Evacuations ordered ahead of water releases
Abbott says state has sufficient funds at hand for relief operations.
A week after Hurricane Harvey hit the state hard, thousands of water-weary Texans still are looking for help, many frustrated Austinites are looking for gasoline and the nation is waiting to hear what President Donald Trump says Saturday as he returns to the storm-soaked region.
One thing Texans shouldn’t look for, Gov. Greg Abbott said Friday, is a special legislative session to appropriate storm relief funds. The governor said at the state’s emergency command center in Austin that he won’t need to call lawmakers back to town to deal with Harvey relief funds.
Abbott said resources currently
available should be sufficient to meet needs until the next regular legislative session begins in January 2019. At that point, if needed, lawmakers could tap into the state’s $10 billion rainy day fund.
Abbott also sought to quell fears of a gasoline shortage, telling Texans, “There’s plenty of fuel, plenty of gasoline in the United States of America and there’s plenty of gasoline in the state of Texas. There is a perception of concern, but the reality is we’re going to have plenty of gasoline.”
That perception caused some empty fuel pumps and long lines on Thursday and Friday.
In Washington, the White House said Trump plans to visit storm victims Saturday in Houston and Lake Charles, La. Trump said Friday that Texas and Louisiana residents “have taught us all a lesson — a very, very powerful lesson.”
“There was no outbreak in crime,” he said in Washington. “There was an outbreak of compassion only — real beautiful, strong compassion. And they’ve really inspired us as a nation. To be honest, they’ve inspired the world, because the world is watching.”
In Southeast Texas, the storm’s remnants on Friday chased more people out of their homes after dumping heavy rain on Louisiana, and Houston planned a water release that could keep as many as 20,000 homes flooded for up to 15 days. In Beaumont, where the storm knocked out the city water system, people waited in a line that stretched for more than a mile to get bottled water. The final evacuations were underway at a Beaumont hospital without water service.
Residents of the still-flooded western part of Houston were told Friday to evacuate ahead of the planned release of water from two reservoirs protecting downtown. The move was expected to flood homes that had been inundated earlier in the week. Homes that haven’t been flooded probably won’t be affected, officials said.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner pleaded for more high-water vehicles and more search-and-rescue equipment as the nation’s fourth-largest city continued looking for any survivors or corpses that might have escaped notice in flood-ravaged neighborhoods.
Turner also asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide more workers to process applications from thousands of people seeking government help. The mayor said he will request a preliminary financial aid package of $75 million, just for debris removal.
The storm’s remnants were dying as they pushed deeper inland, but Harvey remained still powerful enough to raise the risk of flooding as far north as Kentucky.
More than 1,500 people were at Louisiana shelters, and that number climbed as more people evacuated from Texas communities. The state opened a seventh shelter Friday in Shreveport for up to 2,400 people, said Shauna Sanford, a spokeswoman for Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards.
Beaumont was trying to bring in enough bottled water for people who stayed behind after a water pumping station was overwhelmed by the swollen Neches River.
In Houston, officials turned their attention to immediate needs such as finding temporary housing for those in shelters, but also to the city’s long-term recovery, which will take years and billions of dollars.
Search for the missing
Authorities raised the death toll from the storm to 39 late Thursday, while rescue workers conducted a block-by-block search of tens of thousands of Houston homes that rescuers began Thursday.
An estimated 136,000 structures in Harris County, or 10 percent of all structures in the county, were flooded, according to the flood control district for the county, which includes Houston.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said more than 37,000 homes were heavily damaged and nearly 7,000 were destroyed, figures that didn’t include the tens of thousands of homes with minor damage. About 325,000 people have already sought federal emergency aid in the wake of Harvey. More than $57 million in individual assistance has already been paid out, FEMA officials said.
Houston Fire Chief Sam Pena said his department had responded to nearly 16,000 calls since the storm hit Saturday, over 7,600 of them for water rescues.
The search for more survivors and bodies began Thursday when more than 200 firefighters, police officers and members of an urban search-and-rescue team fanned out across the Meyerland neighborhood. They yelled “Fire department!” as they pounded with closed fists on doors, peered through windows and checked with neighbors.
“We don’t think we’re going to find any humans, but we’re prepared if we do,” Houston Fire Department District Chief James Pennington said.
Unlike in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath in New Orleans, crews are using GPS devices to log the homes they check rather than painting neon X’s on the outside. That avoided alerting potential thieves to vacant homes.
Harris County FEMA Director Tom Fargione said the agency was looking for ways to house people who lost their homes to Harvey, with 32,000 people reported in shelters across Texas. The priority is to get those who can’t return to their homes into some temporary housing, he said.
Authorities were also monitoring a flood-crippled chemical plant near Houston, where the loss of power set off explosions and a fire Thursday. The blasts at the Arkema Inc. plant northeast of Houston sent up a plume of acrid black smoke that stung the eyes and lungs. The plant’s owners warned more explosions could follow because a loss of refrigeration was causing chemicals stored there to degrade and burn.
Water and gasoline
In Beaumont, residents were into day two of figuring out how to get drinking water. A line of more than a mile of cars formed at a water-distribution center at a high school football field. Each vehicle received one case. Earlier, people stood in line at a Kroger grocery store that was giving away gallon jugs of water, which were gone in two hours.
Dee Silva, 83, waited for about an hour at Kroger. She said city officials hadn’t given a good indication of how long the water failure might last.
“If they have a plan,” Silva said, “they don’t tell us.”
With widespread reports of gas shortages, the head of the Texas agency that regulates the oil and gas industry urged drivers to wait three or four days to fill up their tanks. Panic buying is causing a run on gas and empty fuel pumps, Texas Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton said.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry said he would release 500,000 barrels of crude oil from an emergency stockpile in a bid to prevent gasoline prices from spiking.
Far out over the Atlantic, Category 2 Hurricane Irma was following a course that could bring it near the eastern Caribbean Sea by early next week. It had maximum sustained winds near 110 mph and was moving west-northwest near 13 mph. Although forecasters said Irma was expected to be a dangerous hurricane for the next several days, it was still far out to sea.