Not evacuating for Rita..

[Lisa loves Pooh]

She's still projected as a 4 at landfall.

 

[Free4Life11]

Well with the insane traffic and lack of gas, I don't blame people for not evacuating! How are you supposed to get out? Just sit in traffic for 12, 14, 16 hours?? And all you get is 30 miles...insane. I know a lot of people just wouldn't have the patience for that.

You know the problem seems to me that, while the highways may be 3-5 lanes wide in/near the cities, the farther out you get, many go down to 2-3 lanes. I'm sure it's very costly to build them bigger in the first place, but I mean it would be wise to think of this in future plans. This would likely happen in any major city.

It looks like traffic has gotten better though:

http://traffic.houstontranstar.org/data/layers/harris_all_layer_speed.gif

 

[JennaTX]

My husband and I stayed up late last night watching the news, trying to decide if we should wake the kids and leave, I am glad that we did not. It is still crazy out there! Some freeways are going better, I10 and I45 which they opened up for all lanes heading out. However, 59 and 290 have not been opened up, so they are still a parking lot. There are still stranded travelers all over the place that do not have any gas and cannot get any. The Mayor basically said earlier tonight, that unless you are in Zones 1,2,or 3 not to try and evacuate. Luckily we are in an area that has not flooded in the last 100 years and are about 70 miles from the coast. We still have the worries of those darn pine trees that always topple over though, but we are luckier than some!

With talking with many of my friends/neighbors today, we all felt like even if we wanted to evacuate, we couldn't. We did fill up our cars on Tuesday in preperation for this, but what are people supposed to do if they get 40,60,100 miles out of Houston and they run out of gas and the gas stations are also out? Then you are stuck on the highway when the hurricane starts to come through? I feel much safer in my home than taking two children in my car without any guarantee that there is fuel available to get me to Dallas (where my mom and sisters are) than getting stuck somewhere on I45.

Hopefully all of us here in Rita's path will make it through safely!

 

[tzuhouse]

Definitely looks better than it did earlier, although that red area at 1960 is a little deceiving. I'm sitting here watching a live video on the news of the area just 4 miles or so from 1960 and there are 8-10 lanes of traffic heading north and it's barely moving. Red Cross is opening shelters all along the way of I-45 and 290, just to try to get people off the roads. The temperature has dropped some, so at least people are suffering from heatstroke now. There is still no gasoline. The trucks are supposedly out there, filling up motorists who are on the side of the road, but I haven't seen a single one on any news channel and I'm watching 4 separate ones at the same time. There are individuals on the sides of the roads, handing out water to whomever needs some, because the trucks with the water bottles haven't showed up yet and there are people dehydrated all over the place. Today's heat was record breaking for this time of year. 98F, but felt like 105F or so.

Mary

 

[4greatboys]

I don't understand why there are people who are refusing to evacuate anywhere in the cone of where this hurricane could make landfall.. Last night it made a slight wobble and there's still time for it to wobble again..

With Hurricane Katrina, many people couldn't evacuate - for one reason or another, they didn't have the means - but these people in Texas have had plenty of opportunity to leave and instead they choose to gamble with their lives.. I just heard on the news that they're telling these people to write their social security numbers on their bodies with permanent markers..

Why do people make such foolish choices? I would have been out of there yesterday morning at the very latest..

This is going to be the third most intense hurricane ever to come through the Gulf.. Does that not mean anything to these people?

I know its easy to look in say we should do such and such. Well I can only tell you what we experienced "trying" to evacuate.
I took me 12 hours to drive 30 minutes from my house. In all we spent about 20 hours on the road basically just sitting. I ended up still here in Houston thanks to Cheri's (bumcats) offer to stay with her family. They are to the west of the cone and we should all be okay here.
If you can find gas you are damn lucky. Fill the tank before you leave you say? We did, sitting hours on the freeway uses a lot of it up. If you can top it off, again you are damn lucky.
Rumors of gas trucks?? They have 8 for a population of around 6 million with Houston and the surrounding areas. No hotel rooms to take shelter in. Most were taken from Katina victims--I hate this is happening to them again.
No shelters in town. They just tonight at 9:30 started to open a few for the people they see will never get out. They are few and far between.
MANY of us started evacuating during the voluntary stages and still didnt get anywhere.
Even tonight I still sit here watching these poor people trying to get out of town. With Katrina we knew we had to get out with Rita but its almost impossible.
Tonight I sit saying a prayer for friends and people I dont even know. I know what they are going through and its not good at all.
My family shoved what we could in our cars. We live close to Galveston and I left knowing the chances were great my house will be destroyed or badly damaged.

 

[chadfromdallas]

I ended up still here in Houston thanks to Cheri's (bumcats) offer to stay with her family. They are to the west of the cone and we should all be okay here.

Oh, that reminds me of a thread I was going to start!

If anyone 18-25 is looking for a place to stay, toss me a private message.... I'm in Denton Only room for single, females

 

[froglady]

After what I've seen in the last two days, I've made the decision that I probably will NOT evacuate for any hurricane. I'm just outside of the category 5 evacuation zone, people downhill from me would have to evacuate. Yes, I might be "stranded" in my home, but I've prepared as best as possible; plywood for all windows, generator with 4 empty containers to be filled as soon as a storm approaches along with a "junk" car that would be another back-up, tarps and roofing nails, first aid supplies, etc. I'm more concerned with trees, but Charley and Jeanne pretty much took care of that last year.

Many people do NOT know their evacuation zones; our paper printed a full page map last Sunday. It also included alternate evacuation routes.

The mayor is erecting poles in the flood prone areas of the city showing how high the water would get in the different categories.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

I have read this thread and for the most part the people who have been through this understand and the others who have not faced such a decision do not. You may want to get out, but sometimes it is just not logistically possible.

 

[Lisa F]

At this point in the process it sounds like it would be suicidal to get on the roads. I just hope they can get everyone who is already ON the road and stuck between two places into some kind of shelter before the tropical storm force winds start. The thought of being stuck on that highway with no gas and nowhere to get off the road (there is not a whole lot between texas cities) and seek shelter is terrifying. It's better to stay put at this point where you at least know you have better shelter than your car.

Brazoria County (the county between galveston and houston) officials blasted Harris County officials (most of houston is in Harris County) for ordering a mandatory evacuation of Harris County before Brazoria's mandatory evacuations were complete, so it's not JUST a matter of people panicking and clogging up the roads but also a matter of officials not following the laid out plans themselves.

 

[bsnyder]

After what I've seen in the last two days, I've made the decision that I probably will NOT evacuate for any hurricane. I'm just outside of the category 5 evacuation zone, people downhill from me would have to evacuate. Yes, I might be "stranded" in my home, but I've prepared as best as possible; plywood for all windows, generator with 4 empty containers to be filled as soon as a storm approaches along with a "junk" car that would be another back-up, tarps and roofing nails, first aid supplies, etc. I'm more concerned with trees, but Charley and Jeanne pretty much took care of that last year.

Many people do NOT know their evacuation zones; our paper printed a full page map last Sunday. It also included alternate evacuation routes.

The mayor is erecting poles in the flood prone areas of the city showing how high the water would get in the different categories.

If you're outside the CAT 5 zone, you're probably much better off not evacuating and spending the time instead preparing your home and laying in supplies.

One thing that I haven't really heard much of in the Texas evacuation is something I heard our officials preaching over and over again last summer. That is...find the safest place that's closest to your home. If more people would do that, the roads would be far less clogged. In last summer's hurricanes, I talked to many people that had numerous options (family members, friends, co-workers who lived in the suburban parts of our area - in other words, out of the flood zones here in south Tampa) but when push came to shove, they wanted to go to Disney World to evacuate.

 

[golfgal]

OMG - do they need 4nana to go down and help?!?!!?

Hello! Haven't we learned a thing??? OPEN those dang multi south bound lanes to clear out the north bound grid lock so twice as many cars can exit!!!!!! Come on, let's get people out of there people!!

That is what I kept thinking last night when I watched the news. All the southbound lanes were wide open, no cars in site. Keep maybe the farthest west lane open for southbound emergency vehicles and let the rest of the traffic use all of the remaining lanes. They showed one hwy, don't know which, that had 4 southbound lanes, 4 middle lanes and 4 northbound lanes. They were only using the 4 northbound lanes. They could have at least used the other 4 middle lanes (I am assuming those were commuter lanes of some sort). What am I missing here that they aren't using all available traffic lanes to get people out of there?

 

[bsnyder]

Keep maybe the farthest west lane open for southbound emergency vehicles and let the rest of the traffic use all of the remaining lanes.

How do you do that? How do you communicate to all those drivers that you want that lane open? And enforce it?

You can't use traffic cones or barricades - they're out there now picking stuff up that will potentially be missles in the coming winds, not putting more stuff out there.

 

[Lisa F]

I'm reading on a local houston forum that the mayor said last night if you aren't already on the road, please don't get on the road. Stay where you are. So I guess that answers that, anyone from this point forward who stays home is doing so because they are being told to.

 

[mickeyfan2]

As for the issue of overreacting or underreacting, I would rather overreact EVERY time and be alive - than underreact ONCE and be dead.

Same here.

 

[C.Ann]

Such sad news this morning - with the explosion of that evacuation bus carrying the elderly and infirmed.. This situation just keeps getting worse and worse..

Some reports this morning are indicating that a large part of the evacuation gridlock was caused by people waiting too long to get on the road and families taking as many as three vehicles per family in an attempt to carry as much of their belongings as possible..

Hopefully things will loosen up a bit today - they will get gas to those who are stranded - and everyone will get somewhere safe.. This whole thing is beginning to feel like a "doomsday" scenario..

Prayers and best wishes to all who couldn't get out..

 

[4greatboys]

Some reports this morning are indicating that a large part of the evacuation gridlock was caused by people waiting too long to get on the road and families taking as many as three vehicles per family in an attempt to carry as much of their belongings as possible..

Many left when it was voluntary evac. Our school and my dh employer didnt make any deicions about what was closing and til Wed pm. The storm then was predicted to hit Friday 2 am. Who in the world imagined if you left then, plenty of time before the storm hit, you would still be sitting in traffic 24-36 hours later??

 

[C.Ann]

Many left when it was voluntary evac. Our school and my dh employer didnt make any deicions about what was closing and til Wed pm. The storm then was predicted to hit Friday 2 am. Who in the world imagined if you left then, plenty of time before the storm hit, you would still be sitting in traffic 24-36 hours later??

--------------------

I'm sure many people wouldn't have imagined that - just as people wouldn't have imagined that some families would take as many as 3 vehicles per family -causing an even worse gridlock..

I just hope everyone is stays safe - no matter where they are..

 

[DisWDWMay]

Some reports this morning are indicating that a large part of the evacuation gridlock was caused by people waiting too long to get on the road and families taking as many as three vehicles per family in an attempt to carry as much of their belongings as possible..

I suspect many families wanted to save there valuables as well as there cars from flooding. During Hurricane Allison a couple of years back lots of cars got flooded and many families probably did not want a repeat. I don't know how we can solve this in the future except to put a little more structure to our evacuation plans, as I certainly don't want to force people to leave their valuables behind if we can help it.

 

[Lisa F]

Some reports this morning are indicating that a large part of the evacuation gridlock was caused by people waiting too long to get on the road and families taking as many as three vehicles per family in an attempt to carry as much of their belongings as possible..

The way it's supposed to work is that those under mandatory evacuation get out first and then voluntary people go after. Part of the criticism that I am seeing is that the mayor called for voluntary evacuation too early. So basically people are damned if they do and damned if they don't. You wonder why everyone in "the cone" wouldn't evacuate, the reason is that there is no way to get every single person who is inside "the cone" out of Houston. The gridlock is being caused by trying to put 5 lbs of crap in a 2 lb box. Not every family has 3 cars to take with them but if we had kids, it would take us at least two cars to get our kids and our pets out of town. We BARELY fit our pets into our car for our move from MD to NY and they took up the entire back seat. Pet carriers and car seats for young kids take up a lot of space. So for a simple family of 4 with 3 cats, we would need two cars. Add some large dogs and another kid or two and it's not unreasonable that people would be evacuating with more than one vehicle.

If people are smart about bringing supplies with them that they would need, pet food and people food and diapers and clothing and blankets and water take up a lot of space as well. If you want to envision that the gridlock is caused by selfish people who cannot bear to leave their big screen tvs behind, that's fine.... but having commuted in Houston traffic I can tell you that gridlock is a fact of life in that city even when it's just one person in one car going to work.

It's not as simple nor as easy as people on the outside would make it out to be, but nothing ever is.

 

[golfgal]

How do you do that? How do you communicate to all those drivers that you want that lane open? And enforce it?

You can't use traffic cones or barricades - they're out there now picking stuff up that will potentially be missles in the coming winds, not putting more stuff out there.

They had cones all over the place on the news report I saw. I would think that if they had all the lanes open people would have gotten out of there faster and they would have had time to pick the cones up. As far as keeping one lane open moving in the opposite direction, that could be a standard practice in an evacuation plan with occasional signs on the side of the road, permanent signs, saying during an evacuation, the what ever lane is reserved for authorized vehicles only, or something. I saw signs like this in Florida that said something like, during an evacuation, these lanes are northbound lanes only (when they were normally southbound lanes).