I guess cars were a bad option

[ChadTower]

From cnn.com:

Hundreds of thousands of people in Texas and Louisiana headed inland today as Hurricane Rita moved toward the Gulf Coast. But many weren't getting far. Houston resident Tim Conklin said he had been stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for 13 hours and made it only 48 miles. On the main road between Houston and Austin, people were pushing their cars and minivans to save gas.

Man, I hope those people aren't still stuck on the highway when Rita blows through.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

I hear hundreds of vehicles are being pushed and towed off the road because people are running out of gas and blocking traffic.

Maybe they can round up Nagin's 250 buses to save the day! Every mouthbreather in the country seems to think that would have solved everything.

[Stingray]

I have an aunt who lives in Houston. Last I heard she was one of the many who were stuck in traffic. She was about 50 miles north of Houston at some point last night and traffic was not moving at all. Hope she makes it here today sometime.

-S

[ChadTower]

Maybe they can round up Nagin's 250 buses to save the day!

Yeah, because now is the time to seize the opportunity to take shots at someone, rather than try to come up with a viable solution!

[Stingray]

Someone I work with told me earlier today that he heard that the southbound lanes are going to be opened to northbound traffic at some point today.

-S

[missioncontrol]

if they are all heading in the same direction then why are they stopped???

what is the leader of the pack the old lady in the fast lane with her blinker on???



 

[ChadTower]

They're all waiting for a red light to turn green. 

Some kid is standing around the signal box with wire clippers laughing his butt off.

[missioncontrol]

just wait till his parents find out

 

[Stingray]

I'm sorry, that was me. I'll go splice the wire back together.

-S

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Yeah, because now is the time to seize the opportunity to take shots at someone, rather than try to come up with a viable solution!  Good job being useful.

And your solution is? Maybe you can use some of your hot air to lift people out with balloons?

My point is that people refused to look at the reality of the situation in New Orleans (much like you continue to do), and in their hasty attempts to divert blame away from Bush and his pathetic federal response, most likely accomplished absolutely NOTHING is advance of this latest storm, in terms of rapid evacuation.

Furthermore, you really need to turn your critical eye inward, since all you've done with these last few topics of yours is spew underhanded critiques, without providing any 'so called' solutions:

Started by ChadTower: "People evacuating on foot... and making it New"
So, in other words, this can be read as people who stayed behind were too stupid and/or lazy to walk out. You even use the term "motivated people" in the post. What's that suppose to mean? Is that a racially loaded term? You won't admit it, but it can defintely be seen as that.

Started by ChadTower: Hey, at least the dolphins were taken care of
So, where's the solution here? Chad?

Started by ChadTower: Whee, $5/gallon
Whining? or Solution? You be the judge.

To me, it just seems cowardly...being too afraid to just SAY what you mean, instead, skirting around the topic, as always, then backpeddle when you're called out.

Hypocrite.


mrC

[ChadTower]

Dude, if you think I skirt around anything, the only one with a skirt here is you.  It only takes half an eye to notice that I'm a pretty blunt guy.

What I am doing is criticizing poor efforts in context.  Where there is no context, I create one.  I am not taking shots at idiots from within other threads.  I'm not the one with a long, long track record of taking every opportunity to take shots.  When you stop sidetracking every thread you participate in to criticize Bush, you'll have more credibility here.

Get it in your head:  I say what I mean.  The things you read in there are the things you want to be there because it allows you to fit my ideas into your philosophy.  I rarely imply; I state.  I cannot and will not try and control what you infer from my statements.

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Blunt without saying anything of substance. So, let's just call it blustery.

I really hate your constant yammering about "solutions" all while providing NONE yourself. You feel the need to constantly badger people for the VERY same things you yourself are guilty of...in SPADES.

Perfect example...you didn't address the point of my post, instead choosing to provide more hot air. Where are your solutions?

What I am doing is criticizing poor efforts in context.

It's perfect context...since you are basically vindicating a good many reasons people had to stay behind in N.O.

Get it in your head:  I say what I mean.

No you do not, and saying you do, just doesn't make it so. You CONSTANTLY imply things. You'll refuse to acknowledge that because you are disingenuous, as evident by your whole "I decided to not make a Mame cab" B.S. line. MaximRecoil pointed out your penchant for hypocrisy and you still haven't successfully addressed that either, even though that's only relevant to this topic in that it shows how much of a hypocritical braggart you are.




mrC

[ChadTower]

 

I am done providing you with tackling fuel.  Run along to your dark room and wring your hands.  Bomb at midnight.  Boom baby boom.

[abrannan]

Back on topic, this highlights the need, for those of you who live in large metropolitan areas, to have an evacuation route that uses highways as little as possible, with as many alternate routes as possible.  Here in the MD suburbs of DC, I know that if it ever hits the fan, I-95 and I-270 will become parking lots faster than you can say gridlock.  So my wife and I have a few meeting points outside of town off of State routes shoudl the situation arise where we need to GET OUT NOW!  If it's a forseen evacuation, we can still use the routes, but it gives us time to go home and pack a few things. 

Highways, while built to handle a lot of traffic, just cannot handle EVERYBODY being on the road at the same time, even with both north and southbound lanes open northbound.  Handling a lot of traffic on the roads takes every driver understanding Nashian collective bargaining theory (If we all drive 50, and allow reasonable following distance, we'll all get out of town at about 50 mph.  If everybody is trying to get ahead of the car in front of them, we'll bog down in lane changes, cutting others off, and we'll all end up at a dead stop.).  The only drivers I've seen who truly understand this fact are truckers.  A dozen good truckers can clear a rolling traffic jam faster than anything I've seen.

[ChadTower]

Common sense would dictate that shortly after the highway gridlock became common knowledge, those lesser travelled routes would become gridlock as well.  There just isn't a way to gracefully evacuate 3 million people.

[missioncontrol]

wow

Moday everyone was crazy and having fun

today everything has to be a debate........

ummmmmmmm

tomarrow is Friday guys

[ChadTower]

give me a beer, meatbag

[Dartful Dodger]

There just isn't a way to gracefully evacuate 3 million people.

Soon they'll be evacuating as graceful as swans.
 
Swans flying at 200 miles an hour.

[abrannan]

Common sense would dictate that shortly after the highway gridlock became common knowledge, those lesser travelled routes would become gridlock as well.  There just isn't a way to gracefully evacuate 3 million people.

Except that the lesser travelled routes have a) a much greater capacity, # of vehicles-wise, by virtue of the sheer number of alternate routes  b) lights, which while they slow traffic down in optimal situations, provide for better traffic management than the free(-for-all)way during a high traffic situation and c) I'm already well clear of town by the time that people start to catch on that the highway is not going to clear up anytime soon. 

[ChadTower]

Except that the lesser travelled routes have a) a much greater capacity, # of vehicles-wise, by virtue of the sheer number of alternate routes

[shmokes]

So what do you do?  You're now 30 miles from home in gridlock on the freeway.  Do you just turn off your car and walk to the nearest Gart Sport and buy a bike?

Chad, you seem glued to the idea that the problems in NO and now Texas happened because individual citizens are dumber than average.  I would wager that there's a pretty good chance that if you were in Houston you'd have been patting yourself on the back saying, "You won't see me being dumb like all those poor daisies in NO.  Pack up your suitcases kids.  Get in the car," and thirteen hours later you're saying, "---by the flying spaghetti monster's hairy nether regions!---, this isn't working at all."

People in NO didn't stay because they thought the government was going to come get them.  Most of them probably didn't believe they would need got.  That belief, coupled with no financial resources made staying an easy decision.  Had they thought the hurricane would do anything like the kind of damage it did, they simply wouldn't have stayed.  Nobody stayed in their homes thinking an airlift was on its way.  In your heart of hearts, I think you know that. 

I wonder if anyone on the freeway is getting carbon monoxide poisoning.  That's a lot of cars sitting in one spot idling for 13 hours.

[shmokes]

Speaking of idling, I think that an idling car uses almost no gas.  I once locked my keys in my car while it was running when I went and saw a movie.  It may be the highlight of a blooper reel based on my life so far.  Anyway, when I finally got the car opened it'd been running for about 2.5-3 hours and the needle hadn't budged.

[ChadTower]

So what do you do?

[Stingray]

I once stopped by my mom's house after work and her car was idling in the driveway. I asked her when the last time she drove was and she told me it was first thing that morning, which means the car was ideling out there for over 8 hours. I think Mom's getting a little scatterbrained in her old age.

-S

[mr.Curmudgeon]

I would wager that there's a pretty good chance that if you were in Houston you'd have been patting yourself on the back saying, "You won't see me being dumb like all those poor daisies in NO.  Pack up your suitcases kids.  Get in the car," and thirteen hours later you're saying, "---by the flying spaghetti monster's hairy nether regions!---, this isn't working at all."

Bikes. He'd have his entire family on bikes.

That's was his suggestion for families in N.O., and it seems to be his suggestion for people in Texas. (ie: "bikes are going three times as fast as the cars, and they're not running out of gas.")

3 million bikes. I guess he *does* offer solutions sometimes...you just have to be insane to see them.

So is it K*Mart, Target or Wal*Mart that would have 3 Million bikes in stock?


mrC

[ChadTower]

They should get them at Megalomart.

[ChadTower]

Bikes. He'd have his entire family on bikes.

Hey... guess what?  The cars aren't working.  Bikes are a better idea than the nothing you have suggested. 

Rather that sit around and criticize my suggestion, make a better one.  Give it a shot.  That is how good ideas are formed, by everyone making a positive contribution and then the sum of those contributions become a solution.

[Grasshopper]

Why don't they just get their toolbox out of the boot and make a wooden bike from the roadside trees?

God some people just have no initiative. 

[Stingray]

Why don't they just get their toolbox out of the boot and make a wooden bike from the roadside trees?

God some people just have no initiative. 

Don't be so lazy. They could easily make rockets if they use their spare tire, their car battery, and 187 tons of ground up asphalt.

-S

[shmokes]

My point isn't that your solution sucks.  It's that I think you aren't really giving these people a fair shake.  Your posts teetered on the edge of saying that anybody who was in NO when the storm hit had it coming to them for being so damned stupid.  I just don't think that it was all that unreasonable for an uneducated person person with no money and a healthy distrust in government to ignore warnings.  They've been through hurricanes before.  Do you know how long it takes a person who barely scrapes by living paycheck to paycheck at a minimum wage job to save up $100?  If they leave, their entire savings account would be depleated in a day, two or three if they're on foot and sleep on the ground.  And most people who live paycheck to paycheck don't have $100 is a bank account.

Did you go out and buy plastic wrap and masking tape when the President gave us our first orange terrorism allert?  He told us to.  But you didn't.  I think that was perfectly reasonable.  Why?  Because you didn't believe you were in THAT much danger.

[ChadTower]

My point isn't that your solution sucks.

[shmokes]

I suspect most people in manhattan didn't worry about plastic wrap and masking tape either.  I'm just saying that I don't think the contempt you hold for these people is warranted.  It would be one thing if they were all fat....

Judging by Houston, and who really knew that would happen, I would tend to say that the best means of evacuation would be to close the freeways completely to all traffic aside from buses and people on foot two or three days before it hits and have every bus, van and shuttle you can beg borrow or steel hauling people out..  If you want your own car you'd better be on the freeway 3-4 days ahead of the storm.  Of course, I only just pulled that out of ---my bottom---, and maybe the idea of trying to bus that many people out of town would be completely impossible, but the idea floating around in my head is having a steady stream of people leaving the city at 70 MPH is better than having every route out of the city completely plugged with nobody moving.

School buses K-12, prison buses, tour buses, airport shuttles, mass transit buses, greyhoud buses.  Not just from houston, but from all over the state, every school district and prison.  People should have been instructed to go to the train station where a trains were ready to move thousands of people at a time out of the city.  The governor should use emminent domain to temporarily seize every private bus in the state.  It seems like something coordinated could move a lot of people if those roads were clear. 

One thing is for sure.  Just telling people to get out of the city any way they can does not seem to be very effective.

[Stingray]

A friend of my dad's who lives in Houston is retired and spends about half the year travelling the country in a motor home about the size of a Greyhound bus.  He's been here in Oklahoma since last week. First talk of hurricanes and he got the hell out of Dodge (or Houston in this case). Of course, he has no job, tons of money and owns a motor home that's much nicer inside than my house, so it's not like he had any reason to not leave.

-S

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Looks like Airplanes weren't much of an option either:

"The Mayor of Houston has confirmed that hundreds of people at Hobby and Intercontinental airports in Houston are now stranded because they missed their flights. The reason? No TSA screeners. It is being reported that only two screeners showed up for work today at Hobby, and an undisclosed number didn't show up at Intercontinental. They are flying in screeners from other airports. Since every flight is booked solid, if you miss your flight, you are done.

Also, it apparently didn't occur to anyone that if you ask 2 million people to leave all at the same time, you need someone to direct traffic. All of the freewways were at a standstill, the main road arteries are no better. People are running out of gas on the roads and blocking them further. Permanent gridlock on all major thoroughfares.

The city has announced they will bring gas trucks around, but unfortunately the refineries and distribution points for the trucks were shut down this morning by various oil companies in order to batten them down for the storm."



mrC

[Stingray]

The situation's getting pretty ugly down there.

-S

[ChadTower]

Implementing such an institutional solution, on a week's notice, would be impossible.  It's a potential solution, but how much faith do you have in the state's ability to get 3 million people moved by bus?   The rush to each bus would make that $50 powerbook thing look like order.

This is why I side with the individual method of evacuation.  You simply cannot move 3 million people.  You can, however, watch 3 million people try and move themselves.  Many won't succeed, but it's a hell of a lot better than leaving 2.8 million people stranded because your busses got hijacked and aren't coming back south.

[shmokes]

See.....now Chad's finally come up with a solid solution.  They shouldn't have even mentioned the Hurricane.  All that did was cause panic.  They should have just advertised $50 powerbooks at wheverever these people are being sheltered.  Then they could have just used those revolving doors made of metal bars that you see in amusiement parks on the exits so people would be locked safely inside before realizing there were no powerbooks.

[Stingray]

Free PowerBooks at Chad's house!

-S

[mr.Curmudgeon]

Bikes. He'd have his entire family on bikes.

Hey... guess what?  The cars aren't working.  Bikes are a better idea than the nothing you have suggested. 

Rather that sit around and criticize my suggestion, make a better one.  Give it a shot.  That is how good ideas are formed, by everyone making a positive contribution and then the sum of those contributions become a solution.

They should have had numerous tanker trucks, filled with fuel, stationed at various points along the freeway, to keep people moving. Stalled cars blocking traffic is a major issue right now. Furthermore, the evacuation should have been led in "quadrants", ie: someone could have been directing specific sections of the city to evacuate in intervals, not all at once. They should have used radio, television, city police, national guard, whatever, directing an organized exodus to avoid gridlock. Gas shortages should have been anticipated and an influx of fuel to the area should have commenced.

One lane of traffic, or maybe the entire inbound side of the freeway should be relegated to mass transit vehicles (buses, whatever) ONLY. They then move people without transportation, or who choose not to drive en masse, from a previously established way-point to a drop-off zone outside the hurricane's path.

The airports and other civil departments should have anticipated a shortage in workers since the EXACT same thing happened in N.O. and outlying areas. National Guard should have been called in to compensate for the impending shortage.

These are all "should haves" because it's looking like the evacuation of Texas is a clusterf*ck that can not be fixed at this point. It needed to be controlled to be avoided. I can't imagine there is a solution to get people out of the gridlock that are in now. Hopefully traffic will begin to move, or better yet, hopefully the storm will lose strength, either way...the situation now seems to be what it is, and no amount of bikes, unicycles, pogo-sticks, or skateboards is going to change the outcome at this point.

I support PRE-PLANNING for disasters, not impractical - or impossible - knee-jerk reactionary emergency fixes. There were glaring failures in the planning for and response to Katrina, and it seems like they (state, local, federal) weren't any better with the planning for Rita either.  /shrugs...

mrC

EDIT: Spelling

[patrickl]

I saw an interview with a guy still stuck in the region. He didn't have a car or money for a TV (that sounded like a lie cause they are practicaly free, but whatever) so he listened to the radio for instructions. Apparently the instructions he got was to go to the .com website to look for instructions. Ehm ...