The Reason Behind The Madness

Much has been made of the chaos that has happened an continues during the evacuation of Houston, but there are several reasons why this is the case. First and foremost, there has been a saturation of images of destruction and death after Katrina and the population of the greater Houston area is easily four times as large as New Orleans. A strike by a Category 4 hurricane on Houston would be very, very bad for the fourth largest city in the nation.

Part of the reason that my dad was reluctant to leave was that the geography of Houston is so much different than New Orleans. There are no levees and the city is mostly above sea level. Although true, Houston is prone to flooding of a different type if the rain lasts long enough. This brings me to my second and more important point. The city of Houston can and has flooded. As recently as the summer of 2001, Tropical Storm Allison stalled over the city for two days and dumped 37 inches of rain on the Port of Houston in that time.



As you can see from this example and many others, Houston can flood. Even if Rita doesn't cause this kind of flooding, why not try to avoid more chaos in the event that there is a repeat of the flood of 2001?