06 September, 2017
I'm driving around the western suburbs of Houston with Eric Chase, a Houston resident who is trying to reach his house in the west of the city. "It'll probably take three or four years to get over this, but I don't know ..."
"It's humbling to see the way the city's coming together going through a hard time", Kurtis Drummond said. But with areas under water, people not yet in their homes, and billions in damage to fix, major disasters that Harvey created are by no means resolved.
In another Texas city with no drinking water, people waited in a line that stretched for more than a mile to get bottled water while others awaited evacuation flights.
It's an early step in a massive cleanup effort that's beginning with people leaving emergency shelters.
"The rebuilding process, this is where the long haul begins", Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on "Fox News Sunday".
When one part of America hurts, we all hurt.
Then the storm came, and suddenly there were much higher priorities than building a high wall costing almost $80 billion: rebuilding a storm-ravaged region of our country and helping thousands of families put their lives back together.
The man found floating in Cypress Creek floodwaters brings the confirmed toll to 44 from Harvey, eight days after the storm made landfall as a hurricane.
Congress returns to Washington Tuesday after a summer recess.
Congress returns today after a summer recess, with Democrats and Republicans under pressure to approve disaster relief. "We are more than glad to be helpful", said Gustavo Santillan. Folks can say what they want to about politics, but when it comes to people's lives, none of that matters - not race, not religion, not any of it.
But Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said his city was making progress on several fronts to recovery, resuming city services and helping get people into housing and out of emergency shelters. Exxon Mobil, Halliburton and Chevron are among the scores of Houston businesses reopening their doors to office workers.
Houston is a regional hub and also a center of the USA petroleum industry, with the surrounding Gulf Coast area home to about a third of the nation's refining capacity.
"It's going to take years for us to be able to overcome this challenge", Abbott said. He appeared Sunday on CBS and NBC.
The water in Houston did not discriminate.
Houston's school district, the nation's seventh largest, remains closed this week to fix flooded schools.
The mayor announced plans to release water from two reservoirs that could keep as many as 20,000 homes flooded for up to 15 days.
Police set up roadblocks and were patrolling the area, in part to prevent looting. Homes that are not now flooded probably will not be affected, officials said.
Meanwhile, many Americans marked a "National Day of Prayer" for the storm's victims. "Everything", he told AFP, saying the water ruined his home. Those donations can be made online as well as at the local churches.
"When a policyholder contacts his/her insurer and verifies his/her identity, he/she can receive an advance payment for up to $5,000 on a flood claim, without an adjuster visit or additional documentation", FEMA said. Located alongside Buffalo Bayou, the slow-moving river that snakes through the area, the region was left highly exposed when Harvey struck.
Officials said at least 75 schools in Houston suffered severe or extensive water damage, or more than 25 percent of all those in the district.
