
Science and steely nerves spared Houston from a nightmare hurricane evacuation - BerislavLopac
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/09/science-and-steely-nerves-spared-houston-from-a-nightmare-hurricane-evacuation/
======
bonniemuffin
I was in Houston during Hurricane Rita in 2005, and we tried to evacuate. We
got on the freeway, sat in the traffic for a while, made it about one exit
down the road before we concluded the storm would hit before we actually made
it out of town, got off at the next exit and went home to ride it out at home.
I don't think Houston is a city that was designed to be evacuated. It's just
not feasible.

I'm sure an exacerbating factor was 250k extra Katrina-evacuees[1] from New
Orleans who had just arrived in Houston a few weeks before (I was one of those
people), who had all just seen the TV coverage of people stuck on roofs after
Katrina and heard all the victim-blaming that said it was their fault for
staying. Previously I wouldn't have evacuated for a storm like Rita, but after
living through Katrina a few weeks prior, I thought I'd better at least try to
get out of town.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/25/new-
orleans-...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/25/new-orleans-west-
houston-hurricane-katrina)

~~~
cmurphycode
"I don't think Houston is a city that was designed to be evacuated. It's just
not feasible"

Such an interesting contrast to this frontpage post yesterday:

"The highways themselves were specifically intended to facilitate the
reasonable objective of Houstonians not to get annihilated by a nuclear
blast...[In] case of atomic attack on our key cities, the road net must permit
quick evacuation of target areas"

(Discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24331698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24331698))

So one might ask, if all these highways don't even permit quick transit, what
the heck _are_ they doing?

~~~
scottlocklin
Houston's population was 1.7 million in 1970[0], it's 6.4 million now. I'm
making the guess that their highway system was approximately done in 1970, but
it's basically the same story if you put that number at 1980 (2.4 million) and
so on.

FWIIW underutilized modern highways are amazingly efficient and pleasant to
drive on. As far as I can tell they're limited to recent construction in
Europe (Spain for example; it appears to have a 2005 era German highway system
designed for 2-3x their population).

[0]
[https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23014/houston/population](https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23014/houston/population)

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
There are small cities with overbuilt ring roads in the US that have little
traffic. Sometimes porkbarrel spending is a win.

~~~
tc313
We have two loops in Houston — an inner loop and an outer loop. Freeway
expansion is non-stop and we still don’t have enough road for all of our
traffic...

~~~
stephenhuey
Actually, 99 Grand Parkway is almost an entire third loop around the city
about 180 miles in length!

------
reincarnate0x14
I was in Houston for Rita and it really demonstrated the gross inadequacy of
modern US disaster planning. That the evacuation panic was more deadly than
the storm may be a bit of black irony, but there is simply no way to get
millions of people out of a major city in a small number of days. (a friend
was stuck in traffic for 18 hours after his wife decided they needed to flee
-- then they gave up, turned around and drove ~8 minutes back home to weather
the storm in a neighborhood that hadn't flooded during the tropical storm a
few years prior that famously drowned IH-10 for miles)

Of course then Hurricane Harvey came through and illustrated the questionable
unbounded development in a swamp, but not for very long.

I like Houston. It's a more cultured and vibrant city than its usually given
credit, but it's already living on borrowed time. It's not going to take a
whole lot of sea level rise to start inundating the east side and down towards
Galveston, and it feels like it won't be long before flood insurance abandons
the eastern half of Harris county back to its swampy past.

~~~
BurningFrog
> * I was in Houston for Rita and it really demonstrated the gross inadequacy
> of modern US disaster planning*

Yeah, I wouldn't have foreseen that effect either, but to the authorities
specifically tasked with planning for that eventuality, it should have been
obvious.

If, that is, there actually is such an authority?

~~~
reincarnate0x14
I'm not really sure. In theory, it should be the governor of the state working
with NOAA and FEMA, but in practice it seems like cities or counties have been
mostly left to try and interpret NOAA's information on their own.

FEMA is supposed to be the national authority, but has a ... marginal track
record a its often headed by political appointees with minimal experience who
can coast along just fine for years because nothing major happens -- five
near-miss hurricanes mean getting some extra food and water down while the
linemen put the power lines back, and it's all easy. Then Katrina or Harvey
happens and you find out really quick who has any idea which way is up.

The complete impracticality of a large scale evacuation probably precludes any
real effort finding its footing.

CalFire out in CA is probably one of the better organizations you could look
to worldwide in terms of trying to get people out of harms way, it still seems
to be mostly on individual communities to figure out how they're going to
evacuate once the word comes down. There were some awful stories out of the
Camp Fire of people caught by the fire as they were stuck on the limited roads
out.

And most of those communities are small. I don't think it's possible to
evacaute, say, the Bay Area in under a month if you had to do it. Too many
people all on the same roads, and while the airports might be able to
conceivably move a few hundred thousand passengers a day, you'd still have the
problem of getting people TO the airports and coordinating fuel and crew and
all that.

There probably is a way to get some kind of realistic planning capability in
FEMA and the NRCC, but given the near-total failure of the US Congress in the
last two decades the likelihood of a major reorganization that put enough real
experts in long term positions with goals that weren't tied to immediate
events seems like it's about zero.

This turned into a bit of rambling digression, but at least from an observer
in a vaguely related field of critical infrastructure, it really feels like
there has been a serious lack of meaningful leadership outside of the old
DOD/NORAD planning for nuclear wars (for which rapid evacuations of
populations were basically out of the question from the beginning).

------
tqi
The article is pretty light on actual details, but it's a great example of how
media narratives are mostly post hoc nonsense. It seems like forecasters took
a calculated risk and turned out to be right. If the storm had followed the
predicted path this same article would be painting them as irresponsible
villians for not telling people what the models truly predicted.

~~~
ufmace
Very much so. Even with what actually happened, the narrative also could have
been that the forecasters and administration were reckless and irresponsible
in ignoring the most accurate forecast model and not ordering evacuation they
should have. Sure, they got lucky this time thanks to random chance, but do we
dare take the risk of having such dangerous science deniers in office? They
may not be so lucky next time! Better boot 'em out before it's too late!

Okay I got carried away a bit there. Just goes to show you though, you decide
on the spin you want to put on it in advance, and the headlines all but write
themselves.

------
rossdavidh
Hypothesis: Houston residents were nudged towards sitting tight instead of
running for the hills, by Covid-19. They had either lived through, or seen
pictures of, the Rita evacuation that turned into a parking lot. The idea of
being packed into a crowd, even if you are in your own car, gave a gut-level
push in the direction opposite what fear of the hurricane gave.

However, I also found myself thinking, if there was really a 25% chance of a
hurricane strike, was it really the right thing to not evacuate? Well, given
that Houston is probably not able to evacuate anyway, I suppose it was.

~~~
Balgair
You'd have to go off expected values.

Throwing numbers out: If you expect 1 death per 1,000 residents with a Cat 4
strike, and the city is 1,000,000 people, you'd get 1,000 deaths. If there is
a 25% chance of a strike, then you expect 250 deaths. I know that math is a
bit funky, but that's what seems to be done. You compare that to the added
deaths due to an evacuation event, and then whatever the math says, you should
then do.

I agree, it seems strange. But I'm at a loss as to how else you should
calculate things.

------
baq
I'd just like to take a moment to underscore the accuracy of the NHC forecast
track - the eye of the cyclone had made landfall right at where these guys
predicted 3 days prior. Hats off, science and experience have shown their
value.

~~~
consumer451
> I'd just like to take a moment to underscore the accuracy of the NHC
> forecast track

I am very curious how detrimental 5G rollout will be to this accuracy.

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/forecasters-
fear-5g-...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/08/forecasters-
fear-5g-wireless-technology-will-muck-weather-predictions)

------
throw0101a
I live in a fairly quiet part of the world, but if I had to move someplace
else, I think I’d rather be in an earthquake zone rather than a hurricane (or
tornado) zone given the choice.

Hurricanes are more frequent, and there’s a lot of drama and dread before
their arrival. Earthquakes on the other hand are infrequent, and while they
may strike unexpectedly, it’s usually “one-and-done” (plus aftershocks).

In both cases it is prudent to be ready (“prepped” as the kids are wont to
say):

* [https://www.ready.gov](https://www.ready.gov)

* [https://www.getprepared.gc.ca](https://www.getprepared.gc.ca)

Does anyone have any experience with both? Are there "pros and cons"?

~~~
take_a_breath
Come to the US Midwest, we don’t have earthquakes or hurricanes.

~~~
hanniabu
I always wondered, why don't they build houses level with the ground in the
midwest to protect against tornadoes? What I'm envisioning is a single floor
home that has skylights level with the outside ground, which is either level
with the surrounding area or slightly build up to prevent flooding. This would
prevent needing to worry about your home getting torn up by tornadoes.

~~~
war1025
Because tornadoes are extremely rare.

And when they do occur, the area they effect is very small.

~~~
Groxx
This. The reason we hear so much about them is that they're so _flashy_ \-
they appear rapidly, can cause pretty major destruction where they hit, and
disappear rapidly.

You also don't get days of build-up like a hurricane, it's only around 10-15
minutes to go from "a storm that might make tornados (like many are)" to "one
is likely to appear at X" to "hopefully you're already sheltered, it's here".
Hunkering down has to be done _rapidly_ , which is stressful and memorable,
even if nothing happens to you.

------
ufmace
I lived in Houston for a while. It's true that the Rita evacuation was a
disaster, for multiple reasons. Even absent the traffic jams getting out of
the city, I had also heard from some friends who did evacuate that there was
little gas and no hotel rooms to be found for ~400 miles. I decided to stay at
home, rather than risk getting stuck in the middle of the road somewhere in a
car out of gas when the hurricane actually hit. It worked out pretty well.

I think the big lesson of Rita was that you really, really shouldn't evacuate
if you don't need to, because too many people in low-risk neighborhoods
evacuating will take up all of the highway capacity, gas, and regional hotels
for all of the people in flood zones that really do need to evacuate. Like
seriously, don't evacuate unless being in an out-of-gas car stuck on a highway
somewhere is definitely better than being at home. This was put in place for
hurricane Ike, to mostly good results.

------
throwaway0a5e
I think the "race to the bottom" that has befallen homeowner grade generator
sets over the past ~20yr deserves some credit here too. Faced with a possible
week or more without power a lot fewer people are gonna choose to evacuate
these days.

~~~
gruez
I don't get it. are you trying to say that "homeowner grade generator" got
cheaper, making it easier to weather out the storm at home, or that "homeowner
grade generator" got crappier, making it harder to weather out the storm at
home?

~~~
throwaway0a5e
Cheaper meaning more people have them so fewer people not in the flood path
feel compelled to evacuate.

I was poking fun at people who complain about the "race to the bottom"

------
PeterStuer
It is called confirmation science (aka bad science), gambling and ofc cover
your ass politics. yet somehow the author wants to spin this as clever and
brave?

------
spodek
Science works so much better than "thoughts and prayers". I hope we learn to
apply it everywhere on the environment, especially conservation.

