"Whoops! Did I say 'mandatory' evacuation?"
I finally heard the words "Shelter in Place" from the Harris County chief judge (people who have read "Truman" will remember that HST had a similar job in Missouri; many southern States' senior local government official is the chief judge of the county. And, these are elected positions). He'd been earlier beaten up for issuing a "suggested/voluntary" evacuation for Harris County (which includes Houston), while a mandatory evacuation for the coastal counties was still in execution.
The coastal evacuation *IS* critical, because those areas will take the worst of the storm and the storm-surge. The "go-if-you're-scared" voluntary evacuation, issued for the county that includes Houston and has more than 4 million people, of course lead to the unbelievable traffic tie-ups, and collateral bad results. So, now the Mayor of Houston and the Chief Judge are saying "Shelter in Place" unless you're in a dangerous structure (e.g., a mobile home).
Now, part of that might be because some people are in very bad shape on the roads -- hundreds of cars overheating, running out of gas; some with the very old and very infirm (one with a lady in her 80s with a feeding tube, being moved by her daughter) -- and government doesn't want to make this worse. But, maybe somebody from FEMA (I don't think they are a bunch of idiots; only that cronyism/patronage resulted in incompetent leadership) finally got the idea across that Shelter-in-Place actually *IS* a "best practice" in almost all situations.
(At least, I hope it is, in *THIS* case).
More NOAA pics posted at the FLICKR site (the naming nomenclature I'm using there is "RITAxx", with xx increasing incrementally; I can't yet figure out how to re-order their presentation on that site. Probably 'cuz I'm using a Macintosh, my PC friends would knowingly advise).
BTW, they now have opened two of the three major highways to "counterflow" -- I-10 and I-45 are now running both sides of the highway in the same outbound direction. Highway 290 is not, to the disgust of thousands of stuck travelers who had been told that'd happen too. But, gov't decided that they needed at least ONE inbound artery to support recovery logistics.
The coastal evacuation *IS* critical, because those areas will take the worst of the storm and the storm-surge. The "go-if-you're-scared" voluntary evacuation, issued for the county that includes Houston and has more than 4 million people, of course lead to the unbelievable traffic tie-ups, and collateral bad results. So, now the Mayor of Houston and the Chief Judge are saying "Shelter in Place" unless you're in a dangerous structure (e.g., a mobile home).
Now, part of that might be because some people are in very bad shape on the roads -- hundreds of cars overheating, running out of gas; some with the very old and very infirm (one with a lady in her 80s with a feeding tube, being moved by her daughter) -- and government doesn't want to make this worse. But, maybe somebody from FEMA (I don't think they are a bunch of idiots; only that cronyism/patronage resulted in incompetent leadership) finally got the idea across that Shelter-in-Place actually *IS* a "best practice" in almost all situations.
(At least, I hope it is, in *THIS* case).
More NOAA pics posted at the FLICKR site (the naming nomenclature I'm using there is "RITAxx", with xx increasing incrementally; I can't yet figure out how to re-order their presentation on that site. Probably 'cuz I'm using a Macintosh, my PC friends would knowingly advise).
BTW, they now have opened two of the three major highways to "counterflow" -- I-10 and I-45 are now running both sides of the highway in the same outbound direction. Highway 290 is not, to the disgust of thousands of stuck travelers who had been told that'd happen too. But, gov't decided that they needed at least ONE inbound artery to support recovery logistics.
posted by Vince Polley at 4:23 PM
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