Climate
Historic Storm 2017

Houston Faces Catastrophic Flooding And Rain As Tropical Storm Harvey Lingers ... Five people have reportedly died in the Houston area, according to the National Weather Service.

Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Houston Faces Catastrophic Flooding And Rain As Tropical Storm Harvey Lingers ... Five people have reportedly died in the Houston area, according to the National Weather Service.

Hurricane Harvey leaves a path of devastation through Texas, destroying buildings and causing widespread power outages. Rising waters now threaten thousands of homes.

Houston is under a flood warning after a “deluge” of intense rain hit the city overnight Saturday. The city’s emergency services are at capacity, and the William P. Hobby Airport has canceled all inbound and outbound flights.

The exact death toll is unclear, although the National Weather Service reports five people have died in the Houston area.

Catastrophic flooding and heavy rainfall is expected for days to come.

The Houston area may get 50 inches of rainfall in some areas through Friday, according to the National Weather Service.

Authorities urge citizens to stay off the streets and to climb to rooftops if they are trapped.

KATY, Texas ― Two days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in southern Texas, the city of Houston is facing life-threatening, catastrophic flooding that authorities warn could last for days and become “historic.”

The National Weather Service reported on Sunday morning that while winds were decreasing and Harvey had been downgraded to a tropical storm, heavy rainfall created life-threatening hazards across much of the state’s southeast region.

“This event is unprecedented & all impacts are unknown & beyond anything experienced,” the National Weather Service said.

The extreme weather also brought a tornado warning for southern Houston, with emergency services telling those in the affected area to hunker down in place and keep away from windows.


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Authorities in Houston, the country’s fourth-largest city, declared a flood warning overnight on Saturday when “a deluge” of rain hit the area.

On Saturday night, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner urged residents to prepare for days of heavy rains and flooding. The storm is expected to bring devastating amounts of rain throughout the week, and emergency flash flood warnings remained in effect on Sunday.

“This is day one,” Turner said.

During a press conference on Sunday morning, Turner reiterated that residents should stay in place and said the city would be opening more shelters to cope with the effects of Harvey. The city is opening its George R. Brown Convention Center as one such storm shelter.

“Just stay put,” Turner pleaded. “We need you to help us.”

Turner also told residents to refrain from driving and to “stay off the streets unless it’s an emergency.”

Images of the city show submerged cars and streets, with parts of major freeways completely underwater.

Rain is falling steadily in Katy, Texas, and some of the highway feeder roads are flooded. In the outskirts of Houston, police blocked roads going into rural areas, where ranches and farms were flooded and trees stood in pools of water a couple feet deep.

On Interstate 10 traveling east into Houston, electric signs read “High water” and urged drivers to “Turn around, don’t drown.”


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Emergency management officials asked residents to avoid the roads and sheltering in their attics, and to get on their roofs instead. The floodwaters currently threaten thousands of homes in the Houston metropolitan area.

Thousands of flights nationwide have also been grounded over the past several days in relation to Harvey. Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport on Sunday canceled all inbound and outbound flights.

“The runways at Hobby are currently unusable and no flights are operating at this time,” the airport said in an alert.

The city’s emergency services tweeted Sunday morning that they were at capacity and asked residents to only call if they faced imminent danger. Turner also advised people to give preference to life- threatening situations when calling 911.

Houston’s main public hospital, Ben Taub, was evacuated on Sunday due to flooding from Harvey, according to county judge Ed Emmett.


DAVID LOHR A partially submerged speed limit sign in Katy, Texas, shows how high the floodwaters have reached in some areas.

Houston’s emergency services had responded to 2500 calls since midnight on Sunday, Turner stated during Sunday morning’s press conference. There have been 250 rescues since Saturday night, the mayor said, all of them from vehicles.

The mayor defended the decision not to issue an evacuation order for Houston, saying it would have created “a nightmare.” Turner had cautioned residents on Friday against leaving the city, saying “Please think twice before trying to leave Houston en masse. No evacuation orders have been issued for the city.”

But Texans received mixed messages from officials regarding evacuations in the leadup to the storm. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued a statement on Friday conflicting with city officials, and advised Houston residents to evacuate north even if no local order to do so was in place.


DAVID LOHR A submerged car in Katy, Texas, during the storm. Authorities are urging people to stay off the roads.

Hurricane Harvey was downgraded to a tropical storm on Saturday, after making landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Friday night near Corpus Christi. Meteorologists cautioned, however, that the danger was far from over as potential “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding” continued to threaten parts of the state.

Meteorologist Ryan Maue said 20 trillion gallons of water could fall on Texas in the next week. Michael Lowry of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research said that more than 60,000 square miles are under high or moderate risk for excessive rainfall through Sunday morning.


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Abnormally intense rains and flooding have battered Houston and the surrounding area in recent years. Last April, the area was soaked by what the local flood control district deemed a one-in-10,000 year rainfall event as 15 inches of rain poured in some parts of Houston in just 24 hours. In May 2015, at least six people died and more than a thousand vehicles were submerged when 12 inches of rain fell in just 10 hours.

The Houston area experienced similar rainfall totals in July 2012. Before that, the area hadn’t been pummeled by such weather since the 1960s, the Houston Chronicle wrote last summer.



NICK OXFORD/REUTERS An abandoned vehicle is covered by flood waters on Interstate 610 after Hurricane Harvey inundated the Texas Gulf Coast with rain, in Houston, Texas, on Aug. 27, 2017.

The exact death toll from the storm remained unclear as rescue workers struggled to reach affected areas. According to the National Weather Service, five people have died in the Houston area.

Gary Norman, spokesman for the city’s emergency operations center, confirmed one of those fatalities late Saturday. He told The Associated Press that a woman had been driving along flooded streets when she “got out of her vehicle in high water.” The cause of death has yet to be confirmed.

Separately, C. J. Wax, the mayor of Rockport in Aransas County, confirmed the death of a man who died while trapped in his burning house, unable to be reached by rescuers during the height of the hurricane. Wax said at least 12 other people sustained injuries.


ROQUE PLANAS A partially submerged street in Katy, Texas.

Rockport, where the storm made landfall Friday night, appeared on Saturday to be among the hardest-hit areas. The town of 10,000 is about 30 miles north of Corpus Christi, and has reported major damage to homes and businesses. Officials there told The Weather Channel that the loss of cellular coverage was hindering rescue work.

Floodwaters have also prevented authorities from reaching many other affected areas.


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The Coast Guard has rescued 32 people in distress at sea, The New York Times reports.

About 300,000 people across Texas experienced power outages. The impact of the disaster is being acutely felt by some of the state’s most vulnerable.

Lydia O’Connor and Dominique Mosbergen contributed reporting.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.