With flooding in the Houston area not expected to abate until at least Wednesday, municipalities in the area have begun issuing their first evacuation orders. Meanwhile, police continue nearly nonstop rescues of stranded residents, shelters are filling up, and many highways are impassable. All of which has some people asking: Why didn't Houston tell people to evacuate before the storm? Here's a look at the back-and-forth:
- In defense: "You literally cannot put 6.5 million people on the road," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Sunday in defending the no-evacuation decision, per CNN. "If you think the situation right now is bad, you give an order to evacuate, you are creating a nightmare." City officials feared people could become trapped in cars.
- Lessons of Rita: In 2005, local authorities ordered an evacuation ahead of Hurricane Rita, triggering mass gridlock. "In the Houston area, the muddled flight from the city killed almost as many people as Rita did," per the Houston Chronicle, which notes that more than 100 died in the exodus.
- Conflicting messages: On Friday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that "even if an evacuation order hasn't been issued by your local official, if you're in an area between Corpus Christi and Houston, you need to strongly consider evacuating." In response, a spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management tweeted, "LOCAL LEADERS KNOW BEST," reports the Washington Post.