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August 19, 2007
Bill King, a former mayor of Kemah, gained attention prior to the devastating 2005 hurricane season when he warned that the Houston area was not prepared for the landfall of a major hurricane. After Hurricane Rita, he served on the Governor's Task Force on Evacuation and, in 2006, received the National Hurricane Conference Outstanding Achievement Award for Mitigation. King recently talked with Houston Chronicle science writer Eric Berger about hurricane evacuations.
Q: What is one lesson the Houston area hasn't learned since Hurricane Rita?
A: I think the unlearned lesson is, who needs to evacuate and who does not. When I speak publicly on hurricanes, I frequently find people still do not have a clear feeling on whether they need to go and what the risks associated with evacuating — and not evacuating — are.
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Former Kemah Mayor Bill King says people still don't have a clear idea of who should evacuate.
| Q: During Rita, people who did not live in surge zones left and brought the evacuation to a standstill. This year, local officials seem to have made a point of telling those people to stay put. Is that a good policy?
A: I think the admonition of running from water and hiding from wind, as a general proposition, is good advice. I think there are some pretty notable exceptions to that, however.
One, if you live in a flood-prone area — even the uplands — I would evacuate, because in all likelihood there is going to be widespread flooding during a major storm. And while it's not the same as a surge zone, when waves are going to batter down your walls, having a couple feet of water in your home is obviously not a good thing and could be dangerous.
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