“The water kept rising”
The remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda continue to soak southeast Texas with more than 40 inches of rain in some places. The flooding comes two years after Hurricane Harvey unleashed a torrent of rain on the same area.
CHINA , TEXAS» The slowchurning remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda flooded parts of Texas on Thursday, leaving at least two people dead and rescue crews with boats scrambling to reach stranded drivers and families trapped in their homes during a relentless downpour that drew comparisons to Hurricane Harvey two years ago.
By Thursday night, floodwaters had started receding in most of the Houston area, said the city’s mayor, Sylvester Turner.
Law enforcement officers planned to work well into the night to clear freeways of vehicles stalled and abandoned because of flooding, Police Chief Art Acevedo said.
Officials in Harris County, which includes Houston, said there had been 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. The storm also flooded parts of southwestern Louisiana.
More than 900 flights were canceled or delayed in Houston. Farther along the 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 Thursday led to the deaths of two men. 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-foot-deep floodwaters near Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston during the Thursday afternoon rush hour, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.
The National Weather Service said preliminary estimates suggested that Jefferson County was deluged with more than 40 inches of rain in just 72 hours, which would make it the seventh-wettest tropical cyclone in U.S. history.
Even when Houston was finally rid of the worst, downtown highways remained littered with abandoned cars submerged in water. Thousands of other drivers were at a practical standstill on narrowed lanes near flooded banks.
“The water kept rising. It kept rising. I couldn’t believe it,” said Ruby Trahan Robinson, 63. She uses a wheelchair and had a portable oxygen tank while getting settled into a shelter at City Hall in the small town of China, just outside Beaumont.
“It rolled in like a river,” she said.