Texas seeks oversight of own evacuations

[DoYouEverWonder]

Feb 20, 11:11 PM EST

Texas seeks oversight of own evacuations

HOUSTON (AP) -- The next time a monster hurricane threatens Texas, the governor should be in charge of ordering evacuations to ensure that those in most danger have a better chance to get out first, a task force said Monday.

About 60 people died during September's evacuation as Hurricane Rita churned in the Gulf of Mexico, including 23 residents of a Houston-area assisted-living facility whose bus exploded near Dallas.

Some people died from heat exhaustion and heart attacks after dozens of hours in their cars without water or air conditioning, while others were killed in traffic accidents.

Centralized control over evacuations would be an improvement over the system allowing local officials to order them, the task force found. "The process could have been smoother," Gov. Rick Perry said while announcing the findings of the task force, which held a series of hearings around the state. "This report will improve planning and coordination, which will result in more effective hurricane response when lives hang in the balance and every second counts."


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EVACUATION_TASK_FORCE?SITE=FLPET&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

[tanyev]

1. Obnoxious LTTE in Sunday's Dallas Morning News.

A House select committee reported that "Katrina was a national failure, an abdication of the most solemn obligation to provide for the common welfare." Where did this definition of government responsibility come from? In the Preamble to the Constitution, our Founding Fathers wrote government should "provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare."

Our government should "furnish and supply" the defense of the United States, not the physical and financial well-being of every citizen.

Louisiana state government "promoted" and facilitated escape from Katrina by reversing traffic on major highways from New Orleans. Responsibility for utilizing those escape routes rests firmly at the feet of those who failed to use them.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/letters/stories/DN-3pkatrina_0219edi.ART.State.Edition1.3e6be12.html

The letter writer lives in Allen. Presumably she did not sit in the hours-long traffic jam of people trying to evacuate Houston before Hurricane Rita. If Rita had slammed ashore as predicted, a lot of people attempting to utilize escape routes would have been caught right in the middle of it.

[Igel]

2. "Right in the middle of it"?

Rita came ashore in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

By 5:30 Thursday night, the traffic mess was well north of Houston; no place in Houston had traffic--I tooled around the freeways, and saw more tow trucks than cars on the freeways. By 6 am Friday morning, the traffic jam was well north of Houston; had Rita hit at that point, people would have been in the equivalent of a long thunderstorm without the thunder--inconvenienced, but in no danger. 12 hours later, it was pretty much gone.

And that's with all the inadequate planning and the mass evacuation of people that, in all honesty, didn't need to flee.

The only place where traffic was still on-going when Rita was close was in counties, where the evacuation order came 12-15 hours before landfall. E. Texas. But that's not where landfall had been predicted.

[tanyev]

3. Thank you for correcting some of the details.

My main point still stands. People were stuck for many hours in a traffic jam in 100 degree heat. Vehicles were abandoned by the roadside as they ran out of gas. Some of their occupants chose to wait it out on the roadside and some sought any help they could find in the little towns along the freeway. Many people suffered from heat exhaustion--one woman even died.

The letter writer is saying the people of New Orleans are to blame for their misery because they failed to use escape routes. Are the people of Houston who suffed in the Rita evacuation to blame because they were too enthusiastic about using escape routes?

[Igel]

6. Believe it or not, I'd say yes.

The Houston mess was unnecessary: too many people fled their fears, not actual danger, and those irrational fools got in the way of those with a rational basis to believe they were fleeing actual danger. This clogged roads, and consumed resources unnecessarily. The mandatory evacuation areas included far less than the entirety of the city of Houston, and completely missed the northern and western (and much of the southern) suburbs. The radio and tv stations did little to play down the fear, and much to encourage it. Houston/Texas planned worse than LA/NOLA did for those who could flee on their own, and better for those that could not evacuate.

NOLA is different. The LTTE is mostly wrong, but still partly right; such is the nature of things far too often--only generalizations get published, and people argue over false generalizations as though they were absolutes, even though neither generalization is valid. The congestion cleared in time to avoid Katrina; the carrying capacity of the evacuation routes was obviously higher. Even many of the dead, their relatives later reported, had cars and the ability to flee, but not the will or desire; this also goes for some that were stranded. So some of the victims can plausibly be blamed for not anticipating a levee failure. But far from all of the dead and evacuees had transportation, and they clearly can't be held responsible. NOLA's problem was a lack of organization (even the pre-planning was ridiculously incompetent) and, most importantly, a lack of time. It's unclear that, in the absence of FEMA's taking over, an additional 12 or 24 hours would have done much in NOLA.

[AnneD]

4. I sent my daughter out early with friends,

and I chose to stay a while longer to see which way it went. I was far enough inland that I could do it. There was so little traffic that I could have left much later if I needed to. The only problem was that there was no fuel to be had at that point (I had a fill tank). My friends in the lower areas did need to evacuate early though, and an evac was called earlier. People just paniced because of Katrina (we saw how much assistance they got). I thought all things considered, it went well. It was the biggest evac we have ever had and a good practice run. We learn lessons from these events. Hopefully the next will go smoother.

[patcox2]

5. They can institute a "dragging residents to safety" plan in selected areas

That's probably why they want local control.

[Bridget Burke]

7. The headline's a bit misleading.

It's not that our Governor is wresting evacuation control from the Feds. But city, county & state efforts need to be coordinated from the top. Let's hope--not by Governor Goodhair! The pre-Rita evacuation was the biggest ever in the USA; there were no 'practice" runs. A Task Force was created to prepare for Next Time.

After holding six public hearings across the state, the task force made 21 recommendations to Perry in five areas: command and control; evacuation of people with special needs; fuel availability along evacuation routes; gridlock elimination; and public awareness.

The task force recommended the state direct licensed and unlicensed special-needs facilities to create and maintain evacuation plans, and designate a state agency to ensure compliance.

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3673262.html

Things I noted from watching the mess on my TV in Houston:

1) Contra flow lanes were not created immediately. They never had been needed before! Help from The State & Counties north of the Houston area was necessary--but late.

2) Gas was not available to the evacuees along the route. Although the State said it would be there!

3) Lots of people left who did not really need to. (That's "public awareness.") People living in areas close to water or prone to flooding--or in flimsy housing--need to go. Others got frightened because they remembered NOLA. Even if we'd gotten a direct hit, widespread but light damage would have been the result--beyond the Coast.

The bus from the assisted living facility had safety issues--& some of the passengers had oxygen tanks. Let's hope those who take care of special needs folks make better plans. However--if the notorious school buses had loaded up & left NOLA--driven by amateurs--the results might have been grim.