{"id":54,"date":"2005-09-22T06:27:07","date_gmt":"2005-09-22T10:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/2005\/09\/22\/diaspora-deja-vu-all-over-again\/"},"modified":"2005-09-22T06:27:07","modified_gmt":"2005-09-22T10:27:07","slug":"diaspora-deja-vu-all-over-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/2005\/09\/22\/diaspora-deja-vu-all-over-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Diaspora: deja vu all over again."},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

I owe credit for most of the title to an American refugee in h(er|is) blog called My Katrina<\/a>.
\nAnd now s\/he has to leave Houston due to Rita – deja vu all over again<\/a>.
\nBut s\/he is relatively lucky. The 1500 evacuees who were left at the
\nReliant Stadium [the new bigger and better stadium next to the
\nAstrodome] were supposed to be evacuated again. That’s a second stage
\nof the diaspora. <\/p>\n

The Bataan<\/a> had enough water for the people at Charity, the Superdome and
\nthe Convention Center. None of them had to die of thirst. It was
\ngenocide by inaction<\/a>. And it was foretold<\/a>.
\nI see Captain Nora was relieved of  command. Did they blame her
\nfor waiting for orders? A real man would have waited for orders? What
\nwould the men say about her if she had disobeyed orders? Bleeding
\nheart? Unmilitary?<\/p>\n

My brother lives in Houston. He is evacuating. He planned on leaving at
\n3:00 AM CDT. He didn’t get on the road  until 3:45 AM. I’m looking
\nat the Transtar traffic map<\/a>
\nand passing the info on via cell phone. The major evacuation routes to
\nthe North and West are jammed. Only  I-10 east going to Louisiana is
\nclear and even now at 4:33 AM, it is starting to get traffic. Refugee will
\nhave clear sailing to Baton Rouge. But Louisiana is also a disaster zone.
\nRita may turn to the east. Cyclone storms often do in the Northern
\nTemperate Zone.  The authorities may not let him in. Good luck refugee.<\/p>\n

Bill decided to stay off the major routes. He confirmed that Westheimer is clear. Transtar said it was.<\/p>\n

Bill just called again. He encountered heavy traffic on Westhiemer and
\nmade a turn. He is lost. I have Yahoo maps in another tab. He’s on
\nWestheimer Parkway in George Bush Park. He is now off the edge of the
\nTranstar map.  Westheimer Parkway continues west to 99 he will
\nhave to go north or south. North to 1-10 which is probably jammed.
\nBill’s friend in Dallas is watching the news on TV I-10 is a
\nnightmare.  He’s going south to 1093. <\/p>\n

Call. 1093 is jammed. I have no traffic information for him anymore
\n– only geographic data. “If I turn around, how far is it to I-10?
\nExcept I’ll have trouble turning around. Never mind. I guess it’s time
\nto grin and bear it. I  guess I’m going to San Antonio. Have a
\nlong breakfast, I’m not going anywhere for a while.” The goal is a
\nfriends place in Dallas to the North. Bill’s forced into a detour.
\nRefugee is going to Baton Rouge because s\/he could find no other place
\nto go.<\/p>\n

It took four phone calls to navigate through Eagle Lake and get on 102
\nto Columbus. Bill says most of the other drivers are on cell phones
\nthere are at least 5 million people on the move. There must be 2
\nmillion calls per hour coming from that part of the cellnet.<\/p>\n

I remember Amy Sweeney.  She was so afraid. And so brave. The
\nusual channels were in control of the terrorists. She called
\nreservations on her cell phone. Amazing common sense in the face of
\nterrible fear.. She could only believe she was risking her life.
\nShe could not know she was already doomed. Amazingly
\nuncommon sense. [Betty Ong in another post.]<\/p>\n

It was a long night for Bill. I was able to catch naps between
\nphone
\ncalls. Bill is in Austin to the west of Houston. 9 hours on the road to
\ngo 162 miles.- an average of 18 mph. Normal time is 3.5 hours. Bill’s
\nfriend is in Dallas. Rita has turned
\neast. Will Dallas be in danger? It looks like a close call. NWS thinks.
\nthey will experience high winds, but only gusts will reach hurricane
\nspeeds. Should Bill stay in Austin and invite his friend to join him?
\nNWS thinks there is a 5% probability of steady winds reaching hurricane
\nspeeds. Sounds to me like Austin is a little worse than Dallas. Bill
\ndoesn’t understand this based on the the projected track. But the
\nmodels undoubtedly include the weakening of the storm as it moves over
\nland. Dallas is to the north.<\/p>\n

But the eastward shift of the track is bad for refugee. Good luck refugee.<\/p>\n

I cannot find the NOLA’s from the Reliant\/Astrodome. Can you blogbuds help me?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I owe credit for most of the title to an American refugee in h(er|is) blog called My Katrina. And now s\/he has to leave Houston due to Rita – deja vu all over again. But s\/he is relatively lucky. The 1500 evacuees who were left at the Reliant Stadium [the new bigger and better stadium […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":168,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fensterm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}