Our daughter and husband live in NW Houston. The live on a slight rise and have water two feet or less from their slab. Four feet plus in the street and raising due to continued rain. As reported a dam has been breached and will release more water into SW Houston. People fuss about not forcing folks out of Houston.....How do you evacuate 2,000,000 PLUS when there is grid lock during work traffic on a normal day.
:spyder2:
I am not in favor of forcing an entire city out of their homes. And I agree with the flavor of everyone's positive and supportive comments along with the empathy for those caught up in this disaster. But it may be that we are overlooking the reality of what could have been done to lessen the pain of this event.
Estimates for modern freeway vehicle capacity range from 1,500 - 1,900 per hour, per lane. Of course there are a number of variables that affect this. But using the lower number or 1,500 vehicles per hour per lane, a 4 lane freeway should easily be able to move 6,000 vehicles per hour.
If we say there are an average of 2 people per vehicle (a very low number if you're talking evacuation). We come to 12,000 people per hour moved on just one, 4 lane freeway.
The population of Houston had at least a 48 hours notice. 48 x 12,000 is 576,000 people. That is 1/4 of the total population of Houston being moved to safety on one, 4 lane freeway in the time available.
List of major roads leading out of Houston
Interstate 10 (East Only) - 4 Lanes (Not counting HOV lane) - 12,000 per hour
Interstate 69 (North Only) - 5 Lanes (Not counting HOV lane) - 15,000 per hour
Cosby Freeway (East Only) - 4 Lanes (Not counting HOV lane) - 12,000 per hour
Interstate 45 (North Only) - 5 Lanes (Not counting HOV lane) - 15,000 per hour
These numbers would not create rush hour traffic conditions as these are moderate design estimates for a modern freeway road system.
The roadways listed are not the only ways to leave Houston. But would most likely account for the lions share of exit. With the conservative numbers I am using there is actually a fair amount of room to move more people per hour. Just adding 1 person to the average per vehicle would increase these numbers by 50%. Not unreasonable in an evacuation event.
The above scenario would theoretically move at least 54,000 people per hour going only north and east from the city. In a 48 hour period this could evacuate at least 2.6 million people. Well above the current population of Houston. Add to this that not every single person in Houston needed to be evacuated and the effort gets even less difficult.
My only point here is that instead of saying it couldn't be done. We might be better served by investigating the real possibility that it could, in fact, be done.
Bottom line is my heart goes out to those affected. And that I hope we learn something from this terrible situation that will help reduce the suffering in the future.
ray: 
