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Officials: Houston panic foiled evacuation
Published October 2, 2005
The traffic snarls that infuriated those fleeing Hurricane Rita were a result of Harris County, Houston and state officials ignoring the traffic management plan approved at the start of the 2005 hurricane season, Brazoria County authorities said.
When Brazoria County’s mandatory evacuation went into effect at 6 p.m. Sept. 21, 175 Department of Public Safety troopers were supposed to be on hand to block off intersections. Hundreds more should have blocked entrance ramps in Houston, keeping Harris County residents off the evacuation routes designated for Brazoria and Galveston counties.
Instead, the county received 70 troopers — who showed up three hours after the evacuation began — after officials, including Brazoria County Judge John Willy, State Rep. Dennis Bonnen and Department of Public Safety Sgt. Randy Jones desperately called state officials.
Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, was by then in full flight to get away from the storm, clogging roads not only in Harris County and points north, but in Brazoria County as well.
“It totally destroyed the evacuation plan,” Jones said. “The roadways became clogged with people that didn’t need to evacuate.”
Willy, who was livid with Houston-area officials, including Harris County Judge Robert Eckels and Houston Mayor Bill White during the evacuation last week, said he now believes the problems were caused by confusion at the state level.
“Both Mayor White and Judge Eckels are good people,” Willy said. “I think there were some decisions made that perhaps came from the state level that caused things to come unraveled.”
Mary Lenz, a spokeswoman at the Texas Division of Emergency Management, referred questions about the evacuation to the governor’s press office, which did not return phone calls.
Jones said the evacuation is designed to get people away from the storm surge, and those who weren’t threatened shouldn’t leave.
Shelters also filled up with Harris County residents, leaving many coastal evacuees to spend the night on the road and forcing some of the school buses with Brazoria County residents to spend up to 60 hours trying to find a place to put their passengers.
Harris County does have its own zones that are vulnerable to storm surge, said Frank Michel, White’s director of communications. The mayor called for a mandatory evacuation of Zone A, defined by the state as in Brazoria County, for 6 p.m. Sept. 21, the same time Brazoria County’s mandatory evacuation went into effect.
White called for voluntary evacuations that morning, however.
Michel said Houston was not operating on its own.
“We complied with a state plan,” Michel said. “Is there any way to prevent 2.5 million people who are in a panic from getting out on the roads?”
Michel said the bottlenecks didn’t occur in Houston.
“The bottlenecks were 100 miles or so down the road,” he said.
He blamed them on “construction sites” and “lack of gasoline.”
Ralph Adkins, a Katrina evacuee who was staying at a hotel in Lake Jackson, also used the word panic to describe Houston residents. Adkins spent 12 hours on a school bus Sept. 22, only to end up back in Angleton after shelters in College Station and Conroe turned away 127 people from Brazoria County.
“People in Houston just panicked,” Adkins said after coming off the bus shortly after midnight Sept. 23. “The people in the coastal areas need to get out first.”
Jones agreed.
“If you’re going to deviate from the plan, you have to have enough consideration to allow people that are along the coastline to get out,” he said.
Perry announced the formation of a task force Thursday to study evacuation issues. The members were announced Friday.
Five of the 11 members are from Houston, and there is one each from Kemah, Galveston, San Antonio, Dallas and Arlington. Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson is the 11th member.
There are no Brazoria County representatives on the task force, though more people might be added.
The task force, established by Perry, White and Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, will study ways to improve evacuations. Its first meeting will be in October in Houston with future meetings to be in other cities, according to a press release from the governor’s office.
Willy is confident the membership will be expanded.
“I just hope that he includes the coastal counties that are involved in evacuation,” Willy said. “I’m confident that the governor will include somebody besides Harris County and Galveston County.”
Theresa Farley of Danbury said it took her 24 hours to drive to Halletsville, a trip she can normally make in under three.
Farley, who left three hours before the mandatory evacuation went into effect, said the roads were chaos.
“They were rude, they were running us off the road,” she said of other drivers.
“They had Houston damn bumper stickers.”
Farley said Brazoria County was forgotten in the evacuation.
While camping in Halletsville, Farley said she heard one news report that mentioned Brazoria County and she hopes the county doesn’t get lost in the post-storm coverage.
“It took us 30 hours to get two-and-a-half hours from home,” she said. “The nation needs to know what was done to us.”
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