Just out of curiosity, after watching gridlock traffic on the news all day, I did a little calculation regarding the evacuation. Assuming 2 million people, riding three to a car, each vehicle occupying about 20 feet of space (15 feet of car + 5 feet of space to the car ahead), that equals a single lane of traffic just over 2500 miles long. Break that down to the 14 available lanes out of the city of Houston, and the backup stretches theoretically 180 miles in each direction (W, NW, N, and NE). I won't even try to guess how much fuel that has used up. People are giving up and turning around to go back home, so at least they'll be in a house instead of their car when the storm hits tomorrow. Scary! <img src="/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

It's similar to yelling fire in a crowded theater. I am sure the feds are learning from all of this. It's too bad some have died (the bus fire) in the process.

It is unavoidable, in my opinion. I don't feel that it is possible to evacuate that many people in a day unless you use the railroads and commadeer EVERYTHING that resembles a truck. And even then, none of this silliness about your TV going with you- I saw people loading that kind of thing on MSNBC last night and sputtered for 30 minutes. People, pets, supplies and critical records, that's it.

Even then, I still don't plan on less than 1 million every 24 hours, between the fuel needs and the roads.

I think your going to see them yell fire for the next few storms, it usually happens that way with anything. If the people in charge get criticised for not doing enough then the next couple times they will do too much. Then people will start to think they are crying wolf and they will swing back to being cautious about sounding the alarm and then people will get hurt and they will go overboard again.

And just think the people leaving are not in panic mode....imagine if they had zero notice as in a terrorist attack? No way that many vehicles/people could "get out of dodge" it would be utter mayhem.

I can't even imagine doing it in a week! In today's Denver Post there was a quote from some woman caught up in the traffic jam, "I've never seen such poor planning". My first thought was, "Theirs, or yours?" Apparently traffic jams and gasoline shortages were a surprize to this person. This has definitely cemented a concept into my mind. Don't be the last one to try to leave!

After watching the evacuations for Ivan, Katrina and Rita, I have come to the conclusion that interstates and major highways are NOT the roads to use. Get some good maps and/or a good mapping GPS (and extra gas cans) and take to the backroads. (45 MPH on a 250 mile backroad route beats 2 MPH on a 100 mile interstate route.)

One of my sister's and her family evacuated from Port Aransas (just north of Corpus Christi) heading towards El Paso. I pray that they are not stuck in traffic somewhere...


JimJr

Does anyone have any reports of what the backroads actually look like? Are they jammed as well or are they moving?

Report on talk radio put the trip from Houston to dallas 20 hours on the freeway, 6.5 on the backroads. They have a reporter there.

> People, pets, supplies and critical records, that's it.

Why? If you're taking a car, you might as well load it up, surely? It won't take any more space on the road, and I doubt a few extras would affect fuel consumption.