coast who were already evacuating to consider. There just isn't enough places to move them all to that weren't also under threat of the storm.

[LisaL]

25. Sure did.

And there was even less time with Harvey. They wouldn't be able to evacuate Houston.

[herding cats]

34. Yep.

It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation.

[LisaL]

38. Houston has a problem. Which was well known before this.

But TX didn't do much to address it. And I don't think Harvey even qualifies as the "perfect storm" since it didn't go for Houston directly.

"Still, scientists say, Houston’s perfect storm is coming — and it’s not a matter of if but when. The city has dodged it for decades, but the likelihood it will happen in any given year is nothing to scoff at; it’s much higher than your chance of dying in a car crash or in a firearm assault, and 2,400 times as high as your chance of being struck by lightning."

http://grist.org/climate-energy/houston-is-a-sitting-duck-for-the-next-big-hurricane-why-isnt-texas-ready/

[uponit7771]

15. North and west

[bluepen]

18. Lane reversal on highways, start 3 or 4 days in advance.

For those who can't afford it, close inland schools to use as shelters, use school buses to bring evacuees.

This is done in many places. Not hard to figure out.

[KatyMan]

21. What state do you live in?

The Houston area knows how to deal with this sort of flooding in normal situations and thus well equipped to ramp up in extremely extraordinary situations. If an evacuation was needed (or feasible) it would have been called for.
The emergency personnel responding to this event before and after are doing a great job.

[bluepen]

22. I live on the coast of SC and in South FL.

SC evacuation plans for 1 million+, South FL for 6.5 million +.

There was public disagreement over evacuation in TX. Could have been a bad decisions at many levels. Worth evaluating after this settles down.

[LisaL]

26. They tried evacuating Houston during hurricane Rita. All these people just got stuck on the roads.

Maybe you can evacuate some cities, but Houston has too many people and two few roads going out.

[bluepen]

30. That's what officials were worried about in S. FL.

Until they started evaluating their plans every year.

[trof]

46. Yep, it can take 3 hours just to get from one side of town to the other durig rush hours.

[KatyMan]

41. I doubt short of having Star Trek transporters

Fla could evacuate 6.5 million people in 56 hours, which is how long it took Harvey to go from a Cat1 to a Cat4.

[GulfCoast66]

72. I live in Florida as well

No way they are getting 6.5 million out of all Miami to Orlando. Because that is how far they would have to go in Texas. Here in Florida we just get them away from the coast, sometimes 10 miles will do it unless we are talking the keys.

And we have never executed the plans we have. Florida just does not have a scenario that duplicates Houston. Even College Station may be flooding by the time it is over.

And Texas has no real zoning laws so people can build in the craziest places

Have a nice day.

[Cattledog]

78. Thanks for that spot on observation.

[tammywammy]

83. Houston doesn't have official zoning laws.

Houston is an anomaly. To say "Texas has no real zoning laws" is just grossly inaccurate.

[GulfCoast66]

84. So Houston does not. Thanks for the correction

The program I saw was talking about Houston and made it sound like the zoning laws were Texas wide. But Houston is what we are discussing sozoning laws, or lack there of, may be a contributing issue.

Have a nice evening.

[tammywammy]

85. Houston does have a lot of land-use laws

For all that’s been made of Houston’s infamous lack of zoning, Festa said it increasingly seems that reputation isn’t deserved or even accurate.

“We do have a lot of land-use regulations,” Festa said. “We still have a lot of stuff that looks and smells like zoning.”

To be more precise, Houston doesn’t exactly have official zoning. But it has what Festa calls “de facto zoning,” which closely resembles the real thing. “We’ve got a lot of regulations that in other cities would be in the zoning code,” Festa said. “When we use it here, we just don’t use the ‘z’ word.”

https://urbanedge.blogs.rice.edu/2015/09/08/forget-what-youve-heard-houston-really-does-have-zoning-sort-of/#.WaNNj0FOmEc

[elehhhhna]

97. And a lot of green space. People don't know what they're talking about.

[mcar]

86. They didn't know this was coming 4 days in advance

So your point is moot.

[bluepen]

87. No. See model intensity guidance for 22 Aug.

[mcar]

89. I choose to listen to the people actually there

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029522922

[bluepen]

90. I choose to listen to scientists.

Looks like we've covered it all.

[Nevernose]

69. Corsicana, Texarkana, and Las Vegas are places we ran to

When we lived near Galveston and big storms came through.

Of course, that presupposes enough advanced warning (Houstonians were told that they would miss the worst of it until too late), a car, gas money, and out of town relatives.

Lack of friends/relatives are often a reason people don't evacuate. If the storm ends up a bust (which seems to happen more often than not) and you're poor, there won't be any assistance if you flee, and then you're stuck in Corsicana with no place to go.

[Not Ruth]

8. The Houston mayor discouraged evacuations

From last week

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=9515312

[MineralMan]

9. Link to Current Houston Area Traffic Map

https://traffic.houstontranstar.org/layers/

I can't post the image, but this map gets updated regularly. Every major road on the map shows High Water markers, which indicate flooding problems. I can't find a route out of the city anywhere within the second loop freeway around it. Houston residents are really trapped within the city at this point.

[LisaL]

24. And if there was an evacuation notice, these people would be sitting on the roads in their cars.

Potentially drowning in those cars. Basically, you can't evacuate Houston unless given a lot of time.

[KatyMan]

42. People must think Houston is

Some podunk town. Millions of people live in the greater area, we're the fourth largest city in the US. How long would it take to evacuate Chicago? That's the equivalency, except the area involved is larger than Connecticut.

[LisaL]

43. Too many people, too few roads out.

It only gotten more people since hurricane Rita (where all the people got stuck on roads because of mass evacuation orders).

[benld74]

12. Prayers to all

[highplainsdem]

13. Plans but no order. See this thread as to why it was too late:

https://upload.democraticunderground.com/10029521532

[oberliner]

16. No - and the RW are raging hard against the Mayor of Houston

Who is a Democrat (and is African-American).

They found their "person to blame".

[mcar]

19. There wasn't time

Per Houston's mayor, that would have put 6+ million people in the city and county on the roads. Would have made a bad situation even worse.

[Gothmog]

20. Abbott ordered rvac but has no authrity

The county judge has that power nut not the govern

[LisaL]

23. You can't evacuate Houston on that short a notice.

[B2G]

27. How do you evacuate 10 million people?

Houston is the 4th most populated city in the nation.

[RKP5637]

56. Exactly, roads aren't equipped for it and other areas can only absorb so many people. There is also

the question of money, gas, health issues and all. And storms are often unpredictable. I sure don't have the answer, but I do know it's not possible to simply evacuate millions of people. Houston is a huge place, not some small area to evacuate. And then breakdowns on the roads. To me it's always the water that's the worst. Suddenly the evacuation route is flooded. And most people can't just stop their job and leave 3 or 4 days ahead. Many people live paycheck to paycheck.

[kydo]

28. I mentioned this just this morning to the hubby. But also pointed out the lack of sandbags in images

from Houston this morning.

I can understand the point behind not issuing the evacuation of the entire city of Houston during this storm. However, they knew this was coming. At the very least people in already known flood prone areas should have been evacuated. Same with hospitals, nursing homes and places for the shelters that will be needed. And sandbags. Why weren't they used. Its not going stop the flooding but they can help keep the water out in places that being used for staging, relief shelters, hospitals ect.

Seems nothing was done at all. It's like they all said "whew storm didn't hit us let's watch sci-fi they are showing an "It" marathon."

[KatyMan]

48. That's rich

We had 52 hours to prepare, and everyone did prepare. Sometimes no amount of prep is sufficient for what Mother Nature delivers. I can't believe what I'm reading on DU today. Horribly insensitive coments. It's like reading Drudge.

[Phoenix61]

80. People in Houston have no idea what an ice storm is all about

Until you've been evacuated due to a hurricane you just don't get it. Never been so scared as I was running from Opal.

[kydo]

81. I live in the orlando fl area

I was here in 2004 when charlie hit, two weeks later fran and two weeks later jean. When tropical storms of any variety come this way almost straight up the flood warnings do too, even when we are not in that cone. They start issuing sand bags. Making preps for the rain. Btw, with charlie, it did a weird wobble at the last minute and instead of not being a mega issue for orlando, as many were sent here for evacuation. That storm was headed for us and we had less then 24 hours to get ready. So I get the short notice thing.

I am sure there were people that did prepare. But in all honesty, it really didn't sound there was that much urgency on bracing for the flood. I know how things happen here. We get these all the time. My heart is breaking for you and those in Tx. I have lots of family there. It was not a scold on the people but the emergency management. Take care!

[RandomAccess]

32. Turns out that's a bit of a problem -

And I predict some very difficult political prices to pay, even though evacuation would've been quite problematic too.

Houston Told People to Stay for Harvey, Now They Can't Get Out
http://www.thedailybeast.com/houston-told-people-to-stay-for-harvey-now-they-cant-get-out


Two days ago, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told Houston residents that even in the absence of an official evacuation order “you need to strongly consider evacuating.”

But there was immediate pushback from Houston officials who said they knew better.

Harris County’s emergency management spokesperson, Francisco Sanchez, responded to Abbott’s suggestion on Twitter this way:

“Local officials know best. Houston has no evacuation order. In Harris County: very limited to select communities. LOCAL LEADERS KNOW BEST.”

snip

By Sunday morning, thousands of Houston homes were taking on water and thousands of people were trapped in their homes. Mayor Turner said that the city had received more than 2,000 calls to 911 for rescues, acknowledging people may be calling and not getting a response.

Neither Sanchez nor the mayor's office could be reached for comment, though Turner said on Sunday “you can’t put 6.5 million people on the roads,” referring to the population of the metro Houston area.

[highplainsdem]

36. Gov. Abbott knew two days ago that evacuation plans for Houston would've had to start a day earlier.

He KNEW that the Houston evacuation plans needed a minimum of 60 hours before landfall. And it would have had to be coordinated with the state government, because a state fleet of buses was needed to start the evacuation.

He KNEW that without that time and coordination, there would likely be chaos and gridlock and probably more loss of life.

This was CYA from Abbott, at the expense of the mayor of Houston.



Editing to add a link to my thread about the evacuation plans and the time required:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029521532

[RandomAccess]

39. Excellent addition to the discussion. Thanks for posting.

This is a catastrophe six ways from Sunday.

[uponit7771]

60. +1

[LisaL]

37. It is a problem. Houston is a sitting duck for a hurricane.

And Harvey didn't even hit it directly.

"It is not if, but when Houston’s perfect storm will hit."

http://grist.org/climate-energy/houston-is-a-sitting-duck-for-the-next-big-hurricane-why-isnt-texas-ready/

[pnwmom]

44. No. Because 100 people in Houston died during the mandatory evacuation for Hurricane Rita --

many more than died because of the storm itself.

So it's a difficult call. Trying to get 6 million people out of a city SAFELY in a few days is a huge challenge. And one of the forecasters who was regarded as very reliable was downplaying the severity of the potential storm. He thought the worst case scenario for Houston was 25 inches.

https://spacecityweather.com/harvey-late-night-some-final-thursday-thoughts/

[KatyMan]

49. I don't think he downplayed at all

He kept writing about how bad it would be, and expected the worst case scenario and stressed the need to prepare and that it would be catastrophic. Your post is disengenuos.

[pnwmom]

54. We must be talking about different meteorologists.

I’m talking about Eric Berger and Matt Lanza, from Space City Weather.

On Tuesday afternoon, when evacuations of a 6 million population city would have had to have been underway, they said there might be 10-15 inches of rain and it would be “irresponsible” to predict this storm would be a repeat of Tropical Storm Allison – in retrospect they were wrong.

“I post this not because you should take the track above as gospel—it is far from it. Rather, the model is illustrative of the fact that this is a tropical system that could very well move inland into Texas somewhere along the coast, more or less stall, and drop 10 to 15 inches of rain (or more) on someone’s head over a two or three day period. Widespread areas may see 4 to 8 inches. I’m not saying this is a repeat of Tropical Storm Allison, as that would be irresponsible. But these kinds of slow moving systems are the ones that often produce widespread flooding.”

https://spacecityweather.com/yeah-this-weekend-is-looking-wet-for-texas/

On Thursday they predicted for Houston 2-4 inches of rain through Saturday

https://spacecityweather.com/tag/tropical-storm-harvey/

“Barring a major change in forecast, locations further up the Texas coast, including Houston, will see seas rise 3 to 5 feet above normal levels, gusty winds, and perhaps 2 to 4 inches of rain through Saturday.”

[KatyMan]

64. I'm going to have to review but

My reading of that site this whole time left me with a feeling that this storm was going to be as bad as it's become.
Are you in the area? Nobody took this lightly.

[pnwmom]

74. I have relatives in Houston (who are at a previously planned family event in another city now)

and they have been posting the weather reports from Space City every day, and taking comfort in them-- till Friday! By then it was too late to evacuate 6 million people.

As you can see from my earlier post, earlier last week they were saying it was irresponsible to compare this to Allison -- but Harvey is very comparable to Allison, and might even be worse. And they were predicting only 2-4 inches of rain for Houston on Saturday.

[Quixote1818]

50. That would have been a tough call because the Hurricane didn't hit Houston

What has occurred was Harvey stalling out and then moving north over Houston as a Tropical Storm at a snails pace. There is probably no one in place currently to help make such a call. They were predicting huge amounts of moisture over Houston and they may have even foreseen what is occurring there but with Trump not having placed anyone in that leadership position people were left looking at one another and not knowing exactly what to do.

[B2G]

59. Frank Brock was confirmed as FEMA head in June

And by all accounts, he is good.

I wish people would stop spreading this bs.

[Quixote1818]

76. NOAA still has no leader in place. Thats a fact

Snip: Trump's pick for FEMA administrator was confirmed in June, but officials at NOAA are still waiting for Trump to nominate someone to lead the key weather monitoring agency. The post remains vacant -- and without a Trump nominee -- alongside dozens of other deputy, under and assistant secretary positions in the Trump administration that require Senate confirmation.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/25/politics/donald-trump-hurricane-harvey-natural-disaster-response-test/index.html

[Lotusflower70]

51. Unreasonable and unrealistic

To evacuate that many people. With that much traffic, they would have been sitting ducks. The mayor of Houston is the TOP scapegoat.

[uponit7771]

61. They have a plan, if the area was to be hit with a CAT 5 then they would have to implement plan

... instead of letting 6.5 million people suffer.

Abbot tried to CYA by claiming low lying areas should evacuate but that wasn't conveyed to country DHS or mayor

[LisaL]

65. You might tell yourself that, but it was obvious to me a long time ago

it's not actually possible to evacuate Houston in a short period of time.

[Lotusflower70]

68. Then clearly they don't have a plan

If not everyone is on the same page, more people are put at risk.

[steve2470]

57. My best wishes to everyone in Texas

It seems that there were no really good answers. Everyone had to decide for themselves the best safest approach.

My prayers and good vibes for you all

[Retrograde]

58. What sort of emergency preparedness does the area have?

Our biggest natural threats here in California are earthquakes and fires, with occasional flooding in wet years. The first is hard to prepare for (and since it's been so long since the last biggish ones I think a lot of people have gotten complacent), but for fires people are advised to have a "defensible zone" around buildings so underbrush doesn't spread to structures. Towns in flood-prone areas provide sand and sandbags when it looks like the creeks are going to rise over their banks. In addition there are regular preparedness drills by emergency response agencies.

Of course, we pay the highest income taxes in the country for these services, and the bottom line after Loma Prieta was be prepared to be without services for at least 3 days. Does Texas - especially those areas prone to heavy rainfall - do any sort of planning in advance for disasters?

[uponit7771]

63. +1

[KatyMan]

66. The Houston area is as ready for this as

California is for the most catastrophic earthquake you can think of. Houston knows tropical weather the way LA knows earthquakes. Sometimes it's worse than disaster planning could imagine.

[Retrograde]

93. Thanks. No one can prepare for every possibility

but we can learn from past experiences how to make things at least a little better than the last time.

[BamaRefugee]

70. 90% would have called evacuation orders "FAKE NEWS" and done nothing.

What's the difference? Right wingers are alresdy blaming Houston black Democratic mayor. Had he issued orders, they would have been screaming "NANNY STATE!"

[RandySF]

79. 2.3 million people on short notice?

[aka-chmeee]

82. I know of one issued on Thursday Evening.

Well maybe not evacuation order (not the best way to deal with my wife) but it was at least a strong suggestion that she head home (Kansas). She responded that they were planning to leave Saturday but would "check it out". Friday morning she called to tell me they were on the road North. Happy ending for us at least. Her mother and sister are hunkered down in their home and not going anywhere but still in no immediate peril (NW Houston)

[hunter]

92. As someone who experienced the eclipse traffic out of Oregon, I disagree.

There were people sleeping in rest stops and on the side of the road Saturday night before the eclipse. Returning home it was worse.

[Horse with no Name]

94. No. They were told to shelter in place.

Mainly because of the disaster when they evacuated for Hurricane Rita and people were stranded on the roads. Can you imagine millions of people stranded on the roads that are now covered in water?
The death toll would be astounding.
I can't imagine there was a good solution in any case here.
But I remember the thousands stranded and running out of gas during Rita....it was a disaster within the disaster.