Residents of Port Arthur stranded and surrounded
Rescue workers sail streets awash in muck
Nothing is easy.
Those wanting to drive away from this southeast Texas townturned-island are turned around left and right as water remains pooled across highways and smaller streets alike. Rescuers desperate to reach residents stranded in homes must navigate submerged landmines in the form of concrete medians, trees and mailboxes.
Shelter? Officials scrambled to find long-term solutions in a place where none seemed to exist.
Tap water? It’s safe — for now. But an early-morning shutoff in nearby Beaumont had residents in this city of 50,000 uncertain what might happen next in their isolated corner of the state overwhelmed this week by the lingering deluge wrought by Harvey.
“We’re pretty much an island right now,” said Battalion Chief Mike Free with the Port Arthur Fire Department. “It’s just unbelievable how much rain we got at one time. Just unbelievable.”
But Thursday morning looked promising, and the sun shined into the afternoon.
For the first time since the disaster began, amateur and veteran rescuers donned sunglasses as they inched their boats into chocolate-milk-colored sludge for yet another day of patrolling inundated neighborhoods, searching for anyone in distress.
At the height of the rescue effort 24 hours ago, a loosely organized fleet of canoes, inflatable rafts, air boats and at least one party barge moved in all directions, seeking stranded residents and nearly causing multiple midstreet collisions.
As those scenes played out at intersections across the city, inhome fire alarms in quaint brick homes screeched all over town.
“This storm just sat on us,” said Sean Cummings of Beaumont, who did an eight-year enlistment in the U.S. Coast Guard and is a volunteer. “There are areas that have never flooded that are under water.”
The amount of water on all sides — and sometimes over — highways leading from Houston to Beaumont is mind-boggling.
Narissia Francis was at home with her family in the Cedar Ridge neighborhood around 9 a.m. Wednesday. Volunteers came to help her neighbors, and as the water climbed higher, she decided it was time to get out. She can’t swim.
“I don’t want to get stuck,” she said from the bowling alley, her two children all-smiles nearby. “I live on the second floor, but although it’s the second floor, you don’t know what’s floating in that water. So we decided to leave.”
It’s been almost a week since Hurricane Harvey made landfall a few hundred miles away.
The 106 firefighters in Port Arthur have been running non-stop since Tuesday, Free said.
So have trained rescuers who commuted across the country to help, many of whom spent the night sleeping in trucks at a Walmart parking lot or curling up in booths at a nearby bar. The amateur flotilla of volunteers with boats remains eager to help, but weariness is starting to show.
“We don’t have any places here to set up to be a long-term shelter,” Free said.
“We’re pretty much an island right now.” Battalion Chief Mike Free, Port Arthur Fire Department