Mike Tolson has a pretty good article that sums up Houston's response to Rita: run, run, run.

This time we ran. Having seen the handiwork of Rita's vicious cousin, Katrina, all of Houston's coastal suburbs and a good percentage of everybody else in the area decided that discretion was the better part of valor. There was no talk of hurricane parties.

Some 3 million people fled from Rita, an unprecidented migration. The media and forecasters needed to do a better job in telling people in certain areas when to leave. We were close to the zone C evacuation zone, so we decided to leave in the event that Rita maintained it's catagory 5 strength and directly hit Houston. But people in Hempstead, Conroe and Katy, much more inland, had no business leaving, I think. But it just goes to show that everyone was scared, and no one knew where it would hit, and how bad it would be. We really dodged the bullet, in the final analysis. Beaumont, an hour away by car, is hit very bad. Louisiana is devestated, again.

Update: The chronicle talks about the evacuation of Katy, many commenters think that wasn't a smart idea.