I was in Houston during Hurricane Rita in 2005, and we tried to evacuate. We got on the freeway, sat in the traffic for a while, made it about one exit down the road before we concluded the storm would hit before we actually made it out of town, got off at the next exit and went home to ride it out at home. I don't think Houston is a city that was designed to be evacuated. It's just not feasible.
I'm sure an exacerbating factor was 250k extra Katrina-evacuees[1] from New Orleans who had just arrived in Houston a few weeks before (I was one of those people), who had all just seen the TV coverage of people stuck on roofs after Katrina and heard all the victim-blaming that said it was their fault for staying. Previously I wouldn't have evacuated for a storm like Rita, but after living through Katrina a few weeks prior, I thought I'd better at least try to get out of town.
I'm sure an exacerbating factor was 250k extra Katrina-evacuees[1] from New Orleans who had just arrived in Houston a few weeks before (I was one of those people), who had all just seen the TV coverage of people stuck on roofs after Katrina and heard all the victim-blaming that said it was their fault for staying. Previously I wouldn't have evacuated for a storm like Rita, but after living through Katrina a few weeks prior, I thought I'd better at least try to get out of town.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/aug/25/new-orleans-...