‘Hurricane on the front porch and a flood on the back porch’ in a devastated city
The mayor of Rockport, the coastal Texas city nearly flattened when Hurricane Harvey hit it with its full force, painted a dire picture of the storm’s aftermath that rocked the community of 10,000.
Mayor Charles “C.J.” Wax told the Herald’s Brian Dowling there’s no food in stores, no electricity, few passable roads, damaged rescue vehicles and no cell service. Wax said the city can’t even start to rebuild until it weathers days more of torrential rains and life-threatening floods. The elected leader of the battered city 30 miles up the coast from Corpus Christi says it’ll take everyone’s help to rebuild.
“The community is devastated. I issued a mandatory evacuation order on Wednesday. Fortunately, most of the city is in fact evacuated as of right now.
All utilities are disrupted. Communication links are down. And there is no food because of the damage from the storm. The food that was available (is gone) and the rest of the food
has no distribution system.
I have two teams out right now with heavy equipment clearing through debris fields to permit emergency vehicles to reach citizens in need.”
Homes were splintered. Roofs ripped off of buildings. Power poles and lines littered the roads. The storm ripped the walls from the high school gymnasium. At least one person died and 14 people were injured in Rockport during the storm, according to local reports. Wax says residents should stay away for now.
“I am advising all of my citizens to remain in place wherever they are. Do not try to return. Not only have we taken the brunt of a Category 4 storm, but we are about to experience life-threatening flooding from the water being deposited upstate and running back toward us through the rivers. You got a hurricane on the front porch and a flood on the back porch.
We’ve had superb response from federal and state agencies, other mayors and also Texas Task Force One, as well as commercial activities, our grocery stores and our electric provider had a superb response. They are going to help us rebuild.
It will take a long time. It will take help from a lot of people and it will take the combined effort of all of my citizens to rebuild our community the way we want it rebuilt.”