Houston is much bigger than NJ CAP...WAY BIGGER. Nearly all gas stations ran out of gas two DAYS before the storm hit. With a the roads in gridlock there was no way to get gas once you ran out. It was a scorching hot day, no winds, and on the road for hours and hours on end.
From Wiki:
Average travel times to Dallas were 24–36 hours, travel times to Austin were 12–18 hours and travel times to San Antonio were 10–16 hours. Many motorists ran out of gas or experienced breakdowns in temperatures that neared 100 °F (38 °C). Traffic volumes did not ease for nearly 48 hours as more than three million residents evacuated the area in advance of the storm.This was the largest evacuation in U.S. history.
i understand that. it does not create valid reasons for the problems.
shore gas stations on thursday night, looked like the fuel rationing days of 1979 all over again. i would imagine they ran out of gas that night. traffic was only leaving on that night by the rt49/rt55 route. for whatever reason, no one thought of using the garden state parkway, which would've been a quick way out.
even so, there were traffic jams on the way out,which i avoided by using the gsp. there were no collisions that i observed on my way into cape may county that night.
on friday morning. the evac became mandatory, tolls were suspended on the gsp, and the atlantic city expressway. all inboud traffic was halted, and the evac proceeded calmly, and orderly, from what i can tell. a friend of mine is a truck driver, and was doing his route down that way friday around 5am....and ran into traffic. it pissed him off, but it was orderly.
anyway, i feel it's either time to get back on topic of the hurricane, or back out, before we get the thread locked, as will happen........
also, put on some news from over this way. you'll see it was worse than you think.......