What we suspected was in fact true: there was no prepared plan to establish contraflow lanes on major hurricane evacuation routes out of the Houston area.
The biggest problem in Houston's painful evacuation last week was that perhaps a million people, almost half of those who left, ran from the wind. To make matters worse, the regional evacuation plan was missing a key element — pre-planned contraflow lanes that are a part of virtually every other hurricane-prone city's evacuation strategy.From Corpus Christi to Norfolk, Va., most vulnerable cities have pre-set plans to run their highways in one direction only, headed out of town, said Brian Wolshon, a civil engineer at Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center.
Wolshon gave a presentation on the subject at Houston's TranStar traffic management center two years ago, but found that officials were reluctant because Houston's freeway grid is much more complicated than other coastal cities.
"I don't think they really took it seriously," he said.
State and local officials changed their minds early last Thursday in the face of a historic traffic jam. But it was too late, and the one-way freeways that eventually opened on Interstate 10 and Interstate 45 didn't relieve drivers' 20-hour nightmares.
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Harris County and the city simply didn't have them in their official emergency plans, and much of the lane mileage ultimately freed for evacuee traffic was outside their jurisdictions.
Once it became apparent that something had to change to get people moving at the height of the evacuation, the city and county asked about 2:30 a.m. Thursday for the state to open the lanes.
With no regional or state plan in place, officials scrambled to make it happen.
It's absurd that this wasn't part of the established plan; citizens must follow up and ensure officials work this out.
That said, Texas showed its can-do ability when the time came to improvise.
First, they had to determine how and where to redirect traffic. Then they had to make sure it was safe. About 10 hours later, with a long, snaking line of idling evacuees waiting, southbound lanes on I-45 were reversed. Contraflow on I-10 opened later. TxDOT looked at opening both sides of U.S. 290, but decided it would be impractical because the highway has so many entry points.Posted by Alan at September 26, 2005 06:16 AMIn all, state officials say, about 400 miles of highway were switched more than a day before the hurricane landed. About 100 highway barriers were needed to block opposing highway entrance ramps to make sure there weren't head-on collisions. The Department of Public Safety had to send 1,300 troopers to southeast Texas, more than a third of its force. An army of local police also helped.