Weather the Storm

I was living just outside of Houston, Texas in the fall of 2005. The recent devastation of Hurricane Katrina was fresh on our minds when we heard about a category 5 storm heading right towards Houston. Nobody wanted another New Orleans and the city of Houston (the 4th largest in the United States) was evacuated.

In retrospect, it is interesting to think about the role that technology played in this process. First, it took powerful computers to help predict the existence of a storm, the storm's strength, and its trajectory. Second, while the evacuation was not perfectly executed, and many people sat in their cars in the heat for hours, it would have been impossible to get away from the city at all without modern conveyances. Third, the chaos that accompanies a massive evacuation could cause families to be separated for long periods of time, not knowing the fate of loved ones and property. Cell phones and the Internet allow evacuees to communicate regardless of their current location (assuming the infrastructure has not been damaged).

It is true that hurricane Rita did not end up striking Houston directly. It ended up making landfall east of Houston in much less densely populated area; causing great chaos in that region. In the end, the most traumatic experience for many Houstoners was not the storm, but the evacuation. I am glad that I was there for such an evacuation now, and not 20 years ago. One can only imagine how another 20 years of innovation will allow us to better weather nature's storms.

Post Inspiration: A story about technology in the recent California wildfires: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/10/fire_technology?currentPage=1