The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A ‘CATASTROPHIC’ STORM
Heavy rain swamps Houston; some parts may get 50inches. Rescue teams pull residents from houses, rising waters. Assistance pours into Texas; Trump plans visit Tuesday.
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 its sprawling suburbs, Harvey left families scrambling to get out of their fast-flooding homes. Rescuers in fishing boats, huge dump trucks and even frontend loaders battled driving rains to move people to shelter. Some residents used 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 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. In a statement, the weather service said that “the breadth and intensity of this rainfall is beyond anything experienced before and is resulting in catastrophic flooding.”
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 were launched across a large swath of Texas and Gov. Greg Abbott said more than 3,000 national and state guard troops had 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 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.
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.
In Austin, one of two Red Cross shelters in the city had about 180 evacuees as rain continued to fall steadily and river levels rose. Precautionary sandbags were stacked against the shelter’s entrance.
Still, the nation’s focus remained squarely on Houston, where the massive scale of the flooding and the potential for the situation to get much worse in the days ahead was reminding many spooked residents of the effects of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans.
Mayor Sylvester Turner and other officials pleaded with residents to “shelter in place” and to call overwhelmed 911 operators only in life-threatening emergencies. They urged residents to climb to their roofs to await shelter 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 so they could hack their way to the roof.
Police began to ask people with water-worthy vehicles and boats to assist in their rescue efforts on streets where abandoned carswere submerged. Brays Bayou, a huge waterway crossing the southwestern partof the city, rose between 10 and 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.
Trump, who signed a disaster proclamation for Texas on Friday night, praised the way the city’s officials were handling the flood, tweeting Sunday that the “Good news is that we have great talent on the ground.” He promised to head to Texas “as soon as that trip can be made without causing disruption. The focus must be life and safety.”
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 Harvey’s initial pounding was experiencing flooding at devastating levels.
By 7 a.m. Central time, the National Weather Service had recorded close to 25 inches of rain around Houston. Warnings for flashflooding and tornadoes remained in place across the region.
The National Weather Ser- vice said 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 the person died after being trapped inside a house that caught fire during the storm.
Late 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.
Also on Saturday night, police about 40 miles southeast in La Marque 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 about 30 families and brought them to city offices.
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 had 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.
They were told by police that it would be unsafe to attempt to leave.
“Luckily we have the restaurant staff or else we would’ve been stuck with no food,” Brown said. “Waters in the road are around four feet— minimum— surrounding the airport.”
Many roads in the area were underwater, and a park across the bayou was completely flooded. Acar nearby had been abandoned, its doors left open. City traffic lights were still blinking red and green over an empty and flooded bridge, but most buildings visible in the area seemed to be dark and without power.
By midmorning, Nichelle Mosby stood up to her knees in floodwater in the parking lot of a Marriott Courtyard hotel, grimacing with a towel over her head to block the rain. Mosby and six family members, including a4-yearold girl, had come from Louisiana to visit relatives. Now theywere stranded with dozens of other guests.
“Wewent through Katrina, but this feels different,” she said. Instead of a gradual buildup of rising water, she said, “this was like a gush of water that cameup too fast.”