AP: Best-Laid Plans Weren't Enough in Texas

[deadparrot]

HOUSTON - It was envisioned as the anti-Katrina plan: Texas officials sketched a staggered, orderly evacuation plan for Hurricane Rita and urged people to get out days ahead of time.

But tangles still arrived even before the storm's first bands. Panicked drivers ran out of gas, a spectacular, deadly bus fire clogged traffic, and freeways were red rivers of taillights that stretched to the horizon.

In an age of terrorist danger and with memories of the nightmare in New Orleans still fresh, the Texas exodus raises a troubling question: Can any American city empty itself safely and quickly?

Thousands of drivers remained stranded Friday to the north and west of Houston. Many were stuck in extreme heat, out of gas — as gas trucks, rumored to be on the way, or at least buses to evacuate motorists, never came.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050923/ap_on_re_us/rita_texas_exodus_hk1

[Cha]

1. What was that gov

stupid said?.."This is Texas not Louisianna."?

Heartless SOB.

[Eurobabe]

2. Doesn't look pretty for Gov. Goodhair

Probably why Bu$h bailed for Colorado, not to be associated with another FAILURE.

[CAcyclist]

3. Metering lights nt

[hedgehog]

7. I was wondering about that myself.

Metering lights are set up on 690 in Syracuse during State Fair Week and I've never had a problem on my commute regardless of the amount of fair traffic. Also, why did it take so long to open all the lanes for north bound traffic?

[sandnsea]

Explain it to the short bus DUers

I don't know what metering lights are. :dunce:

[tammywammy]

26. The ones I've seen

It looks like a little traffic light. And you pull up into the entrance ramp. When the light flashes green, you go and merge on. It helps keep an even space between cars, so traffic doesn't get all bunched up entering the freeway.

Though I think that's a great idea, in the case of Houston evacuating it's a lot more traffic than normally. It's the 4th largest city in the US (not including Galveston, the suburbs and all the other areas also evacuating). And I also believe that Houston has metering inside the city.

The basic problem was it was way more cars than the roads are built to take.

[sandnsea]

35. Portland has that

I didn't know it had a name. I think the only way to evacuate a city would be to plug every vehicle license into a computer and map the streets and tell people they have to drive those streets to get out. If that would even work. I live in a small town and unless somebody directed an evacuation, it would be a mess here too.

[Neshanic]

37. Metering lights do more harm than good.

All the rage here in Phoenix on freeway entry ramps, they cause more accidents, and congestion than if it was an open ramp. They seem to work when traffic is heavy, and a narrow range of cars per lane. This narrow range that they do work is far outweighed by the insane problems they cause at all other times.

Double lane meter ramps are particularly nuts, as you can compare it to a drag race with two different starts by 30 seconds. People after given the green then have to blast off to match traffic flow, or go twenty feet then stop again. It is also illegal to cross the gore point in Arizona, so you then have cars trying to get off as cars are getting on.

There is no solution, it's just too many cars. There has to be a rethink on mass evacuations from major cities.

[xultar]

4. WOW let's see if * attempts to blame the locals. I doubt it.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. Wouldn't this work?

Evacuate a city a section at a time. Each section would have a specific route to take. Stragglers would have a time to evacuate as well. Example: the south side of Houston would start leaving at 8pm via I-10, while the north side would leave on I -45 starting at 8:30. Each section of the city would be broken down by neighborhoods, with neighborhood X going at 8:30, neighborhood Y at 9:30, etc. etc. If this sort of thing had been set up in advance, with plenty of public awareness, I thik evacuating a city within 48 hours of a hurricane could happen.

[DBoon]

6. Or by license plate number

like the old odd/even days in the 1970s

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. Yeah

I used to teach school, and I remember the fire drills at the old multi-storied schools. Each class knew where they were to go to evacuate the building, each class knew how to behave during the drill. If school kids can do that, I know adults and families can follow directions for hurricane evacuation.

[DBoon]

12. "My honor student...

...is smarter than your republican president"

Bumper sticker anyone?

[tammywammy]

13. That's what they do in the Beaumont/Pt Arthur area

But while it looks good on paper, it doesn't always work out in reality.

They don't stop people if they're leaving their area early. And some people can't leave until later.

They also have it set up where certain parts of the area can only take certain highways. But like for my family, I have one aunt in Pt Arthur, that needed to drive to Bridge City to pick up my grandfather. But technically that's not allowed on the evacuation route.

[Jane Austin]

20. But a lot of people had a specific place to go . . . .

We had people coming from Katy via 290, and likewise during Katrina via I-10.

Wouldn't make sense for those people to have gone north or east when dry beds, hot food and cold drinks awaited them here in the Austin area, and two fenced yards awaited their dogs.

They need to do something better, though, that's for sure.

[Rose Siding]

21. Makes you wonder how the AP defines "best laid plans"

[hardrainfallin]

24. Exactly. Staggered evacuation. I was just thinking that

(based, actually, on the way Europeans "stagger" their vacations to avoid these kinds of traffic snarls).

THe rest of the world has GOT to be looking at us thinking, can't they get ANYTHING right?

How embarrassing.

Also, were those people STUPID enough to leave their engines running while they were stuck on the road, why else would they have run out of gas?

[celestia671]

28. The Rest of the world...

"The rest of the world has GOT to be looking at us thinking, can't they get ANYTHING right?"

I'm pretty sure they've been saying that for almost five years now!

[iamjoy]

34. Why They Left Their Engines Running

Because it was one hundred degrees and they needed the air conditioning.

Or, because they were well enough to drive themselves, but not strong enough to push a car.

[hardrainfallin]

38. "need" is good. Wonder if any of them have ever

worked as cab drivers in a traffic jam in Africa on the last day of Ramadan.

The fact that they left them running for the AC was altogether clear to me.

The fact that their vehicles even HAVE AC is just another index of the difference between the haves and the havenots, the world over.

[Stil]

31. They did up to a point

Area"A" flood zone went first, followed by "B" then "C". Understand though they did not consider people other then those in the flood zones would want to leave when they made the calculations. Also with a Cat. 5 at the time most were worried about wind damage, not just the floods. Also having each section having a specific evac. route. Would not happen. People normally would pick some place they know or have friends or relatives at. Next not everyone would be ready at a specific time. Some may be able to pick up and leave on time. Others boarding up, getting other family memebers, pets, food, water, gas, etc.

[TankLV]

39. Just like emptying a church on sunday.

That sounds like a good possibility.

You'll always get some line jumpers, but in all, that sounds like the best idea yet.

I would prefer the COMMENDEER all privately owned commercial busses, trains and planes - with NO reimbursement - to provide PUBLIC means of evacuation.

They are allowed to use our PUBLICLY SUBSIDIZED & OUTRIGHT FINANCED airports & roads - it should be part of their civic RESPONSIBILITY!

The president could demand it - we gave them fucking BILLIONS after 911 - no strings attached - that they all blew. I say we add a few conditions to these "wellfare" recipients!

[wakeme2008]

8. Grrrrrrrrr

Now after blaming the Gov and Mayor of NOLA,,,, they are thinking

Can any American city empty itself safely and quickly?

[killbotfactory]

9. Where's the freeper posts...

Asking why they didn't evacuate or just walk out? :eyes:

[malaise]

10. The plan was totally stupid

and was clearly not designed by well trained emergency management engineers. They would have had worked out the logistical problems and sorted out gas stops. Contra-flow would have been implemented since yesterday. It's not just Brownie who was clueless re NOLA - they all are clueless and incompetent and what makes it worse is that they do not want experts to take charge. FACK the HACKS!

[htuttle]

14. They have this thing in Europe...I think it's called 'mass transit'

You know, passenger trains, monorails -- stuff like that.

Might be helpful in cases like this. Never know...:eyes:

[Arugula Latte]

25. What are you, a Socialist?

Here in 'murica, it's every person for himself or herself ... :eyes:

[corbett]

30. You're Right - Check Out This Website

http://www.interstatetraveler.us

This company has the answer. It's easy and quick to build because every stretch of track is virtually identical. It pays for itself over a very short amortization schedule because it's designed to produce excess hydrogen on weekends and holidays which can be sold to a market SCREAMING for hydrogen.

It's clean because it creates its own hydrogen from water through solar panels laid in the middle of the track. It costs $10,000,000 per mile (give or take) and we could have a coast-to-coast corridor in a very short period of time because right-of-way siting aligns with established interstate highway corridors.

I have no financial interest in this company but want as many people as possible to be aware of its merits. It's based in Michigan!

[hardrainfallin]

32. little hard to install in 48 hrs, but on principle, yes, this is

the most convincing argument for FINALLY developing a mass transit system (since we don't seem to be going for the obvious environmental issues)

:silly:

[pinkpops]

15. Rick Perry says "pray for Texas" but if God is open

to suggestions, why did he send the hurricane in the first place?
" Hello God .... you seem to have made a mistake."

[NashVegas]

16. The Largest Challenge is Communication

We have too many options: network TV, cable, satellite, internet, AM, FM, XM, etc.

Those are many different hands to get the proper information to and hope for them all to execute intructions on the dime. Even if there had been a plan to properly stagger traffic, how would you make sure everyone knows? How would you handle contingencies?

Our public airwaves are failing this. Since 1987, "public interest, necessity and convenience" means very little.

[rzemanfl]

18. Here they come door to door telling folks to get out. (Police and

Fire Depts.)

[pretzel4gore]

17. the pigmedia is a liar....

i know this strikes many as beside the point, but what happened to the newsmedia has happened to everything; and to put it bluntly, a lie is as good as truth, a disaster is good as a success, cruelty is good as helping out, pollution is good as fresh air, ignorance as good as determined interest- because in the end the picture the pigmedia draws (and redraws, and redraws, and redraws and redraws ad nazism...) is the only picture the mass of people aware of. ...people think that 'we can live with this as long as a degree of competence is displayed as the basic tenets of society are upheld' but...the media lies! not occasionally about things that no one cares about, but constantly about the most important questions that the country must deal with...a corrupt media allows a corrupt biz world, corrupt judiciary and a corrupt government. In their turn, you see corruption in every walk of life, at every level!Everyone WANTS to blame bush, but bush is a victim of the corrupt media too (does anyone doubt that bush jr won't one day regret ever meeting rove, or hearing the name limbah, or norquist, or cheney or foxnews/cnnt and so on? junior would have been more then happy, having little interest or knowlege of history, in being a big shot biz guy who owned a goddam baseball team)
the pigmedia needs to be rounded up and put in jail.....the owners first then the operators.

[riverwalker]

19. memo to Chertoff

Cars need gasoline. Millions of cars on one route need lots and lots of gasoline to continue the evacuations. Therefore, pre-position well marked tankers of gasoline along the routes to keep things moving.
p.s.
You know that $42 Billion we give your agency every year to keep our homeland safe? We want a refund.

[RobinA]

22. I Think It's

ridiculous to expect that a major city can be evacuated quickly and in an orderly fashion. This isn't a grade school fire drill on a sunny October morning. It ain't gonna happen.

I think if most people get out, more people don't die in the evacuation then would have died in the disaster, and there's some semblance of civilization preserved, depending on the magnitude of the force, you're doing about as well as can be expected. You always try to do better, of course, but no disaster planner expects a flawless, or even anywhere near flawless, exercise. You try to cover all bases and hope for the best. Frankly, I'm thinking this didn't go too badly, considering.

[tammywammy]

27. I tend to agree with you

Even if you have staggering evacuations, they look good on paper but realistically people do what people want to do.

Just because the North side is supposed to leave a 6am, what happens is someone can't leave until noon. Are they just not allowed to leave because it's past their time? And are state troopers and police just going to monitor other neighborhoods to make sure no one from the West side leaves early?

[all.of.me]

23. bush country is not immune.....

[Lindacooks]

29. They didn't switch to contra flow quickly enough!!

The miles of empty inbound freeway lanes with one or two cars must have been just taunting those stuck in the lanes going out of the city. And THAT is Governor Goodhair's fault.

[grahamhgreen]

33. All those 4 wheel drive SUV's stuck on the freeway.....

what did they buy them for anyway?

[The_Casual_Observer]

36. Multiply that by two, one for the man & one for the wife.

Seemed like they evacuated his & hers in a lot of cases.