Houston mayor orders evacuation

[lastliberalintexas]

Houston Mayor Bill White has called for residents to leave low-lying areas of the city as Hurricane Rita approaches.

Mr White warned that there are not enough government vehicles to evacuate everyone in the affected areas and urged friends and neighbours to help.

The order came as Rita was upgraded to a Category Four storm, the same level as Hurricane Katrina which devastated the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. -snip-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4261166.stm


And I don't have a link, but Perry has also just held a press conference in which he asked for voluntary evacuations of coastal communities from Corpus to Bmt/Port Arthur. That's a lot of real estate for such a request.

[XNASA]

1. I see that most of Clear Lake has a mandatory evac set for 6PM today.

Everybody down there stay safe. My thoughts are with you.

[loudsue]

2. And OF COURSE everyone in that large of an area has enough

room on their credit cards to go stay in a hotel somewhere for 4 or 5 days....or indefinitely if their homes are washed and blown to bits!

I sure as hell hope they do....'cause if not, it's going to be their own damn fault for being poor, right?

So everyone on the Texas coast....just start pulling out those credit cards, and load up those SUV's, and head for a hotel. How 'bout it.

:sarcasm:


:kick:

[Bridget Burke]

3. Evacuations started a couple of days ago....

Buses will take carless people out of Galveston. (& their pets!)

Resources are strained, but many of the people I know who will evacuate plan to stay with family farther north. There will be shelters, as well.

Our mayor is a Democrat & I'm quite sure he's thought of those details.

[Igel]

8. Or, since the sheer quantity of local information doesn't make it

to national news, you could check local sources. Or ask a question, rather than presupposing the answer.

There are shelters set up along established evacuation routes. They don't take plastic, just people. Probably pets, but I haven't paid attention (since we have none).

[progressivebydesign]

4. Houston? Isn't that where they sent a majority of Katrina evacuees?

Was it wise to send them to another hurricane prone area? This has to be traumatic for them... especially the children and elderly. Hope everyone stays safe.

[Bridget Burke]

5. The Katrina evacuees were not SENT to Houston.

Our mayor invited them.

Those still in shelters will be moved farther north--but much of Houston is outside the evacuation area.

[David Zephyr]

10. And he is a good mayor.

At least I think so.

[4dsc]

6. Isn't Houston built on a flood plane??

I seem to recall that Houston and the surrounding areas are all part of a 100-500 flood plane. When I worked there back in the 1970's, most resident's stated their worse fears would be a direct hit from any kind of hurricane..

[Igel]

9. Not all. Much.

If you google TSARP (maybe "TSARP houston") you'll get the revised 100/500 year flood plain maps.

[AnneD]

7. Houston

has a radius of over 50 miles. We have bayous everwhere. It can flood in any part of Houston with any amount of rain in the right circumstances. I am not in the state of panic that most are and will not decide what to do until Friday. One of my students said she passed an extremely large military convoy on Beltway 8 coming in this am. Should get interesting around here soon enough.

[damntexdem]

11. It's one thing to order an evacuation --

it's another for millions and millions of people to have somewhere to go. And Texas already absorbed over 100,000 Katrina evacuees. Look out, New Mexico, they'll be coming your way!