HOUSTON — The devastating path of Harvey made landfall Wednesday for a second time since it roared ashore last week, as the biggest rainstorm in the history of the continental United States finally began to move away from Houston and carried its fury to Louisiana.
Now a tropical storm, Harvey’s immediate effects are not expected as devastating as a Category 4 hurricane that first blasted Houston and other parts of Texas beginning last Friday. But it still packed potentially deadly and disastrous torrents of rain that have left Texas with a punishing toll: at least 22 people known dead and possibly more, tens of thousands left homeless and storm-ravaged areas that could take months or longer to bounce back.
Forecasters predict another five to 10 inches of rain could fall in western Louisiana, where rivers and bayous were already swollen with near-record downpours.
Coastal lowlands also faced a double threat. A storm surge warning for the coast from Holly Beach to Morgan City, La., said water levels could rise another two to four feet, The Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang reported. To the east, New Orleans was under a flash flood warning. Meanwhile, authorities up the Mississippi Delta — as far away as Tennessee — prepared to feel the brunt of Harvey as it began to chart northward.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said in a news conference Tuesday to “prepare and pray” as Harvey arced again over the Gulf of Mexico to pick up more rainfall potential. The storm made landfall before dawn Wednesday near Cameron, La., a marshy port about 20 miles east of the Texas border.
In Beaumont, Tex., 85 miles east of Houston, at least 10 inches of rain fell on Tuesday afternoon alone. In the deluge, a mother and child got out of their car on a flooded freeway service road and were swept away. The child clung to her mother for half a mile. Police and firefighters got to them just before they went under a trestle and were lost for good. Only the child survived, police said.
After more than 50 inches of rain over four days, Houston was less of a city and more of an archipelago: a chain of urbanized islands in a muddy brown sea. All around it, flat-bottomed boats and helicopters were still plucking victims from rooftops, and water was still pouring in from overfilled reservoirs and swollen rivers.
Between 25 and 30 percent of Harris County — home to 4.5 million people in Houston and its near suburbs — was flooded by Tuesday afternoon, according to an estimate from Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the county flood control district. That’s at least 444 square miles, an area six times the size of the District of Columbia.
Across Houston on Tuesday, there were some new reasons for hope: the rain turned from sheets into mere drops. Fast-food outlets reopened. When a downtown convention center became a shelter for the displaced, volunteers lined up around the block to help.
But there was a realization that the storm’s most awful damage was still unknown — scattered out in those disconnected islands, or hidden under the water.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner imposed a curfew starting Tuesday from midnight to 5 a.m. Central Time to deter looting of abandoned homes.
“There are some who might want to take advantage of this situation, so even before it gets a foothold in the city, we just need to hold things in check,” Turner said at a news conference.
Authorities added that there had been reports of people impersonating law enforcement officers in communities such as Kingwood, falsely telling people they needed to evacuate.
On Tuesday morning authorities discovered the body of a Houston police officer who had drowned in his patrol car two days earlier, at the storm’s height. Sergeant Steve Perez, a veteran officer, was on his way to work on Sunday morning — spending two and a half hours looking for a path through rain-lashed streets — when he drove into a flooded underpass.
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said that Perez’s wife had asked him not to go in that day. He went, Acevedo said, “because he has that in his DNA.''
In all, authorities said at least 22 people had been confirmed dead from the storm. But they said it was difficult to know how many more were missing. They also said it is too early to assess the total number of homes and other buildings damaged, in part because rescue crews were still having trouble even reaching some areas because of flooded or flood-damaged roads, said Francisco Sanchez, spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
“We’re still in the middle of the response,” he said.
Authorities said more than 13,000 people had been rescued from floodwaters, according to the Associated Press, but that number was surely low. Many had been rescued by strangers with boats, who had rescued so many that they themselves had lost count. They left behind homes that could be flooded for days, or weeks, and perhaps lost forever.
Officials said more than 13,300 people were already in shelters. Federal authorities estimated that 30,000 people could be forced from their homes in Texas and surrounding states.
Federal authorities estimated that 30,000 people could be forced from their homes in Texas and surrounding states.
“I’ve lived here since 1994, and it’s never been this high,” said Bonnie McKenna, a retired flight attendant living in Kingwood, along the raging San Jacinto River on Houston’s northeast side.
McKenna’s house was dry, but down the street rescue boats were unloading neighbors rescued from flooded streets nearby. McKenna didn’t have a boat.
But she did have a blanket.
She cut it into quarters, and offered them to soggy evacuees when they got off on dry land.
“I’m thankful it didn’t come to my house, but I’m very sad for the people who have just lost everything,” McKenna said.
The residents of Arbor Terrace, a senior living facility in the now-underwater Kingwood Town Center, had little time to grab anything. Lupe Herasimchuk didn’t have time to retrieve her CPAP machine, a device that helps those with sleep apnea breathe easier. And they came only with the clothes they had on when emergency personnel arrived at the waterlogged facility.
“It happened so fast,” Herasimchuk said. “I mean, I didn’t bring anything.”
President Trump flew to Texas on Tuesday, and he visited both Corpus Christi — near where the storm made landfall — and state officials in Austin. At one point, he shouted a message to a crowd outside a fire station in Corpus Christi.
“This is historic, it’s epic what happened. But you know what, it happened in Texas and Texas can handle anything,” he told the crowd, which applauded his remarks and cheered more loudly when he waved the Texas state flag.
The Department of Labor on Tuesday announced that it had approved an initial $10 million grant to help with cleanup efforts in Texas. Trump on Monday declared “emergency conditions” in Louisiana, where the storm was headed next.
Before Harvey struck this weekend, the biggest recorded rainstorm in the continental U.S. had been Tropical Storm Amelia, which dumped 48 inches on Texas in 1978 (even larger storms have been recorded in Hawaii).
Officials released water from those reservoirs to ease the pressure, but at least one of the reservoirs still overtopped its banks. More than 3,000 homes were flooded around the reservoirs.
They may remain flooded for some time. The Army Corps of Engineers said it would continue to release water from the reservoirs for weeks, to make room in case another rain comes.
“We’re still in tropical storm season,” said Edmond Russo, an official with the Corps of Engineers.
Comments
Post a Comment