Family Forum / Marriage / Divorce / September 2005

Big RJ said

Thank goodness for Barbara, Houston, and Galveston.

The coast near the Texas/Louisiana border was devastated - so many lost
everything.   Their attitude about Rita's path is completely different.

Unfortunately, there really is no good place for a strong hurricane to
come ashore.

Casey

Well, one of the local stations did a poll tonight, "would you evacuate
again?" and some 62 or 63% said yes, 38 or so % said no and the rest
didn't know. I don't know how many they polled. Usually it's about 500.
Many of the deaths in the Houston/Harris County area (some 31 total if
I recall) were heat-related or in other ways related to the evacuation.
I don't think that includes the 23 elderly residents of a nursing home
who perished in a bus fire just outside of Dallas.

A lot of people spent a lot of time trying to go somewhere and going
nowhere. A trip on the south Beltway 8 that usually takes 15-20 minutes
took some folks 6 hours. People sat unmoving for hours at a time. Many
reported travel times to Austin, Dallas and San Antonio and other
usually 3-6 hour drives were 17, 21, and other equally awful times.

Many people ran out of gas or had other car problems (over-heating, did
I mention we have been under a severe heat wave with highs in the upper
90s?) on the highways and then were stranded on the side of the road
with nowhere to go.

A lot of it was because a lot of us evacuated when we really didn't
*have* to. The rule is "run from the water" (i.e. the storm surge),
"hide from the wind". Even if Rita had hit Galveston head on and headed
inland up the Houston Ship Channel like Alicia, I was not in harm's way
from storm surge, being 50-60 miles inland. However, I had a ground
floor apartment in a complex on the shore of White Oak Bayou (although
my apartment is almost farthest away from the bayou and quite a bit
"up" from the bayou) with 3 large south-facing windows. The only place
I had to "hide" with the 2 cats was in one of my 2 bathrooms or walk-in
closets. One of the biggest factors in my decision to leave was the
fact that I was alone in an apartment in a building that I had no
control over. So I went 50 more miles inland to my sister's in the
Woodlands.

I also evacuated my elderly (81 and 74 year old) parents who lived on
the 2nd floor on the far west side of Houston. My mother is in a
wheelchair or hopping around with a walker while she recovers from a
broken hip -- she's not supposed to put any weight on that leg. They
lost power for 14 hours, so I'm glad I took them out, as disruptive it
was to them. They had air-conditioning the whole time, good meals
prepared for them, and the care and company of family (my brother also
lives up in the Woodlands, so we were all close).

I myself would leave again.

I was 23 and still living at home with my parents in 1983 when Alicia
did hit Galveston and come right up the ship channel. Downtown had
ankle-deep glass shards all over the streets and sidewalks after Alicia
-- most of it from debris from the roofs of buildings. After that,
Houston passed an ordinance requiring all downtown buildings to keep
their roofs clean. It worked. Only 1 building suffered a lot of window
breakage, and they were close to a construction site where presumably a
lot of debris was kicked up.

My parents' house was (and still is) a few miles southwest of Reliant
Stadium, farther south than either my parents or I live now. We were
without power back in 1983 for 5 days and without a phone until after
Labor Day, some 2 1/2-3 weeks. Alicia was "only" a Category 3, but Rita
weakened to a 3 before hitting shore.

My parents and my brother were all there, so we went through it
together. I packed to go away to Austin to graduate school after the
hurricane passed. My entire family piled into the car to go to Austin
with me a couple of days after Alicia to get out of town, in an
air-conditioned car, and we had lunch out and my family purchased ice
and batteries, which they couldn't get at home, and went back to
Houston.

I don't recall the massive evacuation for Alicia that we did for Rita.
The local newspaper says that what happened with Katrina had a lot to
do with @3 million people evacuating. People were scared. People didn't
have faith that governmental entities could take care of them. I left
for half that reason. I was scared. Scared to go through something like
that by myself. Scared to go through something like that in a building
where I felt vulnerable.

I have a colleague who thought that they would go up to their lake
house in Jasper to get out of town and enjoy the long weekend (we were
closed Thursday and Friday and eventually Monday also). However, Rita
went right through Jasper and my colleague described what they went
through in their trailer lake house as "exhausting" and "a nightmare".
Not only did they suffer the long drive in traffic, but they also went
through a Category 2 or so in a less-than-stellar shelter. Fortunately,
their main house was spared, but the well and storage shed were
totaled. I don't know if she would leave town again or not.

I have another friend who lives in a trailer on some land on Chocolate
Bayou in rural Alvin. She bugged out with her 2 cats and dog to Austin.
She had a long grueling drive even on Wednesday when she left (she
works near the coast and they closed down Tuesday) and one of her cats
ran off in Austin and never came back, so she's heartbroken. She says
she will never evacuate again, she will stay put or closer in. I would
worry about her doing that where she lives.

I think that in time people will go back to being "complacent" and
optimistic and if we are threatened again in years to come, people
won't leave as they did for Rita. Unless of course, the current
turbulence in the Gulf heads this way this season. (I'm not kidding,
there's a low pressure line out in the Caribbean.) Katrina shook our
confidence and our faith and we reacted. The wounds were too new.

In later years, the memories will dim somewhat. Houston dodged a bullet
this time, and we are still way overdue. But some official was quoted
in today's local paper that despite all the problems with our
evacuation, Houston/Harris County had one of the best disaster plans
this official had seen. So we can take comfort in that. Although it is
tragic that some 30+ people lost their lives, most of them during the
evacuation, the evacuation of @3 million people saved a lot of lives
and the loss of life was very minimal considering how many of us were
on the road getting out of harm's way.

Sorry for being so long-winded, but you asked... -- Barbara Sz.