USA TODAY International Edition
Still-flooded Houston area to lose electricity
Releases planned for at-capacity reservoirs
Electric company workers started going door-to-door Sunday in a still-flooded area of west Houston under a mandatory evacuation order, warning that service would be shut off nine days after Tropical Storm Harvey ravaged the city.
Crews with Center Point Energy checked homes in the zone where about 300 residents remain. People in houses that have taken no water will not have their electricity cut off.
Water releases from the Addicks and Barker reservoirs need to flush through the area after several feet of rain from Harvey filled them to capacity.
“If you have water in your homes, I have issued a mandatory evacuation for them because it’s dangerous for those who are choosing to live there,” Mayor Sylvester Turner told NBC’s Meet the Press. “But also, it’s very, very dangerous for our public responders, first responders.”
In Beaumont, Texas, water service was partially restored Sunday morning, three days after floodwaters inundated a treatment plant and left the city’s 118,000 residents without drinking water.
Most residents found their water pressure was quite low, however, and the water still must be boiled before it can be consumed. When people heard the National Guard was distributing cases of water at a parking lot north of downtown, the news attracted a line of cars a mile long.
Wilbert Johnson sat in line for 30 minutes. “You don’t think about water too much until you run out of it,” said Johnson, 69.
Earlier, Johnson drove to the still-flooded Neches River and dipped a garbage bucket into the water. He brought that home and used the water to flush his toilets.
“In times like this you just have to live country,” Johnson said.
In Crosby on Sunday, authorities set a controlled explosion at the Arkema chemical plant where trailers with hazardous materials had ignited in recent days because of lack of power and refrigeration.
In a statement, Harris County Fire Marshal M.S. Montgomery said firefighters ignited the remaining trailers in a “proactive” attempt to control the effects of the power outage. Montgomery said a 1.5-mile evacuation radius remained in place.
The death toll tied to the storm is at least 44.