here we go again. well i suppose if buses had come for the poor, they would be stuck on the interstate anyway. you just can't evacuate the 4th largest city in the country - with a population approaching or at 2,000,000 - in two days with no snags with the current infrastructure. houston only has one major artery out of harms way. evacuating houston is like giving birth - painfully squeezing a watermelon though a hole the size of a nickel. new orleans is a peanut compared to houston. at least houston isn't a bowl shaped city. most of the people who were able to get out in cars will be sleeping on the roadside somewhere inland. hotels are booked to memphis.
a former classmate of mine was worried about his family. he said his brother decided to ride out the storm on the family boat, because the interstate was packed. he wasn't able to reach his parents the other day. i think his brother was going to jump in the boat, head south, and park somewhere. it's a sign that things pretty much suck down there.
i think one of the hardest things to stomach about reality is that there are limits to our capabilities, and as a result, some people will always fall by the wayside.
Friday, September 23, 2005
stuck in houston
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2 comments:
yeah. houston is a totally different ball game. too many people, too many cars, not enough gas. i don't know that there's much that could have been done about the inability to move so many people efficiently.
i know it's shitty to say this right now, but if they'd had an extensive commuter rail system like Boston, New York, and Chicago, the evacuation would have gone better. you can move a lot of people quickly with trains. you can't do the same with personal automobiles.
i just turned on the television again. cars that are out of gas are just sitting by the side of the road, back to back, on the highway. people are pushing them up the highway. frightening. i almost feel that the people would have been better off just walking or biking up the highway. or staying in houston in university gyms, malls or high schools. they're bigger than the biggest SUV, 18 wheeler, or truck. then again, i don't know.
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