Having gone through several hurricanes and tropical storms/depressions here in Houston, I know its a real pain to evacuate. When Ike came through we were planning to leave. We live about 28 miles from the coast. Ike was more wind than rain, but at cat 3 and possibly 4 it seemed worth leaving. However, the evacuation of the area was not going all that well, with many people stuck on the road. At some point it was clear that if we tried to evacuate, we would just ride the storm out on the road, not all that far from our house. Ike was mostly a wind event, not a rain event. It hit us at night with the eye moving right over us. I can tell you that I would not ride out a storm like that again, unless I had no choice. We were lucky. Part of our second story drywall caved in and our fence was a mess, but there was no structural damage and we were fine. As for flood zones, we are not in a flood zone, but with Harvey last year, water was half way up our front yard and the major road behind our house was flooded as well. Many of the houses that were flooded in Harvey were not in flood zones. Many had never flooded before. I've lived in my house since 2005 and seen how climate change has made the storms wetter and wetter. Houston has now had several 100 year storms in the last 5 years. It seems we get one almost every year. Keep in mind that the flood zones have not been updated to reflect climate change. My advice: if it still looks bad tomorrow AND you think you make it out to someplace safe, do so. It is always a difficult decision. As a result, I've been looking at places to move to where climate change is expected to have less impact. I'd prefer not to have to make that decision, especially with pets, kids, and boats to evacuate.

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