IMELDA ASSESSED
Crews deal with Houston-area damage after the tropical storm leaves four dead.
HOUSTON — Emergency crews in the Houston area took advantage of receding floodwaters Friday to begin to assess the damage from one of the wettest tropical cyclones in U.S. history, a storm that led to the deaths of four men and displaced hundreds of people from their homes.
The aftermath from Tropical Storm Imelda, which drew comparisons to Hurricane Harvey two years ago, was blamed for major travel headaches as motorists slogged through water-swollen streets and air travelers faced flight delays and cancellations.
Nine barges broke free of their moorings, and Interstate 10 over the San Jacinto River was closed in both directions when two of the barges struck the bridges early Friday. Nearly 123,000 vehicles normally cross the bridges each day, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.
The heaviest rainfall had ended by Thursday night in southeast Texas, but forecasters warned that parts of northeast Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana could see flash flooding as Imelda’s remnants shifted to the north.
Officials in Harris County, which includes Houston, said there had been a combination of at least 1,700 high-water rescues and evacuations to get people to shelter as the longevity and intensity of the rain quickly came to surprise even those who had been bracing for floods.
More than 900 flights were canceled or delayed in Houston on Thursday. Farther along the Texas Gulf Coast, authorities at one point warned that a levee could break near Beaumont in Jefferson County. During Harvey, Beaumont’s only pump station was swamped by floodwaters, leaving residents without water service for more than a week.
Imelda’s remnants on Thursday led to deaths. A 19year-old man drowned 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.
Another man drowned when he tried to drive a van through 8-foot floodwaters near Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston during Thursday’s afternoon rush hour, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.
A third death was that of a man whose body was found in a ditch Friday north of Houston, Harris County sheriff’s spokesman Jason Spencer said. Preliminary indications are that the unidentified man drowned.
Also on Friday, police in Beaumont said the body of a 47-year-old man was found in a Toyota Prius that was discovered in a flooded canal after waters receded.
The National Weather Service said preliminary estimates suggested that Jefferson County was deluged with more than 40 inches of rain in a span of just 72 hours, which would make it the seventhwettest tropical cyclone to hit the continental U.S.
“The issue is that you can’t get 40 inches of rain in a 72-hour period and be fully prepared for that,” Jefferson County spokeswoman Allison Getz said Friday. “At this point, we haven’t been able to fully assess what’s happened.”