What Would You Do..
You And the Family are evacuating, ( for whatever reason ) Work, fuel shortage, whatever you are late leaving, now you are in the biggest traffic jam of your life. As you sit in bumper to bumper traff...
Forum Discussion
Went through the evacuation for Rita. All roads leaving Houston were stop and go. Normal three and a half hour trip to near San Antonio turned into 17+ hour saga.
I grew up in this area and ran all the back roads as kid/teenager. There are certain bottle necks though that slow even the best down. Getting west of the Colorado and Brazos rivers for starters.
DPS shut all travel heading south down.
I saw all manner of people at their worst (Self Import). Driving through peoples yards/ditches to try and get ahead of the others on the roadway. Then threatening to wreck into folks on the road when a creek bridge/culvert forced them back onto the roadway.
I my opinion this reckless driving created a majority of the stalled traffic by their actions.
I did not own an RV at the time and I was leading a group of families out as a whole unit. Each vehicle had water, food, some blankets, etc. My truck had the saws, axes, fuel, etc that would be needed for the return back into the area to check our homes.
The filling stations were out of fuel. People ran out of fuel on the road. Many told tales of sitting in the same spot for 8 or more hours without moving and finally running out of fuel.
I was caught behind this one individual for about 5 hours trying to get over the Brazos river on one of the Farm to Market roads. The guy was in a Chevy S-10 pickup and had a 20 ft utility trailer hooked to it. He had a small 30 qt cooler in the back of the truck.
With patience robbing stand still of the traffic I took to giving everything a overly detailed eyeballing. This gent had two large projection screen tv's strapped down in the utility trailer. That was all the load he had.
Periodically a female passenger would jump out and grab a bottled cold drink out of the cooler. I could see the silhouette of her handing the bottle to the driver side occupant.
About 30 minutes later a bottle would fly out of the driver side of the S-10 and into the far side ditch it would land.
After a long while a disposable diaper came out the passenger side window. These two adults had a child in the vehicle. At no time did I see the female grab any other type of drink out of the cooler but what appeared to beer bottles.
For some reason (probably low on fuel) the back sliding window was opened. I could see two small kids head bobbing around one the inside.
Towards the end of stay behind this guy the female got out and walked back to my truck. If my wife had not been sitting in the passenger seat with our grand daughter the female probably would have left when she saw the gun rack in the back window.
Anyway, she asked if we had some water we could spare for her children. My wife gave her three bottles of water and some oranges we had. I asked my wife "Why only three waters?" She had noticed the beer runs also and she figured if he wanted some water then "he" could come ask me and not her.
Several hours later and coming on dark again we were making some progress. We were about half way to our destination. A status check of fuel for the vehicles in our party found that four of them were nearly out of fuel. We found an empty parking lot and "circled our wagons".
Across the street was a gas station with what appeared to at least 40 cars jammed into the lot with many more sitting on the shoulder of the road. This was a common site during this ordeal. People jammed into stations waiting for fuel deliveries.
When we started pulling out our fuel cans and filling our vehicle some of the people took notice and started to stare. It was a very uneasy situation. I am glad that none of that group got any closer than the median of the highway between us and them. It could have gotten real ugly, really fast.
When we arrived at our destination every vehicle was on the fumes of their second fill up. Normally, this trip takes half a tank of gas.
I will be honest in saying that in the scenario that this thread topic is about, I really do not know how I would react.
Going through Harvey recently I have a better attitude towards most people. The way people pulled together to help each other was refreshing. We did not wait for Uncle Sugar to come help.
So I will have to say that I am on the fence for how I would react.
I grew up in this area and ran all the back roads as kid/teenager. There are certain bottle necks though that slow even the best down. Getting west of the Colorado and Brazos rivers for starters.
DPS shut all travel heading south down.
I saw all manner of people at their worst (Self Import). Driving through peoples yards/ditches to try and get ahead of the others on the roadway. Then threatening to wreck into folks on the road when a creek bridge/culvert forced them back onto the roadway.
I my opinion this reckless driving created a majority of the stalled traffic by their actions.
I did not own an RV at the time and I was leading a group of families out as a whole unit. Each vehicle had water, food, some blankets, etc. My truck had the saws, axes, fuel, etc that would be needed for the return back into the area to check our homes.
The filling stations were out of fuel. People ran out of fuel on the road. Many told tales of sitting in the same spot for 8 or more hours without moving and finally running out of fuel.
I was caught behind this one individual for about 5 hours trying to get over the Brazos river on one of the Farm to Market roads. The guy was in a Chevy S-10 pickup and had a 20 ft utility trailer hooked to it. He had a small 30 qt cooler in the back of the truck.
With patience robbing stand still of the traffic I took to giving everything a overly detailed eyeballing. This gent had two large projection screen tv's strapped down in the utility trailer. That was all the load he had.
Periodically a female passenger would jump out and grab a bottled cold drink out of the cooler. I could see the silhouette of her handing the bottle to the driver side occupant.
About 30 minutes later a bottle would fly out of the driver side of the S-10 and into the far side ditch it would land.
After a long while a disposable diaper came out the passenger side window. These two adults had a child in the vehicle. At no time did I see the female grab any other type of drink out of the cooler but what appeared to beer bottles.
For some reason (probably low on fuel) the back sliding window was opened. I could see two small kids head bobbing around one the inside.
Towards the end of stay behind this guy the female got out and walked back to my truck. If my wife had not been sitting in the passenger seat with our grand daughter the female probably would have left when she saw the gun rack in the back window.
Anyway, she asked if we had some water we could spare for her children. My wife gave her three bottles of water and some oranges we had. I asked my wife "Why only three waters?" She had noticed the beer runs also and she figured if he wanted some water then "he" could come ask me and not her.
Several hours later and coming on dark again we were making some progress. We were about half way to our destination. A status check of fuel for the vehicles in our party found that four of them were nearly out of fuel. We found an empty parking lot and "circled our wagons".
Across the street was a gas station with what appeared to at least 40 cars jammed into the lot with many more sitting on the shoulder of the road. This was a common site during this ordeal. People jammed into stations waiting for fuel deliveries.
When we started pulling out our fuel cans and filling our vehicle some of the people took notice and started to stare. It was a very uneasy situation. I am glad that none of that group got any closer than the median of the highway between us and them. It could have gotten real ugly, really fast.
When we arrived at our destination every vehicle was on the fumes of their second fill up. Normally, this trip takes half a tank of gas.
I will be honest in saying that in the scenario that this thread topic is about, I really do not know how I would react.
Going through Harvey recently I have a better attitude towards most people. The way people pulled together to help each other was refreshing. We did not wait for Uncle Sugar to come help.
So I will have to say that I am on the fence for how I would react.
