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fliptop [soylentnews.org] writes:

As I type this a historic weather event is crushing south Texas with enormous amounts of rain [noaa.gov] and massive flooding [cbslocal.com] leaving thousands of people in need of rescue [apnews.com].

So why wasn't an official evacuation order issued? Last Friday Governor Greg Abbott (R) urged people to evacuate, even if it was not mandatory [washingtonpost.com]. Shortly after the governor's press conference, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner (D) sent a tweet [twitter.com] advising people not rush to evacuate, saying no evacuation orders have been issued. Mayor Sylvester also addressed what he called "unfounded rumors," releasing a statement [click2houston.com] that said, "...Rumors are nothing new, but the widespread use of social media has needlessly frightened many people today."

Harris County's emergency management office also tried to debunk, via Twitter [t.co], what it called "false emails & FB posts" on August 24, suggesting people ignore the messages. The post it shared predicted 50 inches of rain (which experts are now also predicting) and 100,000 homes destroyed (it's not clear how many homes are currently flooded in Houston). All of which prompted people to wonder:

You said this was fake news but yet everything this "false" message said is happening. Two days ago we could've evacuated. https://t.co/ORtTyEodQt [t.co]

— Pickle Heidy (@cheidyy_) August 27, 2017 [twitter.com]

To be fair, Mayor Sylvester had a good reason [cnn.com] for not issuing an evacuation. In 2005 more than 100 people died [chron.com] during the evacuation of Houston for Hurricane Rita.

Source: Heavy.com [heavy.com]

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