Preparation means "ahead of time", not "on time". In our new just-in-time economy, there's not much reserves in place near the end user. Our transportation systems normally make up for this, but when they are disrupted by an emergency or that emergency produces a surge in demand, shortages can be severe. This was most disturbing with regard to gasoline (the oil industry has been running very lean for a long time, as I discussed in my blog RealCurrents), but it would have been a major issue, very soon, in a lot of other areas had Rita been a direct hit on the Houston metro area.

While Houstonians may not be particularly thrifty, they are resourceful. After the Home Depots had run out of plywood, I heard a story about a truck full of the stuff, with a line of vehicles following it to the store. Later the news reported similar stories of folks trailing gasoline trucks.

Even for someone like me who tends to become more calm during a crisis, rather than hyper, when you start coming up with images in your mind of your family huddled in the dark, the wind howling, your children screaming, and ominous noises coming from the attic, there's stress. Oh, yeah, there's stress. I can understand why people wanted to leave, never mind the advice to run from water, but hide from wind.

Nevertheless, as engineers understand, every choice in life involves trade-offs. The search for perfection, whether it be for perfect safety or something else, is futile and often produces poor judgment. We saw this in the case of the evacuations; apparently besides the bus fire that cost nearly two dozen lives, there were reportedly many other lives lost through traffic accidents and excess heat (generally the disabled or elderly).

Public officials must understand that many people are very poor at assessing and dealing with risk and uncertainty, and adjust their warnings accordingly. As I noted, there were still being calls made for voluntary evacuations, if inclined, hours after TV reports showed every major artery clearly in gridlock.

People tend to focus on the big risk/reward, just as with the lottery, rather than minimizing overall risk, and even then many evacuees didn't do a lot of little things that could have substantially reduced risk, such as carrying adequate supplies of food and water. One Sugar Land father and his two children were killed when they were ejected from their vehicle in an accident, because they weren't even wearing seat belts.

While authorities and media here have done an excellent job, it seems, teaching the public about the danger of hurricanes and how to understand and prepare for them, I guess a similar educational effort about how to prepare for and carry out an evacuation is also needed.

As I noted earlier, I am very thankful that our family came out fine. Hurricane Rita was certainly not a storm to be trifled with. Besides going through a useful drill that should help us better assess our capabilities and prepare more quickly next time, we've reaped a further benefit - hurricane prep is also a great excuse to re-organize your garage and throw out the "junk"!