Report reveals extent of Harvey’s wrath in Texas
WASHINGTON — The official numbers for last year’s Hurricane Harvey are in, and they go beyond the 68 dead and $125 billion in damage.
Two locations in southeast Texas got more than 5 feet of rain while 18 parts of Texas logged more than 4 feet of rain. Harvey also spawned 57 tornadoes.
That’s from a report released Thursday by the National Hurricane Center.
“It’s a once in a lifetime event for so many people,” said center hurricane specialist Eric Blake, lead author of the report. “I think the flooding in the Houston metropolitan area is really unparalleled.”
The metro Houston area averaged three to four feet of rain.
Harvey was the first of three monster storms to hit the United States in 2017. Tallies on Irma and Maria are still being compiled.
Harvey was Texas’ deadliest hurricane in 98 years. All 68 of the deaths were in Texas; 36 in Houston’s Harris County. None was from storm surge — sudden coastal inundation from the sea — which is usually the deadliest part of a hurricane, Blake said. All but three of the deaths were from freshwater flooding.
The hurricane center estimates Harvey’s damage at $90 billion to $160 billion with a midpoint of $125 billion, placing it second in U.S. history behind Katrina’s inflation-adjusted $161 billion. The maximum winds of the Category 5 storm on landfall were 133 mph.
But the really big numbers in the report have to do with rain. Government meteorologists calculated that much of the Houston metro area experienced a flood that is a greater than once-in-1,000 year event, the highest level they calculate.
“It is unlikely that the United States has ever seen such a sizable area of excessive tropical cyclone rainfall totals as it did from Harvey,” the report said.