General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: I am in Houston [View all]alarimer
(16,245 posts)I haven't heard the negativity much, but you are right, people from outside have no idea what it takes to prepare for something like this. Really, it's almost impossible.
This storm was massive and developed quickly. You also cannot possibly evacuate millions of people in a couple of days. It CANNOT BE DONE. During the evacuation for Rita (which as I recall took much longer to develop), millions of people were stuck on the roads for over a day. They would have drowned in their cars and the toll would have been much, much worse.
Houston is essentially built on a swamp. There is nowhere for the water to go. Development makes flooding worse, all that concrete and blacktop and lack of zoning does further damage, but that's not the fault of the people who live there. I'm not sure officials can even plan for a 500-year flood. All of us, everywhere, are living on borrowed time from one disaster or another.