"I imagine that a ton of people are fleeing "just in case". "

You are exactly right. No one in my area of town (far northwest Harris County, out side of the city limits of Houston) had any business evacuating. With the exception of small areas along certain bayous that have been known to flood in extreme events, most neighborhoods could have handled a category 4 storm.

I think many people have had a lot of trouble seeing the images from Katrina and misapplying them to their own situations. They don't seem to understand that storm surge doesn't happen in NW Harris County. Images of the homes within a mile of the beach in Mississippi, totally shattered, don't apply to your home 75 miles from the Gulf. Images of people on their rooftops after hacking through the shingles from the inside because there was 20' of water don't apply if you live at 41' above sea level. My wife, a school teacher, said that her 7th graders were worrying about the levees breaking. Surely their parents have explained that there are no levees out here - or do their parents not know this? We ain't got no levees. We don't need no steenkin levees!