Page 177 - Brita News Today

Evacuated many at the same time. from the tribune, of the 139 daen deaths linked to hurricane rita, people died in a bus fire. 10 others died from hypothermia due to heat expiring in their cars. many people ran out of gas over traffic jams that lasted two straight days. in contrast, here is what some houston area highways look like this weekend instead. former mayor of houston who ran the city during rita and katrina joins me by phone. bill white. thanks for your time to might, mr. white. first,...

Already has come, that theyll be okay and, of course, places down river, the need only gets more and more great. all water finds its way to the bayou in that part of the state. miguel, stay safe and stay in contact if we need to tell people something. joining us is thad allen, a former u.s. national incident commander who led the federal response during hurricanes katrina and rita, and we have lisa monaco, adviser to president obama, communicating disaster response. thad, give us perspective abo...

There? >> complete destruction. complete destruction, im seeing lives turned up side down. very emotional people. not sure where to go, what to do any more. its been heart wrenching to say the least. >> what are they able to take with them? they able to take with them? >> well, unfortunately, not very much. a couple of sets of clothes, you know, the family pets, those things. you know, just the limited space in the boats and our high water rescue vehicles, we just cant have them take a whole lot...

Former mayor of houston who ran the city during rita and katrina joins me by phone. bill white. thanks for your time to might, mr. white. first, how are things right now in houston? >> the water is still coming. and ill tell you what, computer models 20, 25 inches of rain, and some parts of the nations fourth largest city, one of the largest metropolitan areas, are getting 40 to 50 inches of rain in the forecast now. which is to put it in perspective, about the same amount of rain as you would n...

Not dealing with anything we faced before and making tough decisions and i hope people will understand it. >> congressman, given that, given the unprecedented nature of this, do you think the mayor of houston should have evacuated more people. >> i agree with what the mayor did. i was here when we had rita, when we had millions of people trying to exit the city without proper contra-flow lanes. i remember the heat strokes people suffered. i remember there were fights that took place on the roadw...

Go first, then you could go second, then third. it made it so much easier. they put porta potties along the highways. all lanes went in one direction out of the coastal areas. it worked beautifully. >> they are worried about reed. last time they left that region because of rita. they had a bunch of people stuck in traffic and 60 people died. you can understanding it and one thing is pretty clear. there was no way they were going to escape without any damage or finger pointing because no one has ...

Hospitals, our physicians, are made available to help. dallas, texas, is opening its doors right now. but the bottom line is, youre laerg people cannot get out of houston based upon the outer ring, all that water flowing in. were going to have to be prepared in 10, 15, 20 days from now, to offer the same assistance that might have been done overnight in the future for some period of time. this is going to be an amazing effort and i think texans are up to helping each other. its going to take all...

Disastrous situation, this human tragedy of what is happening there, deserve at least in progress good grades. >> eric: you talk about presidents going down too soon. he will be there tomorrow but obviously avoiding houston because of the pictures that were seeing and trying not to interfere with the disaster recovery efforts there. >> i think theyre doing this exactly the right way and thats why i say i give them very good grades in progress. >> eric: on the broader issue of local government an...

Activity. we have a river about to overflow and theres a mandatory evacuation. >> you mentioned there are emergency evacuations going on. do you think the mayor should have ordered evacuations earlier? >> caller: if you are talking the city of houston now, icon cur with what the mayor did and i understand what many people are expressing. i was also around when we had rita in 2005. at that time, people were out on the roads. when you evacuate millions from houston, texas, where is over 600 square...

Debate on friday about whether or not houston should be evacuated under a mandatory or even a partial evacuation. the governor of your state felt one way and the mayor of houston felt divenly. how do you feel? >> well, i think, again, there will be plenty of time to assess ways in which we could have responded better. for those that have critiqued the way that the evacuation was not implemented we have to go back, at least for texans, to rita, where we had dozens if not hundreds of people die on...