NOLA deja vu: Houston public housing

The President and Texas officials are loudly proclaiming their readiness for Hurricane Rita. Good work is being done. Refineries are being secured, the nuclear reactor is cycling down, hospital patients are being evacuated, and so on.

My concern is that the authorities aren't doing enough to give everyone a fair shot at safety, regardless of race or social class. We're simply not ready unless our plans reflect the social and economic inequalities that complicate evacuation. "Get lost" is not a plan.

So far, Houston's housing projects are on alert and residents have received warnings and leaflets.

Public housing residents on alert, not being evacuated
Sept. 21, 2005, 10:19PM
By LORI RODRIGUEZ

Houston's public housing officials were on hurricane alert Wednesday as Rita barreled toward the Texas coast, while transplanted New Orleans officials began leaving their temporary quarters in Houston.

Local officials said public housing residents are not being evacuated.

"We're in full hurricane preparedness mode," said La Chanda Jenkins, communications director for the city's Housing Authority.

"We've sent out a notice to all our public housing residents telling them how they should prepare for the storm and what emergency contact numbers they can call."

The Housing Authority owns and manages nearly 4,000 public housing units in 17 developments across the city.

Since Hurricane Katrina struck to the east Aug. 29, officials also have been charged with finding local public or subsidized housing for eligible Katrina evacuees.

So, why aren't these projects being actively evacuated? I'm not familiar with the geography of Houston public housing. Maybe none of the projects are located in high risk areas. However, if there are public housing complexes in areas under evacuation orders, then the authorities should be actively evacuating residents.

We'd all like to think that even the weakest members of our wealthy country have the means to flee a catastrophe. The reality is that not everyone has the same opportunity to evacuate. A prime goal of every evacuation effort should be to minimize those inequalities. The only short-term solution is actively deliver help to those who need it most.

Busses should be pulling up to projects--wheelchair accessible busses. The Humane Society should be on hand to tag pets so that owners can retrieve them after the storm. (Pets turned out to be a major stumbling block in the evacuation of New Orleans. Some loyal pet owners just weren't going without their animals.)

In NOLA some people had cars but no gas. Lives could have been saved by sending out fuel trucks to top up people's tanks--especially if drivers had to agree to offer rides to others fleeing the city in exchange for the gas. Perhaps similar strategies could work in Houston.

If the government steps up the active evacuation of public housing or low income neighborhoods, critics will decry the death of personal responsibility and demand to know why these people weren't prepared to get out of town on their own steam. Such complaints are beside the point. This is about saving lives, not about pointing fingers. In some cases, active evacuations of public and low-income housing would save people who would otherwise die.

Comments

[rob helpy-chalk]

Clearly a more prepared government would be ready to distribute DVDs to the people to tell them that they are on their own.

[Bulworth]

Thanks for staying on top of this.

I saw a picture in one newspaper showing handicapped individuals being evacuated but not sure what city it was or what SES group.

Looks like the same old thing over and over again.

[agm]

FYI, the issues are significantly different between Houston and NO. Not below sea level, much better drainage, much better awareness of where water will be a problem because of Tropical Storm Allison, and people fleeing the coast much sooner (Hurricane of 1900...). However, many, many more people, so traffic sucks infintely more also (12 hours for us to get from Houston to Austin, using US Alt 90 instead of I-10 or US 290). There' will significant economic impact, but the city knows what to expect simply because of previous history.

Also, there may have been plans tuned/tested precisely because of Katrina. Perry is up for relection soon, he's damn sure to be more on top of things than Blanco. As much as blogHouston complains about him, Bill White is a strong mayor and is showing it. Basically, if Rita hit the area, it would be much worse than New Orleans, but since the proper people know that and will take care of business in CYA mode, it just won't be. Lastly, it'd just be too damn embarrasing for Bush to screw up twice, esp in his home state, so expect quick federal action as well.

[ScatScandals]

Good job getting sucked into the liberal media whirlwind of lies again. I evacuated, I guess technically that makes me a refugee. I'm from the outer limits of Houston in a flood-prone area. My city was set for mandatory evacuation Thursday at noon. When was Houston's?

Never.

The reason gas was low and people couldn't get out was because of the hysteria and paranoia caused by the media in the wake of Katrina. Thousand upon thousands of people with no business evacuated did so. Want to know why my 2 hour drive took 8 and my friend's 4 hour drive took 27??? Because people living on the north side of Houston were evacuating with everything they owned.

Your take on fuel trucks topping off our gas tanks is noble, but trust me, there is neither the time, nor money, nor POSSIBILITY of that ever happening.

NO is a bowl inbetween a lake and an ocean. It's built below sea level and on top of SWAMPS. The public housting in Houston is neither. I don't even know why this is an issue.

If anything was an issue, GALVESTON public housing should be the issue. But it's not. Why? Probably because either A) people left or B) they called one of the many phone numbers streaming across the bottom of their TV's or being stapled to their doors which they could call if they needed to be picked up.

I don't know why I'm so angry about this, probably because I sat in a car for 8 hours with a vomitting dog and the power at my house never even went out.

Damn weather.