Yeah, they both hit Shreveport afterwards. Gustav only brought 60mph winds with some higher gusts and not nearly the amount of rain they thought, but they both chewed up power lines and trees. Nothing in comparison to BR but those tall pines in north LA are really scary in 60 mph winds. Not excited about it coming to Houston either. Can't Mexico do a rain dance?
That's an awful lot more people to evacuate than from southern Louisiana... I'm wondering if the media's effective dismissal of Gustav will have a negative effect on Texas if Ike's heads to the Galveston/Houston area (with MILLIONS of people). Here in Dallas, everyone felt that Louisiana's evacuations were completely unnecessary--because they don't know what really happened.
The only place I've found so far with Houston-specific talk about Ike is the Houston Chronicle's science blog. KHOU's web site has an AP story.
So, do you think the media's dropping of the ball with Gustav is making Houston complacent? I mean, Texas tried to say how smoothly they evacuated the coast ahead of Rita, but it just isn't so. It was an absolute MESS, right down to the bus of elderly evacuees that blew up on I-45 just outside of Dallas.
I've only been here a little over a year, but from what I can tell Houston doesn't have the same fear of hurricanes that LA does. It's a bit like pre-Katrina New Orleans...
Well to be fair, it was smoother than Katrina/NOLA, but that is like claiming to be the smartest guy on the short bus. It did suck(took me 12 hrs to go 90 miles north), but a great many people still got out. I am hoping that some lessons were learned(contraflow anyone?), and that once this hits the gulf on Tuesday, we have a better view of where it's going. If it heads towards Houston, people will leave, especially Galveston, Clear Lake, etc. If I see it coming here, I will be in BR by Wednesday and hope for zero disruption of the Tigers.
When they evacuated the TX coast for rita it was re-fricken-diculous. I live in corpus christi, and when they evacuated us, I simply said I was going to wait a few days and head south if need be. The big thing was they evac'ed corpus then not a day later worked their way east. They were so gun-shy after Katrina instead of waiting to see they just threw a dart and said "SCREW IT LETS GET OUT!!" So everyone who left the southern coastal bend and were heading north through Houston, got stuck in traffic there. If Rita would have hit Houston, it probably would have been worse than Katrina in NO. There were still thousands of people stuck on the highways.
How did the media drop the ball with Gustov? I dont think it is the national media's responsibility to place common sense into the heads of people on the coast.
