Stay tuned!
So, how many of you have been marginally entertained by the way both the news media and government authorities have refused to let up on the mostly non-event that was Hurricane Rita? Oh, I know, I know, there's been some damage in Texas and western Louisiana, and New Orleans is definitely taking another soaking hit from the storm surge, and the storm could dump a couple feet of rain on large areas, but in terms of a hurricane most lucked out and it was a pale event compared to what was predicted in the Katrina-driven, worst case scenarios. The bits and pieces I was exposed to on Saturday looked as if the remote crews were trying to stake out the part of the street where the most water was standing for the reporter to stand in, and the angle that showed the most fallen tree limbs and wind-blown debris. There was the desperate sense that they were ratings-driven to justify their being there -- understandably enough.
I hadn't mentioned it here, but in casual conversation over the past couple days, especially as we saw the path curving to the North and East and the late-stage reductions in wind speed, while at the same time there was a 100 mile traffic jammed exodus out of Houston, I began to get a picture of what would likely be the case:
Houston, and most spots in Texas who were prompted to evacuate will have spent at least a couple of very uncomfortable days, most of it spent in a trying, sweltering, low speed trek. They'll return home either to find little to no damage, or they'll find that initial damage - one or more windows broken - wouldn't have been much, but being kept away from there for a couple days meant that not only did this expose the interior of their apartments/homes to a lot of rain (this storm could hang there for a day or more) and everything inside was either destroyed directly or by the sauna that ensued over the next day or so. They'll look around and say to themselves, "We should have stayed."
In the end, I predict that the average person who evacuated this time will end up at least a little upset that they left town in the first place. The next time an alert comes through, many of them will decide to stock up, make some storm shutter preparations (plywood to cover the windows), etc. You know, the sort of thing that a great many people in Florida generally do as a matter of course during hurricane season. Whether or not it's reflected in their skills, I suspect the average Texan considers himself to be a by-his-bootstraps, take charge sort, and as all of the Katrina images fade they'll default to an aim towards self-sufficiency.
Even the state and federal authorities, once they've stopped patting themselves and their political allies on the back for theoretically saving untold numbers of lives, (don't mention any flash-fried, bus-baked senior citizens, y'hear?) will have to scale back on this when the next storm approaches. This level of attention has to be enormously expensive, and even for the "don't worry, we'll print some more!" Bush administration there have to be fiscal limits. Even when it's Texas.
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