Harvey lands a second blow
UNITED STATES: The storm once known as Hurricane Harvey made its second landfall yesterday, dumping record rainfall and causing additional flooding in small Texas cities that lie east of devastated Houston.
Harvey, which had swung out into the Gulf of Mexico again, came ashore at dawn near the Texas-Louisiana border. Its rain bands preceded it, pounding Texas towns including Orange, Port Arthur and Beaumont with more than 60 centimetres of rain.
City officials said much of Port Arthur, population 55,000, was under water. A shelter for flood victims had flooded. One official estimated that water had entered one-third of the city’s buildings.
‘‘We need boats. We need large trucks, and we need generators,’’ said Tiffany Hamilton, a former city councilwoman helping to coordinate relief efforts in a city that is also without electricity.
About 130 kilometres to the west, the Houston area is just beginning to recover from the biggest rainstorm in the recorded history of the continental US.
Nearly 35,000 people are in shelters, and thousands of homes are still submerged. At least 37 people are dead, and that number is expected to climb as the water recedes.
Harris County authorities finally located a van containing six members of the same family that was washed off a road several days earlier. All six were dead.
Nearby, authorities discovered the bodies of two friends who had gone out in a boat on Tuesday, trying to rescue neighbours. They lost control in the current, drifted towards a sparking downed power line and fell in. Three other men, including two journalists from a British newspaper, suffered electrical burns but survived by clinging to a tree above the water.
The remnants of Harvey moved into Louisiana yesterday, travelling slowly to the northeast. Its peak winds decreased to around 65kmh, and the storm was predicted to weaken to a tropical depression overnight. . Louisiana officials, who had worried that Harvey might devastate their state as well, said the threat of flooding seemed to be lessening.
At the height of the flooding, between 25 and 30 per cent of Harris County - home to 4.5 million people in Houston and its near suburbs - was flooded, said Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the county flood control district. That is an area as large as New York City and Chicago combined.
More than 195,000 people have registered for federal assistance, a number that is expected to rise.
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administrator William ‘‘Brock’’ Long said it would take ‘‘many, many years’’ before the full scope of Harvey’s impact was clear.
US President Donald Trump has pledged swift federal aid. Texas Governor Greg Abbott said yesterday that, given the sheer number of people and geographical area affected, the aid package ‘‘should be far in excess’’ of the roughly US$120 billion allotted for Gulf Coast recovery after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Trump could request a package of emergency funding as soon as next week, a senior administration official said.
Buffalo Bayou, Houston’s main river, was still rising in some sections yesterday because of the release of water from upstream reservoirs.
Across Texas, the storm shut down 11 oil refineries and curtailed production at nine others, while causing damage leading to at least 45 releases of harmful chemicals. In Crosby, Texas, a chemical plant is in a critical condition after flooding disabled its refrigeration system and two backup power generators, raising the likelihood that volatile chemicals could warm up and catch fire or explode.
For those lucky enough not to be in a shelter, yesterday was a day to take stock of what Harvey left behind.
‘‘I feel like I’m dreaming,’’ said Julie Steptoe, who ventured to a flooded intersection in Kingwood, north of Houston. ‘‘I don’t know what to think. I’m hoping it turns out OK for everyone.’’
- Washington Post
I’m not a quitter, says May
British Prime Minister Theresa May says she wants to continue as the country’s leader beyond the next parliamentary election, not due until 2022, dismissing expectations that she could stand down as early as 2019, after Brexit. May’s authority has been badly damaged by an ill-judged election campaign earlier this year which cost her Conservative Party its majority in parliament and failed to provide a clear mandate for her Brexit strategy. After apologising, she won a temporary reprieve, with many Conservatives afraid that ousting her could collapse a fragile minority government. ‘‘I’m not a quitter,’’ May said yesterday in an interview with ITV News during a visit to Japan. Asked directly in an interview with the BBC whether she intended to fight the next election as leader of the Conservatives, she said: ‘‘Yes ... I’m here for the long term.’’
Search for girl expands
More than 150 gendarmes have scoured dense Alpine woodland in the hunt for a 9-year-old French girl who disappeared from a wedding party. The four-day search for Maelys de Araujo is making national headlines amid concern that she may have been abducted from the celebrations in Pont-de-Beauvoisin. Maelys was last seen on Sunday in a room set aside for children at the wedding venue. Police dogs picked up her scent from a cuddly toy and traced it to the car park, but stopped at the gate. Investigators say this may mean that Maelys got into a car and was driven away.
Ex-priest gets more jail time
Australia’s worst paedophile priest, Gerald Francis Ridsdale, has had another five years added to his jail term. The former Catholic priest was yesterday sentenced to 11 years for abusing another dozen children, including a 10-year-old girl sexually assaulted on a church altar. That adds another five years to his overall sentence, taking it to 33 years. Ridsdale has now pleaded guilty in five court cases to abusing 65 children during his three decades as a parish priest in western Victoria, although his true number of victims is believed to be in the hundreds.
First lady in training row
France’s first lady Brigitte Macron is leading attacks on a leading business executive after he undermined her husband’s attempts to promote apprenticeships by claiming that his own children were too ‘‘brilliant at school’’ to become trades trainees. Antoine Frerot, chief executive of water, waste management, transport and energy company Veolia, made the quip during a radio interview aimed at helping to restore the image of apprenticeships, which are often ignored in France in favour of intellectual jobs. President Emmanuel Macron’s wife, a former teacher, broke with the customary discretion of presidents’ wives to lambast Frerot in a tweet. ‘‘Antoine Frerot could not eat scallops at the Ritz without the ‘stupidity’ of the great chefs who began as apprentices,’’ she said. She was joined by Valerie Trierweiler, former president Francois Hollande’s former partner, who tweeted: ‘‘Like thousands of parents, I amextremely proud that my son is an apprentice and brilliant.’’ Frerot’s unfortunate revelation came after he had revealed that 70 per cent of Veolia’s 163,000 employees entered the company as apprentices.