Motorist Advisory
Hope You Took The Scenic Route...
Now that Rita has taken an eastward turn, no doubt there's plenty of evacuees that are getting pretty steamed at being told to get out of town and consequently spending 20+ hours just to get to Waco.
It won't take too long for the knuckleheads to start blaming the gummint for ordering the evacuation, bleating that "they should have known" that Rita wasn't going to walk right up I-45, and call the entire evacuation a 'quagmire' and 'miserable failure'.
Ok, I need to let a guest speaker come in and address all the whiners that will inevitably play Monday morning quarterback about this whole process:
Thanks, Penn.
Let me put this into perspective. In the space of less than 72 hours, we have moved very close to 1% OF THE ENTIRE FI$KING U.S. POPULATION!!!! at least 100 miles inland. Yes, people have been inconvenienced. People have died. I was almost sick to my stomach when I heard about the bus full of elderly burning just south of Dallas. (My job this past week has been helping special needs citizens get directed onto evac buses. If the burned bus had been one I'd put people on, I don't know how I'd have reacted. It wouldn't have been pretty.)
Regardless of the collateral damage, or breakage, or whatever you want to call it, the evacuation was necessary and proper. There's no way you mount that sort of operation without any losses. You should not have an expectation for a life of perfect comfort, especially when Mother Nature comes knocking. Hell, just do the math. 2.7 million people, divided by, say, 1.5 million cars, trucks and buses at an average vehicle length of 20 feet equals 264 vehicles per mile. Basically, a bumper-to-bumper line of cars on the Great Circle Parkway stretching from here to just shy of Moscow. That's Moscow, Russia, mind you, not Moscow, TX.
As for the gasoline shortage, again, that's inevitable. When that many people stick a straw into the Big Gulp at the same time, you shouldn't be surprised when the folks at the end of the line come up empty.
This ain't utopia, folks, it's Texas. Real life just slapped us all in the face. It ain't pretty, but we're dealing. So, cowboy up, count your blessings, and have a safe trip home.
Oh, and smack those annoying doomsayer reporters for me.
Now that Rita has taken an eastward turn, no doubt there's plenty of evacuees that are getting pretty steamed at being told to get out of town and consequently spending 20+ hours just to get to Waco.
It won't take too long for the knuckleheads to start blaming the gummint for ordering the evacuation, bleating that "they should have known" that Rita wasn't going to walk right up I-45, and call the entire evacuation a 'quagmire' and 'miserable failure'.
Ok, I need to let a guest speaker come in and address all the whiners that will inevitably play Monday morning quarterback about this whole process:
Thanks, Penn.
Let me put this into perspective. In the space of less than 72 hours, we have moved very close to 1% OF THE ENTIRE FI$KING U.S. POPULATION!!!! at least 100 miles inland. Yes, people have been inconvenienced. People have died. I was almost sick to my stomach when I heard about the bus full of elderly burning just south of Dallas. (My job this past week has been helping special needs citizens get directed onto evac buses. If the burned bus had been one I'd put people on, I don't know how I'd have reacted. It wouldn't have been pretty.)
Regardless of the collateral damage, or breakage, or whatever you want to call it, the evacuation was necessary and proper. There's no way you mount that sort of operation without any losses. You should not have an expectation for a life of perfect comfort, especially when Mother Nature comes knocking. Hell, just do the math. 2.7 million people, divided by, say, 1.5 million cars, trucks and buses at an average vehicle length of 20 feet equals 264 vehicles per mile. Basically, a bumper-to-bumper line of cars on the Great Circle Parkway stretching from here to just shy of Moscow. That's Moscow, Russia, mind you, not Moscow, TX.
As for the gasoline shortage, again, that's inevitable. When that many people stick a straw into the Big Gulp at the same time, you shouldn't be surprised when the folks at the end of the line come up empty.
This ain't utopia, folks, it's Texas. Real life just slapped us all in the face. It ain't pretty, but we're dealing. So, cowboy up, count your blessings, and have a safe trip home.
Oh, and smack those annoying doomsayer reporters for me.
posted by El Capitan | 7:48 PM
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