Fox: 3 evacuees died in their car on TX freeway

[rainbow4321]

http://blogs.chron.com/rita/archives/2005/09/as_seen_on_tv_o.html


Fox (CH26) reported on a mother with five children, three of her own, who was stranded in a rest stop near Brookshire without gas or water. Earlier reports from the station brought out local people who gave her everything she needed. She gave a huge "Thank You" and is on her way to Luling. A member of the sheriff's department asked that no one else come at this time, please. The sheriff's department is helping stranded motorists, he said. "We'll be on patrol until every motorist is safe," he said. He reported that three people had died last night in their cars.

[laruemtt]

1. but but but hannity

said the evacuation is going flawlessly :cry:

[stopbush]

2. It is. The 3 who died weren't republicans...

[txindy]

3. You beat me to it!

[rainbow4321]

4. So flawlessly, buses are having to evac people FROM the evac routes

So now we need evac routes from the evac routes..yeppers, we down here have the perfect model for future evac plans. Hope every other community is taking notes so they, too, can have 10's of thousands of THEIR residents stranded w/ dead and dying along a 200 mile stretch of highway.

And WTF is this "rethink if they want to.."..as IF these people CHOSE to be stranded in 100+ degree heat in the traffic jam! They fucking did what the STATE told them to do.....

http://blogs.chron.com/rita/archives/2005/09/metro_buses_cru.html


Metro buses cruised evacuation routes today, offering last-resort transportation to stranded motorists who want to leave the roadside before Rita strikes.

"We are giving people a last option to get to a safe haven," said Frank Wilson, Metropoliltan Transit Authority CEO. "We are collecting people who have had some time to decide and rethink whether they want to weather this storm on the side of the freeway."

Thirty buses are operating along 10 highway evacuation routes, Wilson said.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. How many people have died from this hurricane so far

before it's even hit? Wasn't there a bus that burned up a bunch of elderly people as well?

[RC]

7. The question to ask is; "How many people total have died on bu$h's watch?

How many did bu$h let die. How many did he kill through his actions? How many innocent civilians are dead because of bu$h's war?

[Crunchy Frog]

10. Somebody needs to set up a Bush Body Count web site.

There were some loonies who maintained a Clinton body count of people the Clintons supposedly had murdered in the paranoid fantasies of the right. We could come up with HUGE list of people who have actually died because of Bush's actions or inactions both at home and abroad.

Would any of these people have died if FEMA hadn't been gutted and the National Guard was here instead of in Iraq?

[pitohui]

14. yes 24 confirmed dead on the bus that blew up

we'll never be told the true # of those who die of dehydration, blood clots from sitting for an extended period, heatstroke, etc

but they can't hide an entire exploding bus

[riverwalker]

6. Homeland Insecurity

I've been perusing the Homeland Security website to figure out what they have done for the $42 Billion we give them every year. Every plan, for either biological, chemical, nuclear attack or natural disaster mentions "evacuation plans". We are witnessing their "evacuation plans" now.
We are doomed.:scared:

[Crunchy Frog]

11. And this is just in Texas

where the Bush regime doesn't even want people to die. God help us if an evacuation was needed in a blue state.

[kestrel91316]

16. If that damned DHS ever says we have to evacuate Los Angeles

I am going to stay PUT. I will take my chances in a familiar place with a roof over my head. All my preparedness stuff is right here, and won't all fit in my car.

10 million people in metro LA area - no way in hell to evacuate all those folks with only 5 major highways out of town (and one of those puts you in Mexico eventually). Very few alternate routes exist due to the mountains all around us. So we basically CAN'T evacuate.

[AlCzervik]

8. 3 people also died when their van and a FEMA truck collided.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. And don't forget the bus fire with the elderly folks

ok who is doing disaster planning? They are a walking disaster

[A-Possum]

12. The bus fire is simply a tragedy

They were busing the people from a nursing home, they were about to arrive in Dallas well ahead of the storm, the rescue of people inside was prevented by exploding oxygen tanks, so even if emergency vehicles had been on the spot it probably wouldn't have helped greatly.

There are plenty of disaster planning and evac problems to go around, but whatever happened on that bus was not part of them, IMO. Let's focus on the real issues of what should have been done better, such as implementing contraflow sooner and closing the Houston schools earlier so people had more time to leave.

[txindy]

13. The fire may have initially started w/ the hydraulic brakes catching fire

They do that when they've been used far too often over a long, continous period - like stop-and-go traffic (with mph in the single digits, if that) over a 12+ hour timespan. And why was that trip the drive from hell? Because of what you said, "issues of what should have been done better, such as implementing contraflow sooner and closing the Houston schools earlier so people had more time to leave."

Sometimes, things really are related.

[A-Possum]

15. not directly enough

I just don't think the bus tragedy should be focused on as an example of deaths caused by poor planning by authorities. Plenty of buses with hydraulic brakes were stuck in traffic and didn't burst into flames. If they had been going 70 mph and another evacuee caused an accident that killed them, we would not say that this was a result of the poor planning; we'd say it was a result of bad driving.

Elderly residents were evacuated by bus from a danger zone. For reasons not yet known, a fire started and oxygen tanks exploded. It was one of those sequences of events that is unpredictable and beyond the realm of planning.

The lack of fuel, the timing of school closings, the late contraflow, yes, those are poor planning issues that could have been predicted and should be addressed. Pre-planning can and should address predicatable issues. It can't address every possible sequence of events such as faulty brakes on some vehicles.

I just think it looks kind of opportunistic to point to that particular tragedy as an example of a bad evacuation. It makes it appear that those of us who are critical of this evacuation process are hoping to have as many deaths as possible to blame on the "authorities" and so will use anything.

If there are deaths from the storm or flooding or heat stroke among people stuck on the road who couldn't get out, then you bet they should be blamed on the planning. But not this particular incident.

That's my opinion. I think it's a stretch. Your mileage may differ.