Deep water down in Texas
1,000 high-water rescues tallied in Texas; 2 deaths reported
A man trudges through high water Thursday in Patton, Texas, north of Houston, as the slow-moving remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda flooded parts of Texas and Louisiana. Officials reported at least 1,000 high-water rescues and evacuations in the Houston area where more than 900 flights were canceled or delayed. More photos are available at arkansasonline.com/920imelda/
CHINA, Texas — The slow-churning remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda flooded parts of Texas and Louisiana on Thursday, scrambling rescue crews and volunteers with boats to reach scores of stranded drivers and families trapped in their homes during a relentless downpour that drew comparisons to Hurricane Harvey two years ago.
Officials in Harris County, which includes Houston, said there had been a combination of at least 1,000 high-water rescues and evacuations to get people to shelter. More than 900 flights were canceled or delayed in Houston, and farther north on the Texas Gulf Coast, authorities warned that a levee could break near Beaumont in Jefferson County.
A 19-year-old man drowned and was electrocuted while trying to move his horse to safety, according to a message from his family shared by the Jefferson County sheriff’s office. Crystal Holmes, a spokeswoman for the department, said the death occurred during a lightning storm.
A man in his 40s or 50s drowned when he tried to drive a van through 8-footdeep floodwaters near Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston during the Thursday afternoon rush hour, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.
The National Weather Service said radar estimates suggested that Jefferson County was deluged with more than 40 inches of rain in a span of 72 hours.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner evoked the memory of Harvey — which dumped more than 50 inches of rain on the nation’s fourth-largest city in 2017 — while pleading with residents to stay put. City officials said they had received more than 1,500 high-water rescue calls to 911, most from drivers stuck on flooded roads, but authorities described a number of them as people who were inconvenienced and not in immediate danger.
Imelda is the first named storm to affect the Houston area since Harvey hovered for days and inundated the flood-prone Gulf Coast. That storm dumped more than 5 feet of water near the Louisiana border, and two years later, it looked in some places like Harvey was playing out all over again.
A Houston furniture store became a shelter for evacuees. Live television footage showed firefighters rescuing stranded truckers on major highways. On social media, people posted that water was quickly seeping into their home and asked for help.
Large sections of Interstate 10 were turned into waterways and closed. And even as the intensity of the storm weakened, Harris County officials warned that some of the county’s 4.7 million residents might not see high waters recede in their neighborhoods until the weekend.
“We’re still putting water on top of water,” said Jeff Linder, meteorologist of the Harris County Flood Control District.
In Winnie, a town of about 3,200 people 60 miles east of Houston, a hospital was evacuated. Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said emergency workers completed more than 300 rescues overnight and some residents were up on their roofs because of rising floodwaters.
During Harvey, Beaumont’s only pump station was swamped by floodwaters, leaving residents without water service for more than a week. The Jefferson County sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post that residents of an area where a levee was deteriorating should use their boats to pick up neighbors and carry them to safety.
Thunderstorms had spawned several weak tornadoes in the Baytown area, about 25 miles east of Houston, damaging trees, barns and sheds and causing minor damage to some homes and vehicles.
The National Hurricane Center said Imelda weakened to a tropical depression after making landfall as a tropical storm Tuesday near Freeport, Texas, with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph.
The flooding from Imelda came as Hurricane Humberto blew off rooftops and toppled trees in the British Atlantic island of Bermuda.
Meanwhile, a brush with land near Puerto Vallarta knocked newly formed Hurricane Lorena back down to tropical-storm force, though forecasters said it would soon become a hurricane again on a track that would carry it close to the Los Cabos resorts at the tip of the Baja California Peninsula by tonight.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic region, Jerry strengthened into a hurricane on a track that would carry it near the northern Leeward Islands today and north of Puerto Rico on Saturday.