SOAKED TEXANS RUSH TO THE ROOFS
Tropical Storm Harvey sent a devastating torrent of floodwater pouring into the nation’s fourthlargest city yesterday, a surge expected to drive 30,000 people from their homes as rescuers from Houston to Air Station Cape Cod responded to an overwhelming demand for help and supplies.
Rising water forced thousands of people onto rooftops or higher ground as incessant rain covered much of Houston in turbid, graygreen water and turned streets into rivers navigable only by boat. Helicopters landed near flooded freeways, airboats buzzed across submerged neighborhoods and high-water vehicles plowed through waterlogged intersections. Some people managed with kayaks or canoes, others swam.
Judging from federal disaster declarations, the storm has so far affected about a quarter of the Texas population, or 6.8 million people in 18 counties. It has been blamed for at least two deaths.
“This is a huge life-safety issue right now,” Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long told a Herald reporter yesterday in a C-SPAN interview. “We’re expecting a peak shelter population of over
30,000 people flocking to shelters over the next 48 hours within the state of Texas . ... This is going to be a very long, frustrating, large disaster, a landmark disaster.”
As the water rose, the National Weather Service issued another ominous forecast: Before the storm that arrived Friday as a Category 4 hurricane is gone, some parts of Houston and its suburbs could get as much as 50 inches of rain. That would be the highest amount ever recorded in Texas.
Some areas already have received about half that amount. Since Thursday, South Houston recorded nearly 25 inches, and the suburbs of Santa Fe and Dayton got 27 inches.
“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall is beyond anything experienced before,” the National Weather Service said in a statement.
Volunteers joined emergency teams to pull people from their homes or from the water, which was high enough in places to gush into second floors. The flooding was so widespread that authorities had trouble pinpointing the worst areas as they urged people to get on top of their houses to avoid becoming trapped in attics and to wave sheets or towels to draw attention to their location.
Among the rescuers activated was a crew of 18 from Air Station Cape Cod, which deployed two MH-60 Jayhawk Helicopters and an HC-144 Ocean Sentry fixed wing aircraft to an aviation training center in Mobile, Ala.
As of yesterday morning, Air Station Cape Cod crews had conducted 14 rescues in the Houston area, according to a press release from the U.S. Coast Guard 1st District Northeast.
Average rainfall totals will end up around 40 inches for Houston, weather service meteorologist Patrick Burke said.
Rescuers had to give top priority to life-and-death situations, leaving many affected families to fend for themselves.
It was not clear how many people were plucked from the floodwaters. One official said as many as 1,200 people had to be rescued in Galveston County alone.
Tom Bartlett and Steven Craig said they pulled a rowboat on a rope through chest-deep water for a mile to rescue Bartlett’s mother from her home in west Houston. It took them 45 minutes to reach the house. Inside, the water was halfway up the walls.
Marie Bartlett, 88, waited in her bedroom upstairs.
“When I was younger, I used to wish I had a daughter, but I have the best son in the world,” she said.
“In my 40 years here, I’ve never seen the water this high.”