Hurricane Ike Series - The Evacuation

@Linerberry: It was pretty crowded, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was a few years ago during the evacuation for Hurricane Rita. Then, people were running out of gas on the highway, going only a few miles in twenty-four hours.

I didn't evacuate; my area wasn't in an area affected by the storm surge. A lot of people around here did leave, though, and are still waiting for power to be restored for them to return. The bad thing is that many people didn't leave from the mandatory evacuation zone on the coast. The mandatory evacuation covered about 1.2 million people of the 5 million in the Houston metropolitan area, and it's estimated that 40% of those stayed behind. I don't know if they'll ever know the actual number of deaths down at the coast.

@Maxine: The evacuation for Rita was such a debacle that many people didn't want to put up with the horrible traffic and waits. There are always some die-hards that won't evacuate for any reason, but the ones that managed to survive Ike will probably have a change of heart when the next one comes through.

@Marion: You're right, there's always the chance of some sort of disaster or tragedy that can befall one's home wherever someone is. At least some of us get to make the choice what disaster we're going to risk, though. I'll stick with hurricane's; big ones like Ike aren't that common around here (25 years since the last power outage of this scale) and we get plenty of warning that one is coming, and how bad it's going to be. The idea of being in an earthquake chills my spine; no warning, no idea of how bad it will be until it's over, and no idea when an aftershock will hit.

All in all, things went smoothly during the evacuation. I just wish that more had left the coastal areas. The small town that I stayed in when I took my photo "Sunrise Storm at Crystal Beach" was decimated. We may never know the exact number of deaths there, as many bodies are believed to have been washed out to sea. Authorities were asking those who stayed to take a permanent marker and write their names and Social Security Numbers on their arms, so that identification of the bodies would be easier...