The woodlands vs Clearlake, TX Family Relocation

[jasonamd]

Originally Posted by JoeAngelina

We were in the "Bay Area" South of Houston during Hurricane Ike. Evacuation was horrendous! I would never consider living in Clearlake again (parts went 10 feet under water during Ike). Otherwise, fun place. My wife was ill and all the hospitals were down. I ended up taking her to Central Texas for treatment. Clearlake Hospital's generators went out and, even though they admitted that my wife should be in the hospital, they gave her prescriptions (two were duplicates and would have killed her if not caught by the pharmacist). We plan on relocating to The Woodlands in the near future.

I left town the Friday morning before Ike hit. It took just under 3 hours to get to College Station where it usually takes 2. Far from horrendous. If you wait till the last minute of course it will be worse. The only parts of the Clear Lake area that flooded were ones right along Galveston Bay or along Clear Lake. No flooding in League City.

During Hurricane Rita, I have relatives who were on the road to Austin for 36 hours because of the poor evacuation planning (none) in that area. Good ole Guber Perry had the Belt Way blocked off for future use by the military, So everyone had to take I 45 or alternate routes. A lot of animals died in the cars.

The Rita mess occurred because of Katrina. Everyone saw what happened during Katrina the month before and panicked and left town. I know people in the Woodlands that evacuated. No amount of planning could have fixed what happened. I don't recall BW8 being blocked. No where in the Clear Lake area had any major damage...and barely had any rain. There was a evacuation plan...no one followed it.

[DanielWayne]

The Ike evacuation from Clear Lake wasn't that bad. They learned a lot of lessons about preparation from Rita. We did face a few jam-ups going to Irving, but nothing compared to Rita. It was much better organized for Ike. The Rita evacuation left me traumatized, but then again I did wait until late in the game.

The bad flooding in Clear Lake was only around the bay and next to large bodies of water. In fact, our apartment in Webster was about 1/4 mile from a lake, and didn't get much standing water at all according to our neighbors who stayed behind.

Rita didn't do anything to Clear Lake because my parents from the ravaged part of Tx came to stay with me in League City while the flooding subsided in their homes.