If you live in Texas, it’s far too early to think about evacuating from Hurricane Dean — he’s at least five days away yet, and could potentially go anywhere from Belize to Louisiana, or perhaps even further east. But Eric Berger offers some good advice to Texans, particularly in the Houston-Galveston area: review the relevant disaster plans and maps, and decide if you’ll eventually need to evacuate, if Dean heads your way. That advice works well for the whole Gulf coast, actually. As Scar from The Lion King would say: “Be Prepared!”
When I was down in Texas last month with my boyfriend, we drove from Dallas down to Houston for the weekend. He’s moving to Houston in a year, and I was saying that the idea of living in Houston was somewhat scary to me because of the possibility of getting hit by a hurricane. My boyfriend retorted with, “Oh, hurricanes don’t come up this far inland. You don’t need to worry about them unless you’re down in Galveston or something.” As we were driving back up to Dallas on Saturday, I noticed that the freeway had an extra lane that was marked by signs with a picture of a hurricane as an “Evaculane.” Apparently these lanes are normally closed, but are opened up in case of a hurricane evacuation (or so I’m guessing). I pointed to one of the signs and said to my boyfriend, “So hurricanes don’t come up this far, huh?”
Hurricanes certainly do come that far inland in Houston. Even tropical storms can cause quite the disaster. There are quite a few folks who can talk about the destruction caused by TS Allison just a few years back (of course, much of the problem was created when a front pushed Allison back over Houston and it stalled there for a while).
Much of Houston’s problem lies in that people don’t realize when they need to evacuate. For instance, there’s basically no storm that would ever cause my parents’ neighborhood to flood; even though there are really no hills in Houston and everything is relatively flat, no one in their neighborhood should ever have cause for concern with regards to flooding and really should be safe without evacuating from just about any storm. People on the southeast side of town and in areas surrounded by bayous have much more reason for concern and are more apt to flood and should certainly evacuate when storms like the one Dean potentially could be approach. Back in Rita, far too many people who really didn’t need to tried to get on the roads to evacuate and caused more problems than need be.
That being said, those lanes are certainly there for a reason. Hopefully at least with the pending Dean the greater Houston area doesn’t need to put them to use.
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August 17th, 2007 at 2:33:52 pm
Maybe my father-in-law in Houston will be coming for a visit. Heh.
August 17th, 2007 at 3:22:45 pm
When I was down in Texas last month with my boyfriend, we drove from Dallas down to Houston for the weekend. He’s moving to Houston in a year, and I was saying that the idea of living in Houston was somewhat scary to me because of the possibility of getting hit by a hurricane. My boyfriend retorted with, “Oh, hurricanes don’t come up this far inland. You don’t need to worry about them unless you’re down in Galveston or something.” As we were driving back up to Dallas on Saturday, I noticed that the freeway had an extra lane that was marked by signs with a picture of a hurricane as an “Evaculane.” Apparently these lanes are normally closed, but are opened up in case of a hurricane evacuation (or so I’m guessing). I pointed to one of the signs and said to my boyfriend, “So hurricanes don’t come up this far, huh?”
August 17th, 2007 at 3:55:57 pm
Hurricanes certainly do come that far inland in Houston. Even tropical storms can cause quite the disaster. There are quite a few folks who can talk about the destruction caused by TS Allison just a few years back (of course, much of the problem was created when a front pushed Allison back over Houston and it stalled there for a while).
Much of Houston’s problem lies in that people don’t realize when they need to evacuate. For instance, there’s basically no storm that would ever cause my parents’ neighborhood to flood; even though there are really no hills in Houston and everything is relatively flat, no one in their neighborhood should ever have cause for concern with regards to flooding and really should be safe without evacuating from just about any storm. People on the southeast side of town and in areas surrounded by bayous have much more reason for concern and are more apt to flood and should certainly evacuate when storms like the one Dean potentially could be approach. Back in Rita, far too many people who really didn’t need to tried to get on the roads to evacuate and caused more problems than need be.
That being said, those lanes are certainly there for a reason. Hopefully at least with the pending Dean the greater Houston area doesn’t need to put them to use.