Watching rescue after rescue of Houston residents trapped by massive flooding from Hurricane Harvey, it’s easy for some, sitting comfortably in…
Watching rescue after rescue of Houston residents trapped by massive flooding from Hurricane Harvey, it’s easy for some, sitting comfortably in their dry homes, to wag a finger at the authorities who decided against evacuation.
Stop wagging, folks.
What a monumental responsibility to make this call, deciding whether millions of residents — including the elderly, the newborns, the disabled and the car-less — should stay to face the flooding in their homes or risk facing it in their cars.
It’s too early to say whether Houston officials made the right call. But it was defensible. And right now is not the time to second-guess.
Let us recall the way the evacuation of Hurricane Rita in 2005 created interstate-size parking lots, as 2 million-plus people were evacuated from the coastline. More than 100 evacuees died as drivers waited in gridlock for nearly 24 hours, many suffering from heat stroke in the excessive heat.
Officials were criticized then, too, accused of overreacting to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina weeks before, which killed more than 1,000 people.
A photo this weekend of nursing home residents in Dickinson waist-deep in water was chilling. About 20 senior citizens sat in the murky water before being airlifted out. When the photo went viral on social media, many were understandably angry that those vulnerable folks could have been left in those conditions.
But remember that, in Rita, a bus carrying nursing home evacuees to Dallas caught fire, and 24 people died. The feds concluded faulty lubrication in the rear axle caused a fire in the wheel on the quickly chartered bus. It exploded near Wilmer when flames reached a passenger’s oxygen tank. It was a tragedy not quickly forgotten.
Ahead of Harvey making landfall, officials were even sending conflicting messages. Gov. Greg Abbott encouraged those in the city to leave, while local leaders in Houston urged them to shelter in place. (Some Gulf communities had mandatory evacuations; in others, residents were urged to leave.)
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner defended his city’s decision as a smart one, calling the logistics of putting together an evacuation plan in a couple of days «crazy.»
Sadly, we may be living in metropolitan areas that are simply too large to evacuate safely on short notice.
The primary goal is keeping as many residents as safe as possible. Thank goodness the death toll has not been higher from this storm. That is largely due to the tireless rescue efforts of first responders and an army of citizen volunteers; they’ve helped thousands to safety.
Would a mandatory evacuation have meant fewer rescue operations? Would it have meant more? Those will be critical questions to answer as Houston and other cities learn from this and plan future emergency responses.
But now’s not the time. What’s your view?
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