Harvey makes 2nd landfall near Louisiana
HOUSTON: Tropical Storm Harvey on Wednesday made a second landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border, five days after making the first causing widespread destruction.
After pouring record rains on Texas, Tropical Storm Harvey made a second landfall on Wednesday to strike Louisiana, a state that still bears deep scars from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.
The second hit comes five days after the monster storm slammed onshore as a Category Four hurricane, pummelling the US Gulf coast with torrential rains that turned neighbourhoods into lakes in America’s fourth largest city, Houston.
The deadly storm claimed 30 lives and left thousands homeless even as Houston’s mayor declared a nighttime curfew to prevent looting and opportunistic crimes.
Harvey made its second landfall just west of the town of Cameron, the National Hurricane Center said, with “flooding rains” drenching parts of southeastern Texas and neighbouring southwestern Louisiana.
Louisiana residents braced for Harvey’s ferocious maximum sustained winds nearing 72 kilometres per hour, with forecasters predicting another five to 10 inches (13 to 25 centimetres) of rain could pour on the region.
They expect Harvey will gradually weaken to a tropical depression by tonight, meaning maximum sustained winds should slow.
But low-lying New Orleans was still girding for the storm, just a day after the 12-year anniversary of Katrina, which ravaged the vulnerable city famous for its jazz music and cuisine.
The New Orleans branch of the National Weather Service said a heavy rain threat remained over southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi through tomorrow, when relatively drier weather is finally slated to arrive.
One night prior to the second landfall, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu tweeted to “remind #NOLA that we are not yet in the clear,” urging residents to “remain vigilant and cautious.”
In Texas emergency crews were still struggling to reach hundreds of stranded people in a massive round-the-clock rescue operation - but the National Weather Service tweeted that weather conditions there were to at last improve.