Answer #2 to the Evac Question...Don't

[Clint_TX]

We need to move away from the concept of evacuation and towards shelter...like in the pacfic. Evac is an old model built on a much lower ratio of coastal residents to road capacity.

[x-y-no]

I completely disagree. First of all, it's impractical to shelter that many people. Second, it makes the post-storm problem tremendously more difficult.

Suppose that instead of 15 to 20 percent of the New Orleans population in the city, we'd had 80 or 90 percent. that's 400,000 people trapped in a flooded city for who knows how long, with no power. The logistics of supporting such a shelter population in the middle of a disaster area are completely intractable.

[Clint_TX]

Talk to me in 50 years....

[djtil]

thats impractical.....

very little can be changed.......people who gripe that it took them 24 hours to get out will just have to get over it....thats life.....we arent going to build new interstate systems just so that people in houston who have to evacuate once every few years can do so in a few hours.


everyone got out that wanted to get out, well before the storm didnt hit.

[x-y-no]

Talk to me in 50 years....

You lost me ... what's that supposed to mean?

[Clint_TX]

The expected increase in population and the inability to keep up in terms of road capacity will lead to a much less mobile population in general. We can design systems and structures that will function. Remember, New Orleans is by far the expection at it's elevation.

[jwayne]

We need to move away from the concept of evacuation and towards shelter...like in the pacfic. Evac is an old model built on a much lower ratio of coastal residents to road capacity.

Yeah, your right. Leaving Cameron, LA was overrated. In fact, should have just pulled up a chair and a beer on Holly Beach to watch the action.

In fact, in Katrina, I think everyone should have sheltered in place on the mississippi coast and everyone should have stayed in New Orleans.

You know, the bad thing about water 20 feet deep is that it tends to do some bad things to you: LIKE DROWN YOU!!!!

[x-y-no]

The expected increase in population and the inability to keep up in terms of road capacity will lead to a much less mobile population in general. We can design systems and structures that will function. Remember, New Orleans is by far the expection at it's elevation.

Or we could just try to do a much better job of educating people as to who really needs to evacuate and who doesn't. The big problem with Houston was that many people who weren't in evacuation zones decided to head out anyway. That's what caused the massive congestion.

[sponger]

xy it was the same with Floyd. Cat 5's get peoples attention. I think one solution would be to offer cheap flights and discounted rail. A 100 747 would have made a decent dent in that traffic. 100 bucks would beat 20 hours in traffic.

This problem needs to be addressed with ALL available means, including early contra flow, rail air you name it. If FEMA can sub a generator after the storm the could subsidize 500 flights out of there! 500 flights times 550 capacity = 275,000 not on the road.

[temujin]

xy it was the same with Floyd. Cat 5's get peoples attention. I think one solution would be to offer cheap flights and discounted rail. A 100 747 would have made a decent dent in that traffic. 100 bucks would beat 20 hours in traffic.

This problem needs to be addressed with ALL available means, including early contra flow, rail air you name it. If FEMA can sub a generator after the storm the could subsidize 500 flights out of there! 500 flights times 550 capacity = 275,000 not on the road.

Texas & Amtrack started running trains out of Houston to Dallas on Wednesday night/Thursday of last week. They used commuter trains from Dallas's mass transit system.

[yzerfan]

Florida and Florida counties have been quietly pushing shelter-in-place ever since the Floyd evacuation messiness.

Shelter in place is not telling people to stay put if they're in a high hazard situation. (barrier islands, trailers, low elevation and flood-prone areas) It's about asking people to make an honest assessment of the hazard level in their neighborhood, and then if they decide to leave, only going as far as they need to go in order to be safe.

Should people go if they live on the beach and at 10 feet above sea level? Definitely YES! However, if they lived on the west side of Houston in a well built home that stayed dry during Alison, then put up the plywood and shelter in place.

[thunderchief]

Where are you going to get the infrastructure to load and screen 270,000 extra passengers, add 1000 landings/depatures, park 100,000 cars, etc etc.

Thats like creating atlanta-hartsfield from scratch, on short notice.

impossible.

[sponger]

Airports are designed to handle people...Alot of people. 48 hours would be plenty, 72 more than enough. All flights out to different airports and I think its doable. As for parking, the interstate seemed to work just fine!

[Windy]

It should be noted that the poster isn't crazy. You don't see the residents of Tokyo (or even central Japan for that matter) run for the hills with each approaching Typhoon, and they seem to fare rather well.

[Windy]

We need to move away from the concept of evacuation and towards shelter...like in the pacfic. Evac is an old model built on a much lower ratio of coastal residents to road capacity.

Yeah, your right. Leaving Cameron, LA was overrated. In fact, should have just pulled up a chair and a beer on Holly Beach to watch the action.

He's talking about future, not present. Cameraon, LA could be engineered to take a CAT 4 with enough money. Of course, it wouldn't be worthwhile to invest that much money to protect a small bayou-town, but a city like Houston should have sufficient building codes and flood protections ingrained into the infrastructure that people could safely ride out a CAT 4.

[HurricaneQueen]

Staying in a shelter would be my very last choice before staying put (1/4 mi. from Gulf @13 ft. in wooden structure covered in stucco). I would much rather endure crawling to safety in traffic for a day than sitting in a shelter for who knows how long and under who knows what conditions. Why?

1. My beloved dog and cat who are almost as precious to me as my children ( and are better behaved than many children) are not allowed in local shelters.
2. Being closed up with people who do not share my sense of orderliness, cleanliness and common courtesy.
3. Total loss of privacy and freedom (in a car, I can still listen to what I want, watch TV or even get on the internet)
4. No guarantee of safety from the storm (roofs blow off, windows break, etc. or mobs of people who rape, steal, etc. (that may be an extreme but we saw it in NO)
5. Screaming kids, lack of sanitation.
6. Heck, I could go on for hours.

I believe that shelters have their place for those who have no other options but for me, that would be the absolute last resort. Evacuating from our little corner of the world would be no easy task and I would leave the area only in a dire situation but we will and do go inland when threatened with more than a weak tropical storm. If we are forced to leave the area we would go early (we are always prepared) and not use the interstates.

Lynn

[HollynLA]

To the original poster, all I have to say is "Superdome"

Now, do you really think shelters are good idea? I didn't think so.

[jes]

The media had everyone in a panic --- most had never been through a direct hit. I wish someone would do a TV special on what really happens to the inland areas instead of showing just the devastated coastal areas. Maybe all those people in West Houston could have made a more informed rational decision regarding evacuation if they had been given information about what they could expect, as far as damage, in their own areas.

[timNms]

The media had everyone in a panic --- most had never been through a direct hit. I wish someone would do a TV special on what really happens to the inland areas instead of showing just the devastated coastal areas. Maybe all those people in West Houston could have made a more informed rational decision regarding evacuation if they had been given information about what they could expect, as far as damage, in their own areas.

Speaking from experience (thanks to Katrina) rural areas 90 miles inland experienced sustained winds of at least 85-95 mph with gusts over 120mph. Our house shook, creaked, popped and felt as if it were going to come off of it's foundation. However, that was not the worst part. The worst part was being cut off from society for FIVE days. All communications were down. There was no help from outside sources because no one could communicate with outside sources. And no outside sources had the foresight to think ahead and set up relief stations in rural areas. There was no running water in my area for 3 days. We had no electric power for 2 weeks following the storm.

Would I leave if threatened with another storm similar to Katrina? Possibly, but not because of fear of the winds. I just don't like camping out that well LOL. It's tough not being able to take a bath. It's worse to try to sleep at night when the temperature is hovering around 90 with high humidity

While we did have it bad here, folks on our coast had it 10 times worse.

[arlwx]

The trouble with evacuating areas away from the beach is sometimes damned if you do, damned if you don't. Rita is a case in point. Houston got off lucky, SW LA and far eastern TX did not. And most people (myself included) only saw the potential threat to SW LA Thursday morning when the physical track had shifted overnight, and the models moved from a pure Victoria-Houston run; remember, Corpus Christi was evacuating on Wednesday!

However, anyone who does not run even if far inland from a Cat 4 (which Rita was Friday morning) after Katrina is....stoic? Or did not see the before and after pictures of the LA/MS/AL area that showed nothing but tiny (generator-fed?) lights south of Vicksburg/Jackson/Meridian throughout MS, two days after Katrina hit.