Hurricane Rita evacuation: 20 years later, lessons learned

HOUSTON — Twenty years ago, Hurricane Rita triggered the largest and deadliest evacuation in U.S. history. More than 3.7 million people fled Houston and southeast Texas as the storm approached, turning freeways into a gridlocked crisis zone.

Rita set its eyes on Houston just 20 days after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans. With memories of flooded neighborhoods and stranded residents still fresh, fear spread quickly across Houston.

“There was fear,” recalled former Houston Mayor Bill White. “It started getting bigger and bigger and more powerful. At the same time, we had 200,000 new residents who had evacuated from New Orleans.”

Local officials issued mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders across the region. What happened next shocked even them.

The call to evacuate set off an exodus of nearly four million people — two-thirds of whom didn’t need to leave.

“This is the largest mass evacuation in U.S. history,” KHOU 11 news anchors reported at the time.

Highways turned into parking lots. Cars inched forward for hours in sweltering heat. Fuel ran out. Tempers frayed. For some, the nightmare stretched more than 24 hours.

“I remember not moving,” said Kam Franklin of the Houston band The Suffers, who evacuated with her family to San Antonio. “We were still in the car for hours and hours—it just didn’t seem real.”

Francisco Sanchez, then a spokesman for Harris County’s Office of Emergency Management, watched the chaos unfold from TranStar. 

“Not only was there a lack of fuel, we also had a lack of medical support, a lack of designated routes to get people where they needed to go,” he said.

In the end, more than 107 people died during the evacuation — more than the storm itself. Among them were 23 nursing home residents who perished when their evacuation bus caught fire.

Rita ultimately shifted east, sparing Houston from a direct hit. But the lessons left behind would reshape how Texas prepares for storms.

Two decades later, emergency officials say Houston is better prepared. Texas now has a zip code-based evacuation plan, with clear zones to help determine who should leave and who should stay. There’s also closer coordination between state and local governments, as well as designated evacuation routes marked along major highways.

“If you’re not in a mandatory evacuation zone, sheltering in place during a storm is the much safer option,” Sanchez said.

Still, he adds, humility is critical. “We ought to be very humble about the disasters we have yet to face. I think we are very well prepared, but the plans we have right now are simply our starting point.”

The Rita evacuation changed Houston forever. For many, it was a reminder that when hurricanes threaten, preparation and personal planning can mean the difference between safety and chaos.

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