IDL TIFF file
What’s’ coming? A Hurricane Harvey sized bucket of criticism.
I’ve never been a fan of Houston mayor, Sylvester Turner, career politician. He’s been running for various offices for decades. He ran for mayor when I first moved to Houston as a Reporter in 1990. He finally won his mayoral lollipop in recent years, when I’m not sure, but fairly recently. I’ve interviewed the man on several occasions and frankly, found him modtbunlikable . Yes, he’s Black and of course, that instantly makes me a racist.
Please.
My dislike of the man had nothing to do with his color— it was with the man. He was arrogant and a bit prickly during my encounters with him. Unlikeable qualities in a person of any color. And I wasn’t the only Houstonian to feel this way. Look at his won/ lost record in political contests over the last 30 years.
Anyway, I’m seeing interviews of rescued flood victims AND their rescuers on various news organizations blaming Sly for not ordering a mandatory evacuation. Several people rescued said had they known it was going to be “that bad” they would have left last week.
Well, had they listened, read or watched local and national to newscasts for the past week, they would have known. Does Mayor Turner not own a TV? God knows, he never shied away from a live mic in his life, so we know he’s familiar with television. So now, the city he’s fought so hard to lead is underwater and he’s going to get blamed. He ordered no mandatory evacuations, there were no “all hands on deck” email or texts for first responders, much less “get out now” Houstonians. Again this is according to some very tired angry and damp first responders and the tired, angry , and damp people they rescued. All agreed the city wasn’t ready….not even near ready for weather they HAD to have known what was coming.
Well, that means, he was either given very bad advice or made a stupid decision on his own because he wasn’t paying attention. The track of this storm was well-known, as were they unprecedented meteorological factors that they knew would keep it basically stagnate, spinning and meandering the Texas coast going nowhere. By Saturday morning, weather experts were even more certain this would be a major rain event for Houston than they were a day prior to the storm making landfall.
Let’s be fair– Mayor Turner had the same access to the same weather information as Houstonians. For a flooded out, big gut Bubba waiting on an air boat to come take him to safety to say he had no idea this was going to be the rain event is just an example of his ignorance.
But why didn’t Turner order a mandatory evacuation? I haven’t seen any interviews with him. Other mayors of the tiny coastal towns that Harvey all but erased from the map have been interviewed….often more than once. In fact, I’ve been watching coverage consistently , and haven’t even heard his name mentioned, only his title. Why? This is Houston. A financial hub, an oil Mecca, it has a massive international shipping port and by the next US census, it’ll no doubt, be the country’s third largest city.
Back to Turner: .a mandatory evacuation order can’t force people out of their homes. And trying to get more than two million people out of the metro area alone would be an even bigger nightmare. But why no communication with citizens? That’s according to pissed off rescued people. . They were told to hunker down. In six feet of water in places that historically flood in a passing thunderstorm???? How does that Happen? And if there wasn’t a mass evacuation plan, especially after the calamity of the massive traffic jam caused by Rita, 12 years ago, why? Didn’t Houstom emergency management learn anything? And what about the responsibility of the citizenry? There could and should be mandatory evacuation plans around every community with a bayou in it. Ready to implement at a moments notice during hurricane season. Other than that, telling someone to hunker down who lives a block away from a bayou about to experience a very well publicized 500 year flood is damn near criminal, especially with six to seven feet of water in your one story house. Anyone care to tell me how to hunker down under those circumstances???????
I remember during Hurricane Ike, the director of FEMA shocked people up and down Galveston Island that if they chose to stay, they should get a permanent marker and write their names and SSNs on their arms or legs so recovery teams could ID them. Many stayed, and many died, mainly on Crystal Beach, north of Galveston. Many who stayed are known as BOIs which stands for ” born on the island”. This is apparently, a major source of pride…..and stubbornness. They know better. They ride out storms in their homes and ultimately have burials at sea. Like captains who go down with their ships. That mindset also exists in Houston; and other places, too. I get it—-Home is where the heart is. And you can replace stuff but not people, yes, but stuff isn’t all that’s that easy to replace either. You saved what feels like a lifetime for a house, a car, a big TV….other things. I can understand wanting to stay to protect home and hearth, but I have MUCH better understanding of not wanting to die.
Despite, what Turner did or didn’t do politically (or humanistically—I’m no longer a Houstonian, don’t live there and have no idea as to his specific mayoral involvement), I’m very proud of my former fellow Houstonians who needed no federal prodding to get their own small boats, ski boats, air boats, air mattresses—anything that would float to help in the rescue process . Blacks pulling white people on makeshift rafts , Whites rowing an Hispanic family in a boat to safety. Asians, blacks and whites, young and old alike, working together with one goal— surviving the flood. It was the kumbaya moment of the year.
But that’ll all be forgotten . This storm is already being politicized. The Sunday morning news shows were asking Texas officials about President Trump’s response, how good or bad it was, how fast or slow he’d been to react. But Mayor Turner won’t be left out of the equation. He can’t be. Everything begins at the local level during anyemergency. This situation is too serious, too big and still ongoing as I type and sadly, with a still unknown casualty count. Trump will be criticized just because well, he’s Trump. But Turner also as some very serious questions to answer.
He’s a Democrat, by the way.