Rita evacuation killed 107.

Wow. I sure hope the awful mess that was the Rita evacuation and the lives lost make officials think twice before evacuating an entire urban area in the future. I think both Corpus Christi and Houston area officials should have been much more selective in their evacuation calls. There is a difference between mobile homes, flood prone areas, or beach houses and well built houses on high ground well inland. It is only a very rare circumstance that justifies evacuating it all, and this wasn’t it.

I know this episode will make me even more reluctant to evacuate. Not that an evacuation would ever kill me. But it’s also highly unlikely that a hurricane would ever kill me. Give me the choice between 20 hour gridlock and a hurricane, and I’ll take the hurricane most of the time.