Rita at peak intensity had the entire country scared shitless, and I don't blame a single person in Houston who wanted to get the hell out. It was a classic case of just a few wobbles dramatically changing intensity and landfall. We seemed to have learned absolutely nothing from that incident in regards to "maybe this many people shouldn't live in this area this close together," and now it's an issue again. Because this is America, we will continue to learn nothing and we'll surely go through this again in another decade when another 2 million people are there.
I know this sounds quaint by standards now after brushes with $5 gas, but all the oil production offline that fall was the first time a lot of the country ever saw $3/gallon, and although there were never really panics or rushes on fuel people were on edge everywhere as it went up 5-10 cents a day at times.
That's terrible, no way should have it got anywhere that high.
Back when it was around 10 I said it'd be a miracle if it didn't end up 100 times that after everything is searched. I stand by that. Katrina killed 1200 specifically in the NOLA "if they weren't black/poor/poor blacks maybe they would have had a chance," zone and 1800 total. This is over a larger area! Harvey has destroyed across racial and economic barriers at least, which makes talk of response a lot less controversial. That was a bad, bad time for this country.