Robert Seeberger wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert J. Chassell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 8:49 AM
Subject: Re: Evacuation
On 2005 Sep 25, Dan Feldstein and Matt Stiles in The Houston
Chronicle
wrote
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/front/3369453
... the regional evacuation plan was missing a key element --
pre-planned contraflow lanes ...
because
... Houston's freeway grid is much more complicated than other
coastal cities.
I think I gave a fair example of how that is so.
Yes.
I've been to Houston now and again, and it's a mess to navigate in spots.
However,
State and local officials changed their minds early last Thursday
in
the face of a historic traffic jam.
...
First, they had to determine how and where to redirect traffic.
Then they had to make sure it was safe. About 10 hours later,
with a long, snaking line of idling evacuees waiting, southbound
lanes on I-45 were reversed. Contraflow on I-10 opened later.
So it took 10 hours and more when those involved had not planned
what
to do. On the one hand, this looks quick to me; I am impressed by
what was done. On the other hand, with planning and exercises, I
suspect it would have taken less time. Not having a plan indicates
negligence on the parts of those responsible.
There is a lot of "git'r'done" attitude here in situations like this.
Do it clean, do it dirty, do it sloppy, just do it.
It may sound like it helped a whole lot, but I doubt it helped as much
as one might think. At some point the contraflow had to end, and at
that point the jam begins anew. (I don't think they contraflowed all
the way to Dallas and San Antonio. Anyone know?)
The contraflow was in place past the junction with 71. Anyone wanting
to evacuate to Austin (friends or family there to stay with, or just
wanting to get the @#$% off I-10) would turn off on 71, and free up some
road that way.
I don't think it was contraflowed all the way to San Antonio, though.
Not sure if it was all the way to Seguin, even. But there were highways
to turn onto before it ended.
I-45 contraflow ended before Dallas. Not sure how close to Dallas. Not
sure about the highways in that area, either. (If it doesn't lead to
the Austin area, I don't know as much about it as I might. I can tell
you how to get to my house using 6 out of Houston, though. :)
The Department of Public Safety had to send 1,300 troopers to
southeast Texas, more than a third of its force. An army of
local
police also helped.
The story does not tell us how many local police helped and what
portions of their total forces were used.
One has to calculate that in Harris County alone there are dozens of
cities with their own police forces, plus the county Sherriffs Dept.,
and the district Constables, the DPS, Highway Patrol, Texas
Rangers.........
As long as everyone can coordinate, that's great.
They don't have a system to let *everyone* in Travis & Williamson
Counties coordinate, but they're working on getting one. If we have a
disaster hit us, that would be extremely helpful (I'm thinking more of
flooding problems than anything else, which will affect the eastern ends
of both counties a lot more than the western ends), and it would have
been nice in coordinating help for all of the folks coming up from the
coast.
As for evacuation in general, the authors say:
Florida hurricane planners have learned to worry about the
"shadow
evacuation" -- residents outside the mandatory evacuation zones
who leave.
I did not know about `shadow evacuees'. This is a good point. But
we
would expect from knowing about human nature that their numbers are
There were very many. Houston was fairly emptied, not completely, but
it was very significant. The main culprit were the TV weathermen. I
saw reports on TV that were clearly intended to scare the crap out of
people (wrongly or not), plus there were a good bit of misinformation
about the direction of the storm that was clearly intended to mislead
the Houston audience. If people in other areas had heeded the Houston
news reports (and some of them can be seen pretty far away and alspo
were simulcast in other areas) we might have had a terrible death toll
farther east of us.
Now and at the time I felt this to be irresponsible in the extreme.
Compare local TV with The Weather Channel, and one might think 2
different storms were being covered.
Stuff was being hyped in *Austin*, as well.
When it was apparent that at *worst* we'd be getting the stuff west of
the eye, with fairly little rain, people were still panicking at the
grocery store. (I did panic buying over bananas, but that was before I
knew whether or not we'd have 6-9 extra people here.)
I learned to use 3 different web sources for hurricane info -- each
presented some of the information in the best way for me, each presented
other information in a way not so good for me. With all 3, I got
everything I wanted the way I wanted it.
http://weather.com
http://weatherunderground.com
and the Hurricane Tracker bit from Weatherbug.
Julia
p.s. Rob, be grateful you're not driving home from Austin today!
_______________________________________________
http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
