As Texans return home, many say ‘our house is history’
As flood waters recede from Hurricane Harvey, thousands are set to return to their homes on Sunday to survey damage from unprecedented flooding that devastated densely populated areas of Texas, as worries mount about health risks.
Harvey, which came ashore on August 25 as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in 50 years, is expected to be one of the costliest natural disasters in US history, having displaced more than 1 million people and leaving wreckage in an area stretching for more than 480 kilometers which officials said would take years to repair.
Thirteen Superfund sites, heavily contaminated former industrial zones, in Texas were flooded or damaged by Hurricane Harvey, but the full impact on surrounding areas was not immediately clear, the US Environmental Protection Agency said on Saturday.
The announcement came amid rising concern about the health risks posed by Harvey’s record floodwaters, which contain a toxic soup of chemicals, oil and bacteria from Houston’s notoriously leaky sewer system.
For many in the Houston metropolitan area, which has an economy as large as Argentina’s, losses to individual families were cataclysmic.
Adrian Rodriguez, a local resident, returned on Saturday to his flood-hit home there where he lives with his wife and three young boys.
“I lost everything. All my children’s pictures of them growing up. Their birthday pictures. Their school projects of what they wanted to be when they grow up,” he said.
“There is furniture on the sidewalk that I’m still paying for,” he said. “Everything in the house is history.”
Damage from the storm is also posing an economic and humanitarian challenge for US President Donald Trump, who visited Houston on Saturday and met some of the thousands of people in evacuation shelters and rescue workers who have helped shuttle survivors to safety.
The visit gave Trump an opportunity to show an empathetic side, after some criticized him for staying clear of the disaster zone during a Texas visit on Tuesday. Trump said he did not want to hamper rescue efforts.