Houston residents sort through ruins
Some Gulf Coast residents ripped up soggy carpeting, cut out sheet rock from walls marked by the height floodwaters had reached and sorted through destroyed clothes and other belongings on Monday, 10 days after Harvey swept onto land and caused billions of dollars in damage.
Houston’s mayor insisted that America’s fourth-largest city is “open for business,” but with areas under water, people not yet in their homes and city services not yet fully restored, the disasters created by Harvey are by no means resolved.
Mayor Sylvester Turner said much of the city was hoping to get back on track after Labor Day, a traditional day to honour workers that took on new meaning in Texas, where people were cleaning out their former homes.
“Anyone who was planning on a conference or a convention or a sporting event or a concert coming to this city, you can still come,” he told CBS. “We can do multiple things at the same time.”
One worry, of further explosions at a damaged chemical plant, eased after officials carried out a controlled burn Sunday evening of highly unstable compounds at the Arkema plant in Crosby. Three trailers had previously caught fire after Harvey’s floodwaters knocked out generators.
Authorities said Monday it is safe for residents of a 1.5-mile (2.4-kilometre) evacuation zone around the Arkema plant to return. They were forced to leave Tuesday.
Floodwaters also have inundated at least five toxic waste Superfund sites near Houston and some may be damaged, though Environmental Protection Agency officials have yet to assess the full extent of what occurred.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told CNN the EPA is “working on some of them already,” but “they have restraints on their ability to check out some of them just simply because of the water.”
Turner said Houston’s drinking water hadn’t been affected by the storm, but told CBS, “We would hope that the EPA would be on the ground now to take a look at those Superfund sites, to make sure that contamination is contained and limited.”
Other issues across the region: too much water still in houses, but no water to drink.
Utility crews went door-to-door Sunday shutting off power and warning those still in some waterlogged homes in western parts of the city that more flooding was possible — not from rain, but from releases of water from overtaxed reservoirs. Thousands of Houston dwellings were under mandatory evacuation orders, though about 300 people were thought to be refusing to leave.
People briefly returned Sunday to some homes in the area, which included brick twostorey and ranch homes bordering Buffalo Bayou, to try to salvage valuables.