Posts Tagged hurricane rita
Move on you have enough gas
This is a real story, as it was told to me. As far as I know it based on actual events.
Location – Lufkin, Texas
Date – a couple of days after Hurricane Rita passed through.
The story – this guy was at a gas station filling up several 55 gallon drums. Gasoline was already in short supply. Before Hurricane Rita made landfall, Houston, Texas had evacuated. As the people from Houston passed through the small towns of East Texas, they were like locust, cleaning out the resources of the small towns – such as food, hotel rooms, bottled water and gasoline.
Someone walks over to the guy, pulls out a pistol, points it at him, and says “you have enough gas, move on.”
Who is in the right and who is in the wrong?
Was the guy hogging more then his fair share of fuel?
Did he need that much fuel?
Was he bringing the gasoline to people further south in the Hurricane affected areas?
Did he have a special needs person and needed the fueul for a generator?
Was the guy with the gun in the wrong for forcing the other person to move on?
Some of the gas stations in Lufkin started rationing fuel – cars were only allowed to get 45 dollars worth of fuel and then they had to move on. At time, gas cost 2.99 a gallon, so $45 of gas at the time was not much. Some of the gas stations had police officers at them to ensure peace and order.
Post your comments in this thread at the Hurricane Survival Forums.
Becoming complacent with disaster preparedness
As Hurricane Rita was making its way through the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, the projected path was towards the Houston and Galveston, Texas area. An evacuation was called for parts of Harris and Galveston counties. Which is where the cities of Houston and Galveston are located.
The way evacuations are “supposed” to work, the areas that are nearest the Gulf of Mexico are evacuated first. Which is Galveston, and lower Harris county. That is how its supposed to work in theory. In reality, how does one of the largest cities in the USA evacuate? They dont. There were stories of people spending 18+ hours on the highway and not even going 10 miles.
There are 2 major highways going north out of Houston – HWY 59 and HWY 45. Going east and west, there is Interstate 10, 1960, old HWY 90 and 105. HWY 105 is north of the Houston area. It goes from Beaumont, through Cleveland, Conroe and finally hits HWY 6.
On a typical day, its pretty much bumper to bumper on all of those roads. But an evacuation is not a “typical” day. Traffic ground to a dead stop as millions of people tried to flee Hurricane Rita. Untold numbers of people gave up on the evacuation, turned around, went back home and were ready to accept whatever fate awaited them.
As Hurricane Rita neared the coast, the point of projected landfall was moved to the east – from Galveston to the Sabine Pass area. The evacuations for Galveston and Houston were canceled and people returned to their homes. A few months after Rita made landfall, there were questions as to why an evacuation was even called for the residents of Houston. There seemed to be a backlash of anger towards the City Government. People were frustrated that they were stuck in traffic for hours- and for nothing.
In August of 2008, Hurricane Ike formed in the Atlantic ocean. Even though the projected path changed several times, Ike finally made landfall in Galveston, Texas. This time, there was no evacuation like what had happened with Hurricane Rita.
FEMA camp myths
It seems that ever since Hurricane Katrina there has been a of misinformation going around as to what FEMA really does.
Lets just set the record straight right now – FEMA is here to help people, not throw them in some type of FEMA prison camp.
The law makers in congress have setup a government agency that tries to help people in areas affected by a disaster. Most of the time, the relief efforts are composed of – food, water, and temporary shelter. After Hurricane Rita hit the Southeast Texas area I got to see “some” of what FEMA does. There was an immediate response of MRES, donated canned foods, ice and bottled water brought into the affected areas.
After Hurricane Ike, it became very clear as to what FEMA is designed to do. Bridge City Texas was flooded by the storm surge of Hurricane Ike.
The families there lucky (or blessed) – only got about 4, 5 or even 9 feed of saltwater, mixed with marsh mud in their houses.
The families that were not so lucky – their houses were destroyed by a combination of storm surge and wind damage.
Thousands of families in Bridge City had nowhere to go. People were living in tents, or in RVs and some families left Bridge City to go live with relatives. Out of several thousand homes, only about 12 had not been flooded. FEMA has been working for months to fix that problem.
Hurricane Ike destroyed home
After Hurricane Ike made landfall in September of 2008, FEMA has brought in hundreds of temporary homes. A lot of These mobile homes were setup in front of peoples houses. Open fields were turned into so called “FEMA camps”.
Here are some pictures of FEMA trailers in Bridge City, Texas.
FEMA trailer park in Bridge City, Texas
Hurricane Rita Review
When Hurricane Rita made landfall it was the fourth-most intense Atlantic Hurricane ever recorded and the most intense tropical cyclone ever observed in the Gulf of Mexico. After Rita made landfall in southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana, the storm caused $11.3 billion in damage.
The following story is my personal account of the days right before Rita made landfall, lessons learned, the actual landfall and the following days.
Wednesday morning it looked like Rita might hit Houston so my ex wife brought my youngest kids ages 9 and 11 to Bridge City Texas where my parents live, from there they (my kids and parents, not exwife) were going to evacuate to Jasper – to my house. Wednesday noon my 16 year old calls me, ask me to drive to Houston to get him out, my ex did not ask him if he wanted to leave before she left with the youngest children. At this time there was a voluntary evacuation of parts of lower Houston, Galveston area. So I left Jasper, drove to Houston, really the Bay town area to get my son.
1st lesson, have a full tank of gas going in and a plan for getting out.
Going into Houston was easy, everyone was going north – I was one of the few idiots going south. I was on HWY 96 headed south through Lumberton. Traffic was backed up through the entire city of Lumberton – 3 miles or so and 4 red lights. At this point I knew I was not going to be able to get back on HWY 96 north. I got on the phone with my wife, asked her to get on the internet – map quest, yahoo maps anything, and call her friends to see if they knew a way out of Houston using the back roads – she had about 2 hours till I needed the information. Going through Beaumont where 69-96 joins I-10, traffic was backed up for miles. This confirmed what I already knew, I was not going to be able to get out via I-10. Got to baytown, the Texas Department of Safety (DPS) and Highway Department had closed the exit I needed to take in order to get into bay town, had to go down 2 more exits, then back track. Got my son, got out to I-10 in Houston heading East. Traffic was crawling, I mean crawling because of construction at the San Jacinto River. My wife was able to get directions for me using the back roads. Once I got out of the construction zone, got off I-10 it was smooth sailing. I was one of 3 trucks for about 20 minutes.
2nd lesson, KNOW the back roads – this will be very important later in the story.