Galveston forecast: 7 foot surge, Category 1 winds

[blitzen]

according to spokesperson on live now...

Anyone else think that Houston way overreacted?

[Mr_Spock]

1. overreacted? hindsight is 20/20 - how can one win in a situation like this

After the devasation of Katrina?

[skids]

2. Houston did not overreact.

A direct hit on Houston is still within a dangerous probability. In addition, there is the potential for a lot of flooding as the hurricane is set to stall over the area and dump 1-3 feet of rain in a short period.

What houston did wrong was to not have an organized, zoned, evacuation program like they did in NOLA for Katrina.

[Feron]

3. It ain't over 'till the eye makes landfall...

Hurricanes, especially major ones, are difficult at best to predict.

[A-Possum]

4. OMG...NO!!!!!

Do NOT start that hindsight thing!

It is extremely irresponsible. Just because you narrowly dodge a bullet does that mean you were stupid for ducking?

And does it mean you should stick around in front of the bullet next time?

Please do not continue with this kind of talk. It is PRECISELY what causes people to die the next time.

[blitzen]

9. What causes people not to go next time....

is when they do go this time and get caught in massive gridlock, and then find out it was a non-event. Please read my post #8: I'm only talking about those Houstonians who live above historic-level flood plains. The "overreaction" I'm talking about is lumping them all together with those who really should leave, hence jamming up the whole works.

[A-Possum]

11. The Freeport landfall at cat 4 possibility

Would have brought catastrophic damage into downtown Houston.

Models show 'massive devastation' in Houston

Houston's perfect storm would feed on late summer's warm waters as it barreled northward across the Gulf of Mexico, slamming into the coast near Freeport.A landfall here would allow its powerful upper-right quadrant, where the waves move in the same direction as the storm, to overflow Galveston Bay. Within an hour or two, a storm surge, topping out at 20 feet or more, would flood the homes of 600,000 people in Harris County. The surge also would block the natural drainage of flooded inland bayous and streams for a day or more.

Coastal residents who ignored warnings to flee would have no hope of escape as waters swelled and winds roiled around their homes. Very likely, hundreds, perhaps even thousands, would die. Meanwhile, as the storm moved over western Harris County, its most dangerous winds, well in excess of 120 mph even inland, would lash the Interstate 45 corridor, including Clear Lake, the Texas Medical Center and downtown.

Many older buildings could not withstand such winds. Anything not tied down, from trees to mobile homes to light poles, would become missiles, surreally tumbling and flying through the air, flattening small houses, shattering skyscraper windows and puncturing roofs.

"Unfortunately, we're looking at massive devastation," said Roy Dodson, president of the engineering firm Dodson & Associates, which Harris County asked to model realistic "worst-case scenarios" for a major hurricane hitting the area.

When those people you are saying "overreacted" made their decisions, Freeport was the forecasted landfall. The hurricane landfall even now is quite close, and in this case a mere matter of 50 miles is a HUGE difference. If the Freeport landfall had happened then people would be singing a different tune, and the change in forecast was NOT POSSIBLE until TOO LATE.

I realize it's human nature to have the reaction you are describing, however the people of Houston need to be mature enough to realize that whatever happens now can merely be judged by hindsight. Any time you have to make decisions ahead of clear-cut certainties, you will be mistaken much of the time. However the potential for catastrophe here was and is so great that it's foolish to look at one dodged bullet for the next decision.

What should happen here is that the evac plans should be improved and people educated and drilled in how to be able to evacuate in an orderly and efficient manner.

That's the responsibility of the govt at all levels. We'll see if they make some of the tough calls about spending some time, effort and money on this, or if they let this hindsight attitude prevail.

[Bouncy Ball]

19. This was the third most intense hurricane on record for a while.

They were right to tell people to evacuate, even in areas further north. Remember, they were saying it might be a cat one when it got to DALLAS. That is UNHEARD OF.

And those people with critical thinking skills will realize the next time one is aiming for Texas that this hurricane is not that hurricane and that one is not the same as the next one. Personally, if my family is in danger, I leave. Period.

[calico1]

5. You can't wait until the day of the storm to

react. Its much, MUCH better to overreact and have nothing too bad happen than to do nothing because you think nothing bad will happen and then have the worst happen. You have to act days ahead of a storm to evacuate people. Wait until the day before and its too late.

[HereSince1628]

6. Consider

the time it takes to evacuate the coastal cities through Houston, and then Houston itself...probably 3 days. And the forecasts aren't very good 3 days out.

A stone's throw to the east, Port Arthur was forecast this morning to be completely drowned under a 20+ ft storm surge.

This storm isn't missing Houston by all that much.

Given the window of time available, the limits of forecasting, I can't fault the officials for ordering an evacuation.

[highplainsdem]

7. No! Ed Rapaport of the NHC said on CNN just this morning that

it's still possible the hurricane could make landfall as far west as Galveston.

[blitzen]

8. Folks, I'm talking about HOUSTON only...

I know that parts of Houston are in 100 year flood plains, and everyone living in those areas obviously should have evacuated. But it seems like there was a wholesale mass panic, encouraged by the authorities, that caused a lot more harm than good. Large parts of Houston had no business evacuating and relatively little to fear. They should have evacuated area by area, starting with those most prone to storm surge flooding. By the way, I live in Baton Rouge and know a little bit about this, so flamers please back off.

[A-Possum]

12. I'm not flaming

But it's simply not true that large parts of Houston had "no business" evacuating and "little to fear." See my post above.

[Bouncy Ball]

17. That sucker was barreling right AT Houston for a long time.

What would YOU have done? Sat there and used your magical powers to make it go east back toward Louisiana?

Personally, I think the evacuees were right to leave. Please remember Katrina is still fresh in everyone's mind.

[Igel]

10. The city and state governments didn't overreact.

Many, if not most, of the people that fled in terror, panicked that they weren't already to safety 24 hours before the first winds and clouds hit.

Allison will, I think, prove to have been worse. Tropical storm, it was the rains, not the winds, that did the damage. Same with Rita, if it hangs around.

Some of the governments were a bit cautious. Maybe too cautious: it was only for a few hours that Corpus Christi fell into a low percentage risk of being affected by Rita. Yet they started to evacuate. Days early. Hard to say if they really were too cautious.

The hurricane could still swing back and hit Houston fairly hard: as it is, we'll get a lot of wind and rain. And the city of Houston is absurdly empty.

[A-Possum]

16. Having evacuated Corpus Christi in 1980...

I evacuated Corpus for Hurricane Allen, a cat 5 that was headed for Corpus in a straight line across the gulf. I know that Corpus officials did not overreact.

When I evacuated 30 hours ahead of landfall, there was a 150-mile traffic jam from Corpus to San Antonio. No one could move an inch. Thankfully at the last moment the storm paused and turned south, making landfall between Corpus and Brownsville.

They did NOT evacuate days "early" this time. At the time they made their call, they had just enough time if the track had gone their way. I know this from personal experience. Maybe that's what it takes to judge, I guess.

Better to issue evac early, and then people can turn and come back if it's clear as now that there is no danger, than to have that nightmare scenario of hundreds of thousands on the road with the storm coming in over them.

[karlrschneider]

13. I don't insure my car, but

if I have a wreck, I'll run out and buy some insurance.







Oh, wait...

[Qibing Zero]

14. All I'll say

..is that starting evacuation 5 days in advance was a little much.

[Bouncy Ball]

18. Considering the fact that Houston is the nation's fourth largest city,

(and that's not even including the burbs) and considering how easily all those areas flood, and considering how grid locked the evac was even three or four days in advance, I'd take the opposite tack as you....an evac done in a few phases earlier out would have made for an easier journey for most people.

No one knew WHAT this thing was going to do and please remember yesterday (or was it day before?) it reached the level of third most intense on record.

[Qibing Zero]

21. Exactly,

so how on earth can you know where it's headed five days in advance? You can only guess based off of the weather patterns. All you have to do is take a look at the NHC's page to see just how wrong they can be in one day, let alone five (the 1-2-3 rule comes to mind).

[Bouncy Ball]

26. so they should have just sat there and waited to see?

Ooooookay.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. You think they went too soon?

Then how come there were traffic jams on the day before ladnfall was predicted?

[Bouncy Ball]

15. OVERREACTED???

Go stand outside during a category one and tell me that again, ok?

No, you cannot overreact when a hurricane is barreling down on you.

Geez Louise. Would you rather be stupid and dead or smart and alive?

[Zynx]

23. Yeah. What if they had stayed and a Cat 5 hit Houston head on and killed

thousands?

[rustydad]

20. Well

The latest satellite loop at 2pm pacific time shows the eyewall is rebuilding and it is still heading northwest towards Galveston. The models predict for the most a sharp right turn after landfall. If it stays around the rain and flooding will be monumental. What I don't get is why the authorities don't have plans for evacuating these hurricane prone cities. Why don't they have plans to open up all freeway lanes to north bound traffic. And why can't the have coordinated traffic management that only allows vehicles to inter the freeways in a metered fashion so that cars can be expected to stay at normal speeds? They do this in Los Angles with computer controled stoplights on the freeway entrances. Are they just stupid in the deep south? Bob

[A-Possum]

24. School closing and traffic

I just learned from my nephew, who goes to HS in Houston, that the reason he and his dad could not leave earlier (as I had strongly advised) was because Houston schools were open on Wednesday and one teacher had scheduled an "important test."

They barely made it out Wednesday nite, sat in Houston for 9 hours and then nearly ran out of gas, only got gas by a stroke of luck and got as far as Austin.

There was a big spike in the traffic jams on Wednesday afternoon. I hope this is taken into account in any analysis of what went wrong.

School should have closed before Wednesday at 3:30, IMO. Perhaps an early closing Tuesday. And no teacher should be allowed to have an important test on a day in which families may be having to make the hard decision to evacuate.

[Bouncy Ball]

28. Yes, we're just stupid here. Every last one of us.

:eyes:

By the way, Texas is not the deep south.

[txindy]

29. Nor do we willingly live in earthquake and mudslide country

Stones. Glass houses. You know. Sheesh.

Now Texans aren't smart because they didn't time an evacuation to the minute. Silly me, I forgot to buy batteries for my psychic prediction powers. :eyes: Face it, Bouncy Ball. We can't win for losin'.

I'm not even going to touch the "deep south" remark above yours.

[jpak]

25. How long ago did we hear....

"Gee, looks like New Orleans dodged a bullet!!!!"

nuff sed

Rule #1 hurricanes are deadly unpredictable storms

Rule #2 to survive, evacuate early and often

Rule #3 with the Chimp In the WH - you are on your own...

Overreact???

Fuck that

[txindy]

27. Overreacted to what was then a Category 5 hurricane?

You're kidding, right? Less than a month ago the states to our east had areas flattened and hundreds, if not thousands, of people killed by a Category FOUR hurricane, so, no, I'm not stupid enough to believe anyone overreacted.