STRANDED ON EMPTY
Posted: Saturday, September 24 at 05:50 pm CT by Bob Sullivan
LIVINGSTON, Texas -- Maybe you saw those pictures Wednesday of thousands of cars stuck in traffic fleeing Houston, trying to escape Hurricane Rita. Maybe you were wondering what happened to all those people we talked to on Route 59, whose cars were running out of gas and overheating.
VIDEO: Jenny Gregory talks with Bob Sullivan about her thwarted evacuation from Humble, Texas, to Oklahoma. She was panicky and claustrophobic. "I was thinking we need to get gas now. Where's water, where's food ... what are we going to do?" (Andrew Locke / MSNBC.com)
Well, we found them. About one hour's drive north of Houston, we found thousands of them, stranded. They had made it as far as Livingston, and there, many simply ran out of gas. Now, 2,100 people are calling Livingston Junior High their home. Several hundred more, including dozens of frail elderly, are staying at the elementary school nearby. The schools just spontaneously turned into shelters Thursday, when people's cars began to cut out. Some had simply resorted to walking, abandoning their cars on the side of the road, not wanting to be stuck on a highway when the storm hit.
"We were just walking along the highway," said Debbie Lege, of Winnie, Texas, "Our (auto) radiator blew up."
It's not clear which came first, the shelter or the people; we hear different stories. But at some point, with nowhere else to go, crowds started to form at the junior high, a big complex alongside Route 59. Word that a shelter had arisen only drew larger crowds, and eventually, more Red Cross volunteers.
The schools, and in fact the city, were totally unprepared for the influx of helpless, homeless evacuees. The sign on the elementary school still read, "Closed on Thursday and Friday."
The junior high had nothing but leftover school meals, a few cots, and locker room showers. The elementary school had no food at all until volunteers there discovered a cache of peanut butter that had been collected by students to help Katrina survivors, we're told.
When we wander around the shelter, every man, woman and child tells a story of the worst traffic jam they've ever seen -- 10, 15, even 20 hours long. At some point, the trip became fruitless -- the lucky ones heard about the junior high before the gas ran out and were able to drive their cars to the place on their own. The rest were shuttled there by buses or hitched rides. "It was about 50-50," says Clifton Henderson, a 27-year-old Red Cross trained volunteer. He happened to be in Livingston to take care of his mom. When he showed up at the junior high on Thursday, there were only three volunteers taking care of 700 people. Before the storm hit, the ranks of the needy had swelled to over 2,000, he said.
Jenny Gregory, a 19-year-old from Humble, Texas who was trying to get to Oklahoma, only made it about 50 miles in 12-hour trip. During the traffic jam she was panicky and claustrophobic.
"I was thinking we need to get gas now. Where's water, where's food...what are we going to do?" she said. "I was in a panic. It was scary." Now, she has no idea when she might be able leave.
As we walk around the school-turned-shelter, we see the same kinds of things Andrew saw at Katrina victim shelters. The din is nearly deafening at times, with toddlers stumbling around in diapers, and screaming. Kids play all over the school, adults seeking medical care for older family members wander around looking for someone to talk to. Families mark a corner on the gym floor with a blanket or claim space in a hallway by a locker. Stepping over them to see the place feels awful, like you're walking through 100 people's bedrooms. There isn't even a semblance of privacy.
The hard floors are hardest on the elderly. Rickey Redden, a school air conditioning maintenance worker, is now working miracles running the middle school shelter -- he's managed to beg and borrow a few cots.
Still, the evening was harrowing, we're told. At 4 p.m., a warning signal shot off as the storm peaked, and all 2,000 people at the middle school complex were shuttled into one large room away from windows.
FEMA ARRIVES -- WITHOUT GAS
TRACKBACKS
I have 2 elderly aunts, one of which evacuated from Orange Tx to Dam B between Woodville, and Jasper Tx to the other Aunt's home which is situated among massive pine trees. They are with my cousin, her son husband and brother, but I have not heard from them. I received a cell phone call Sat from my cousin, according to the caller id, but they left no message. Now I cannot get through to the cell phone, message says customer is not available or out of the call area. Has anyone heard about the area around Woodville? It is about 50 miles east of Livingston and 20 miles west of Jasper. Are the roads open yet to Jasper?
Sheree VanNoy Oklahoma City, OK (Sent Sep 25, 2005 1:31:17 PM)
Hey Friends,
I have a short picture/music montage done for the victims of the Hurricanes I'd like to give you to post. It's pretty extraordinary. How can I get it to you? It's 5.93 Mgs in wmv format.
stefan Youngblood Raleigh NC (Sent Sep 25, 2005 3:08:52 PM)
Someone on this message board made a comment about the media putting a dramatic spin on the weather conditions anticipated , and how the government seemed to endorse this with the idea of making the masses believe they're helpless without public assistance. Then, more recently some comments were made about how evacuees could have done more to help the volunteers at the facilities where they resided by simply volunteering themselves. While I think there is some level of truth to these remarks, at the same time the main issue seems to get lost. First off, mandatory evacuation orders for potential natural disasters are completely idiotic, while insulting our liberties as citizens who should be allowed to consider the option to face the ordeal head-on if one has made a conscientious decision to do so, and - yes - whatever one chooses to do, help out anyone and anything in anyway you can while helping yourself, instead of playing the role of the needy victim in the exodus of sheep. In any event, although in some respects I am a believer in government conspiracies, I don't think the absurd exagerations that were made on the predicted weather had anything to do with some kind of mass-thought control conspiracy - nor do I think it matters whether the traffic conjestion in Texas was caused from those leaving too late or too soon - none of that matters, simply because if everyone had realized the main issue, none of this would of ever happened. My reason for saying this is that everyone was so mesmerized by what happened in New Orleans, that all they could do was gawk without rationalizing the situation - the whole time thinking that this was going to repeat itself in thier locale. All you have to do is take into account how that city came to exist. The french explorers who concieved it knew that they were colonizing in the middle of a flood-plain, but ignored the hazards - building a system of canals, dykes and levees. Basically, we're talking about a city that was built in a bowl down-water from a major lake and swamps and wet-lands all around. It's amazing that this place has existed for as long as it has - and why it came to exist in the first place is beneath my common-sense. One should be thankful that all that flooding didn't happen long ago, and the fact that it didn't is above my 6th sense. Honestly, I think it would be best for everyone to let nature take its course and accept that the city of New Orleans was a gigantic mistake from human arrogance and stubborn ambition - sooner or later, it's going to have to be accepted that this place is in serious need of abandonment, for it was meant to be a marsh, not a metropolis trying to defeat the physics of gravity. The bottom line here is that although the Houston area is near the coast, so far as I know, this area is not below sea-level like New Orleans, therefore this whole issue to do with levees breaking and canals flooding is not even in this picture - Like in any coastal region, I'm sure you would have some flooding as a result from a storm, but not to the point where you could justify mass-hysteria clogging up major highways. Maybe in the event of a tornado or nuclear threat, this reaction might then be justified, but even so, you can't predict the erraticness of a tornado, anymore than you can outrun a nuclear blast.
Andreamadust (Sent Sep 25, 2005 4:54:19 PM)
I left north Houston at 2 a.m. Thursday with my three kids and made it to Dallas in eight hours. It is usually a three and a half hour trip. Yes, the drive was scary and we definitely needed more gas available, but I am personally grateful for the actions of the Houston government and the constant weather coverage of the news stations so that I could make an educated decision on what to do for my family.
Leigh Ann R. (Sent Sep 25, 2005 7:21:32 PM)
Well, I have a few things to say, but some might not want to hear it. We left when we were told to. I was going to stay home, but they said we had to go. We also had to go the way they told us to go, not the way we wanted. And if we could, my son might still be alive. He was killed early saturday morning with us still looking for a place to stop. So don't tell me about our govt's great efforts and don't tell me I should have left earlier either. My house is still standing, with a few tree limbs in the yard. But i don't have something that was a lot more dearer to me and that is my son. What you hear about what people went through is not Bull. It is fact. So Pres Bush and Gov. Perry, you still have a lot to learn. and I hope that no one else has to pay the price before you can get it right.
Margaret Tyler, Crosby TX 77532 (Sent Sep 26, 2005 5:44:53 PM)
We (a friend and I together, so we would only use one car) packed up food, water, air mattresses and bedding, along with essential clothing and left early Thursday morning. We had no idea that the drive that normally takes us 3 hours to get to Nacogdoches would take us 30 hours, and the last 2 1/2 hours our gas light would be on. We made it to our destination at Stephen F. Austin State University to stay in my daughter's dorm. A lot of people didn't make it and were stranded on the side of the road. We drove about 3 mph or less the entire time and only stopped to go to the bathroom once. We had to beg to be let in a hotel lobby to do that. At the time we left, we didn't know the storm would move to the east and we would be right in the path, but that's the chance you take living on the coast. As to the lady who wanted to know about the Jasper area, my daughter's boyfriend is from that area, and he as been in touch with them. There is lots of damage in the area, and they were told they could be without electricity for up to a month. Would I leave again? Yes, because the smart thing to do is get out of the way, since you don't know what last minute turns these things can take. Why didn't we get out sooner? I'm a school teacher and I am responsible for 120 lives every day, and if they are there, I am there. School was not dismissed until Wednesday afternoon, so until then, I had a job to do. We sat here in Houston and talked about the people in New Orleans who didn't get out and asked ourselves, "Why didn't they just head away from it?" and we didn't want to be in the same boat and caught here if it did hit. My prayers are with the people of east Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama who took the brunt of Katrina and Rita.
Dana K., Houston, Texas (Sent Sep 27, 2005 9:13:28 AM)
We are a large community here on the east caost in Myrtle Beach South Carolina and we are used to hurricane coming in on us. Our local goverment has never had a problem in the last 10 to 15 yrs with evacuation. The U S goverment is responsible for all the deaths and the aftermath not the the mayors and govoners were begging for help and if we have a hurricante on the east side this season we can just fend for ourselvs, because since the last election of president everything has went downhill i think Fema is a joke put the blame where it belongs with the White House May God have mercy on all of us making our homes on the coast and pray that the ones that have lost everything will so get everything back twice a good
Nancy H Myrtle Beach South Carolina (Sent Sep 27, 2005 8:40:00 PM)
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