This afternoon’s reprieve is over. Rain pouring down again. But the reprieve gave us a chance to get people out of their homes.

I keep seeing people criticizing our local officials for not ordering an evacuation. Had they done so, it would have been madness.

1. Too many people here cannot evacuate. They are poor, disabled, elderly. They have nowhere to go, cannot afford a hotel, etc.

2. Houston floods all of the time. We knew this would be bad. No one could understand this was going to be a 1,000 year flood.

3. When the city tried to empty out for Hurricane Rita it was deadly. You have to have someplace for people to go, gas available…we’re talking about 6.5 million people leaving a city. We evacuated for Rita (had a baby at the time) and it took us 12 hours to drive what usually takes an hour. Now, imagine water starts rising with all of those vehicles on the streets. No way.

Despite what you are seeing on the news, the vast bulk of people in this city are safer in their homes. Had all of us tried to get on the streets at the same time the city would have stopped and the rain would still have come.