Rita evacuation killed more than storm

Sept. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Rita caused only nine reported deaths after it slammed ashore near the Texas-Louisiana border on Sept. 24. At least 28 people were killed in the mass evacuation before the storm.

As government officials credited the evacuations with preventing casualties, people like Lynn Bass questioned whether they did the right thing in fleeing Rita. Bass, a 36-year-old banker who lives south of Houston with his wife and three daughters, endured 18 hours of gridlock on his drive to Dallas.

``Would I do it again? I really don't know,'' Bass said yesterday after returning to his home 35 miles (56 kilometers) north of the Texas coast. ``I don't think I'd do it lightly. The people near the coast just have to get out, and in many cases, we probably don't.''

The pre-Rita exodus, the biggest evacuation in U.S. history, slowed to a crawl as almost 3 million people fled southern Texas and Louisiana. After Rita weakened and struck farther east than predicted, damaging some of the evacuation sites more than it did Houston, elected officials urged residents to continue taking storm threats seriously.

``We dodged a bullet in some respects,'' U.S. Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, said yesterday at a press conference. ``I was just talking to the guy who does the modeling for surge and damage at the University of Texas. He said if it had been a Category 4 hurricane and had hit Houston dead on, there would have been $80 billion in property damage.''

Evacuations Praised

In an interview, Cornyn said he was glad that so many people evacuated. ``Some people may feel that it was unnecessary,'' he said.

The day before Rita made landfall, 23 people who had been evacuated from a nursing home near Houston were killed when their bus caught fire south of Dallas.

At least five people became ill and died while stuck in traffic jams. Fuel and supply shortages and temperatures near 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 Celsius) plagued the evacuees, thousands of whom were stranded on roadsides in the days before Rita hit. The 240-mile (386-kilometer) drive from Houston to Dallas took some motorists more than 24 hours.

The Houston Chronicle reported that a 79-year-old man near Lufkin, a city where some of the evacuees took refuge, was killed when a tree blown over by Rita fell on him. The Federal Emergency Management Agency hasn't reported any deaths in Texas.

Beaumont Deaths

Five people were found dead today in a Beaumont, Texas, apartment, the Houston Chronicle said. The man, woman and three children may have been overcome by fumes from a generator they used after Rita knocked out power service, the newspaper said. The bodies were discovered by the children's aunt.

No deaths were reported in Louisiana, according to Sergeant Nicholas Stahl of the state's emergency management department. Tornadoes that spun off Rita killed at least three people in Mississippi and Alabama, according to reports by Cable News Network and Houston's ABC affiliate, KTRK-TV.

Images of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29 and caused more than 1,000 deaths, were still fresh in the minds of Texans as Rita headed toward their region.

Rita at one point was forecast to make landfall at Galveston, south of Houston. Before weakening as it approached the coast, it was the third-strongest hurricane ever recorded.

In and around Houston, the fourth-largest U.S. city, about 1.2 million people live in areas deemed vulnerable to storm surge from hurricanes. About twice that many evacuated.

Katrina's Influence

``My personal feeling is, had we not had Katrina, probably nobody would have left,'' said Dana Lyon, a 50-year-old Houston resident who evacuated three days before Rita made landfall. ``I think Katrina scared everybody, but part of the problem is the media so overdramatized everything in the interest of having something to say.''

Kathryn Thurmond, a systems manager at Gerald D. Hines Interests in Houston, said she evacuated to Waco. The trip took 18 hours, six times longer than usual. The traffic was so bad that Thurmond's 16-year-old son suggested they turn around and head home.

``I stood by my decision,'' Thurmond said. ``Even though it was late in the day and the storm appeared to be going away from us, you still have no idea when it will turn or strengthen.''

Marie French headed for Waco a day earlier, on Sept. 21. After enduring Carla in 1961 and Alicia in 1983, she told herself she wouldn't sit through another hurricane. The difficulties in evacuating were understandable, she said.

No Blame

``You are not going to move 2.5 million people out of the city easily,'' French said. ``People will run out of gas, cars will overheat. I don't blame anyone, not the city, the president or the governor.''

Like French, Angie Carlson didn't regret her decision to evacuate. Carlson feared Rita would knock down many of the large pine trees surrounding her house, and she knew the storm would frighten her daughters, Madelyn, 7, and Emma, 9. She and her husband and children went to a friend's house in San Antonio.

``Sitting on the freeway wasn't fun, but sitting at home wouldn't have been fun during the storm,'' Carlson said. ``At least I knew we would be safe and out of the way of the storm.''

To contact the reporters on this story:
Jim Kennett in Houston at jkennett@bloomberg.net;
Eileen O'Grady in Houston at eogrady1@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: September 26, 2005 16:28 EDT

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