So in summary you are annoyed because evacuation is inconvenient? Thats very shallow and lacks the application of context. Want to see what really sucks? Try living in a nation where even this sort of evacuation is impossible due to lack of cars, fuel, food, or nice bottles of Dasani drinking water being handed out by troops that your governemnt wouldn't have ever mobilized in your banana republic.

So the hurricane didn't smash the town to shreds? Be grateful and stop whining. We are crushed that you were inconveienced.

What a frigging tool. You'd probably be bitching too that if Houston sustained major damage, not enough was done to ensure the safety of the people. Stop trying to play armchair FEMA and leave the crisis management to the people who are trained to do it.

-- B

You know you should be thanking your lucky stars that the hurricane didnt' do much damage to your area. You don't really want to stay and experience something like a hurricane. The inconvenience of being safe, especially for your children's sake is worth it in my book!

Uh, I happen to know for a fact that the original poster isn't from Houston and wasn't directly impacted by Hurricane Rita (or Katrina for that matter).

I think the point of the rant is that yet again there was poor planning involved in the evacuation of Houston, which was better handled than New Orleans during Katrina, but still shows much room for improvement.

17 mile backups because of the bus fire (which was tragic), and long lines of traffic in general because there were 3 - 5 million people all trying to leave at approximately the same time show much room for improvement.

In general, I've seen plenty of traffic tie-ups for accidents and accident scene investigation where the cops that are at the scene are generally milling around and doing anything and everything but paying attention to the traffic that is stacking up well behind the accident. Perhaps some of them really do need to go back to school to learn how to direct traffic at an accident scene, and more emphasis should be put on getting traffic flowing safely through such an area, rather than letting several more accidents happen as a chain reaction to the original one.

Regarding evacuating, or not evacuating an area, it's a very tough call. Blow the whistle too early and have no real impact from a storm, you're accused of crying wolf, and you cause great consternation that was unnecessary. Don't evacuate early enough and there's not enough time to get everyone out safely.

The process still needs mass improvement. There are just too many people in too many vehicles to be able to evacuate most major cities in an orderly fashion. And that means much more work for planner, perhaps more roads where people may not be happy to have them (D.C. metro area for example, where too many of the NIMBY folks won't let roads be built, or too many environmentalists won't let them be built, or combos of both won't let roads be built). Trying to get all citizens of an area out of town on infrastructure that was designed for 25% or less of the numbers of current users is a recipe for disaster, and when you add natural disaster on top, well, you get disasterous results.

"I am so sick of seeing traffic jams miles long for a one lane accident. Okay, so someone got hurt. We have to wait for the helicopter to land, get them on board, and get out of the road. I waited over an hour, maybe two hours when this happened once. Everything stops! I have respect for the situation, I really do! But stopping traffic has gotten ridiculous!"

Trust me, if you were working that bus fire on the side of the road, you'd want traffic shut down too. I've seen too many close calls when fighting carfires/accidents when traffic hasn't been shut down. People just don't pay attention. If I need to have the highway shut down to keep myself or my crew safe, I'm doing it, you can stuff your "inconvenience".

Uh, I happen to know for a fact that the original poster isn't from Houston and wasn't directly impacted by Hurricane Rita (or Katrina for that matter).

No wonder she/he was "speaking" like that. Having never had to do something like that - evacuate...well whining is in order then?.....still no excuse for it!

In general, I've seen plenty of traffic tie-ups for accidents and accident scene investigation where the cops that are at the scene are generally milling around and doing anything and everything but paying attention to the traffic that is stacking up well behind the accident. Perhaps some of them really do need to go back to school to learn how to direct traffic at an accident scene, and more emphasis should be put on getting traffic flowing safely through such an area, rather than letting several more accidents happen as a chain reaction to the original one.

True, some cops are really hopeless at directly traffic, I've seen a few. However they are there for a purpose and sometimes you have to admit the drivers can be very taxing. In a case such as an evacuation some of them might just have been quite impatient! Of course I wasn't there so I don't know and I won't make any assumptions.

The process still needs mass improvement. There are just too many people in too many vehicles to be able to evacuate most major cities in an orderly fashion. And that means much more work for planner, perhaps more roads where people may not be happy to have them (D.C. metro area for example, where too many of the NIMBY folks won't let roads be built, or too many environmentalists won't let them be built, or combos of both won't let roads be built). Trying to get all citizens of an area out of town on infrastructure that was designed for 25% or less of the numbers of current users is a recipe for disaster, and when you add natural disaster on top, well, you get disasterous results.

This is true, much more planning is in order for our entire nation when it comes to being prepared for things like this. And yes, there are a lot of people and environmentalists who don't want roads to be built in some areas of their cities. When there are only two roads leading out to the major thorougfares in any neighborhood, there's definately need for change. It's up to the people do realise this and come to the decision of what is absolutely important, their lives or their city looking beautiful.

I saw a comment from one of the folks that organized the Houstan evacuation. It was to the effect of more people evacuated than they expected. Probably due to the recent scares with Katrina and all the weird stuff that happened during that.

Having never had to do something like that - evacuate...well whining is in order then?.....still no excuse for it!

Again, some people are assuming far too much.

/objection - assumes facts not in evidence!

For the record, o.p. (original poster) has been directly impacted by Hurricanes in the past.

So, please cut back on the smugness level, and try to grasp the point the o.p. made.


*note, I know this information because o.p. is my s.o. (significant other) who only recently started blogging here at JU. She road out Hurricane Isabel when it came blowing up the Chesapeake (along with myself and our children). By the time it reached our home, we had been without power for 8 hours (give or take), and we stayed without power for the next 5 days. We were damned lucky in that we only lost perishable food items, and were inconvenienced in not having fresh water over most of that time.
Thankfully my family had space at the beach resort area where they were scheduled for their twice weekly time share usage. My wife went there with my kids, spent the time on the road worried about what damage she would find at the beach, and was very lucky that for the most part all that had happened there was a loss of power for most of a day.
I stayed home, mooched the use of the shower at my in-laws, and hoped that I'd see power turned back on quickly. We were literally the end of the line, the last group (well, not quite last, I think TV reports had about 2000 people in homes in another part of the state listed as without power when ours was cut back on).
We all (my wife, my kids, and myself) all saw first hand the flooding and devestation that occured thanks to storm surge flood waters that virtually wiped out a historic neighboring area. Even to this day the people in that area are still struggling with FEMA, insurers and others to get the money they were promised would come.
Again, thank whatever higher authority you wish to believe in, or not believe in, my family was lucky. But it doesn't mean we don't understand the impact upon others, and the mass confusion that was involved in getting people out of Houston, and would be involved in evacuating a place like Washington, D.C., or Baltimore, MD, or Richmond, VA. Heaven forbid we'd ever have to worry about a place like NYC with it's confusing mass of roads, people that don't have vehicles and rely strictly on mass transit and more.

Now, feel free to return to your original ignorant replies and rantings... Get back on the exercise program of jumping to conclusions, lest you start gaining weight and then need to blame others for it.

I appreciate the defense of my argument. Even though we have not chosen to live on the coast, I am still concerned about emergency procedures. I don't consider it whining. I really don't go around worrying, or whining. I live closer to the Pentagon than the coast, and the White House. I have other things to be concerned with, like exploding airplanes and other forms of terrorism. But the government officials did say at one point that communities need their own plans. It's not a bad idea. Keep commenting, though. I'll respond more later.

Now, feel free to return to your original ignorant replies and rantings... Get back on the exercise program of jumping to conclusions, lest you start gaining weight and then need to blame others for it.

I can speak for myself terpfan and say that I don't make ignorant replies, I may rant a little...at times...and I especially try not to jump to conclusions. I am however prone to weight gain from overindulging sometimes.... lalala


Don't get so testy...although you're defending your wife..good man...


But her article did come off whiney....

That said, perhaps she could have been a lot clearer, obviously it was frustration talking.


Let me add that I've been there, five hurricanes here in Florida last year, one of them I stayed home with my kids, we didn't have to evacuate but I chose to stay home with them having stocked up on enough food, batteries, candles, water, etc., hubby had to work, I stayed home and manned the homefront. It was damn scary and I'll never do it again! The eye was right over our area (not my home directly) and it was trying to keep the kids calm and calm my nerves that was difficult. And we lost power before the eye hit us (and we were told it wouldn't but it did) and had no power for more than a week. It's good you guys got out alright.

I live in Houston. The traffic was crazy - lack of gas - lack of planning on the part of the people leaving. People did not leave in the manner that they were asked to do. When you got on the highway you could easly see that the roads were packed. Common sense tells you that you pack water and food for your family. After all you will be on the road for a long ways. And by all means please keep a gal. or two of water in your trunk incase your car over heats. Little note - We had family that we could go and stay with in the panhandle. But on Wednesday night if you looked at the roads it was apparent that with the gas shortage there was no way you could get out. So the best thing to do was to find a safe place in Houston for you and your family. Thanks to God Houston was spared!

Hey Lost in Texas,

Thanks for your first hand story of going through the traffic jam. I have followed the situation as closely as I could without becoming obsessed. I was horrified at what happened to New Orleans. Then I just felt sad, desperate and yes even frustrated when Houston had so many problems trying to do a better job. I guess the reason it sounds like whining to some people is that our country usually has good response time for small accidents and problems. It's just frightening that with all our resources, we can end up in chaos so quickly in a larger disaster. I feel more like a problem solver than a whiner. I was trying to get people to give their opinions. Hey, I got them!! I like to hear what others have gone through, and how people have coped. It's heartwarming and reassuring to see people overcome adversity in the midst of devastation. And maybe, somone like you Tex can offer firsthand experience of what to do in similar situations. Hopefully, we will all learn to be better prepared. But let's hope we don't have anymore record-breaking hurricanes or other disasters for awhile. Fat chance, right! Glad you're safe!

Voyager9,

I totally appreciate where you are coming from. I have family members in the fire and rescue field. My dad always says to stay out of their way. Don't show up just to gawk. There just has to be a better means of communication in these instances. People need to know what's going on. I really didn't mind waiting for the helicopter that day. But it was a long time before I even knew what was going on. Cell phones are making things work better and faster, and they are definitely helpful in these situations. I started getting carbon monoxide poisoning in a small jam once. It was hot that day, and I had to walk away from the jam to get fresh air. It's more than being inconvenienced. We can't stop working on this problem. It's getting worse all the time.

our country usually has good response time for small accidents and problems. It's just frightening that with all our resources, we can end up in chaos so quickly in a larger disaster. I

Anything that is multiplied to that extreme is going to have longer wait times, more guesswork on wheather to evac or not and more delays, hassles and frustrating situations than a smaller incident. If you couldn't have figured that out on your own, think of it this way....you may be great at throwing a birthday party for your son with say, 10 guests. Multiply that number by 5 or 10 and suddenly it's much harder. More whining, crying, kids getting hurt or not getting a big enough piece of the cake. Suddenly everything you do has less of an effect in some ways and when you try and adjust....then has too much of an effect. What makes you think that with the scale we were dealing with that everything would be smooth? We had a storm that didn't move as predicted, leaders who tried to overreact to avoid the same NO deaths and critisism......OF COURSE, people may have been inconvienienced!

more emphasis should be put on getting traffic flowing safely through such an area, rather than letting several more accidents happen as a chain reaction to the original one.

Haven't you ever seen an accident where traffic is waved through on one lane? People are more intent on seeing what happened and if they can see bodies that they don't pay attention to what they are supposed to be doing: driving. Fenderbenders occur, causing manpower to be shifted from the orriginal accident....and causing more delays. There is a reason why cops usually wait till ambulances are gone and all the "interesting" stuff is over before they open a lane. Is it inconvienent? Maybe for you. But try looking at the bigger picture instead of focusing so closely on yourself....maybe that will clear up some of the confusion you had about how to deal with a disaster.