Houston Mayor's decision to not evacuate


jsupop33

jsupop33

Loyalty & Respect
Was he right? Should he be held accountable?
I get not issueing a mandatory evacuation because of the havoc it would have been on the roads but do think he should have called for a voluntary evacuation or maybe pushed for evacuation zones.

To suggest that people stay home knowing the risk was crazy.
 



Having been trained in the field of emergency response I feel they waited too late. What lawmakers have to understand is that as more storms hit, the more buildings we construct the more likely that flooding will happen. If a storm is projected to hit any coastal gulf area mandatory evacuations should be called. Period.
 
Truth be told no one knew how much rain this storm was going to bring. Not even the forecasters knew it was going to be on this level. It's easy for evryone to look at what should have been done in hindsight but in hindsight no one knew it was going to be this bad. People knew wind and flooding in the usual locations that have floods often but no one saw this coming.

Also Houston still had that Rita evacuation on their mind and that went beyond bad...
Houston's last hurricane evacuation? A deadly traffic jam, 2.5 million strong

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article170038877.html
 
I am not in Houston anymore, but I think a voluntary evacuation would have caused havoc too. The reason he called for people to stay put is because of the craziness that ensued during Rita. If this would have turned into the Rita evacuation chaos (mandatory or voluntary), those folks would have been stuck on freeways for hours and could have possibly drowned with how fast those streets appeared to flood with Harvey. I evacuated during Rita and remember sitting on 610 and 59 for hours. It took over 9 hours for me to get to east Texas, which was literally only 3 or 4 hour drive. I was one of the lucky ones because folks who left an hour after I did, were on the road into the next day. People died sitting on the freeways and highways in that heat after running out of gas. This was a catch 22.
 
Natural disasters are political endings for local politicians. It's a situation of damned if you do and damned if you don't. I would much rather be a damned if I do.

Either way it's a hard decision. Now what has me concerned is that I pray humbly that there is not another one to come anytime soon.
 
The Founder said:
Natural disasters are political endings for local politicians. It's a situation of damned if you do and damned if you don't. I would much rather be a damned if I do.

Either way it's a hard decision. Now what has me concerned is that I pray humbly that there is not another one to come anytime soon.
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Then you haven't been paying attention to the news/weather. There are at least two more named tropical storms they may be heading towards the US, Irma and Jose, with Irma possibly making land fall Friday or Saturday using their current models. Irma may hit the East Coast; Florida, Georgia, and Carolina's
 
Tpop33 said:
Then you haven't been paying attention to the news/weather. There are at least two more named tropical storms they may be heading towards the US, Irma and Jose, with Irma possibly making land fall Friday or Saturday using their current models. Irma may hit the East Coast; Florida, Georgia, and Carolina's
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Yea I haven't been watching....been wrapped up in work...what I meant is that not another one hit the Houston area.
 
In_The_662 said:
This will come back and haunt him BIG TIME. They will say he played politics with people's lives

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No way they could have evacuated. 100+ people died on the roads evacuating from Rita and it didn't even hit Houston. People were stuck in traffic for 24+ hours in some cases. Imagine 4-6M people on the roads for this storm getting stuck on those freeways that flood all the time. Would have led to thousands of drownings instead of a few dozen (which is bad too).
 
jag4life said:
No way they could have evacuated. 100+ people died on the roads evacuating from Rita and it didn't even hit Houston. People were stuck in traffic for 24+ hours in some cases. Imagine 4-6M people on the roads for this storm getting stuck on those freeways that flood all the time. Would have led to thousands of drownings instead of a few dozen (which is bad too).
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That sums it up right there^^^^. People that live in the Greater Houston area remember Rita like it was yesterday. Politically he'll be fine, he still has just right under 2 1/2 years of a 4 year term to serve, and besides Houston is not red like much of Texas.
 
Without reading any new article. I remember the last time they tried to evacuate . More people died from that fiasco. Now maybe you could have spared folks the lose of their vehicle and some personal belongings but sometimes you have to wait it out.
 



jsupop33 said:
This is after the Republican Governor suggested that everyone leave. He might be done man.
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Maybe it's the governor who made the wrong call. History seems to lean towards that opinion.
Had conservatives thought the mayor had made the wrong call, they'd be all over the airways yelling it to the hilltops.
Not even Trump has said anything about it, but neither have they said anything about the governor's request to evacuate.
 
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JayRob said:
Maybe it's the governor who made the wrong call. History seems to lean towards that opinion.
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Ask those people who were stranded which person gave he best advice. The Mayor basically told people to stay home. He basically encouraged them to stay there and die fam.
 
Honestly guys I don't think this will hurt anyone politically. Though I said earlier that storms like this kill politicians I'm not feeling the same vibe. I think we all including politicians are well aware that our country is not prepared for storms of this magnitude. The human species overall has destroyed the coast and inland areas so much that really nothing can be done to prevent flooding thus these fatal situations.
 
As I said earlier, you guys didn't live through that Rita evac like most of us did. The majority of the people who have an issue with his decision are not from Houston. Most Houstonians, especially those who experienced Rita, are defending Mayor Turner's decision. Yes it is still a catch 22 situation, but I would be surprised if this hurt him as much as people on the outside looking in believe that it will. Now, how all of the politicians handle the clean up and aftermath will be a different story.
 
TSUGIRL07 said:
As I said earlier, you guys didn't live through that Rita evac like most of us did. The majority of the people who have an issue with his decision are not from Houston. Most Houstonians, especially those who experienced Rita, are defending Mayor Turner's decision. Yes it is still a catch 22 situation, but I would be surprised if this hurt him as much as people on the outside looking in believe that it will. Now, how all of the politicians handle the clean up and aftermath will be a different story.
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Thank for this post TSUGIRL07! I don't live there in Houston, but my baby does. I took her word, along with a poster on the Forums who also lives in Houston. I'm still thanking & praising God that where she was had no flooding. She was able to get out & help others. And she was even able to go work. When I spoke with her today, she was at work again.
 
number1 said:
There's no way you can evacuate an area as large as Houston. Maybe have more shelters set up to handle the influx of people sooner, but it worked out better than risking having so many people stuck on the highway as the storm hit.
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Exactly.
 
The Founder said:
Having been trained in the field of emergency response I feel they waited too late. What lawmakers have to understand is that as more storms hit, the more buildings we construct the more likely that flooding will happen. If a storm is projected to hit any coastal gulf area mandatory evacuations should be called. Period.
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You may say that you've been trained in emergency response, I've been doing it for over 30 years. I've worked Allison, Katrina, Rita, Ike and now Harvey and they all are different to a extent. This was the best decision made as you didn't have people stuck out on the road and then getting in trouble and trying to call us for help. The roads would have been so congested that we couldn't get to them to help them. Having people stuck in their homes with high water was better for us as we use the resources we had to go neighborhood by neighborhood and get people out. We had people call us and get on our response listing and that let us know how many we had to pick up at where specifically they were.

jsupop33 said:
Ask those people who were stranded which person gave he best advice. The Mayor basically told people to stay home. He basically encouraged them to stay there and die fam.
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You will see that the death rate will be extremely low for the actually storm days as compared to Rita. I can look at the numbers in my area right now and know how many lives were saved vs when Rita came through.
 
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