In which Mike recounts his experiences evacuating Houston
On Wednesday morning, before Hurricane Rita had been upgraded to a category 5, before classes at Rice had been cancelled Thursday and Friday, before evacuation from Clear Lake had become "mandatory", I drove north to attend class and hopefully get to work done. As usual, I-45 was occupied by drivers who haven't yet understood that the gas pedal goes farther down than that. When I arrived on campus, I remarked casually to a friend, "These people don't even go above 60 when they're evacuating the damn city."
It turned out to be the understatement of the century.
As most people who follow the news are aware, the term "clusterfuck" was given a whole new meaning this past week. Cars attempting to escape the city of Houston were caught in traffic moving approximately half a mile an hour. Most people kept their windows rolled down for some 100 degree air, hoping to save on gas. Several ran out of fuel anyway and were forced to camp by the side of the road; meanwhile, fuel trucks frantically searched the haystack of evacuation routes for those few needles.
And all this after Governor Rick Perry remarked, "I don't think there's a state in the nation that's better prepared". I pity those other states.
Ourselves, we were fortunate to only be on the road for 23 hours on our way to Shreveport. We left at 2 AM Wednesday night/Thursday morning, myself, my parents, and a family friend whose husband was already ahead of us. Getting out of the city itself turned out to be relatively academic, as we managed to escape in a little under 4 hours. We thought we were well on our way.
Things got interesting on Texas State Highway 321, when I was lucky enough to be driving. This was our first, though certainly not last, experience with the gridlock they faced back in Houston. While I'm not sure of its cause, I mostly point to the traffic getting onto SH 105 (which included us). Conveniently, though this is an intersection of two major state highways, it is also east Texas, so there is no traffic light. However, considering that the traffic continued on 105, I'm not sure it would have made a difference.
Expert navigator that I am, I reasoned that most people who were on the same back roads as us were simply trying to avoid the traffic on US 59 and get into Lufkin via US 287/69. Certain of this, I guided us east to US 96, which intersected 59 far north of Lufkin and took us straight to Interstate 20 and on to our destination of Shreveport. So I guided us down SH 770, before finding it inexplicably closed (which by the way is a ridiculously stupid thing to do during an evacuation). A short detour got us over to US 287/69, at which point we started going in the opposite direction of everybody else, hopping onto SH 327 and heading to US-96. I think we had been on the road about 10 hours at this point. I felt certain it would be smooth sailing from then on.
Unfortunately, for all the coverage of the worsening Houston traffic, no one on the radio mentioned that the slight northern turn in Rita's path had led to an evacuation of Beaumont.
So we entered yet another jam. This one lasted until a cop, apparently deciding to do something good for a change, started leading a charge up the other side of US 96, exercising the same idea of contra-flow traffic that was being used with limited effect in Houston. After that, we made it all the way to Jasper (yes, the same Jasper, which wasn't exactly comforting) with relative ease before running into one final slew of unmoving automobiles. This last one appeared to be caused by a cop sitting for no particular reason in the middle of the road with his lights flashing waving people along with a glow wand. No disrespect to law enforcement officials, but most of the ones we encountered didn't really seem to be doing much.
But at last, traffic had mostly cleared, and only 2 hours left in the normal 5-hour trip to Shreveport. We were free to drive at the speed limit, which around there was 70 miles an hour. Hell, we knew that the police had much bigger fish to fry what with the evacuation. We could pretty much go as fast as we wanted! But did we? Of course not. As I believe I've said before, these people don't even drive 60 when they're evacuating. 50-55 was their maximum speed most of the rest of the way up 96. Finally, the road split into two lanes, and we were free to fly by the slow ass Texas drivers. My mother was behind the wheel, so we kept it between 75 and 80, which, just so you Texas drivers know, is what you should be driving in a 70 mph zone. (I know, it doesn't make sense, but trust me.) We pulled into Barksdale AFB around 1 AM, and crashed. As in, fell asleep, not actually crashed. That would have really sucked.
Well folks, that's my little evacuation experience in a nutshell. Of course, I neglected many details, such as the fact that all the gas stations we stopped at (there were maybe 5 between Houston and Jasper) were closed, so I got to go to the bathroom in some pretty interesting places. (I pity the poor bastard who roams behind that dumpster in Buna). Certainly that much time on the road is not exactly optimal for a cancer patient. It's hard to truly capture in words the ridiculousness of the whole thing.
But as crazy as it was, I realize we were lucky. As I reflect on all those cars with us on the road, I can't help but wonder how many ran out of gas or overheated. For that matter, how many of them actually had a destination in mind? How many were simply trying to get further north, away from imminent disaster? I'm not a praying man (given that I have no clue who or what I'm praying to) but I still pray for them and for all in harm's way. It's all I can think to do.
Hurricane Rita, incidentally, has been downgraded to a category 3, which is still a big deal but we might have been willing to ride it out at that strength. Knowing that makes me chuckle. Still, I'm pretty glad to be out of the area at the moment.
I can't wait to see what the return trip is going to be like.
Sorry for the long post, the situation just seemed to merit it. I'll close with a song lyric by one of the three bands whose cancelled concerts I was looking forward to seeing in concert this weekend. As for Rita, I extend my middle finger in her general direction.
Song lyric of the day:
"I want specifics on the general idea
I want to think what I should know
I want you to do me what to show
I wanna see movies of my dreams"
- Built to Spill, Car
It turned out to be the understatement of the century.
As most people who follow the news are aware, the term "clusterfuck" was given a whole new meaning this past week. Cars attempting to escape the city of Houston were caught in traffic moving approximately half a mile an hour. Most people kept their windows rolled down for some 100 degree air, hoping to save on gas. Several ran out of fuel anyway and were forced to camp by the side of the road; meanwhile, fuel trucks frantically searched the haystack of evacuation routes for those few needles.
And all this after Governor Rick Perry remarked, "I don't think there's a state in the nation that's better prepared". I pity those other states.
Ourselves, we were fortunate to only be on the road for 23 hours on our way to Shreveport. We left at 2 AM Wednesday night/Thursday morning, myself, my parents, and a family friend whose husband was already ahead of us. Getting out of the city itself turned out to be relatively academic, as we managed to escape in a little under 4 hours. We thought we were well on our way.
Things got interesting on Texas State Highway 321, when I was lucky enough to be driving. This was our first, though certainly not last, experience with the gridlock they faced back in Houston. While I'm not sure of its cause, I mostly point to the traffic getting onto SH 105 (which included us). Conveniently, though this is an intersection of two major state highways, it is also east Texas, so there is no traffic light. However, considering that the traffic continued on 105, I'm not sure it would have made a difference.
Expert navigator that I am, I reasoned that most people who were on the same back roads as us were simply trying to avoid the traffic on US 59 and get into Lufkin via US 287/69. Certain of this, I guided us east to US 96, which intersected 59 far north of Lufkin and took us straight to Interstate 20 and on to our destination of Shreveport. So I guided us down SH 770, before finding it inexplicably closed (which by the way is a ridiculously stupid thing to do during an evacuation). A short detour got us over to US 287/69, at which point we started going in the opposite direction of everybody else, hopping onto SH 327 and heading to US-96. I think we had been on the road about 10 hours at this point. I felt certain it would be smooth sailing from then on.
Unfortunately, for all the coverage of the worsening Houston traffic, no one on the radio mentioned that the slight northern turn in Rita's path had led to an evacuation of Beaumont.
So we entered yet another jam. This one lasted until a cop, apparently deciding to do something good for a change, started leading a charge up the other side of US 96, exercising the same idea of contra-flow traffic that was being used with limited effect in Houston. After that, we made it all the way to Jasper (yes, the same Jasper, which wasn't exactly comforting) with relative ease before running into one final slew of unmoving automobiles. This last one appeared to be caused by a cop sitting for no particular reason in the middle of the road with his lights flashing waving people along with a glow wand. No disrespect to law enforcement officials, but most of the ones we encountered didn't really seem to be doing much.
But at last, traffic had mostly cleared, and only 2 hours left in the normal 5-hour trip to Shreveport. We were free to drive at the speed limit, which around there was 70 miles an hour. Hell, we knew that the police had much bigger fish to fry what with the evacuation. We could pretty much go as fast as we wanted! But did we? Of course not. As I believe I've said before, these people don't even drive 60 when they're evacuating. 50-55 was their maximum speed most of the rest of the way up 96. Finally, the road split into two lanes, and we were free to fly by the slow ass Texas drivers. My mother was behind the wheel, so we kept it between 75 and 80, which, just so you Texas drivers know, is what you should be driving in a 70 mph zone. (I know, it doesn't make sense, but trust me.) We pulled into Barksdale AFB around 1 AM, and crashed. As in, fell asleep, not actually crashed. That would have really sucked.
Well folks, that's my little evacuation experience in a nutshell. Of course, I neglected many details, such as the fact that all the gas stations we stopped at (there were maybe 5 between Houston and Jasper) were closed, so I got to go to the bathroom in some pretty interesting places. (I pity the poor bastard who roams behind that dumpster in Buna). Certainly that much time on the road is not exactly optimal for a cancer patient. It's hard to truly capture in words the ridiculousness of the whole thing.
But as crazy as it was, I realize we were lucky. As I reflect on all those cars with us on the road, I can't help but wonder how many ran out of gas or overheated. For that matter, how many of them actually had a destination in mind? How many were simply trying to get further north, away from imminent disaster? I'm not a praying man (given that I have no clue who or what I'm praying to) but I still pray for them and for all in harm's way. It's all I can think to do.
Hurricane Rita, incidentally, has been downgraded to a category 3, which is still a big deal but we might have been willing to ride it out at that strength. Knowing that makes me chuckle. Still, I'm pretty glad to be out of the area at the moment.
I can't wait to see what the return trip is going to be like.
Sorry for the long post, the situation just seemed to merit it. I'll close with a song lyric by one of the three bands whose cancelled concerts I was looking forward to seeing in concert this weekend. As for Rita, I extend my middle finger in her general direction.
Song lyric of the day:
"I want specifics on the general idea
I want to think what I should know
I want you to do me what to show
I wanna see movies of my dreams"
- Built to Spill, Car
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