Question asked by Philly.com:
Curiously, though, while the headline still appears on the paper's index, the article itself has been disappeared. Clicking on it takes you only to a photo essay page.
But anyway, question answered by Houston's mayor:
I might snarkily observe that when Philadelphia faces a hurricane like this, let's see what their city's leadership decides to do.
As my correspondent David K. wrote,
During the evacuation for Hurricane Rita over 100 people died while stuck in bumper to bumper traffic in heat over 100 degrees. It took my family 27 hours to make what is normally a 3 1/2 hour trip. To the best of my knowledge less than 10 people have lost their lives during Harvey. Had an evacuation order been given over 3 million people would have been on the road.One of the major decision points is knowing where to evacuate and in what order and when. It would be nice to know a week out, but they don't. They are lucky to have even a somewhat reliable idea 12-15 hours out. There are more than 4 million people in the greater Houston area. An orderly evacuation of even a decent percentage of them would take how long? Perhaps as long as days, and a disorderly evacuation would be worse than none at all.
And a mayor also has to consider that he would be exposing his police and responder crews to even more severe hazard than they accept on patrol absent an evac order.
Where would you rather be when a Cat 4 sweeps over you - in your own house where you have stockpiled food, clothing, water and other necessities, or on the open road, stuck in traffic, with 130-mph winds and nothing more at hand than what you could cram in the car?
Neither is a walk in the park, but here is the answer for me:
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