> The poor without cars and money are stuck again:
>
> <blockquote>Posted on Thu, Sep. 22, 2005
> No way out: Tears, anger as some try to flee and many poor are
> stuck
> DEBORAH HASTINGS
> Associated Press
> <http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/12715593.htm>
Being down here and in contact with people all over the county, I have to disagree that the poor w/out money or cars are stuck again as a blanket statement. It just doesn't wash with what is actually happening.
There are county and city officials still picking up people who want to evacuate and are air-lifting them out of Hobby and Intercontinental airports free of charge to destinations out of the hurricane's path. The bus ride to the airport is free, and there are several hundred going, the majority of whom are the disenfranchised poor, special needs, aged or homeless.
Not everyone who thinks they want to evacuate will be able to do so, but that number is not limited to the poor or those without cars. There are thousands of upper middle class and professional people and families who cannot evacuate, and they are stuck on the same roads as the rest of the minions locked in an infernal and horrendous gridlock on the highways.
There is also an assumption that everyone who wants to evacuate should do so or needs to do so. This is not necessarily the case. With the gridlock involved, which is also affecting the hundreds of buses transporting the poor, those without cars, etc., we have been advised for some time that to get on the road at this time (earlier in the day or certainly by now) is as dangerous as now weathering out the storm.
I don't disagree that there are people who are poor or without cars who are frustrated at not being able to leave, but this is not a burden carried solely by the poor and carless at all.
A glitch that does appear to have surfaced is the slowness with which the Texas Department of Public Safety has taken in formatting the highways to be one way on both sides, something that the mayor of Houston asked for prior to this morning's onslaught of gridlock. At a 7ish pm press conference, he revealed that the city had asked TxDoT and the governor for such an action 15 hours previous. Also requested were gas trucks from the National Guard to assist the hundreds of motorists running out of gas in gridlock. After a day of incredible heat, little movement and more cars still stalling from no gas, it was announced the trucks would start rolling out of northern Texas and arrive between 9 and 10 pm. I still haven't seen reports of their arrival.
- Deborah