Thousands facing grim aftermath
The recovery process is only just beginning along the storm-battered Texas coast. Tens of thousands of residents are still in a state of chaos, living without running water and bracing for more flooding caused by record-breaking Tropical Storm Harvey. The state’s death toll rose to 47 on Friday, and officials expect the number to grow as first responders go door to door searching for victims.
“This is going to be a massive, massive cleanup process,” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“This is not going to be a shortterm project. This is going to be a multiyear project for Texas to be able to dig out of this catastrophe.”
The Coast Guard said Friday that it had rescued at least 3,000 more people by boat over a 48-hour period.
“People are desperate,” said Steve Clayton, 58, of Vidor, Texas, who was collecting residents with an airboat.
“I rescued this man standing in waist-deep water with a kid on his shoulders, both of them crying. We then got an 84-year-old lady out who had been standing in water since 11 o’clock the night before.”
In Beaumont, residents faced a second day without running water and were waiting in long lines to pick up bottles provided by the city.
In nearby Port Arthur, Sgt. Lam Nguyen estimated that 75 percent of residents had lost their homes.
Abbott said the Brazos River near the city of Richwood would soon “crest at an all-time high,” and that as a result, some people in the area could be impacted by floodwaters for the first time.
More than 42,000 Texans spent Thursday night in shelters, but some are returning to their battered homes, with many forced to face the grim re- ality that they have nothing left.
“I’m devastated,” Dora Yudelevich told BuzzFeed. “You feel like, at this age, you’re ready to retire, then you lose everything. We had no savings other than this house.”
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner warned residents with homes underwater to evacuate if they haven’t already — and then to stay away — because the flooding will only continue as water is released from nearby reservoirs.