This morning, (Monday, August 28th) mandatory evacuations have been ordered for some areas of Houston.
Three days ago - I repeat THREE DAYS AGO - the governor of Texas was suggesting that people think about leaving Houston, but deferred to local officials. The mayor of Houston pushed back and was saying things like this:
“There are a number of people who are in Hurricane Harvey’s direct path, and evacuation orders have been given to them. But for the Houston area… this is a rainmaker for us. There’s no need for people to be thinking about putting themselves in greater danger.”
"Please think twice before trying to leave Houston en masse. No evacuation orders have been issued for the city,”
“No evacuation orders have been issued for the city and none is being considered. Please continue to monitor mainstream news sources for updates on the weather and act accordingly as an informed resident. Rumors are nothing new, but the widespread use of social media has needlessly frightened many people today.”
The Harris County Emergency Management Office went to great lengths to "debunk" what it called "false emails and FB posts" that were predicting 50" of rain and 100,000 homes destroyed.
You can see the tweet here:
https://twitter.com/ReadyHarris/status/900852278395056128?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=http://heavy.com/news/2017/08/why-wasnt-houston-evacuated-mandatory-evacuation-issued-sylvester-turner-ed-emmett-abbott-trump-hurricane-harvey/
Now they are getting hammered on Twitter and FB with messages like this:
https://twitter.com/HiHeidyy/status...rner-ed-emmett-abbott-trump-hurricane-harvey/
Now, in their defense, during Hurricane Rita, the evacuation killed over a hundred people - far more than the hurricane itself. The entire highway system became a parking lot during a heat wave.
So if thousands of motorists are stranded on the highway, and the highway floods, the situation could really be dire.
So I guess the question is...is it even possible to ever evacuate Houston in advance of an impending disaster?
It seems not.
Three days ago - I repeat THREE DAYS AGO - the governor of Texas was suggesting that people think about leaving Houston, but deferred to local officials. The mayor of Houston pushed back and was saying things like this:
“There are a number of people who are in Hurricane Harvey’s direct path, and evacuation orders have been given to them. But for the Houston area… this is a rainmaker for us. There’s no need for people to be thinking about putting themselves in greater danger.”
"Please think twice before trying to leave Houston en masse. No evacuation orders have been issued for the city,”
“No evacuation orders have been issued for the city and none is being considered. Please continue to monitor mainstream news sources for updates on the weather and act accordingly as an informed resident. Rumors are nothing new, but the widespread use of social media has needlessly frightened many people today.”
The Harris County Emergency Management Office went to great lengths to "debunk" what it called "false emails and FB posts" that were predicting 50" of rain and 100,000 homes destroyed.
You can see the tweet here:
https://twitter.com/ReadyHarris/status/900852278395056128?ref_src=twsrc^tfw&ref_url=http://heavy.com/news/2017/08/why-wasnt-houston-evacuated-mandatory-evacuation-issued-sylvester-turner-ed-emmett-abbott-trump-hurricane-harvey/
Now they are getting hammered on Twitter and FB with messages like this:
https://twitter.com/HiHeidyy/status...rner-ed-emmett-abbott-trump-hurricane-harvey/
Now, in their defense, during Hurricane Rita, the evacuation killed over a hundred people - far more than the hurricane itself. The entire highway system became a parking lot during a heat wave.
So if thousands of motorists are stranded on the highway, and the highway floods, the situation could really be dire.
So I guess the question is...is it even possible to ever evacuate Houston in advance of an impending disaster?
It seems not.