Gustav

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.

Seen in Insurance Journal:

One risk modeling firm estimates that insured losses to onshore properties in the U.S. are between $2 billion and $4.5 billion, with an expected loss of $3 billion due to Hurricane Gustav. According to AIR Worldwide Corporation theses loss estimates do not account for any flooding that may yet result from the breach of natural defenses such as levees.

In other words, Gustav was about 10% of Katrina, insurance-wise.

Now, we get to wait and see what love Hanna, Ike, and Josephine will bring.

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.

Local newscasts are much less annoying than the cable news channels.

CNN has a blurb mentioning water overtopping the Industrial Canal levees in New Orleans.

However, a quick check of online sources doesn’t reveal any confirmation.   During Katrina, the NWS was pretty quick to issue a flash flood warning when a levee was breached.

…of course, as I was typing this up, CNN cut to a live shot at the canal, showing water flowing into the City.

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?

Seen at the Times-Picayune:

Mayor Ray Nagin late Saturday warned that Gustav is the "mother of all storms" and ordered a mandatory evacuation for the West Bank of New Orleans for 8 a.m. Sunday and noon for the East Bank.

"We want 100 percent evacuation," said Nagin. "It has the potential to impact every area of this metropolitan. […]

The West Bank has 8-foot-high to 10-foot-high protection, he said. Gustav’s storm surge may be 15-, to 18- to 24-feet high.

Good luck, folks; take care and get out of harm’s way this time, please.

If you were thinking about driving through southern Louisiana ahead of Gustav….maybe that’s not such a good idea.

Seen at the Times-Picayune:

The contraflow plan to open all lanes of traffic away from coastal areas to speed evacuation from Hurricane Gustav could begin Saturday night and no later than Sunday morning, state officials said this afternoon.

The state will for the first time use "dual contraflow," activating plans at the same time for Southwest and Southeast Louisiana.

Gov. Bobby Jindal encouraged residents in vulnerable areas to begin evacuating before the contraflow plan is put into effect.

For those of you who are so inclined, the Times-Picayune has posted a map highlighting where the weak points are in New Orleans’ not-yet-completed post-Katrina improvements to its storm surge defenses.

When it was announced that Obama would make his acceptance speech outside on Mount Olympus at Invesco Field, there were reports that certain McCain supporters called for prayers for rain.  (The forecast for Denver is clear, by the way.)

Now it looks like the GOP convention will be competing with Gustav for media attention.  This has prompted one commenter to a New York Times blog post to observe:

Cost of incentives to bring businesses back to the Gulf region after Hurricane Katrina?

$2 billion.

Cost of educating more than 370,000 students displaced by the storm:

$2 billion.

Total cost of rebuilding from Katrina?

$200 billion.

Hurricane Gustav reminding all of us precisely how corrupt and incompetent the GOP has been over the last eight years– right as they’re gathering in Minneapolis, in the hopes that we are all too stupid to remember?

Priceless.

Even though our thoughts and prayers should be (and are) going out to those who may be in Gustav’s path…you have to appreciate the karmic irony.

Of course, I would be remiss to point out that Republican Governor Jindal won his election in no small part because of Louisianans’ frustration with just how badly the former, Democratic Governor Blanco (and Dem Mayor Nagin) handled the initial response and recovery from Katrina.