05 February 2006
Washington Post covers Houston's crime problem
Here's the Washington Post's view of Houston and our rising crime problem, something WaPo calls "Katrina crime." Here's one brief excerpt:
Most of the homicides that occurred in the last quarter of 2005 occurred in the city's apartment complexes. But there are not just homicides. Police said they have seen a significant increase in calls for service across the board. The first indication of such change became evident several months ago in the number of "calls holding," or calls for police service that one shift had to take on when a previous shift of officers went off duty.
"We used to have five calls holding, then it was 30, 40, 50, 60 calls holding or left over," said Officer John M. Trevino of the 19th District, which covers one of the new crime hot spots in southwest Houston. "It's crazy. The board was full of calls."
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 02/05/06 08:26 PM |
27 January 2006
HPD cracks down on New Orleans gangs
This news is most welcome:
Houston police have arrested eight of 11 people believed to be involved in nine homicides in the city's southwest side and two others in Pasadena since last November.
The arrests come just a few weeks after HPD acknowledged the surge in violent crime last year was linked to evacuees relocating here after Hurricane Katrina.
Police said the arrests were part of an initiative recently launched to investigate homicides believed related to gang activity.
In analyzing some recent cases in the southwest Houston area, police said today that several involved Louisiana suspects who relocated to Houston following Hurricane Katrina.
Police today said those suspects arrested were associated with two different gangs in New Orleans and continued their rivalry here.
Lovely, just lovely.
Good work, HPD. Keep it going.
BLOGVERSATION: When does the Hurtting stop? (Laurence Simon)
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 01/27/06 02:19 PM |
21 January 2006
ISD's to be reimbursed for hurricane-displaced students
Congress has finally set aside funds for school districts who took in Katrina evacuee schoolchildren, and now local school districts are racing to get paperwork filed before the deadline passes to get reimbursed:
With a federal deadline less than a week away, Texas schools are scrambling to count students and complete stacks of applications to stake their claim on some of the $750 million Congress earmarked for campuses that took in Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
It's a formidable challenge for Houston-area districts, which have been charged with overseeing reimbursement requests for the roughly 25,000 New Orleans students who enrolled in both public and private schools in the region.
"The clock is ticking. They're kind of jumping through hoops right now trying to meet deadlines," said John E. Wilson, a consultant for the Harris County Department of Education's Center for Safe and Secure Schools.
As part of the Hurricane Education Recovery Act signed by President Bush on Dec. 30, both public and private schools stand to receive up to $6,000 for each regular education student they served and $7,500 for each special education student.
Officials from area school districts said that should be enough to offset the cost of educating the displaced students.
Not only is HISD working to get its paperwork in on time, but HISD has also offered to help private schools within the district's boundaries file the required applications.
As we all know, Houston-area ISD's by far took in the majority of Katrina-displaced students, and the financial burden was tremendous. It is welcome news that Congress recognized this burden and authorized the funds to repay these districts.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 01/21/06 02:24 PM |
29 December 2005
Testing Houston's good will?
Today's Chron has a story on the city of Houston's struggle to pay rent for thousands of Katrina evacuees:
Overwhelming participation in Houston's housing voucher program for hurricane evacuees has left the city late paying millions of dollars in rent to property owners.
As of last Friday, the city still had not paid nearly 2,000 invoices, amounting to $7.2 million.
But city officials, who issued a letter to property owners last week apologizing for the backlog, say they are working overtime to get the bills paid and plan to be caught up by Monday.
"The way I would describe it is brute force," said John Walsh, deputy chief of staff for neighborhoods and housing for Mayor Bill White. "We just threw more people at the process."
Walsh said the city expanded its invoice payment staff and extended the hours of its service center to catch up. He said the city is now processing 400 to 500 invoices a day.
[snip]
The city has paid $14.8 million for invoices received through Nov. 22, and is now processing invoices received Nov. 23 through Dec. 12.
[snip]
Walsh said the major challenge has been the unexpected number of people who signed up for the program.
"When we started this in September we estimated we would do 10,000 units," he said. "By the first of October we said it would be 15,000 units. By early November it was more like 30,000 units. We've been having to adjust to a much bigger volume than we ever dreamed we would have to do."
We have praised Mayor White before for how he handled the Katrina evacuee exodus, but has it become too much for Houston to handle?
How much will the city of Houston have to spend in employee salaries to handle Katrina evacuee rent applications and payments? We know that some of our new residents are taking a toll on our (already depleted) police force. And I recall hearing (maybe on a KTRH newsbreak or from Chris Baker) that the vast majority of new applications (in the waning days of the "free" rent and utilities program) were from Katrina evacuees who had been in Houston for three days or less. They hustled down here from wherever they were to get in on the action!
We also know that there is no guarantee that FEMA will come through to pay for all this. That has been made very clear in recent news stories.
So, did Houston get in over its head? And will Houstonians be happy to foot the (increasing) cost of taking care of Katrina evacuees for one or more years, while having to pay for their own housing and living costs?
RELATED: HOUSTON IS FULL (City of Houston press release)
BLOGVERSATION: Time to pay the piper for the City of Houston (John Wagner)
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: Maybe natural attrition will take care of the problem:
A man was shot to death in a hotel in the 1300 block of La Concha on Wednesday night.
The incident occurred in the StudioPLUS hotel, which is in the shadows of Reliant Park.
Police said a fight broke out between two groups inside the hotel.
The hotel is full of people from Louisiana, and according to police, the victim was a Katrina evacuee.
Police said it started as a fight between two groups inside the hotel.
The shooting started around 10 p.m., and police said both groups were shooting at each other. The fight made its way downstairs.
Very nice.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/29/05 09:24 AM |
16 December 2005
Houston-area ISDs struggle to pay for Katrina-students' education
Jack Williams of KUHF-88.7 covers the problem local school districts are having keeping up with the financial demands of educating New Orleans students:
Houston-area school districts are pleading with lawmakers in Washington to begin paying-off on a promise to reimburse them for taking in thousands of Katrina and Rita evacuee students. Most of those districts have seen little or no federal money despite millions of dollars in expenses.
At last count, local schools had taken in around 22,000 evacuee students, with many of those new faces served by the Houston School District. So far, HISD has welcomed more than 7500 students and is spending close to $200,000 a day to educate them. Despite the increased burden, HISD has seen virtually no federal reimbursement and expects the total burden to hit $35 million before the end of the school year. Karen Soehnge is HISD's Chief Academic Officer and says that's a lot of money to have to make up. "If in fact this spring we don't get additional help from the federal government, that $35 million, we'll have to a address that in our budget development for next year and it will have, and could have, a profound effect," she says.
[snip]
One of those leaders is Houston Congressman Gene Green, who has led an effort in Washington to get federal money to local schools who have accepted evacuee students. The House is currently considering a supplemental appropriations bill that would address the reimbursement, something Green says should have happened months ago. "Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has committed to members of Congress and even in the state of Texas the school districts, that they would be paid for those students and here we are in December and it's been since September that Houston and Harris County opened their doors to our neighbors, but it's a federal responsibility to help our districts," he says.
Since New Orleans schools are barely functioning, if functioning at all, why doesn't the money that New Orleans would have gotten from the feds go to the school districts that ARE educating New Orleans students? I certainly hope that New Orleans school districts aren't still collecting money, while Houston-area schools are actually providing their students with an education (and most likely a better one at that).
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/16/05 07:18 AM |
12 December 2005
Post-Katrina apartment boom may be over
Nancy Sarnoff writes that landlords may be seeing the end of the Katrina apartment-renting frenzy:
The influx of renters that filled thousands of empty Houston apartments after Hurricane Katrina might not be the boon landlords were hoping for.
Some tenants are already leaving apartments to go back to New Orleans, while real estate observers say others are finding lodging elsewhere.
One apartment complex in Midtown that leased 37 units in one day has just received notice that 10 of those apartments will become vacant come January, said Stacy Hunt of Greystar, which manages the property.
"Some tenants are starting to trickle back," Hunt said last week while speaking to a group of real estate developers and brokers at a luncheon held by realty firm O'Connor & Associates.
Houston's multifamily market saw a boost after Hurricane Katrina hit and thousands of evacuees rented apartments here.
More than 17,000 apartments in the Houston area were absorbed in September. That's nine to 10 times more than what's typical in the the peak summer months, said Richard Zigler, O'Connor's head of research.
But not everyone thinks the boost in occupancy will last.
"I don't think they'll do nearly as well as everybody thinks they will," developer Jenard Gross said of apartments around the city.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/12/05 06:23 AM |
02 December 2005
FEMA tries flexing its (worthless) muscle again
Unless federal policy changes soon, Houston will find itself in an embarrassing position three months from today — breaking a key promise made to hurricane evacuees in their most desperate hour.
Despite written statements to the contrary, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will cease honoring the 24,000 year-long leases, backed by the city, signed between hurricane evacuees and local apartment landlords.
As a result the city could fail to deliver on a promise made to nearly 100,000 storm-ravaged evacuees from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita — a safe roof over their heads for a year.
Landlords, who are accepting tenants without a security deposit or credit checks, would be left with scores of families unable to pay their rent.
"Everybody is concerned about what could happen," said Larry Hill, president of the Houston Apartment Association.
"The city, the mayor, the judge, everyone stepped up to the line after these storms hit. We opened our doors. I have no idea what these people would have done if the city of Houston hadn't stepped up."
FEMA needs to get its head out of its you-know-what. The citizens of New Orleans were failed by decades of corrupt government on many levels. The city of Houston, Harris County and the state of Texas stepped up to help these people when their own city and state couldn't/wouldn't. Mayor White has put forth a plan that gives these people somewhere to live, while providing them the resources to find employment and rebuild their lives. It's a constructive plan that is more than New Orleans or Louisiana could have ever done. (New Orleans' mayor is focused on free wi-fi, for God's sake!)
FEMA needs to pay the darn bill and shut the hell up.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 12/02/05 07:32 AM |
27 November 2005
Mayor Nagin holds town hall meeting in Houston
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin held a meeting in Houston today with some of his former constituents:
Frustration, doubt and anger greeted New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin on Sunday as he implored displaced residents from his city to join in the process of rebuilding after Hurricane Katrina.
Nagin, speaking during a town hall meeting at Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Houston, asked New Orleans residents to help him in his efforts to bring the city back to life. The meeting was one of several Nagin has had since Katrina hit New Orleans in late August.
"I greet you all in the spirit of unity because if we don't unify, we will never come back to the New Orleans we all want to come back to," he said. "I know there is frustration out there. I can only do so much. I need your help."
Nagin told the more than 600 residents in attendance that 60 percent of New Orleans has electricity, 50 percent has natural gas service, most of the city has safe drinking water, 911 and police services are operational, debris has been removed from most city streets and jobs that pay well above minimum wage are readily available.
But he also told people that the city is broke with no revenues coming in, the public school system is still shut down and there is not enough housing for people to come back and help with the rebuilding process.
[snip]
Ingrid LeBlanc, a New Orleans resident living in north Houston with eight other family members, told Nagin she wants to return to her hometown and rebuild her home. But she has concerns about the levee system and whether officials have decided some neighborhoods, including her own, won't be rebuilt.
"I want to go back. I need to know where I stand," she said.
Nagin reassured LeBlanc, 54, that all of New Orleans is going to be rebuilt.
[snip]
Arthur Brown, 43, a truck driver, said because of New Orleans' uncertain future, he's decided to buy a home in suburban Houston.
"I'm not sure what (New Orleans) is going to do. I can't put my life on hold," he said. "I have a family. I need to move on."
Ultimately, many New Orleans residents will return one day, but there are many, many others who will do what Mr. Brown is doing -- move on with their lives, in someplace other than New Orleans. Mayor Nagin is going to have a tough sell.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/27/05 07:21 PM |
12 November 2005
More FEMA dollars on the way
FEMA has approved more reimbursement money for Houston, Harris County, and Montgomery County:
FEMA announced today the approval of $101 million in public assistance grants to reimburse the city of Houston for shelter it provided to Katrina evacuees.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency also announced it has awarded an $8.8 million public assistance grant to the state of Texas to reimburse Harris County for costs associated with providing shelter to Hurricane Katrina evacuees.
FEMA also announced the approval of a $2.6 million public assistance grant for Montgomery County for interim housing of evacuees from the Gulf Coast.
Earlier, FEMA approved a $37.2 million grant to the city and a $1.2 million grant to the county to reimburse the entities for costs of processing hurricane evacuees.
The grants pay 100 percent of eligible costs associated with providing interim housing for evacuees relocated to Texas from Hurricane Katrina. This includes costs of transportation, unit rental and furnishings projected for a limited time period.
I think I recall Mayor White's spokesman Frank Michel quoted somewhere as saying that Houston still has money in the bank (so to speak) from the last FEMA reimbursement, but that the long-term housing needs for Katrina evacuees was what needed to be taken care of next. I imagine this will help out with that.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 11/12/05 07:30 PM |
09 October 2005
Most city employees did report to work as Rita was approaching
Local media has been reporting on the handful of essential city employees who did not show up for work as Hurricane Rita was bearing down on Houston.
Most of the 4,700 HPD workforce showed up for work, pulling 12 hour shifts, but about a dozen did not.
Right now, the police union confirms that they believe about 12 police officers, including possibly two captain level individuals, are being investigated for not showing up during the course of Hurricane Rita's evacuation response efforts.
Officials are also looking at the fire department to see if there were any similar issues with employees not showing up.
Eyewitness News spoke with a firefighters union's spokeman and as far as they know, firefighters all showed when they were supposed to.
"Most firefighters that were scheduled to work the day following the storm showed up the night before. They did it on their own," said Houston Mayor Bill White. "They are very dedicated and highly motivated and understood the situation and a lot of them came in the night before. So there really were not any problems with firefighters not showing up."
And then there's HEC -- the Houston Emergency Center:
But the fire department and the police department are not the only departments the city is looking into. The mayor's office is looking into the Houston Emergency Center. They believe there was a handful of employees who didn't show up for work, either, and they are facing indefinite suspension or possible termination as part of disciplinary action.
According to KHOU-11, 14 HEC employees face termination for not showing up to work:
"If people have essential jobs then they need to show up for those jobs," says Mayor White.
And if they don't they will be severely punished. Currently, 14 HEC employees are in the process of being fired.
Sgt. Johnnie McFarland is president of the union that represents many HEC employees.
"We don't want all our personnel to be painted with one brush as being deserters or people that abandoned their posts," he says, "These people had real world concerns. Everybody was concerned."
The Chronicle's Monica Guzman says 16 HEC employees are under investigation, along with 12-16 HPD employees:
HPD Captain Dwayne Ready said the HPD employees under investigation include officers and civilians considered essential to emergency operations. The extent of disciplinary action — which could include termination — will be determined case by case, he said.
"The department does not approach this as one shoe fits all," Ready said. "Everybody's situation is going to be different."
Among the absent HPD civilian employees were 10 dispatchers , including one who has already been fired, Laud said.
The precise number of HPD employees under investigation is not known, as some divisions are still reporting their absences. HPD employs about 6,000 people, including about 4,800 officers.
All leaves and days off were canceled the weekend of Sept. 23-25 as the department went to emergency mobilization in preparation for Hurricane Rita's approach, and officers were put on 12-hour shifts. A few employees with extraordinary family obligations or other urgent needs were excused from duty in advance, Ready said.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/09/05 08:37 AM |
07 October 2005
Swanky condo project scrapped -- blame it on Katrina
A high-rise condominium project has been cancelled because of Hurricane Katrina:
The Redstone Cos. has decided not to construct a high-rise condominium tower planned for The Houstonian Hotel, Club and Spa campus.
The luxury high-rise homes with prices ranging from $925,000 to $2.6 million were slated to be built on North Post Oak Lane, near Woodway and the West Loop.
Seliece Caldwell, a Redstone marketing executive, says a funding source on the 28-story project backed out after Hurricane Katrina. The financial backer, which she would not name, cited market uncertainty, escalating costs of construction and shortages of labor and materials in the storm's aftermath.
Redstone explored other funding alternatives, but eventually decided not to proceed with the project. Redstone had contracts with 22 condo buyers and was scheduled to break ground by Sept. 30. A few days before that deadline, buyers were notified of the cancellation.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/07/05 10:08 PM |
06 October 2005
FEMA sending $37 million to Houston for hurricane relief efforts
FEMA has announced that Houston and Harris County will be receiving millions of dollars for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts:
The funds are distributed through Public Assistance Program grants, which reimburse eligible costs, including $37 million to the city of Houston for housing and transportation of evacuees; $9.7 million to Harris County and $1.7 million to the city of Houston for shelter operations; $17 million to the city of Austin for providing interim housing to evacuees; $5.4 million to the city of Austin for housing and transportation; and $1.7 million to the state of Texas for costs incurred by the National Guard for security, transportation and medical response, both in Texas and New Orleans.
The funds released Thursday do not represent the total costs incurred by the state and municipalities. Additional funding requests are under consideration now with release expected soon. Other costs, such as education and health care are being addressed legislatively and through the individual agencies.
Sen. John Cornyn emphasized that this is only the beginning:
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn said the funds were “a big step forward toward making Texas whole after the unprecedented efforts to transport, house and feed evacuees following Katrina.”
“Though more funds are on the way, it’s encouraging to see these steps toward reimbursing communities that open their doors and their wallets when our neighbors needed it most,” Cornyn said. “Much remains to be done before Texas is made whole, and the effects of both Katrina and Rita are erased, but this is good progress and I’m confident that more is on the way.”
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/06/05 04:36 PM |
03 October 2005
Two unanticipated disasters hit Houston hospitals hard
Houston-area hospitals are now assessing the financial damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita:
Several Houston hospitals are estimating the price tag for the help they offered during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita could be about $10 million for each medical facility.
But hospital officials said the costs are just a part of their mission to help the needy.
“That’s what we’re here for,” said Pat Carrier, chief executive of Christus Health Gulf Coast. “We had to do what we had to do.”
Officials don’t expect the losses to result in job cuts or the cancellation of projects, but there will be systemwide belt-tightening.
Much of the costs are related to the medical treatment of Katrina evacuees, a large portion of whom had no health insurance, hospital executives said.
The threat of Rita cost hospitals millions in preparations and the loss of patient revenue.
“I just explained to our board ... that our month of September will be a horrendous financial month for our system,” said Dan Wolterman, president and chief executive of the Memorial Hermann Healthcare System. “We had two unanticipated catastrophes.”
Hospital executives are still figuring out how to cover their losses.
Federal aid may help, but several hospital executives said that won’t cover all their costs.
A recently approved federal waiver allowing Katrina evacuees to be enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program might offer some help.
“We do hope to recoup some of the money from the government,” said University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Chief Financial Officer Leon Leach.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/03/05 07:21 PM |
02 October 2005
Douglass Elementary becomes charter school for Louisiana children
Jim Bell of KUHF-88.7 has the story of a new mission for the former Douglass Elementary:
A historic school in Houston's Third Ward -- that was closed last year because of declining enrollment -- is coming to life again because of Hurricane Katrina. Douglass Elementary School will reopen next week with a new name, as a charter school for children of Louisiana evacuees.
The Houston School Board has voted to lease the Douglass school property to the KIPP College Preparatory Academy group, which will operate it as a state charter school. As of today, the old school in southeast Houston isn't called Douglass Elementary anymore. It's now the New Orleans West KIPP College Prep Academy, and it's for evacuated New Orleans children only. Principal Gary Robichaux says with more than five thousand Louisiana children in Houston, there's no shortage of students.
Robichaux says when HISD reopened Douglass as a temporary school for evacuee children, KIPP's national directors decided to lease the property and keep it open through May of next year. KIPP has the option of extending the lease if there's still a need for the school, and that could happen because large numbers of evacuee families say they want to stay in Houston. KIPP stands for Knowledge is Power Program, and it's known for its rigorous approach to education, which Robichaux says is based on high expectations.
KIPP academies also have classes every other Saturday, and Robichaux says the Saturday schedule will be implemented a few weeks from now as their enrollment increases and stabilizes. When does school start at the new KIPP Academy?
Robichaux stresses that the New Orleans West KIPP Academy can only accept children who evacuated from New Orleans, because that's how their charter with the State of Texas is written.
RELATED: HISD Leases Vacant Douglass Elementary School to Successful State Charter School (HISD), HISD begins massive enrollment effort (bH)
UPDATE: Two clarifications are in order to the KUHF story: first, while the new school is primarily for evacuee schoolchildren, any HISD student can ask to attend. Also, at the end of the school year HISD will accept proposals from any group interested in running the school next year -- KIPP will not exclusively have the option of renewing. Thanks to the emailer who alerted me to these two points.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/02/05 08:40 AM |
28 September 2005
Why hasn't The Queen fixed this?
KTRK-13's Jeff Ehling reports that FEMA's Houston hurricane headquarters experienced some problems today:
There was a long line of people waiting in the heat outside FEMA's hurricane headquarters in Houston Wednesday.
The disaster recovery center opened at 8am for Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina evacuees. Some evacuees camped out the night before just be first in line, but the efforts became chaotic outside the headquarters when the heat became too much for several people. There were some people fainting and one woman was taken away to get treated for heat exhaustion.
Because of the dangers posed by the heat, FEMA decided to shut down the line Wednesday morning. Normally, the line would be open until 7pm.
FEMA officials are hoping that on Thursday, there will be a break in the weather and things will be a little calmer.
Another reason they shut down the lines is because there are already so many people waiting that they wouldn't be able to help any more people if they got in line. They are asking evacuees to come back another day.
In related reporting that is not posted on the website, KTRK's Miya Shay obtained quotes from FEMA's man at the center, who effectively said, "lots of people showed up, what is FEMA to do?"
Frankly, that bureaucrat's attitude needs to improve. The folks standing in today's near-hundred-degree temperatures waiting didn't even have water to drink. We can debate whether taxpayers should fund FEMA to the extent we are, but since we are, is it too much to ask that it work more efficiently, and that it provide constituents standing in the sun some water while they wait?
Furthermore, it's disappointing that Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and/or her staff weren't caught on camera intervening on behalf of the people in line. Since The Queen nearly knocked over an exhausted Mayor White to grab the microphone during a Rita press conference last week, her enthusiasm for helping Rita victims must have waned.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/28/05 10:02 PM |
27 September 2005
(HISD) school employees drove evacuees home from shelters
We told you the other day about HISD providing the city with last minute shelters and then HISD driving over 400 of those evacuees back to where they came from. Yesterday Matt Stiles wrote a story about the mayor's last-minute shelter plan and, well, read on:
But at least 400 remained later Saturday at Delmar Stadium Fieldhouse, a domed structure on Mangum road, as school district officials and the American Red Cross decided what to do with them.
They expressed mixed emotions as they waited in the dim, hot high school gymnasium.
A few, interviewed before HISD officials ordered a Chronicle reporter and photographer out of the facility, were grateful they were spared weathering the storm outdoors.
Others felt abandoned at the crowded site, saying they didn't know when they would leave or where they would go.
"These aren't affluent people, and they were treated with less respect than they should have," said Beaumont evacuee Dennis Daniels.
He pointed to people wearing bandages or sitting in wheelchairs, waiting outside the building in the early afternoon as the weather altered between sunshine and drizzle.
He and others at the site said those people had been brought to the shelter on Metropolitan Transit Authority buses from Ben Taub General, the city's largest charity hospital.
Hospital officials said they just couldn't take them all in.
"We were inundated with people who came to Ben Taub thinking it was a shelter," said Carol Oddo, Harris County Hospital District spokeswoman. "No one was discharged from the hospital who wasn't ready to go."
Others at the shelters, officials said, had been stranded on freeways in disabled cars or found wandering the streets in the hours before the storm came ashore.
[snip]
So school employees drove people around the city, dropping them off at their desired locations after clearing out the facility.
School employees? Which school employees? Oh! It must've been HISD school employees!
So let me see if I have this straight: the city's last-resort shelter plan was HISD, and then after directing people to those facilities, the city didn't make sure the last several hundred evacuees had a way back to where they came from. So HISD employees played taxi drivers. That was nice of HISD. Again.
As for the Chronicle reporter and photographer who were shooed away, if I was in a shelter as a hurricane was bearing down, I don't think I'd be too eager to chit-chat with the media. Matt Stiles is probably a great guy, but still...
KEVIN WHITED ADDS: A reporter and photographer were ordered out? My goodness, why didn't Kyrie O'Connor, Kristin Finan, and other Features STAR editors spring into action with a plan to impersonate a refugee? They could surely have smuggled in a small camera, and O'Connor could have praised the whole effort as compassionate and responsible first-person journalism!
Finan and O'Connor, by the way, continue to ignore our emails about that first-person journalism, and the reader representative, who promised to address the matter on his blog, has been missing for some time. Their treatment of the matter has not been what one would expect of professional journalists.
In any case, that stupid stunt of theirs might well have been on the minds of HISD officials, and may well hurt the Chronicle's news gathering efforts in the future. Stupid stunts sometimes have ramifications.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 09/27/05 08:37 PM |
Rita placeholder (HURRICANE RITA v. HOUSTON)
We're going to follow Laurence Simon's lead and use this post as a placeholder for the Rita announcement that was stuck at the top during the excitement.
ALERT: MAYOR WHITE AND JUDGE ECKELS ASK THAT IF YOU HAVE LEFT TOWN, PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO RETURN NOW. GRIDLOCK IS LIKELY TO RESULT, AND THERE'S NO REASON TO REPEAT THAT EXERCISE FROM THE EVACUATION AND MANY GOOD REASONS NOT TO. TXDOT ASKS THAT PEOPLE RETURNING ADHERE TO THIS VOLUNTARY SCHEDULE.
Laurence Simon has a good list of local Rita-related bloggers and news sources, and the Chronicle's SciGuy and Rita blogs will be good sources of information as well. As Laurence says, if you're getting news about Rita from some national newspaper or out-of-state blogger, you're probably missing part of the story.
Here's a thread in our forum for anybody who wants share his/her Rita stories/thoughts.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/27/05 07:35 PM |
26 September 2005
Taking no chances in Sharpstown
Thankfully, since the worst of Rita missed us, I didn't take many photos of the storm's aftermath.
However, I did get one good photo out in the Sharpstown area of a house bordering sort of a bad area in that neighborhood.
It's hard to be much clearer than that.
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 09/26/05 04:32 PM |
Goin' stir crazy
Some of those who ventured out for some shopping Sunday acknowledged that they really didn't need much. But the trip to the store was a good excuse to get out of the house.
"We're going stir crazy," said Eric Shafer of Bellaire, the owner of a software company, as he, his wife, Kimm, their 5-year-old daughter, Katy, and four relatives wandered around the Galleria.
Judy Cole of Spring, her daughter, Tamara Cathey, of Liberty County, and a family friend, Lauren Simmons, of Humble, said they were getting cabin fever after waiting out the hurricane at Cole's house.
"We would weigh 200 pounds if we had to stay in the house another day," Cole said.
Yep, and the kids are out of school for two more days. Sigh.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 09/26/05 08:34 AM |
Government agencies need to rework evacuation plans
This Chronicle story addresses some of the issues we have been discussing on Houston blogs -- the massive traffic jam last Wednesday and Thursday:
Hurricane planners have a little ditty that goes, "run from the water, hide from the wind."
It means evacuate if you are in a coastal surge area, but hunker down if you are in an area that will get hurricane-force winds and rain only.
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.
[snip]
Counseling people to stay put with a monster storm approaching is a tricky thing. Houston-area officials were stern about evacuations in the surge zones shown on their maps, but became considerably more vague about advice for everyone else.
Houston Mayor Bill White called for residents to use "common sense," but he did implore them to leave early if they were leaving.
Florida hurricane planners have learned to worry about the "shadow evacuation" — residents outside the mandatory evacuation zones who leave.
It is always much larger in the immediate aftermath of another major storm — in this case, Hurricane Katrina.
[snip]
The answer is to respect people's freedom of choice, but make sure they are educated at the beginning of each hurricane season so they can weigh realistic considerations, Baker said. His example: if you evacuate, you definitely will find yourself in a titanic traffic jam; if you stay, there may be only a one-in-five chance the storm will hit your area and, if it does, you will spend a terrifying night in your house, but probably will be fine.
The winds from a strong hurricane can rip off parts of roofs and smash windows, but solid structures stay intact and people are OK if they stay in the center of a home, away from windows, he said.
It is hard to tell an individual to endure that, he said, but from a regional standpoint, it may mean that those in the surge zones can evacuate safely.
Then the story addresses the lack of contraflow lane planning:
On the "capacity" side, not having a contraflow plan may have been a Rita-size mistake.
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.
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.
In 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.
That's a HUGE undertaking. It's one thing to say, "why don't they just open the other side?" and another thing to actually accomplish it.
And finally, Mayor White's complaint that the state should have been prepared for gas shortages:
The jams on evacuation routes have caused some public officials to question or criticize state officials for not providing extra gasoline along the way. White said Saturday that it was "totally unacceptable" that gas wasn't stored across the state.
That is the Texas Department of Transportation's role, White said. The state's emergency plan tasks the agency with helping motorists whose cars are disabled during an evacuation, including making sure that fuel and emergency vehicle repairs are available.
But the agency simply doesn't have the capacity to handle such an undertaking, officials said, because it does not have fleets of tanker trunks and fuel tanks spread throughout the state. Expecting large tankers to be able to stop on roadways and pump fuel directly into vehicles isn't realistic, said Zane Webb, director of TxDOT's maintenance division.
I was disappointed to see Mayor White leveling that criticism. As we learned from news reports, the number of evacuees far exceeded anything city, county, and state evacuation plans had anticipated, and those plans will now have to be reworked.
But if the mayor wants to start blasting the state for fuel shortages, the state could come back and blast the mayor for not clearly telling higher-ground residents to stay put, especially when mandatory evacuation residents hadn't gotten out yet. (The preceding sentence is Anne's opinion only -- not a consensus blogHOUSTON opinion!)
And since human nature will never be predictable, none of that is useful. Have plans ready that address as many scenarios as possible -- that's the best government can do. The rest is up to individual citizens who must make their own decisions and be prepared.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 09/26/05 06:43 AM |
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