eurojosh Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 On 8/28/2017 at 6:47 PM, psv88 said: Need to wait to see how many people end up dying. If its thousands, then it should have been evacuated. If its 100 or less, then not evacuating was the right call. While this answer provides absolutely no useful lessons for future storms, it's the right answer. These calls are judgment calls that are assessed almost entirely based on outcome. A more useful discussion might be - what are the parameters going forward under which mass evacuations should take place? Is there some sort of a framework that could take these decisions out of the hands of politicians by providing a set of predictive metrics that, once met, mandates evacuations? Even then, there'd be no perfect solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoMo Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 Well, this event should give communities in the area a great idea on what areas flood at what water levels. From the information gained, communities should make a "Tier" list (of neighborhoods that flood at similar rain/water levels) of areas to evacuate based on expected rainfall/flooding/impact. It would make it a lot easier to evacuate individual areas that have the highest threat instead of telling everyone in the entire area to evacuate which could lead to problems. You could also use city resources (busses, etc) to evacuate people in a more efficient manner, one "Tier" at a time. You're still going to have people that won't evacuate and stay behind though, but there's nothing you can do about that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eskimo Joe Posted August 30, 2017 Author Share Posted August 30, 2017 The secondary events in Beaumont and Kirbyville are surreal. This will be the Gulfport of Harvey...all the resources and attention will be on Houston and everyone else gets crumbs for recovery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eskimo Joe Posted August 30, 2017 Author Share Posted August 30, 2017 I can't imagine the looming public health crisis with water, food and temperature borne concerns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThePhotoGuy Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 I don't think they should have evacuated Houston. It would not have been worth it because you can't evacuate millions of people. I do think they should have but a driving ban on the roads during the height of the storm. There were way too many people on the road that shouldn't have been and got stuck. I have been pretty surprised at how long it took to get these shelters up and running. It was pretty clear for a period of time before the storm struck that the Houston area would be severely flooded. These shelters should have been up and running quicker. It would have been practical to have people in flood prone areas to have access to these shelters before the storm struck instead of them needing to be rescued. (Maybe they were set up but I never heard of mass shelters set up beforehand). I have been amazed at the amount of volunteers that have come out and brought their own boats and risked their lives to save others. Many more would have died because there weren't enough rescue boats available. I wonder what the death toll will be? I think it will be in the 500+ ranger. So many areas flooded and devastated. Once the water recedes, the death toll is going to rise quickly. So many homes completely flooded and so many vehicles that are submerged that need to be checked for victims. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Di Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 If I lived in Houston I would have left on my own and not waited for a government entity to issue a voluntary or mandatory evacuation order. There wasn't enough time for an evac to happen anyway. As far as setting up shelters I've been watching there TV down there and seems to me they were up and running pretty quickly. It's possible there could have been panic and chaos had they opened them before the storm. I don't know this is just my opinion. There have been times I've been prepared to hunker down for a winter storm only to get a few inches, or a sleet fest. Always seems to be a disconnect between weather service and elected officials. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eskimo Joe Posted August 30, 2017 Author Share Posted August 30, 2017 22 minutes ago, Lady Di said: If I lived in Houston I would have left on my own and not waited for a government entity to issue a voluntary or mandatory evacuation order. There wasn't enough time for an evac to happen anyway. As far as setting up shelters I've been watching there TV down there and seems to me they were up and running pretty quickly. It's possible there could have been panic and chaos had they opened them before the storm. I don't know this is just my opinion. There have been times I've been prepared to hunker down for a winter storm only to get a few inches, or a sleet fest. Always seems to be a disconnect between weather service and elected officials. Harvey is proving that major disasters disproportionately affect a population. There are people who do not have the physical, economic or social means to evacuate on their own. These are the residents who are getting the worst of it. The NWS can and has screamed for days but officials were slow to respond like they typically are in major disasters...that is a product of human nature I suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lady Di Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 3 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said: Harvey is proving that major disasters disproportionately affect a population. There are people who do not have the physical, economic or social means to evacuate on their own. These are the residents who are getting the worst of it. The NWS can and has screamed for days but officials were slow to respond like they typically are in major disasters...that is a product of human nature I suppose. I suppose you are right too. Currently folks (civilians) are screaming for the National Guard in Port Arthur Tx to evac a nursing home that is flooding pretty bad. They managed to rescue one lady since her daughter gave the administrator permission to release her. If a mandatory evacuation order is issued does that mean the gov't is now responsible for the care of all minor children in homes and hospitals, the elderly in different types of facilities, and so on? I'm not sure how that works for the ones with no means. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eskimo Joe Posted August 30, 2017 Author Share Posted August 30, 2017 Just now, Lady Di said: I suppose you are right too. Currently folks (civilians) are screaming for the National Guard in Port Arthur Tx to evac a nursing home that is flooding pretty bad. They managed to rescue one lady since her daughter gave the administrator permission to release her. If a mandatory evacuation order is issued does that mean the gov't is now responsible for the care of all minor children in homes and hospitals, the elderly in different types of facilities, and so on? I'm not sure how that works for the ones with no means. Those responsibilities vary from location to location. But let me say this...in most locations in the US a mandatory evacuation has almost no legal teeth for property owners. It's just a strongly worded statement and I highly doubt that will ever change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sauss06 Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 4 minutes ago, Eskimo Joe said: Those responsibilities vary from location to location. But let me say this...in most locations in the US a mandatory evacuation has almost no legal teeth for property owners. It's just a strongly worded statement and I highly doubt that will ever change. The thing that pisses me off and i'm not sure if anyone here ever had to evac someone, but when they refuse to go and then hours or a day later they start crying and you have to go to great personal risks to get them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cypress Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 On 8/29/2017 at 0:24 AM, seethruya said: Simple answer, more people would have died if mandatory evacuation orders were given than if they were not given. You really need to research the Hurricane Rita evacuation catastrophe. A 3 hour drive to Austin, 3 hour drive to San Antonio, 4 hour drive to Dallas, took a large percentage of people 24 hours to reach. Many, many, people never made it to their destination and were stranded all over the place from running out of gas (gas stations ran out of gas), vehicles overheated from hours of bumper to bumper traffic in the Texas summer heat, accidents, and many other reasons. More people died from the evacuation than the storm itself. What the city learned is it's not possible to successfully evacuate the Houston Metroplex (7+ million people) in less than 48 hours. You'll end up loosing more life from the evacuation than the natural disaster. The overwhelming majority of Houstonians are in favor of not evacuating because we all saw that it doesn't work on short notice. Small towns such as Rockport (population 10,000) or even smaller cities like Corpus Christi (population 300,000) can successfully evacuate on short notice, but Houston is just too large for it to be successful on short notice. it took my husband 3 1/2 hrs to get home from work, due to Rita evac mess - it's a straight 15 mi ride out Hwy 290. After Rita, Houston did develop a comprehensive evac plan for surge, based on zip code & proximity to surge related flooding hazard. It's very detailed & requires a very syncopatic cooperation of all involved managers & gov'ts & emergency personnel - maybe not everyone on the same page but they better have at least read the damn book. How to do one on the fly with no page let alone a book? How should they have picked who to make evac 1st? I would bet my last $ that anyone complaining about poor "no evac" response a) doesn't live in Greater Houston and even if they do, didn't evacuate... just a side note, Bill Read, former NHC Director had over 3 ft of water in League City, didn't evac... go scold him, would ya? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cypress Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 7 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said: The local OEMs need to keep the media out of shelters. The shelter operations are a complete clusterf*ck and this is how you get interviews like the CNN one yesterday where people are yelling at the media to leave them alone. That's inexcusable on the part of local officials. totally agree on this point, some of the stuff they put evacuees through just to fill air time was a freakin' disgrace. lend them a hand (without a camera please) or get out of the way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cypress Posted August 30, 2017 Share Posted August 30, 2017 4 hours ago, Eskimo Joe said: I can't imagine the looming public health crisis with water, food and temperature borne concerns. that will be a huge issue, also mosquito borne illness, vermin, mold Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rossy Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 I find it interesting that it is the NE that seems to want to lay the hammer on Houston's decision makers, while those openly from Texas are supportive. It seems agreed that evacuating Houston is an impossible task, but what you're failing to realize is that a graduated evacuation for Rita is what was asked. Please let the coast clear out before getting on the highways (to support the mandatory evacuations). Half the city ignored that, and all tried to leave now because apparently this is going to be horrible. There were stories of people spending 12+ hours on the road, giving up, and driving home in less than 20 minutes. At one point ~30% of Harris County was under water. Even if you knew exactly that 30% and tried to evacuate it anyone who perceived themselves to be nearby would panic and try to leave also. Realistically if your house flooded in the Tax Day Flood, and you didn't get out for this, that is 100% on Y-O-U. Based on that it wouldn't have even covered everyone affected in the Houston Metro area. For the first time in the history of the Addicks and Barker Reservoirs they had to release water during a rain event. I won't argue that it wasn't partially due to development. Studies will be done and hopefully plans can and will improve. It may not have been perfect, but take a breath and let things settle out before slinging mud. The largest criticism I can lay right now is at the hands of the USACE and HCFCD who said people below the Barker and Addicks reservoirs would have until 2pm to get out and they flooded them out at roughly 2am. (based on accounts on other forums) http://yourweatherblog.com/?p=10721 (quotes below) "Though actual landfall was well east of Galveston, county and city managers did what they had to do when they had to do it: mandatory evacuations of Galveston and suggested evacuations of Houston began on September 21." "Dr. Robert Stein of Rice University, co-author of the study The Human Side of Evacuation, A Hurricane Rita Study stated, “Half of the residential population of the area attempted to go somewhere else and left their homes. A single percentage failed and returned instead. It’s hard to say whether it was more people than evacuated for Katrina over a 7- to 10-day period but it was definitely over a shorter period of time for Rita when it was just over three days.” There are true horror stories from the Rita evacuation. A post storm study attributes 90 deaths to the evacuation. The Houston Chronicle estimated 107 evacuation deaths." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eskimo Joe Posted August 31, 2017 Author Share Posted August 31, 2017 17 hours ago, sauss06 said: The thing that pisses me off and i'm not sure if anyone here ever had to evac someone, but when they refuse to go and then hours or a day later they start crying and you have to go to great personal risks to get them. A lot of it has to do with trust in the government. The President's statements about immigration is keeping a lot of people hiding in cars and apartment and homes because they have questionable immigration statuses. It's not all hard headed hillbillies. We ran into that last August during the apartment fire in Silver Spring. We had 130 people reported missing and the only way we could verify whether they were alive or not was by using the faith based community to send a priest out to a home or apartment put eyes on them. They would not speak with a police officer, even if they were legal. You have to remember that some folks who are immigrants come from countries where law enforcement and government officials are inherently corrupt and will use violence to eliminate people at will. This mistrust is almost genetic and it's not out of the realm of possibility that legal immigrants from central/south America and Mexico in Houston are thinking the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jburns Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 After this week, if another major hurricane even begins to approach Houston in the next few years the traffic jam from Rita will look like open highway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasons Posted August 31, 2017 Share Posted August 31, 2017 Some great links from last week, even before the rain started. There was already a lot of controversy and confusion. https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-governor-mayor-split-over-if-houston-needed-evacuations-1503880263 http://www.kcentv.com/weather/abbott-to-coastal-texas-residents-heed-warning-and-evacuation-orders/467295096 http://www.statesman.com/news/local/harris-county-top-elected-gop-official-calls-gov-abbott-evacuation-comment-mistake/YRDWw3wGJpLYX15gSLUMqI/ Some take-aways from the links -- Abbott was clearly warning about the rain too, not just surge: In a statement, Abbott asked people to strongly consider all voluntary evacuation orders and "strictly comply" with mandatory evacuation orders because the remnants of Hurricane Harvey are expected to hover and could potentially drop large amounts of rain on "miles upon miles of Texas". "You have the power and ability right now to be able to avoid being stuck in a search and rescue situation," Abbott said. "If you make the decision to get out of harm's way before it's too late." ----- Mr. Turner, a Democrat, and other local officials urged residents to stay in their homes as Hurricane Harvey, which has since downgraded to a tropical storm, approached Houston on Friday. But at a Friday news conference, Gov. Abbott, a Republican, suggested otherwise. “Even if an evacuation order hasn’t been issued by your local official, if you’re in an area between Corpus Christi and Houston, you need to strongly consider evacuating.” Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wow Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 Me thinks this subject ends up in a political white wash and solves little. The end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jasons Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 14 hours ago, Wow said: Me thinks this subject ends up in a political white wash and solves little. The end. You are right. The Mayor is already declaring the city "open for business" as search operations continue. Frankly, I'm disgusted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Down The Rabbit Hole Posted September 1, 2017 Share Posted September 1, 2017 2 hours ago, jasons said: You are right. The Mayor is already declaring the city "open for business" as search operations continue. Frankly, I'm disgusted. There are a good number of places in Houston where the floodwaters didn't have too devastating an effect. We need economic activity to continue where it can, otherwise those recovery operations are hamstrung by the lack of supplies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winterymix Posted September 2, 2017 Share Posted September 2, 2017 E. coli levels in standing water is a big worry. Large areas are dangerous zones of fecal bacteria sitting in Texas sun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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