Six feared drowned in van as worst yet to come

Hurricane Harvey leaves city paralysed by downpours with no relief in sight

Floodwaters reached the roof lines of single-storey homes yesterday and people could be heard pleading for help from inside as Hurricane Harvey poured rain on the Houston area for a fourth consecutive day.

The US’s fourth-largest city was still largely paralysed by one of the largest downpours in American history.

There was no relief in sight from the storm that spun into Texas as a Category 4 hurricane, then parked itself over the Gulf Coast.

With nearly two more feet of rain expected, authorities worried whether the worst was yet to come.

Harvey has been blamed for at least two confirmed deaths.

A Houston television station reported yesterday that six family members were believed to have drowned when their van was swept away by floodwaters.

The KHOU report was attributed to three family members the station did not identify. No bodies have been recovered.

Police Chief Art Acevedo told the Associated Press that he had no information about the report but said he is “really worried about how many bodies we’re going to find”.

According to the station, four children and their grandparents were feared dead after the van hit high water on Sunday when crossing a bridge in the Greens Bayou area.

The driver of the vehicle, the children’s great-uncle, reportedly escaped by grabbing a tree limb before the van sank.

He told the children to try to escape through the back door, but they were unable to get out.

The disaster unfolded on an epic scale in one of America’s most sprawling metropolitan centres.

The Houston metro area covers about 10,000 square miles.

It is crisscrossed by about 1,700 miles of channels, creeks and bayous that drain into the Gulf of Mexico, about 50 miles to the south-east from the city centre.

The flooding was so widespread that the levels of city waterways have either equalled or surpassed those of Tropical Storm Allison from 2001, and no major highway has been spared some overflow.

The city’s normally bustling business district was virtually deserted yesterday, with emergency vehicles making up most of the traffic.

Most traffic signals were not working and most businesses were closed.

Elsewhere, water gushed from two reservoirs overwhelmed by Harvey as officials sought to release pressure on two dams where floodwaters were at risk of spilling around the sides of the barriers.

The move aimed at protecting the central business district risked flooding thousands more homes.

Meanwhile, rescuers continued plucking people from the floodwaters – at least 2,000 so far, according to Mr Acevedo.

Rescuers were giving priority to lifeand-death situations, leaving many people to fend for themselves.

Up to 20 more inches (51cm) of rain could fall in the coming days, on top of the more than 30 inches (76cm) some places have already seen, National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said yesterday.

That means the flooding will get worse in the days ahead.

Pictures: Getty. People are forced to leave their homes as the deluge continues to wreak havoc on the city of Houston.

A father walks with his child down a flooded street in Houston.