Rita starkly demonstrates why you can't order an evacuation too soon.

[Brotherjohn]

New reports on the escalating death toll from indicate that at least 19 people died while evacuating from Rita. Add to that the 24 people who died in the bus fire near Dallas, and there was a minimum death toll of 43 from the Rita EVACUATION alone.

“On Thursday, September 22, one of the heaviest days of traffic during the mass evacuation of over two million people, 11 people died. Three deaths were recorded on Wednesday and five on Friday… Nineteen people either became sick or actually died in their vehicles. Seven of those were suspected to be related to hyperthermia -- evacuees died from the unforgiving heat.” Though not totally clear, since the story concerns fatalities on the highway in the three days before Rita struck (in Harris county alone), this “19” seems to refer those who either died in their vehicles or eventually died after becoming sick in their vehicles (the 11+3+5 who died on each day = 19).
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=hurricanes&id=3483606

A brief timeline of Rita’s development and the evacuation puts things into perspective. Early Wednesday morning (September 21st, 2005), Rita was a Category 2 at 120mph, and had just passed the Florida Keys. By 4PM, it was a 165mpg Cat 5 heading for the TX coast somewhere between Corpus Christi and Galveston.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/RITA.shtml

With the heightened sense of urgency brought on by Katrina, evacuation was urged, and began en masse, on Wednesday (with 1 million ordered to leave, mostly in low-lying and coastal areas). Wednesday afternoon was 2.5 days prior to landfall. By Thursday, “highways leading inland out of Houston are gridlocked, with traffic bumper-to-bumper for up to 100 miles north of the city. Gas stations run out of gas.” By Friday, “About 1.8 million residents are under orders to leave their homes in Texas and Louisiana”.
(http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/12744426.htm)(Or search Google News for “Rita evacuation timeline”)

Rita would gradually shift to the east and weaken after reaching 175mph on Wednesday night. Landfall was in the early morning on Saturday, along the Texas/Louisiana border. Rita was a Category 3, with 120mph winds at landfall.

At least 19 people died in their vehicles, in Harris County alone. This does not even count the 24 people who died in the bus fire near Dallas. That makes a minimum of 43 people who died in their vehicles directly due to evacuation!

Now let’s look at the events leading up to Katrina’s landfall. Early Friday morning (August 26th, 2005), Katrina was a minimal Category 1 at 75mph, and had just passed over south Florida. By 5PM, it was a 100mph Cat 2 heading for the MS coast (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/archive/2005/KATRINA.shtml). Friday afternoon was 2.5 days prior to landfall.

Though this is largely forgotten, mandatory evacuations were ordered in low-lying and coastal areas of Louisiana and Mississippi 2-3 days before Katrina as well. An evacuation of the whole of Southeastern Louisiana was strongly encouraged, and facilitated (Interstate contraflow, etc.), and largely accomplished, by Gov. Blanco and Mayor Nagin, 2-3 days before Katrina hit. I would also point out that there were few reported fatalities on the roads in Louisiana. The “mandatory” evacuation of the entire city of New Orleans was ordered 1 day before the storm hit, but most people were already out.
(http://talkingpointsmemo.com/katrina-timeline.php)

A minimum of 43 people, based on the bus disaster near Dallas and the death toll in Harris County, died while evacuating for Hurricane Rita. Hurricane Rita ended up hitting relatively low population area at the Texas-Louisiana border (though no less painful for those communities).

Let’s put this in the relevant perspective, that of two of the most deadly recent major hurricanes to strike United States metropolitan areas:

- The death toll from Hurricane Andrew in the United States was 23.
- The death toll from Hurricane Ivan in the United States was 25.
(see Wikipedia for statistics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
- The death toll from the Hurricane Rita EVACUATION was a minimum of 43.

So to those who say Louisiana officials should have evacuated for Hurricane Katrina sooner, they need to open their eyes to the now obvious risks, and see the fallacy of such an uninformed statement. These risks are common knowledge to anyone who lives in a hurricane zone, who has watched these storms develop from depression to major hurricane countless times, and have themselves evacuated numerous times (I fit into all three of those categories). A large-scale evacuation itself, whether voluntary or mandatory, poses large risks to the population. I’m speaking of the risks based on actual act of evacuating alone, without even considering the risks of abandoning an entire city’s businesses, infrastructure, etc. Neither does this consider the logistical problems of evacuating an entire large city. Is it even possible? By all accounts, New Orleans had evacuated in excess of 80% of its residents, a figure far greater than what was thought possible.

Add to this the fact that hurricane projections are far from perfect. You are betting on what the hurricane might or might not do. Two days out, Rita was a Category 5 storm projected to make a direct hit on the Galveston/Houston area, as at least a Cat 4. It eventually hit a relatively unpopulated area 50 miles to the east, as a Cat 3 (again, still very bad for Beaumont and Lake Charles). Two days out, Katrina was a Category 3 storm projected to make a direct hit on the New Orleans area. That projection held true, except the strength ballooned to a Cat 5 on Sunday, and held at a Cat 4 as it made landfall on Monday (Saturday morning, it was anticipated to eventually strengthen to a Cat 3 or 4). More often than not, a storm which is putting a metropolitan area at risk either does not strengthen much, weakens before landfall, or ends up striking a relatively unpopulated area.

It’s a simple fact: calling for a city-wide evacuation days before a hurricane is a huge gamble, and the results of Hurricane Rita’s evacuation put the stakes of that gamble in stark terms of life and death. If you wait too long to evacuate, many people MAY die (based on whether the storm follows the projections or not). If you initiate a large-scale mandatory evacuation, many people WILL die. Worse, if you call for the latter too early, and the projections don’t hold, many people will die unnecessarily.