5 ms·

I was in Houston during Hurricane Rita in 2005, and we tried to evacuate. We got on the freeway, sat in the traffic for a while, made it about one exit down the

I was in Houston during Hurricane Rita in 2005, and we tried to evacuate. We got on the freeway, sat in the traffic for a while, made it about one exit down the road before we concluded the storm would hit before we actually made it out of town, got off at the next exit and went home to ride it out at home. I don't think Houston is a city that was designed to be evacuated. It's just not feasible. I'm sure an exacerbating factor was 250k extra Katrina-evacuees[1] from New Orleans who had just arrived in Houston a few weeks before (I was one of those people), who had all just seen the TV coverage of people stuck on roofs after Katrina and heard all the victim-blaming that said it was their fault for staying. Previously I wouldn't have evacuated for a storm like Rita, but after living through Katrina a few weeks prior, I thought I'd better at least try to get out of town. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/25/new-orleans-west-houston-hurricane-katrina https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/25/new-orleans-...

cmurphycode 6y ago
"I don't think Houston is a city that was designed to be evacuated. It's just not feasible" Such an interesting contrast to this frontpage post yesterday: "The highways themselves were specifically intended to facilitate the reasonable objective of Houstonians not to get annihilated by a nuclear blast...[In] case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road net must permit quick evacuation of target areas" (Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24331698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24331698) So one might ask, if all these highways don't even permit quick transit, what the heck are they doing?
- rightbyte 6y ago
  Quicker transit than the same roads but half as wide? I guess evacuation is in the aftermath of the nuclear strike to escape radiation for those that were not hurt initially.
- scottlocklin 6y ago
  Houston's population was 1.7 million in 1970[0], it's 6.4 million now. I'm making the guess that their highway system was approximately done in 1970, but it's basically the same story if you put that number at 1980 (2.4 million) and so on. FWIIW underutilized modern highways are amazingly efficient and pleasant to drive on. As far as I can tell they're limited to recent construction in Europe (Spain for example; it appears to have a 2005 era German highway system designed for 2-3x their population). [0] https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23014/houston/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23014/houston/population
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    There are small cities with overbuilt ring roads in the US that have little traffic. Sometimes porkbarrel spending is a win.
    - tc313 6y ago
      We have two loops in Houston — an inner loop and an outer loop. Freeway expansion is non-stop and we still don’t have enough road for all of our traffic...
      - stephenhuey 6y ago
        Actually, 99 Grand Parkway is almost an entire third loop around the city about 180 miles in length!
  - ryanmarsh 6y ago
    I'm making the guess that their highway system was approximately done in 1970 LOL, so much bullshit propagated about a city with 9M residents you can actually visit or research. The beltway didn’t open until the late 80’s. I-10 was widened twice since then, and the 99 “Grand Parkway” loop is ongoing.
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Populations, traffic patterns, and risks have evolved since 1950. The idea was that sprawled freeway-based cities such as Los Angeles were already sufficiently distributed such that risks of nuclear attack were minimised. Effectively they were "pre-evacuated".
- marcusverus 6y ago
  > So one might ask, if all these highways don't even permit quick transit, what the heck are they doing? Who said that Houston's highways don't permit quick transit? They do. They're just not equipped to easily facilitate a once-in-a-generation exodus of 8 million people all in one day.
  - Balgair 6y ago
    Well, considering Rita was in 2005, Harvey was in 2018, and Laura was in 2020, I think that some redesign may be in order. It's occurred more than once in a generation. It's likely to stay that way or get worse.
    - marcusverus 6y ago
      There was no evacuation for either Harvey or Laura.
- mc32 6y ago
  2020 is not the 1960s when that may have been part of the decision making and the city was much smaller and less congested. But even then, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t envisioning an evac of 100% of the pop.
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> don't think Houston is a city that was designed to be evacuated No city is. Evacuations take planning, discipline and enforcement. Identifying those most at risk, finding bottlenecks, rationing throughput, deploying support to those at the end of the line and enforcing rules (as well as messaging such enforcement) are key. For a hurricane hitting Houston, this would start with regularly distributing evacuation maps to residents of low-lying areas. When a hurricane is to hit, the most at-risk neighbourhoods are ranked. Evacuation capacity is measured and schedules set (e.g. X neighbourhood to evacuation before Noon on Monday, Y neighbourhood after Noon). If the smallest easily-communicated neighbourhood would still overcome evacuation routes, ration by e.g. last number or letter of license plates. If the storm is likely to hit before the last group gets going, pre-position resources (e.g. sand bags, generators and fresh water) there. Since the high-risk were evacuated first, these areas should be both less-intensely and later impacted. Finally, police entry points to stop rule breakers. Police the routes themselves, and don’t be shy about arresting and shaming people who panicked or thought they were better than everyone else.
- ramses0 6y ago
  Have you seen how people in the U.S. try and board airplanes?
  - trentnix 6y ago
    Yeah, it's a mess but it's all because the incentives are wrong. If you've got an exit row aisle, there's not much advantage to getting on quickly and orderly. And if you do have a middle seat in the back, what's the point of getting in a hurry to get on board? The Southwest cattle car style works better than anything else I've seen. Sure, it sucks to be one of the last boarders and be sentenced to a middle seat in the back, but that's something that can be fixed if you're better organized and more punctual next time you fly.
    - 0xffff2 6y ago
      Ever since airlines started charging for checked bags, there's a significant incentive to board early no matter your seating, since the overhead bins universally fill up about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way into boarding.

cmurphycode 6y ago

"I don't think Houston is a city that was designed to be evacuated. It's just not feasible" Such an interesting contrast to this frontpage post yesterday: "The highways themselves were specifically intended to facilitate the reasonable objective of Houstonians not to get annihilated by a nuclear blast...[In] case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road net must permit quick evacuation of target areas" (Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24331698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24331698) So one might ask, if all these highways don't even permit quick transit, what the heck are they doing?

rightbyte 6y ago
Quicker transit than the same roads but half as wide? I guess evacuation is in the aftermath of the nuclear strike to escape radiation for those that were not hurt initially.
scottlocklin 6y ago
Houston's population was 1.7 million in 1970[0], it's 6.4 million now. I'm making the guess that their highway system was approximately done in 1970, but it's basically the same story if you put that number at 1980 (2.4 million) and so on. FWIIW underutilized modern highways are amazingly efficient and pleasant to drive on. As far as I can tell they're limited to recent construction in Europe (Spain for example; it appears to have a 2005 era German highway system designed for 2-3x their population). [0] https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23014/houston/population https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23014/houston/population
- kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
  There are small cities with overbuilt ring roads in the US that have little traffic. Sometimes porkbarrel spending is a win.
  - tc313 6y ago
    We have two loops in Houston — an inner loop and an outer loop. Freeway expansion is non-stop and we still don’t have enough road for all of our traffic...
    - stephenhuey 6y ago
      Actually, 99 Grand Parkway is almost an entire third loop around the city about 180 miles in length!
- ryanmarsh 6y ago
  I'm making the guess that their highway system was approximately done in 1970 LOL, so much bullshit propagated about a city with 9M residents you can actually visit or research. The beltway didn’t open until the late 80’s. I-10 was widened twice since then, and the 99 “Grand Parkway” loop is ongoing.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Populations, traffic patterns, and risks have evolved since 1950. The idea was that sprawled freeway-based cities such as Los Angeles were already sufficiently distributed such that risks of nuclear attack were minimised. Effectively they were "pre-evacuated".
marcusverus 6y ago
> So one might ask, if all these highways don't even permit quick transit, what the heck are they doing? Who said that Houston's highways don't permit quick transit? They do. They're just not equipped to easily facilitate a once-in-a-generation exodus of 8 million people all in one day.
- Balgair 6y ago
  Well, considering Rita was in 2005, Harvey was in 2018, and Laura was in 2020, I think that some redesign may be in order. It's occurred more than once in a generation. It's likely to stay that way or get worse.
  - marcusverus 6y ago
    There was no evacuation for either Harvey or Laura.
mc32 6y ago
2020 is not the 1960s when that may have been part of the decision making and the city was much smaller and less congested. But even then, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t envisioning an evac of 100% of the pop.

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> don't think Houston is a city that was designed to be evacuated No city is. Evacuations take planning, discipline and enforcement. Identifying those most at risk, finding bottlenecks, rationing throughput, deploying support to those at the end of the line and enforcing rules (as well as messaging such enforcement) are key. For a hurricane hitting Houston, this would start with regularly distributing evacuation maps to residents of low-lying areas. When a hurricane is to hit, the most at-risk neighbourhoods are ranked. Evacuation capacity is measured and schedules set (e.g. X neighbourhood to evacuation before Noon on Monday, Y neighbourhood after Noon). If the smallest easily-communicated neighbourhood would still overcome evacuation routes, ration by e.g. last number or letter of license plates. If the storm is likely to hit before the last group gets going, pre-position resources (e.g. sand bags, generators and fresh water) there. Since the high-risk were evacuated first, these areas should be both less-intensely and later impacted. Finally, police entry points to stop rule breakers. Police the routes themselves, and don’t be shy about arresting and shaming people who panicked or thought they were better than everyone else.

ramses0 6y ago
Have you seen how people in the U.S. try and board airplanes?
- trentnix 6y ago
  Yeah, it's a mess but it's all because the incentives are wrong. If you've got an exit row aisle, there's not much advantage to getting on quickly and orderly. And if you do have a middle seat in the back, what's the point of getting in a hurry to get on board? The Southwest cattle car style works better than anything else I've seen. Sure, it sucks to be one of the last boarders and be sentenced to a middle seat in the back, but that's something that can be fixed if you're better organized and more punctual next time you fly.
  - 0xffff2 6y ago
    Ever since airlines started charging for checked bags, there's a significant incentive to board early no matter your seating, since the overhead bins universally fill up about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way into boarding.