Houston hammered by Harvey
Millions of Texans impacted by huge storm’s epic downpours
HOUSTON — The full extent of Hurricane Harvey’s aftermath started to come into chilling focus Sunday in Houston and across much of central Texas, as rain measured in feet not inches overwhelmed lakes, rivers and bayous, leaving several people dead and thousands displaced in a weather disaster described as “beyond anything experienced.”
Across the nation’s fourthlargest city and suburbs many miles away, Harvey left families scrambling to get out of their fast-flooding homes. Rescuers — in many cases neighbors helping neighbors — in fishing boats, huge dump trucks and even front-end loaders battled driving rains to move people to shelter. Some
inflatable toys to ferry their families out of inundated neighborhoods, wading through chest-deep water while the region was under near-constant tornado watches.
By Sunday, the National Weather Service was predicting that parts of Texas could receive nearly 50 inches of rain, the largest recorded total in the state’s history. It also warned that Harvey’s relentless downpours were expected to continue until late in the week and that flooding could become much more severe. More than 82,000 homes were without electricity in the Houston area by Sunday night as airports shuttered and hospitals planned evacuations.
Thousands of rescue missions have been launched across a large swath of Texas and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said Sunday that more than 3,000 national and state guard troops have been deployed to assist with relief efforts. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said federal agencies have more than 5,000 employees working in Texas, and the White House said President Trump plans to visit flood-wracked areas of the state on Tuesday.
Officials said Houston, a major center for the nation’s energy industry, had suffered billions of dollars in damage and would take years to fully recover. Oil and gas companies have shut down about a quarter of oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. Spot prices for gasoline are expected to jump on Monday, but the full extent of damage will not be clear for days, companies and experts said.
Harvey’s sheer size also became apparent Sunday as heavy rains and flooding were reported as far away as Austin and even Dallas. What started with a direct impact on the tiny coastal town of Rockport on Friday night has now turned into a weather disaster affecting thousands of square miles and millions of people.
Still, much of the nation’s focus remained squarely on Houston, where the wide scale of the flooding and the potential for the situation to get much worse in the days ahead reminded many residents of the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans in 2005.
Mayor Sylvester Turner and other officials pleaded with residents to shelter in place and to make calls to overwhelmed 911 operators only in life-threatening emergencies. They urged people to climb to their roofs to await rsecue if water was rising inside their homes.
Police began to ask people with high-water vehicles and boats to assist in their rescue efforts on streets where abandoned cars were completely submerged. Brays Bayou, a huge waterway crossing the southwestern part of the city, rose as much as 20 feet overnight and by Sunday morning was flowing over bridges in its path.
As the extent of the disaster became clear at daylight Sunday, some criticized Houston officials for not calling for an evacuation of the city. Turner defended the decision not to evacuate, noting it would be a “nightmare” to empty out the population of his city and the county all at once.
“You literally cannot put 6.5 million people on the road,” Turner said at a news conference.
The disaster unfolding in Houston appeared suddenly, starting with severe storms Saturday evening that came with slashing, sideways rain and almost uninterrupted lightning. By morning, a city that had been largely spared by Harvey’s initial pounding of coastal communities was flooded to devastating levels.
By 7 a.m., the National Weather Service had recorded close to 25 inchused es of rain around Houston. Warnings for flash flooding and tornadoes remained in place across the region, and storm surges are expected along the coast, bringing flooding to typically dry areas.
The National Weather Service said Sunday that at least five people had been reported dead due to Harvey. Local officials have confirmed that at least three people have died as a result of the storm, and officials in the hardest-hit counties expect that as the waters recede the number of fatalities will rise.
The first reported death came Saturday in Rockport. Officials said one person was killed after their house caught fire during the storm and they became stuck inside.
At about 9:15 p.m. on Saturday, rescue workers in southwest Houston recovered the body of a woman believed to have driven her car into floodwaters before attempting to escape on foot. Just two minutes earlier, police about 40 miles southeast in La Marque found the body of a 52year-old homeless man in a Walmart parking lot where there had been high water.
As it scrambles to open shelters across Texas, the Red Cross command center in Houston is now “physically isolated” because of floodwaters, said Paul Carden, district director of Red Cross activities in south Texas, which includes Corpus Christi.
“The advice is if you don’t have to be out, don’t be out,” said Bill Begley, a spokesman with the Joint Information Center in Houston. He said most of the calls for help it had received have come from residents who tried to drive through the storm and got stuck in high water.
Both of Houston’s major airports were closed, and many tourists and visitors found themselves stranded in hotels with no hope of leaving anytime soon.
Southwest Airlines flight attendant Allison Brown said at least 50 flight attendants, a number of pilots, airport staff and hundreds of passengers have been stranded at William P. Hobby Airport since at least 1 a.m. Sunday. Brown said the airport flooded so quickly that shuttles were unable to get to them out.
The National Hurricane Center late Sunday offered no promises of relief from the epic rains from what is now Tropical Storm Harvey. The storm was packing 40 mph winds, and forecasters said “little change in strength is forecast during the next 24 hours.” In fact, “some slight re-strengthening is possible after the center moves off the coast on Monday night and Tuesday.”