Texas overwhelmed
Relentless, lingering rain leaves water rising higher than the worst forecasts
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 fourth-largest 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 used inflatable toys to ferry their families out of inundated neighborhoods, wading through chest-deep water on foot while
the region was under nearconstant tornado watches.
By Sunday afternoon, 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.
“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall is beyond anything experienced before,” a weather service statement said.
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 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 Donald Trump plans to visit floodwracked 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.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and other officials pleaded with residents to “shelter in place” and to make calls to overwhelmed 911 operators only in lifethreatening emergencies.
They urged people to climb to their roofs to await rescue if water was rising inside their homes, and local television news anchors reminded people to stay out of attics where they might be trapped by rising water — or at least bring an ax to hack their way to the roof.
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 between 10 and 20 feet overnight and by Sunday morning was flowing over bridges in its path.
The Texas National Guard has deployed across the state, including engineers deployed to Corpus Christi and an infantry search and rescue team in Rockport. Another search and rescue unit was staging in San Antonio and was seen likely to be deploying to affected areas shortly.
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.
Trump praised the way the city’s officials are handling the flood, tweeting Sunday morning that the “Good news is that we have great talent on the ground.” Trump signed a disaster proclamation for Texas on Friday night.
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 being trapped in a house that caught fire during the storm.
On Saturday night, 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.
Also on Saturday night, police about 40 miles southeast in La Marque said they found the body of a 52-year-old homeless man in a Walmart parking lot where there had been high water.
“No city can handle these kind of deluges. In our case, 23 inches overnight,” La Marque Mayor Bobby Hocking said Sunday, nothing that the police department rescued approximately 30 families and brought them to city offices. “I have since secured hotel rooms for them.”
As it scrambled to open shelters across Texas, the Red Cross command center in Houston became “physically isolated” because of floodwaters, said Paul Carden, district director of Red Cross activities in south Texas.
“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 had come from motorists who 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.