Evacuation Planning in Texas: Before and After Hurricane Rita

In late September 2005, as Hurricane Rita tore through the Gulf of Mexico, millions of residents of coastal communities, the Houston area, and Southeast Texas evacuated their homes with fresh memories of the devastation caused just weeks earlier by Hurricane Katrina. Although the storm did not wreak the havoc that its predecessor did to the east, the damage caused not only by heavy winds and floodwaters but also by the evacuation itself contributed to more than 100 deaths in Texas.
Gov. Rick Perry, Harris County Judge Robert Eckels, and Houston Mayor Bill White subsequently established a 14-member Task Force on Evacuation, Transportation, and Logistics, which traveled the state to host six meetings last fall. The panel is expected to submit its findings to the governor focusing its report on fuel availability, communication and coordination, special-needs evacuation, and general transportation and mobility issues.
The task force is the second group the governor has assembled to examine the state’s evacuation readiness. On March 17, 2005, the Texas Office of Homeland Security released to the governor “Texas Hurricane Preparedness,” a report containing 18 recommendations for the executive and legislative branches of state government. Both the Office of Homeland Security’s report and the forthcoming governor’s task force report focus on the same general areas: planning and coordination, traffic and mobility, and other issues such as special-needs evacuation and public awareness.
Planning and Coordination
After reaching Category 5 strength in the Gulf of Mexico, Hurricane Rita hit land along the Texas-Louisiana border early Sept. 24 as a Category 3 storm with wind speeds greater than 120 miles per hour. The storm provided the first opportunity for local officials to use the mandatory evacuation authority granted in House Bill 3111 by Corte, enacted by the 79th Legislature during its 2005 regular session. This statute authorizes county judges or mayors of municipalities to order, rather than merely recommend, a full or partial evacuation within their jurisdictions if the officials deem it necessary to preserve life or prevent another disaster. This was one of the 18 recommendations contained in last year’s state Office of Homeland Security report.
As Hurricane Rita approached, an estimated 3.7 million people evacuated the Houston area and Texas coast between Corpus Christi and Beaumont. Preliminary data from the Texas Department of State Health Services indicates that 118 deaths are connected to Hurricane Rita. The state has yet to determine if the storm itself, the evacuation, or other mitigating factors were responsible for the deaths. News reports have linked at least 60 of those fatalities to the evacuation, including 23 residents of a Bellaire assisted-living facility who perished in a bus fire.
“Probably the biggest failure of the whole process was communication