Some wondering why Houston wasn’t evacuated
HOUSTON — Through Sunday morning, Harvey continued to unleash record levels of rain on Houston, causing “catastrophic” flooding in the city and in surrounding Harris County.
Over 24 hours, the greater Houston and Galveston area received 24.1 inches of rain. The National Weather Service warned of “additional catastrophic, unprecedented and life threatening flooding” into the next week, and placed flash-flood emergencies for all of Southeast Texas.
As the much-anticipated storm pummelled the country’s fourth-largest city — overwhelming the 911 system and sending some residents, against the advice of officials, into their attics to flee flood waters — many asked the question: Should Houston have been evacuated? If so, why wasn’t it?
At least one official thought it should have been. At a Friday news conference, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott encouraged residents in low-lying and coastal areas of the state to get out, even if a mandatory evacuation order had not been issued.
“You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where you could be subject to a search and rescue,” Abbott said.
The governor’s warning was in sharp contrast to the advice local and county officials had been dispensing for days: to shelter and stay in place.
On Saturday morning, as hurricane Harvey’s powerful winds and rain caused severe damage to coastal communities, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner warned there would be heavy rain and flooding in the city for the next four to five days — but once again emphasized they did not need to evacuate.
Turner also addressed concerns that Abbott and local officials had sent conflicting messages about what was safer: fleeing or staying in place.
“I think the governor and I both agree that this is a serious and unprecedented storm,” Turner said Saturday on “Good Morning America.”
“For Houston, Harris County, the county judge and I both agreed that for us this was a major rainfall event and so there was no need to evacuate. We are asking people to stay off the streets,” Turner said.
“Quite frankly, leaving your homes, getting on the streets, you’ll be putting yourself in more danger and not making yourself safer. And so, we’re just asking people to hunker down.”
In the hours before Rita struck the Houston area in September 2005, government officials issued an evacuation order, and some 2.5 million people hit the road at the same time, according to the Houston Chronicle.
More than 100 people died in the mass exit from the city — almost as many as were killed by the hurricane itself.
Dozens were injured or died of heat stroke waiting in traffic for nearly a full day. Fights broke out on clogged highways. A charter bus carrying people from a nursing home exploded on the side of Interstate 45, killing 24 people inside.
Meanwhile, the fear from hurricane Rita turned out to be unfounded. After Rita, many in Houston returned to their homes after hours of languishing on the highway “and found the house was fine and the street wasn’t flooded,” according to Madhu Beriwal, the president and CEO of IEM, a disaster planning and prevention company.