September 23, 2005

Miles of Traffic as Texans Heed Order to Leave - New York Times

The best laid plans...

We should be learning serious lessons about the inherent problems when millions of people evacuate a major metropolitan area. The exodus is simply overwhelming the capacity of the infrastructure to deal with it.

Meanwhile, ignorant reporters ask foolish questions.

"Officials in Texas also said they recognized a serious situation had arisen in the evacuation, with many people stranded on traffic-choked highways, without gas and without water. The state had promised to send gas trucks to relieve the problem, Mayor White said, but he could not say how long it would be before those trucks arrived.

In the meantime, he said, the city intended to send out vans and buses filled with water to take to the stranded people, and to evacuate some on the buses, as needed. To that end, Judge Eckels put out a call for volunteers to help load these vans and buses with water, and said that their help was needed immediately.

Mayor White deflected questions from reporters asking him to assess who was to blame for what happened Thursday, specifically the lack of gasoline where needed.

'This is not the time to look at who should have done what on the emergency,' the mayor said. 'This is not the time we're going to get into who should've done what.'"

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