Critics of the mayor of Houston’s decision not to evacuate the city have been muted as the rain-weary region turns to recovery efforts after Hurricane Harvey.
“People critical of the mayor don’t have a clue as to what it would take to evacuate a city,” said Robert Lee, 69, a retired pipeline safety worker who lives in Sugarland, Texas, about 20 miles outside of Houston.
Fresh in the minds of many residents was the botched evacuation efforts before Hurricane Rita in 2005. More than 100 people died in their cars on the highway before the storm even made landfall.
“You just didn’t want what happened before Hurricane Rita to happen again,” said Lee, who has lived through several city storms.
As Hurricane Harvey approached Texas, the mayor of Corpus Christi strongly encouraged its residents to evacuate, especially in low lying areas. Widespread evacuations were ordered along Texas’ Gulf Coast. Officials in counties north of Corpus Christi also issued orders for residents to leave.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who is black, doubled down. On Monday he retweeted a story from the Houston Chronicle that detailed how evacuating cities before a major hurricane can be deadly.
Later Monday, nearly three days after the storm hit landfall, some mandatory and voluntary evacuations were issued for Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston. Nearly 30 percent of the county is underwater, according to area news reports.
Five days after the storm began, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said that more than 34,000 residents have sought refuge in shelters across Texas. In Houston, the city’s convention center has been turned into a shelter and officials put out a request for physicians to volunteer to treat residents with medical issues.
Record-breaking rainfall flooded city and suburban streets and overwhelmed the city’s network of bayous and reservoirs. Despite the unprecedented flooding, with residents requesting rescues from the top of their homes and cars, many say they support the mayor’s decision not to evacuate.
With a population of nearly 2.5 million in Houston, and two million more in the surrounding suburbs, an orderly, safe evacuation would take several weeks, Lee said. “For the vast majority, you’re better off waiting it out unless you’ve got a good reason to go,” he said. “You’re safer at home than on the road.”
Brittney Hughley decided to take her chances on the road. A native of Ballwin, Mo., Hughley lives on the first floor of a condo by the Galleria, a mall in Houston. Just before the storm hit, she and her husband packed up both of their cars and drove to a relative’s home in the Woodlands, a neighborhood 40 miles away. After they arrived, flooding on two bridges blocked exits from that neighborhood. Though safe, they were still stranded, and unsure about the condition of their condo back in Houston.
“I think people did the best they could with the information they had,” Hughley said. “It was mass chaos with Hurricane Rita so you wouldn’t want that again.”
Since Hurricane Harvey made landfall Friday, August 25, it has defied predictions and stymied meteorologists. The storm arrived as a Category 4, one of the most powerful storms to hit the country in years. Days later it was downgraded to a tropical storm before it traveled to the Gulf of Mexico again and stalled, drenching millions of swamped out residents in its path.
Rainfall in the region shattered historic records and has measured over 50 inches in some places. Texas Governor Greg Abbott called the storm “one of the largest disasters America has ever faced.”
For many Houstonians, the biggest surprise was the sheer amount of rain that fell over several days. “It was like the rain was never going to leave,” said Monica Wu, who lives in Manvel, Texas, 30 miles south of Houston. A native of Chicago, Wu wanted to evacuate to Dallas, but was outvoted by her family. She says she understands her family–and the mayor’s decision– to stay in Houston.
“Everybody kept saying that if we leave it will be just like Rita, where more people died in their cars trying to evacuate,” Wu said. “Because of that experience everyone was calm and just riding it out.”