Flooded Houston Braces for More Rain as Harvey Rescues Continue

HOUSTON — Heavy rains returned with a fury Monday morning as up to 20 more inches was predicted to deluge the region following a weekend of widespread flooding and more than 1,000 rescues in the wake of Hurricane Harvey.

The catastrophic storm is expected to send more than 30,000 people into temporary shelters and prompt about 450,000 people to file for disaster aid, the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Monday.

"This is a landmark event for Texas," Brock Long, FEMA's administrator, told reporters. "Texas has never seen an event like this." 

He added that the situation remains a rescue operation, with 30 to 50 counties in Texas potentially affected by the storm. Homeland Security is sending personnel to the state to help bolster security forces there.

"Hurricane force winds have diminished, but we are still not out of the woods," added Elaine Duke, the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security.

The Latest on the Storm

• Harvey, now a tropical storm with winds of about 30 to 40 mph, is about 25 miles off the middle of the Texas coast and is slowly moving back toward coastal waters. It is expected to remain offshore through Tuesday before resurging in the Gulf of Mexico and turning back north toward southeast Texas on Wednesday.
• Bands of heavy rain are expected to persist over the next several days, with parts of Texas and Louisiana facing record rainfall through at least Labor Day weekend, forecasters say.
• Flash flood warnings remain in effect for parts of the Houston region through Tuesday morning, and more than 290,000 customers are without power.
• The National Weather Service warns conditions are "somewhat favorable" for tornadoes.

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Harvey has been blamed for at least two deaths in Texas, including one person who was found drowned inside a vehicle, officials said.

Abandoned cars littered roadways in and around Houston. Drivers attempted to leave Houston via Interstate 45, which cuts through the city and stretches south toward the Gulf of Mexico. The highway was still passable, although some area roads were completely swamped by flooding and the tops of traffic lights peeked out from above the water.

The Army Corps of Engineers announced early Monday that it had begun releasing water from both major Houston-area dams — something that has never been done before. That decision came after levels in the Barker and Addicks reservoirs "increased dramatically," by more than six inches per hour. Earlier Sunday, officials had said they did not plan to open the Barker dam until 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

“If we don’t begin releasing now, the volume of uncontrolled water around the dams will be higher and have a greater impact on the surrounding communities,” the Corps' Col. Lars Zetterstrom said.

Opening the reservoirs will increase water levels in downtown Houston.

As many has 40 inches of rain have fallen on areas near the country's fourth-largest city in 24 hours as of Sunday night, the NWS said. And 15 to 25 more inches of rain could fall on a swath of the upper Texas coast to Lafayette, Louisiana, by Friday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the wettest tropical storm in U.S. history, Hurricane Hiki, yielded more than 52 inches of rain on Hawaii in 1950.

Rivers, meanwhile, are expected to crest later this week, only exacerbating the dire situation.

"Results could be devastating if any of these rains fall where catastrophic flooding has already occurred," the NWS warned.

More than 290,000 customers in the region were without power as at 5:30 a.m. ET Monday, utility companies said.

Dallas was preparing to open its "Mega Shelter" in the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center to handle a stream of people displaced from Houston and other coastal areas. Already early Monday, people were huddled outside wearing American Red Cross blankets. The city plans to have the convention center ready to accommodate 5,000 people by Tuesday morning, reported NBC Dallas-Fort Worth.

Harvey weakened to a tropical storm since making landfall in Rockport, Texas, on Friday, but still posed a danger of devastating floods. Around 250 roads and highways in the state have been closed by floodwaters, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said.

"People need to know that there are large and growing rescue teams that will be working around the clock to evacuate people in need," Abbott said on MSNBC, adding that 3,000 members of the National Guard had been activated.

Forecasters warned that the flooding in Texas could be historic.

The National Weather Service said average rainfall amounts in Harris County had already eclipsed the amounts seen in the devastating Tropical Storm Allison in 2001 — and in about half the time.

A Houston woman whose home flooded early Sunday said the water began to build at 3 a.m. and did not stop. "I was thinking of writing my Social Security number on my arm," she told MSNBC.

Thousands of calls for help came in to first responders, and the city's mayor pleaded with people to call 911 only in life-threatening emergencies.

Houston police on Sunday night issued a call for boat owners to volunteer.

The U.S. Coast Guard sent assets from as far away as Maine and California to help, Vice Adm. Karl Schultz said. Helicopters and numerous boat crews were being used to assist in rescues, he said.

People were rescued from "pretty much everywhere," said Cmdr. Jim Spitler, commanding officer of Air Station Houston. "Most of them are rooftops, but they've been on top of cars, they’ve been on bridges, they’ve been in their attics."

He repeated warnings from authorities not to retreat to attics amid rising water, because people can be trapped and it makes rescue difficult, and he encouraged people who need help to mark their roofs.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said the department has conducted about 2,000 rescue missions and has about 230 left. With a lull in the rain earlier Monday, he told MSNBC that crews will also focus on homes that are flooded to the rooftops.

The National Hurricane Center said the Houston area could see a total of 50 inches of rain. The storm was causing "unprecedented flooding" in southeastern Texas, it added.

"This is a life-threatening situation," said Michael Palmer, lead meteorologist for The Weather Channel.

As of early Monday, Harvey was about 25 miles northeast of Port O'Connor, located on the middle Texas coast, with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph, the hurricane center said. The center of the storm was moving at about 3 mph off the middle Texas coast, and was set to meander just offshore through Tuesday before heading back north toward land.

President Donald Trump will travel to Texas on Tuesday. He signed a disaster declaration to help get federal funds to stricken areas. Abbott said Sunday that he expanded an initial request to 18 counties, including Harris County, where Houston is located, and that it had been approved.

Abbott praised the White House response and said he had spoken with Trump personally.

Long said Sunday that the recovery effort would take years.

"This is a long game. It's going to take a long time to heal," Abbott added. He called Harvey "a horrible tragedy."

Harvey caused damage along the Texas Gulf coast and inland, and the city of Rockport north of Corpus Christi was hit hard, officials said. Port Aransas was reportedly without power, water and telephone service, and every business in town was damaged.

Flood watches from San Antonio to Lafayette, Louisiana, covered 13 million people and were expected to be in place through midweek.

Federal officials said they would be planning for recovery efforts later in the week.

When Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, about 30,000 people unable to flee New Orleans were sheltered in the Louisiana Superdome. Nearly 74,000 families that were displaced were provided temporary housing through FEMA.

Katrina caused an estimated $81 billion in property damages and required FEMA to help more than 738,000 individuals and households.

Source: NBC News