[sustran] Re: Rita, Texas, traffic

Todd Alexander Litman litman at vtpi.org
Tue Sep 27 04:00:04 JST 2005


We have just updated our report to include 
Katrina's little sister Rita, "Lessons From 
Katrina and Rita: What Major Disasters Can Teach 
Transportation Planners" 
(http://www.vtpi.org/katrina.pdf ). Please let me 
know what you think of it. It does include 
discussion of the need for emergency plans to be 
sensitive to people needs. Let me know if you 
have any specific suggestions for improving the report.


Best wishes,
-Todd Litman



At 07:21 PM 9/25/2005, Eric Britton wrote:

>Dear Friends,
>
>Most of the following you will have picked up 
>already, but I want to draw to your attention 
>what I regard as an extremely important, a 
>whoppingly egregious point toward the end of the 
>piece which is sweetly hidden there in no more 
>than nine little words. Words to me at least 
>that scream. And it's not just for Texas, it is 
>but one more sad example of how we are not using 
>our brains and tools in organizing our daily 
>lives.   The phrase? Let me leave it for you to 
>search it out and ponder its implications.
>***********************************************
>
>
>GRIDLOCK!
>
>By Ralph Blumenthal and David Barstow. From the 
>NY Times, Published: September 24, 2005
>
>Houston, Sept. 23 - At 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 
>with Hurricane Rita gathering strength and aimed 
>at Texas, Mayor Bill White of Houston ordered 
>mandatory evacuations from low-lying sections of 
>the city while urging voluntary evacuations from 
>flood-prone neighborhoods and mobile homes.
>
>His pleas were entirely consistent with the 
>region's established evacuation plans, plans 
>that disaster officials had rehearsed and honed 
>for years. Under those plans, 1.25 million 
>people, at most, were expected to leave. The big 
>worry was whether enough people would heed evacuation orders.
>
>Instead, an estimated 2.5 million people took 
>flight, including tens of thousands who lived in 
>relatively safe areas. What was planned as an 
>orderly evacuation produced scenes of gridlock, 
>chaos and mass frustration, with Mayor White warning of "deathtrap" highways.
>
>The danger, it turned out, was not that too few 
>would listen, but that too many did.
>
>In interviews on Friday, state and local 
>officials acknowledged a glaring flaw in their 
>planning, the failure to account for the 
>psychological effects of Hurricane Katrina, or 
>what was instantly labeled "the Katrina effect."
>
>"We had a lot more people evacuated than should 
>have evacuated," said Frank E. Gutierrez, 
>emergency management coordinator of Harris 
>County, which includes Houston. "But because of 
>Katrina, the damage that happened in Louisiana, a lot of people were scared."
>
>If anything, well-intentioned officials 
>magnified the effect by repeatedly lacing 
>evacuation pleas with reminders of the death 
>toll and devastation in New Orleans.
>
>"Don't follow the example of New Orleans," Mayor White pleaded on Wednesday.
>
>As a result, though, state and local disaster 
>officials struggled with problems never 
>envisioned in any evacuation plan, 100-mile-long 
>traffic jams, dehydrated babies in stifling cars 
>and hundreds of motorists who simply ran out of 
>gasoline trying to flee on choked roads.
>
>In some cases, government improvised 
>successfully. State employees, for example, 
>delivered free gasoline to thousands of stranded 
>motorists. The Houston bus system, with help 
>from hundreds of volunteers, distributed 45,000 bottles of water to motorists.
>
>But there were also numerous examples of a sluggish response.
>
>After Mayor White ordered mandatory evacuations, 
>it took nearly 22 hours for officials to order 
>that all lanes of Interstate 45, the city's main 
>evacuation route, be used for traffic leaving 
>Houston. It took an additional five hours for 
>state transportation officials to execute the order.
>
>In the case of U.S. 290, another major 
>evacuation route, county officials said there 
>were not enough law enforcement officials 
>available to close feeder streets and safely manage one-way traffic.
>
>It remains to be seen whether the traffic 
>problems contributed to the bus explosion 
>outside Dallas early Friday morning that killed 
>at least 24 elderly evacuees from an 
>assisted-living center in Houston. The bus had 
>taken more than 14 hours to make what is usually a five-hour trip.
>
>Judge Robert Eckels, the highest elected 
>official in Harris County, defended the overall 
>evacuation effort but acknowledged that 
>officials did too little to prepare residents for huge traffic problems.
>
>"The biggest flaw in this plan was 
>communications," Judge Eckels said. "They didn't 
>understand what could happen. They could be 20 
>hours on the road. 'Don't get up here unless you 
>have a full tank of gas.' We did not do a good 
>enough job of telling people that you get on the road, it may take 20 hours."
>
>A spokesman for the State Transportation 
>Department, Mike Cox, offered a different 
>explanation for the preparations. No one could 
>have predicted, Mr. Cox said, how many Texans 
>would be so seriously frightened by Hurricane Katrina.
>
>"Not one of our 15,000 employees is a psychologist," he said.
>
>In defending the response, Mr. Cox stressed the 
>bottom line that despite nightmarish delays, 
>millions of Texans made it to safety.
>
>"This was, as best we can tell, probably the 
>largest evacuation in American history," he said.
>
>Indeed, traffic problems eased noticeably 
>throughout the state on Friday. Some motorists 
>simply gave up, turned around and returned home. 
>At the same time, state and local officials 
>tried to tamp down the evacuation, emphasizing 
>that residents should hunker down and ride out 
>the storm if they lived on high ground.
>
>Just as Hurricane Katrina prompted a 
>re-examination of planning in Louisiana and 
>Mississippi, Hurricane Rita is likely to focus attention on planning here.
>
>Why didn't Texas plan for an evacuation of this magnitude?
>
>Greg Evans, a disaster planning expert who 
>directs the Institute for BioSecurity at the St. 
>Louis University School of Public Health, said 
>state disaster officials too often failed to plan for the worst.
>
>"People just like to believe things aren't going 
>to be as bad as they are going to be," Dr. Evans 
>said. "Their plans assume that 1.5 million 
>people will evacuate when the reality is that 
>2.5 million people are evacuating.
>
>"All of a sudden, highways are jammed, people 
>are running out of gas. All these things just spiral."
>
>In September 2004, Gov. Rick Perry ordered the 
>state's Office of Homeland Security to evaluate 
>evacuation plans. The review, delivered in 
>March, identified weaknesses, particularly in 
>the "Houston-Galveston Evacuation Area."
>
>The weaknesses included evacuation routes not 
>wide enough to "handle large-scale movements of 
>evacuees," routes that were too low and 
>flood-prone, radio systems that cannot 
>communicate with one another and inadequate monitoring of congestion.
>
>The report made 18 recommendations. State 
>officials said few had put been put into effect.
>
>One recommendation was to install traffic 
>counters on evacuation routes to monitor the 
>heaviest traffic flows. Officials said they 
>expected to have a plan for the counters by the end of the month.
>
>A spokesman for Mr. Perry did not respond to telephone messages for comment.
>
>"There can always be a better plan," Judge 
>Eckels said. "The next time there will be a better plan."
>
>
>
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>SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion 
>of people-centred, equitable and sustainable 
>transport with a focus on developing countries 
>(the 'Global South'). Because of the history of 
>the list, the main focus is on urban transport policy in Asia.


Sincerely,
Todd Alexander Litman
Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org)
litman at vtpi.org
Phone & Fax 250-360-1560
1250 Rudlin Street, Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, CANADA
“Efficiency - Equity - Clarity”

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