I hate to make my first tirade here so serious but to be timely I must. Everyone knows about Katrina and Rita. We see New Orleans coming back to life nightly on the news networks. What we aren't seeing and hearing about is East Texas. No it wasn't on the massive scale as Katrina. BUT there were major problems and still are.
To begin with the massive and I do mean massive evacuation of the TX GULF COAST was not the success that the powers that be want us to belive it was. People died for God's sake. Why should someone die when they evacuated to save themselves? Talk about irony.
I make the 3 hour drive to East Texas weekly. I was lucky because when I was kicked out of my county by the mandatory evcuation order it took me 7 hours. My sons followed me four hours later and it took them 17 hours. And we were the lucky ones because we left on Weds. On Thurs night the small communities along the major routes were invaded with weary, angry and frustrated people. There was NO GAS, NO FOOD, NO WATER. Knowing that the evacutuion was going to be called for WHY WEREN"T tanker trucks and supplies waiting at intervals along those routes? If a community was not the designated area for stopping for refueling or supplies BLOCK it off from the public. After the hord of travlers left the local people in the community had NO where to go for food, hurricane supplies of any kind and worst of all GAS was out all over.
Now back to the mandatory evacuaiton order.....on Weds. afternoon the schools in my county dismissed for the storm. The children brought home a letter from the county officals stating that we would be under a mandatory evacuation order and that if you stayed in the county with a child you would be arrested, charged with child endangerment and your child would be placed in CPS custody. Well I have lived here all my years and this is a new one. When I was a child and a storm was blowing up and someone left town they were sort of looked down upon. I don't have a problem leaving being a single mom , was going to anyway, but being forced to leave is another issue. What about the folks that did not have the money to go? And in my case I left, got head on into the storm, didn't have gas or supplies, and couldn't get home where the storm did not even drop any rain! What about the the people that died leaving and the storm missed their homes? I could go on and on on this subject and probably will for a while yet. But one East Texas community is starting a blog to tell their own personal stories. I think that they are the ones that you need to hear from. As soon as they have their comments going I will link to it. Please read what they have to say and pass it on.