A RISING TIDE OF PANIC
Death toll rises, rescuers pluck hundreds from submerged homes as tropical storm Harvey pummels Texas — with no end in sight
“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall is beyond anything experienced before.” U.S. NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
HOUSTON— Tropical storm Harvey sent devastating floods pouring into the fourth-largest city in the U.S. on Sunday as rising water chased thousands of people to rooftops or higher ground and overwhelmed rescuers who could not keep up with the constant calls for help.
The incessant rain covered much of Houston in turbid, grey-green water and turned streets into rivers navigable only by boat. In a rescue effort that recalled the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, helicopters landed near flooded freeways, airboats buzzed across submerged neighbourhoods and high-water vehicles plowed through intersections. Some people managed with kayaks or canoes or swam.
Volunteers joined emergency teams to pull people from their homes or from the water, which was high enough in places to gush into second floors. The flooding was so widespread that authorities had trouble pinpointing the worst areas. They urged people to get on top of their houses to avoid becoming trapped in attics and to wave sheets or towels to draw attention to their location.
Judging from federal disaster declara- tions, the storm has so far affected about a quarter of the Texas population, or 6.8 million people in 18 counties. Many sources reported at least five deaths.
As the water rose, the National Weather Service issued another ominous forecast: before the storm that arrived Friday as a Category 4 hurricane is gone, some parts of Houston and suburbs could get as much as 1.3 metres of rain. That would be the highest amount ever recorded in Texas.
Some areas have already received about half that amount. Since Thursday, South Houston recorded nearly 63 centimetres, and the suburbs of Santa Fe and Dayton got 69 cm.
“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall is beyond anything experienced before,” the National Weather Service said.
The federal government is promising a muscular response, with 5,000 federal employees — including members of the coast guard, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Agriculture Department — on site in Texas and Louisiana to assist state and local officials.
“We’re setting up and gearing up for the next couple of years,” William “Brock” Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said on CNN’s State of the Union program Sunday. “This disaster’s going to be a landmark event.”
Rescuers had to give top priority to life-and-death situations, leaving many affected families to fend for themselves. And rising waters forced the evacuation of several hospitals in the Houston area.
Tom Bartlett and Steven Craig pulled a rowboat on a rope through chest-deep water for a mile to rescue Bartlett’s mother from her home in west Houston. It took them 45 minutes to reach the house. Inside, the water was halfway up the walls.
Marie Bartlett, 88, waited in her bedroom upstairs.
“When I was younger, I used to wish I had a daughter, but I have the best son in the world,” she said. “In my 40 years here, I’ve never seen the water this high.”
It was not clear how many people were plucked from the floodwaters. Up to 1,200 people had to be rescued in Galveston County alone, said Mark Henry, the county judge, the county’s top administrative post.
Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center was quickly opened as a shelter. It was used as a shelter for Katrina refugees in 2005.
Officials in Dallas said they would open the city’s convention centre to about 5,000 people who are fleeing from the hurricane-ravaged southern part of the state. Dallas has three shelters currently open for evacuees, but the convention centre will serve as a “mega shelter.”
The storm also blew through key areas for the U.S. oil and gas industry and was already causing some disruption of production. Exxon Mobil said on its website Sunday that it was shutting down operations at its huge Baytown refining and petrochemical complex because of flooding, while heavy rain prompted Royal Dutch Shell to close a large refining facility at Deer Park.
Shell, one of the largest producers in the Gulf of Mexico, said it had closed two offshore production platforms, Perdido and Enchilada Salsa, and evacuated most of the workers.
In the long term, Texas is likely to face a massive, multibillion-dollar rebuilding effort that may affect a generation — and what is sure to be daunting and sometimes depressing era of government trailers, red tape and fights with bureaucrats and insurance companies.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said authorities had received more than 2,000 calls for help, with more coming in. He urged drivers to stay off roads to avoid adding to the number of those stranded.
“I don’t need to tell anyone this is a very, very serious and unprecedented storm,” Turner told a news conference.
The deteriorating situation was bound to provoke questions about the conflicting advice given by the governor and Houston leaders before the hurricane. Gov. Greg Abbott urged people to flee from Harvey’s path, but the Houston mayor issued no evacuation orders and told everyone to stay home.
The governor refused to point fingers on Sunday.
“Now is not the time to secondguess the decisions that were made,” Abbott, a Republican, said in Austin.
The mayor, a Democrat, defended his decision, saying there was no way to know which parts of the city were most vulnerable.
“If you think the situation right now is bad, and you give an order to evacuate, you are creating a nightmare,” Turner said, citing the risks of sending the city’s 2.3 million inhabitants onto the highways at the same time.
The coast guard deployed five helicopters and asked for additional aircraft from New Orleans.
The White House announced that President Donald Trump would visit Texas on Tuesday. He met Sunday by teleconference with top administration officials to discuss federal support for response and recovery efforts.
The rescues unfolded a day after Harvey settled over the Texas coastline. The system weakened Saturday to a tropical storm.
Harvey was the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in 13 years and the strongest to strike Texas since 1961’s Hurricane Carla, the most powerful Texas hurricane on record. With files from the New York Times