Mayor White (Houston) says state wasn't ready for exodus

[A-Possum]

Houston Chronicle

Mayor Bill White criticized the state for not having fuel in place for evacuees.

"It was just totally unacceptable that there was not adequate fuel supplies stashed around the state," White said. "That's a part of the state plan that's going to need improvement."

His comments came after stations ran out of gas when Hurricane Rita evacuees rushed to fill their tanks. Many waited in long lines for fuel. Some motorists on the highways to Dallas, Austin and other cities ran out of gas or ran low while waiting in slow-moving traffic. Gas stations along the routes also ran out.

Kathy Walt, the governor's spokeswoman, said there are fuel storage issues that are unrelated to the hurricane response plan, such as only one tank farm in Austin.

[don954]

1. Oh come on! Rick Perry only had A WEEKS notice that the storm

was comming! if you gave him, say a month or 2, he might have got it done..! :sarcasm:

[Igel]

5. It formed east of Cuba just under a week before

landfall. It took a day to become a tropical storm, and another day or to before they projected it to hit various places between NOLA and Corpus Christi.

White's right: they should have had gasoline stashed around. Not that it would have done much good, since getting it to people was a problem once they had the gasoline in the area.

Phasing the evacuation might have helped. Being clear, and not shrill, about the evacuation would have helped: "Houston ... mandatory evacuation" was false, but rang clear, but "only some parts of Houston have a mandatory evacuation, the rest has a voluntarily evacuation warning" is true, but rang false. 2+ million people hitting the roads all at once, you get congestion. Pointless, needless, congestion.

Not panicking when the first gas stations ran dry would have helped, too. Many were closed because the owners left town. But when a gasoline shortage was reported, it wasn't specified to be a few gas stations, so everybody ran out ... to find most were closed. I was looking for a payphone on Friday afternoon, and pulled into a closed gas station to think where one could be. When I left, cars were stacked up 3 deep at a dozen pumps, people vainly trying to get the pumps to work to eke out that last 2.1 ounces emptied from their tank since the last gas station.

The plan, all have said, called for replenishing the gas stations. It stupidly assumed that the gas stations would be open, and that there wouldn't have been such a large, immediate crush of people.

[Samurai_Writer]

9. Rita was already a Cat 1 hurricane when it hit the gulf...

It swept through the Florida Keys as a Cat 1 hurricane. It formed in the Atlantic. Just FYI.

[Helga Scow Stern]

2. Recommended.

[Suich]

3. Is White a Republican or a Democrat? n/t

[lavenderdiva]

6. Our mayor Bill White is a Democrat...

I live in Houston... I'm proud to say I voted for him, and he's been a great mayor. I'd vote for him again.

[Blaq Dem]

12. Look for him to be blamed for everything...

We know how it is. Anything that goes wrong is the fault of a democrat, not the incompetency of the republican.

Hey, why not say it's Bill Clinton's fault?

[Deja Q]

29. This time it's not unfair to do so.

We just had a fuckin' hurricane of a similar magnitude THREE BLOODY WEEKS AGO.

Hurricane season ain't over.

We've had hurricanes before. It's damn fair to say that ANY ele3cted official involved in running states along that gulf should have plans. Hurricane season isn't a once-in-a-lifetime event. It happens every GD year.

Has * responded yet?

But, sorry, he does deserve some of the blame here and your nonsense about Bill Clinton can go back to where you found it from.

In terms of politics, BTW, one side ALWAYS lambastes the other. It's always been like that, though I'll admit the last 25 years or so has been getting considerably worse... but that's politics. You slam the other man to move yourself up. If the situation was reversed, WE would be doing the slamming.

[A-Possum]

4. I'm just thinking about this...

Kathy Walt, the governor's spokeswoman, said there are fuel storage issues that are unrelated to the hurricane response plan, such as only one tank farm in Austin.

Unrelated to the hurricane response plan? Isn't that sort of like saying that having no food is unrelated to starving to death?

[jfern]

7. How the hell did Texas run out of gas?

It's not like there are oil wells or refineres there. It sounds like Texas likes their governors to be fucking incompetant.

[alarimer]

23. Here in Corpus they shut down fuel deliveries

So by Wednesday I was told that HEB gas stations would be out of gas. I left of Thursday but by Friday they rescinded evacuation orders and presumable deliveies resumed although I did not return until Saturday.

[A-Possum]

25. deliveries and pumping are issues in a future plan

assuming you can get the gas there, who are you going to ask to stay and keep the stations open? It's an interesting question. A volunteer troop of heroic gas-station attendants, trained in efficiently moving long lines through the station? Heh, it's a possibility. We need some fresh vision on this whole thing. It's my opinion that people act selfishly when no one directs them, but if you ask for heroism from Americans, you will get it every time. But you have to ask ahead of time, and prepare them with what's going to happen.

[WatchWhatISay]

28. I doubt we did run out of gas

We just ran out of a way to distribute it where it was needed when the major freeways, in the state republican evacuation plan (they must have forgotten that such distibution was an important consideration in its planning), became parking lots.

[nonconformist]

8. Nom and kicked. nt

[rodeodance]

14. not in the big plan?

[izzie]

10. It does seem no one checked with large cities.

Most places know what a mess it is from 5 to 7 on a week-day so make that a 10 hour thing and you can see the problems. Heck even Maine has a mess on Labor day with most people going through the York toll and they do better on a small high way. We really need mass movement with trains, buses once more. All over it would be better for us all. Some places even have lots of bikes with bike roads. Times move on and we need some new free thinkers around. Guess that will come from other places but so be it.

[Divernan]

13. Absolutely! We need high speed train system as in Europe.

Much as I enjoy bike riding on the Rails to Trails projects (abandoned railway lines/riights of way turned into hiking/biking paths), I am struck with the wholesale abandonment of a system which handled importing supplies into areas, and exporting local products out. We have seen that increases in gas prices have forced many owner operated trucks off the roads. We need those railroad boxcars crisscrossing our states and connecting into a nationwide system. But the all powerful oil/automotive industries/trucking interests had the political clout to cause our rail system to be abandoned.

[mefoolonhill]

24. houston

I'm absolutely amazed that in the aftermath of the very inefficient and chaotic evacuation of Houston, more people aren't raising the issue of how in the world we expect to move people out of our metropolitan areas in the panic conditions of a nuclear meltdown. We have a whole bunch of cities in this country that have reactors closeby, and if we cannot effectively get people out of town when we have ample warning as we did with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, how can we possibly get it done when people are fleeing for their lives in a much more urgent timeframe?

[Delphinus]

11. Finally!

A government official telling the truth about the exodus. When I caught MSM news last night, I was prepared to NOT hear anything about the down side, and only hear the sugar coated version. IIRC they didn't fail me.

[malaise]

15. What is comical is watching

Houston residents return home despite Perry suggesting otherwise.

[AuntieM1957]

20. Governor Perry is not popular at all

But unfortunately, Chris Bell, his Democratic opponent has very little money to run a campaign.

So, anyone who feels like helping out the good Mr. Bell - who incidentally was the one who requested the ethics probe into Tom DeLay, please do so at


http://www.chrisbell.com/blog/072805_announcement

Make this change happen, DUers.

[ck4829]

16. I hope the RW'ers are ready to blame Rick Perry

Like that's going to happen.

[SillyGoose]

17. Did the people stranded on the freeways get to safety before the

storm hit? I have been unable to find the answer to that so far. Anyone know?

[PDittie]

18. Very little loss of life as a result of Rita

Yes, it appears that they stayed safe, though many were stranded in their autos overnight. My Dad was in his RV near Jasper -- one of the worst wind-ravaged towns -- and managed to come through okay.

We all got very lucky in SE Texas.

P.S.: the highway evac plan sucked, and that was TxDOT's (read: Rick Perry's) fuckup.

[SillyGoose]

19. Thank you for that update. I'm relieved to hear that. eom

[malaise]

27. I read that some

set up shelter in a school.

[Rose Siding]

30. This article tells about 1,000 of them-

The locals did ok (on an emergency basis), but TX state wasn't helpful...

snip>
Having been pounded by Rita overnight, Jasper on Saturday had no electricity, no water pressure and no working sewage-treatment plant. Gasoline was all gone. The hospital had closed, and hundreds of wind-shredded trees had trapped many of the town's 8,000 residents inside their homes. There were also a thousand or so stranded hurricane evacuees from Houston, Galveston and points south who had tossed up here Friday in futile attempts to outrun Rita. They had been messily housed at three schools, where there were no cots and no lights and the toilets were backing up.
.....
A handful of Texas state troopers arrived here in the late afternoon, but, Hunter said, they did not want to help the city with security at the shelters. He also said power was unlikely to be restored for several weeks because of extensive hurricane damage here and in Beaumont, which supplies electricity for Jasper and was also hit hard by Rita.

As far any other imminent assistance for Jasper, Hunter said 1,500 meals have been promised for Sunday, along with a generator that would allow the water department and sewer system to start up. But he said there was no prospect, yet, of deliveries of fuel.

"The state police are using my fuel," he said.

Hunter said that there is a major military base, Fort Polk, about 60 miles from Jasper and that it could provide military police for security and a generator to bring power to the town. "We're trying to reach them, but bureaucracy holds things up," he said. "While things go through channels, people are suffering."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/24/AR2005092401619.html

[A-Possum]

21. Let's be realistic too though

I'm the OP and I totally agree that the plans for evac were woefully underplanned for many reasons, including not starting early enough, not closing schools soon enough, not having drills, not requiring non-essential businesses to close and release employees in an orderly sequence, etc.

All that said, the magnitude of this kind of action is extremely problematic and difficult. It's not just a matter of being competent or not; you are dealing with trying to make guesses and move millions of people in a short period of time. Time, numbers, human nature and geography are all heavily against you.

To do a better job in the future, so that people don't refuse to evac next time, some serious money and time will have to be spent on it.

Here's a good column in the Houston Chronicle ; at least someone is asking what can be done.

[alarimer]

22. those roads aren't meant to handle that kind of traffic

They can't even handle a normal rush hour.

[AuntieM1957]

26. Neither were the vehicles.

Let's face it - not everyone has a brand new vehicle.

How many older vehicles, affectionately referred to as hoop-dees in my family, could handle idling for 12+ hours in the 100+ heat?

I, myself, helped out a stranded motorist passing through my northwest Harris County town. She'd spent about 15 hours travelling from Galveston to roughly 85 miles north of Houston. Her electrical system shorted out due to the heat.