RIDING OUT THE STORM
As Houston reels from Harvey’s deadly fury and thousands seek shelter across city, there’s finally some relief in the forecast.
HOUSTON— With its flood defences strained, the crippled city of Houston anxiously watched dams and levees Tuesday to see if they would hold until the rain stops, and meteorologists offered the first reason for hope — a forecast with less than an inch of rain and even a chance for sunshine. The human toll continued to mount, both in deaths and in the ever-swelling number of scared people made homeless by the catastrophic storm that is now the heaviest tropical downpour in U.S. history.
The city’s largest shelter was overflowing when the mayor announced plans to create more space for thousands more people by opening more mega-shelters.
“We are not turning anyone away. But it does mean we need to expand our capabilities and our capacity,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said. “Relief is coming.”
Turner said he is imposing a midnight to 5 a.m. curfew to ensure public safety. Police Chief Art Acevedo said violators will be stopped, questioned, searched and arrested.
In all, authorities said at least 22 people had been confirmed dead from the storm. But they said it was difficult to know how many more were missing.
Louisiana’s governor offered to take in Harvey victims from Texas, and televangelist Joel Osteen opened his Houston megachurch, a 16,000-seat former arena, after critics blasted him on social media for not acting to help families displaced by the storm.
Meteorologists said the sprawling city would soon have a chance to dry out. When Harvey returns to land Wednesday, “it’s the end of the beginning,” National Hurricane Center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said. Harvey will spend much of Wednesday dropping rain on Louisiana before moving on to Arkansas, Tennessee and parts of Missouri, which could also see flooding.
But Feltgen cautioned: “We’re not done with this. There’s still an awful lot of real estate and a lot of people who are going to feel the impacts of the storm.”
The weather service forecast less of an inch for Houston on Wednesday, and only a 30-per-cent chance of showers and thunderstorms Thursday. Friday’s forecast called for mostly sunny skies with a high near 34 C.
In all, more than17,000 people have sought refuge in Texas shelters and that number seemed certain to increase, the American Red Cross said.
The city’s largest shelter, the George R. Brown Convention Center, held more than 9,000 people, almost twice the number officials originally planned to house there. The crowds included many from outside Houston.
Houston officials are also opening a NRG Park that can accommodate up to 10,000 evacuees.
A chemical plant in Crosby was in critical condition Tuesday night after its refrigeration system and inundated backup power generators failed, raising the possibility that the volatile chemicals on the site would explode.
Arkema, a maker of organic peroxides commonly used by the plastics and rubber industries, evacuated all personnel from the plant and was attempting to operate the facility remotely. The materials must be kept at low temperatures otherwise they could combust.
U.S. President Donald Trump offered up in-person reassurances Tuesday to Texans who felt the wrath of Harvey, promising local residents: “We are going to get you back and operating immediately.”
Starting his visit to Texas in windwhipped but sunny Corpus Christi, Trump’s motorcade passed broken trees, knocked down signs and fences askew as it made its way to a firehouse for a briefing with local officials.
“This was of epic proportion,” the president declared as he pledged to provide model recovery assistance. “We want to do it better than ever before. We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, ‘This is the way to do it.’ ”
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said he expected Texas officials to decide within 48 hours whether to accept his offer, which comes as Louisiana deals with its own flooding. About 500 people were evacuated from flooded neighbourhoods in southwest Louisiana.
The city has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for more supplies, including cots and food, for an additional 10,000 people, said the mayor, who hoped to get them no later than Wednesday.
Almost four days after the storm ravaged the Texas coastline as a Category 4 hurricane, authorities had confirmed only six deaths — including a woman killed Monday when heavy rains dislodged a large oak tree onto her trailer home in the small town of Porter and another woman who apparently drowned after her vehicle was swept off a bridge over the San Jacinto River in Walker County, north of Houston.
Authorities acknowledge that fatalities from Harvey could soar once the floodwaters start to recede from one of America’s most sprawling metropolitan centres. With files from The Washington Post