No Way Out: Many Poor Stuck in Houston

[DoYouEverWonder]

HOUSTON Sep 22, 2005 — Wilma Skinner would like to scream at the officials of this city. If only someone would pick up their phone.

"I done called for a shelter, I done called for help. There ain't none. No one answers," she said, standing in blistering heat outside a check-cashing store that had just run out of its main commodity. "Everyone just says, 'Get out, get out.' I've got no way of getting out. And now I've got no money."

With Hurricane Rita breathing down Houston's neck, those with cars were stuck in gridlock trying to get out. Those like Skinner poor, and with a broken-down car were simply stuck, and fuming at being abandoned, they say.

"All the banks are closed and I just got off work," said Thomas Visor, holding his sweaty paycheck as he, too, tried to get inside the store, where more than 100 people, all of them black or Hispanic, fretted in line. "This is crazy. How are you supposed to evacuate a hurricane if you don't have money? Answer me that?"

Some of those who did have money, and did try to get out, didn't get very far.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1150792


Gee, I thought our fearless leader had all this under control this time?

[LynneSin]

1. Let's hope the Astrodome can withstand the hurricane

Guess they'll have to head there for protection. One hopes that the Astrodome will be stocked with enough food & water to help those people out for a few days

[cynatnite]

2. Heartbreaking!

On Bellaire Boulevard in southwest Houston, a weeping woman and her young daughter stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by plastic bags full of clothes and blankets. "I'd like to go, but nobody come get me," the woman said in broken English. When asked her name, she looked frightened. "No se, no se," she said: Spanish for "I don't know."

snip:
In Deer Park, a working-class suburb of refineries south of Houston, Stacy and Troy Curtis, waited for help outside the police station. Less than three weeks ago, the couple left New Orleans after it was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

With no vehicle, and little money, they tried to get their lives together while staying at a hotel in Deer Park. Stacy Curtis, a nursing assistant in New Orleans, had a job interview scheduled for Thursday.

snip:
Monica Holmes, who has debilitating lupus, sat in her car at a Houston gas station that had no gas. "We can't go nowhere," she said, tapping a fingernail against the dashboard fuel gauge. "Look here," she said. "I'm right on E."

Her husband, a security guard, had a paycheck, but no way to cash it

[xray s]

3. Gov Perry doesn't like poor, old disabled people

He basically said you were told to leave and if you don't its because you are stupid.

Not because you have no money, no where to go, are 80 years old or disabled and can't walk or can't see or are deaf.

No, if you stay it must be because you are stupid. If you weren't stupid you would have a big SUV and a condo in Vail to go to and vote Republican.

Compassionate conservatism lives on in Texas.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. What a jerk he is for not doing more for these people

[FreedomAngel82]

9. Is he going to get blamed by the republicans like Nagin and Blanco?

Watch him not.

[GreenPartyVoter]

14. DeLay will prolly fellate the guy on live tv

[cynatnite]

19. He got some from Tweedy earlier n/t

[enid602]

4. buses

What, again no municipal, Greyhound or school buses to evacuate poor or transit-dependent and lesser-abled?

[Cobalt Violet]

6. No Amtrak?

:shrug:

[Robertwf]

20. People Need to Forget About the Single-Occupant Car

Time to re-group and get as many people moving by mass transit as possible. If these roads continue to be in bumper-to-bumper shape and more people run out of gas, this is going to be about as ugly a scene as anyone could ever imagine--especially if Rita spawns tornados.

[Igel]

5. From a distance, the difference between voluntarily and

mandatory evacuations seems a bit blurry.

While I can't prove it, they're saying that those in the mandatory evacuation area that call or show up in certain places are removed to shelters. That's what all the buses usually used for mass transportation and school kiddies are doing today and tomorrow (when not delivering water to those stranded on the freeways leaving Houston).

Those in the voluntarily evacuation zone fall into two groups. Those that must evacuate: either they're in a flood zone, or their building won't survive the winds/flooding. And those that don't need to evacuate.

Bellaire is in a voluntary area, it's in the west part of town: people that want to get out, and can, are on their own; that that don't want to get out, or can't, are on their own. This allows the city/state evacuation folk to concentrate on the people that really *need* to get out.

[FreedomAngel82]

8. Why I thought so to!

Didn't he admit he made a mistake? And don't you usually learn from that once you are able to admit?

[tanyev]

10. Whaaa? I thought Guv Goodhair had it all under control.

Didn't his voice drip with smugness when he said Texas was not going to be like LA?

[npincus]

11. Not again.

[mirror wall]

12. WHERE ARE THE DAMN BUSES?

Seriously, what the hell?! Good lord, have we already forgotten the lessons of three weeks ago?

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. HS/FEMA left already

they don't need no stinkin' buses.

[bluedog]

13. people pushing cars to save gas.

Bumper to bumper, taking hours to go a few miles. Cars overheating and running out of gas with nowhere to go.

Saw film of people that actually turned off their engines, put the car in neutral and are PUSHING THEM DOWN THE HIGHWAY to conserve gas! The heat index has temp at 101!

well isn't this MUCH better than the "plans" for Katrina!

[bullimiami]

15. imagine a flooded houston after the storm.

and tell me how they learned a lot from katrina.

[DoYouEverWonder]

18. Imagine a terrorist attack

that doesn't give anyone a 3 to 5 day warning?

Yet HS/FEMA can't even handle the simple stuff.

[SunDrop23]

16. God help them.