Houston floods: Stay or leave?

Big kerfluffle in the press if the Mayor should have just told everyone in Houston to leave instead of telling them to stay and not panic.

Well, getting caught in a car when things are flooding is more dangerous (the one casualty mentioned in the article was a woman who drowned in her car).

Indeed many of the deaths a couple years ago were from the evacuation itself, not from Hurricane Rita.

Officials later reported more than 100 deaths connected to Hurricane Rita — and at least 60 of those deaths were linked the evacuation itself, according to a 2006 report to the Texas House of Representatives.

A lot of the photos show low areas flooded, but dry ground elsewhere. So most people would have had minimal danger and were better off at home.

The problem? Their cars might not work. And then you have to clean up the place. Are the foundations okay? What about mold? Is the house still livable?

and then there are more problems: no food, no water, no electricity...
Sigh.

Two phases in all of this: The acute phase, which is about staying alive, and the clean up, which takes months.

I suspect the Baptist church youth groups are already headed there with supplies and willing hands to help. And not just the Baptists of course: I see the Cajun navy went there with boats.

Getting caught in a hurricane/ typhoon and/or flood is dangerous.

Ruby was caught in one hurricane related flood here in the provinces (the typhoon turned north unexpectedly and got worse after hitting land, so she was on the way back from Manila and hadn't gotten the warning) The flooding swamped the high bridge a dozen miles south of here. They stopped in a gas station/711 store parking lot, but then the flooding got worse and they ended up spending the night on the roof of the shop, open to the winds and rain, eating chips that the owner had handed out before his shop flooded completely.

They were lucky: The flood did not collapse the shop, and locals helped them as soon as dawn came and the waters went down (the truck of course was ruined so a friend brought them home).

We were okay in that typhoon/flood (which hit the week before the larger typhoon in the Visayas, so we didn't even make a blip in the headlines).

Lolo built the house on higher ground and made sure we had drainage ditches. But water did get into our business compound, which we opened to store our cars and the trucks of our neighbors... luckily it was only under 8 inches of water... so they were okay.


At least we have our own deep well and generator. The problem was finding a gas station that had it's gas pumps running so we could use them. (we only store one day's worth of diesel for them).

But it was a mess.

So for all you naysayers who didn't live through floods: I suspect a lot more would have died if they just told everyone to evacuate.

nor was this a hurricane: no winds involved.

and Houston is inland, so no storm surge (which probably has destroyed Galveston and other coastal areas, which were evacuated).

now, instead of trying to nit pick the non politically correct politician for the problem, get off your tush and help. I suspect the Red Cross is taking donations.


Typhoons and floods occur here about once every other year, so people know about these things. And of course, we also get floods when storms or typhoons hit north of here, and the rice irrigation dams can't take the water and collapse.

our town now has huge signs pointing to the local gym, which is built on high ground and is considered an evacuation center.

So in our prayers.