Harvey dumps over 50in of rain on Texas as Trump flies in
‘It’s historic, it’s epic, but I tell you, it happened in Texas and Texas can handle anything’
DONALD TRUMP headed to Texas to confront the first major natural disaster, and biggest test yet, of his presidency as officials struggled to manage an unprecedented deluge delivered by Hurricane Harvey.
The mammoth storm dropped more than 15trillion gallons of rain, bringing catastrophic consequences to Houston, America’s fourth biggest city where 6.8million people live.
Harvey became the most extreme rain event ever recorded in the US last night, with 51.1 inches of rainfall measured just east of Houston
More than 3,500 people were rescued by police, firefighters and National Guard troops as boat and helicopter searches continued.
Appearing at an emergency briefing at a fire station in nearby Corpus Christi, Mr Trump, wearing a “USA” baseball hat, said: “This was of epic proportions, nobody’s ever seen anything like this. This is a special place, a special state.”
Addressing first responders, he added: “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. I won’t say congratulations. We’ll congratulate each other when it’s all finished.”
Mr Trump later climbed a fire engine ladder to address a crowd and held aloft a Texan flag. “What a crowd, what a turn out,” he said.
“We love you, you are special, we are here to take care of you. It’s going well. It’s historic, it’s epic, but I tell you, it happened in Texas and Texas can handle anything.”
Later, visiting and operations centre in Austin, he said: “Harvey, It sounds like such an innocent name, right, but it’s not innocent.”
Greg Abbott, the Republican governor of Texas, said Mr Trump was “a champion of Texas and a champion of helping us rebuild”.
Damage was already estimated to be in the billions of dollars and rebuilding is expected to last beyond Mr Trump’s current four-year term.
Around 17,000 people were in shelters, including 9,000 in a Houston convention centre intended to hold half as many. Hundreds of roads were blocked by high water, Houston’s two main airports were shut and 6,000 prison inmates were evacuated.
The official death toll of 11 was expected to rise. A police officer drowned in floodwaters over the weekend while trying to get to work, it was announced last night.
With 50in of rain in some places, and more expected, Art Acevedo, Houston’s police chief, said: “I’m really worried about how many bodies we’re going to find.” Virginia Saldivar said she lost six members of her family, including four siblings aged six to 16, as they tried to escape in a van.
She said the children, Daisy, Xavier, Dominic and Devy, perished along with two other adult relatives.
Angela Sanchez, 34, told The Daily Telegraph she and her husband floated their three children to safety in a fridge-freezer as the waters reached chest height.
She said: “We ripped the door off the fridge and put the kids in it.”
Her daughter Valencia, 16, added: “When we finally left, my sister sat in the freezer part, my brother sat in the fridge part, and I sat in the middle.”
The family were forced to leave two of their dogs behind. Mrs Sanchez said: “We put them on high ground and dumped all the food from the fridge out next to them so they could eat.”
At the convention centre, Iashia Nelson said she had been a victim of both Harvey and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, after moving from Louisiana to Texas. She told CNN: “It took us 15 hours to get out of there from all that water.
“There were six families in the house. There was a window pane and I busted it with a hammer. I got the children out and we were on the roof. I was so scared. One girl I knew drowned and she left behind two babies. It brought back all the memories [of Katrina].”
Two reservoirs near Houston were beginning to overflow. Water was released to alleviate pressure on dams, which added to flooding.
Amid some reports of looting and armed robbery, Mr Acevedo, the Houston police chief, said: “That’s despicable. If you do it, you won’t see the sunlight any time soon.”