Part of Why There Wasn't an Evacuation for Harvey

Growing up in the Houston area, I've grown accustomed to hearing the name Houston on the News. Whether it is because of athletes or a school doing something.

Even in my four years away while at college, Houston was mentioned at least once or twice a month for something.

That's the thing about it, Houston is the fourth-most populated city in the country. So percentage-wise, people here will be doing things.

But it's not just the city of Houston. It's the Greater Houston Area. A lot of people who aren't from Houston don't seem to realize that when Houston is mentioned on the news, generally it's talking about the GHA, not just strictly the city of Houston.

This area includes nine separate counties:
- Austin
- Brazoria
- Chambers
- Fort Bend
- Galveston
- Harris
- Liberty
- Montgomery
- Waller

Within these counties, there are countless cities and areas that each has a culture and personality of its own.

Growing up around here, although it wasn't terribly noticeable, there were still the simple prejudices of each different area. "Oh, you're from Tomball?" "Oh, you're from Dickinson?" "The Woodlands?" "Katy?" (Note: These were the first four places that came to mind; I have nothing against any of these places.)

This past weekend, any and all of those boundaries and borders fell.

Hurricane Harvey came in and drenched everyone.

There are a lot of people out there who don't understand why no one evacuated.

First off, up until Wednesday, Harvey didn't seem like he was going to be a big deal. He had been a Tropical Storm the last I had heard. Then he intensified (obviously). On Thursday, I was at work thoroughly unmotivated to actually do anything, because it has been years since a hurricane has hit. But news stations were starting to predict this being a much bigger deal than anticipated.

So why wasn't an evacuation ordered then? Let's look back a few years, for a history lesson.

Back in September 2005 (you know, the record breaking hurricane season that gave birth to Hurricanes Katrina, Dennis, Emily, Rita, and Wilma), Hurricane Rita was making its way to Houston.

This is just three weeks after the devastation that was Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana.

People panicked. No one wanted a repeat of Katrina in Houston. Houston's has flooding issues for major rainstorms and no one wanted to deal with that.

This panic led to a Mass Evacuation. Between 2.5 and 3.7 million (yes, million) people evacuated.

My family was among them. Although we left either the day or two days prior to the major evacuation.

Now, we have family up in Dallas who normally take us in during hurricanes and such, so we're lucky in that way. It normally takes about five, maybe six hours to reach them depending on traffic.

It took us over eleven.

Two vehicles, three dogs, a cat, six people. I don't remember much about the drive out except my cat nearly having heat stroke because we had to turn the air off to conserve gas (because there was no gas to get to) and having to go to the bathroom so badly.

We didn't even have it bad compared to some people. I've heard of that same drive taking two-plus days.

And this was with both sides of the road open to people going north, and north only.

Not my Picture (Got from the Weather Channel)

Over 100 people died during the evacuation.

From what was reported at the time, total deaths, including those in the evacuation, from Rita was placed around 120-130. Seven of which were directly related to the storms. More people died due to the evacuation than the storm.

Granted, there was a lot of damage. Enough so that the name Rita was retired from the Hurricane list.

With little time to evacuate for Harvey, if they had, then people would likely have been stuck on I-45. And there were lots of places on 45 that were underwater.

Harvey was a horrible, freak occurrence. Yes, it was catastrophic and devastating. But can you even imagine how much worse it would have been if flooding streets were covered in gridlock traffic of people trying to escape?

I can.

Until Next Time,
Shelby
P.S. I'll probably post later this week about Harvey again. But my thoughts and prayers are with everyone in Texas and Louisiana that is suffering because of Hurricane Harvey