02 September, 2017
In Houston and along the Gulf Coast, 27 hospitals have either closed or evacuated some patients since Harvey made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane Friday, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Heavy rains are now falling in the same region that was socked by Hurricane Katrina 12 years ago to the day. It churned slowly over the next five days, dropping about 50 inches of rain on Harris County, more than any tropical storm recorded in the continental U.S. since 1950.
Journalist Juan Rodriguez, a reporter for local station 12NewsNow, was in Orange, Texas, covering the storm when he heard the floodwaters were quickly rising in Port Arthur, where he lives.
A tropical storm warning was in effect for much of the Louisiana coast. Those who can't return home will be sent to shelters, he said.
Police in Harris County, home to Houston, said 17 people remained missing. The federal government's early response has been praised for its coordination and thoroughness in the face of an unprecedented natural disaster that has left much of Houston, the nation's fourth largest city, under water. The first flight out of Houston since the storm hit boarded on Wednesday evening.
911 call centres have been besieged by more than 1,000 calls an hour from people seeking help in Houston. Some of the only subsidized housing in the area was built in one of our many 100-year floodplains, designated as high risk zones for flooding by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Anita Williams, 52, was among dozens of people lined up Thursday morning at a shelter at Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center to register for FEMA aid.
She said she had returned to her neighborhood on Wednesday to survey the damage to her one-story house.
"It's not my house anymore. My deep freezer was in my living room", she said, her voice breaking.
"Vehicle sales could be weak for a period and then will ramp up, because a lot of cars have been destroyed in the storm and will be replaced", said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics Inc.
She says the water made it within an inch of her home.
"Everything's bigger in Texas so I'm raising the goal to $10 million", Watt said in his latest video. While the Addicks Reservoir breached the top of its emergency spillway and began flowing uncontrolled, the water levels have not reached the 109.5 foot level that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Galveston Col. Lars Zetterstrom said would cause "larger flows of water" to go around the ends of the dam. The NHC expects the storm's center to "move across the Lower Mississippi Valley and Tennessee Valley through Thursday".
Moody's Analytics estimated the economic cost from Harvey for southeastern Texas at $51 billion to $75 billion, ranking it among the costliest storms in American history.
"Our thoughts are with all the people who have suffered tremendous losses and disruption from this catastrophic hurricane and related flooding", Jeff Shellebarger, president, Chevron North America Exploration and Production Co., said in a statement.
Vice President Mike Pence is expected to travel Thursday to four hurricane-ravaged cities near Corpus Christi, the first area in Texas to receive the brunt of the hurricane, a senior administration official said.
