Evacuation

One evacuee’s tale is the subject of this blog post:

The six hours before dawn took us into the gridlock. Once we hit I-59, traffic was reduced to an average of one to three miles per hour. With no available gas in sight, the option of AC rapidly became too fuel-intensive to embrace. In heat close to 90 degrees we watched people around us start to wilt. With each hour, the situation became more unpleasant.[…]

As my cats came closer and closer to fatal heatstroke, we poured water over their heads to cool them off. Two almost died. People around us were obviously suffering in the temperature, including many elderly and infants. The various cars stalled out on the side of the road stood like scarecrows striking the fear of being left behind into our hearts. The worst place to be in a hurricane, bar none, is in a car stuck in traffic.[…]

In Mississippi, police blocked the off ramps, several cars at each. it seems we were not wanted or allowed to leave the parking lot that was Contraflow. Fear of the situation warred with rage at those whose panic was substituted for leadership. All the while, the radio spewed forth reports of how well Contraflow was working, alternating with self-congratulatory proclamations by the mayor.

I think it’s safe to say that government efforts in advance of “what might have been” as regards Gustav is far, far superior than what we witnessed for Katrina.  Disasters are messy, things will go wrong or take longer than we would like to resolve…but at least there seemed to be a plan and some level of competence to adapt the plan as circumstances developed.

However, that doesn’t mean that everything was perfect.

Like a few folks I am interested in why Mississippi prohibited evacuees from exiting the interstate (although my interest is that of a roadgeek, rather than a survivor).   I thought standards strongly encouraged emergency management folks to allow traffic to exit at least at a few points, in long contraflow situations.   I can imagine state troopers not wanting traffic to use ramps to bypass a bit of congestion….but evacuees do need to be able to access food, fuel, and facilities.

For folks interested in how planners think of handling hurricane evacuations, you might be interested in this document from Texas A&M.    Chapter 3 of the document discusses contraflow, including the recommendation that evacuees be permitted to exit at intermediate points from long contraflow stretches, and an observation that the merge at Hattiesburg on I-59 is really an suboptimal way to terminate contraflow.

And for potential future evacuees – remember, there are highways out there that are not necessarily interstates.  A bit of advance planning for alternate routes, and familiarity with map-reading would likely go a long way towards dodging interstate evacuation traffic jams.

After the traffic jams that were experienced on interstates by folks evacuating southern Louisiana, this post at the Best of New Orleans Blog may be a useful reminder for next time:

After an hour of sitting in the well-documented misery that was I-59 in the waning hours of contraflow, we got off as soon as we reached an unblocked exit, just past the Mississippi border. Now I’m suffering what I’m going to call contraflow survivor guilt. The road we took - Mississippi Highway 43 - was completely devoid of traffic. As in, we would maybe see another car every half hour, at most. We tore down the two-lane blacktop through scenic rural Mississippi at 65 miles an hour, reconnecting with I-55 near Jackson, and had smooth sailing the rest of the way to Memphis. Our total road time was just under eight hours, only two hours longer than the same trip under normal conditions. I may never drive on a major interstate again. It might be a little late for this advice, but (knock wood) if this ever happens again, use those maps creatively. Or ask Mapquest or your GPS to program your route without interstate highways. It’s literally the difference between hell on earth and a nice Sunday drive.

Let’s add “basic map-reading and navigation” to that list of practical-knowledge subjects I wish were taught to youngsters these days.

It seems that the downside of having 1.9 million people evacuate Louisiana this time is that perhaps the evacuation routes might have been a bit underpowered.

Despite what’s been heard on CNN, the Best of New Orleans blog reported this afternoon:

I am livid with the information we are receiving from the authorities and the media about traffic on I-59. We left our home at 3:45am and didn’t get to Hattiesburg until 1:00pm. The contraflow, which we took, was a joke. It only lasted about 10 miles or so, and was bumper-to-bumper from start to finish.

And authorities and media keep saying how wonderful contraflow is and keep downplaying the reports by drivers that there is serious traffic problems on I-59. It is irresponsible and potentially fatal to families to continue to tell them to evacuate at this time and to tell them that it is safe to go down I-59.

Although it would be unreasonable to expand regional freeways to permit free-flowing traffic in the event of an evacuation (a lot of capacity which would likely be under-utilized in normal circumstances)…perhaps post-storm someone ought to look into what could be done to improve evac plans.  For example, perhaps identifying alternate routes after contra-flow stretches…or extending contra-flow (diverting coast-bound traffic to non-expressways) might not be inappropriate plans to make?