At least three deaths in Texas have been blamed on Hurricane Harvey — and the storm system is expected to make landfall again sometime this week, forecasters said, as torrents of water continued to cripple the region and prolong rescue efforts.
In hard-hit Houston, Mayor Sylvester Turner said Monday night that more than 3,000 people have been rescued since the weekend and 150 remained in “critical” situations. While the country’s fourth-largest city grapples with thousands of rescue calls, unrelenting downpours and widespread flooding have made response difficult.
“This is a landmark event for Texas,” said Brock Long, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “Texas has never seen an event like this.”
The Weather Channel warned that “localized storm-total rain amounts of up to 50 inches are not out of the question” by later this week because of the additional 10 to 20 inches forecasted. “This may end up being one of the worst flood disasters in U.S. history,” it added.
The Latest on the Storm
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- Harvey, now a tropical storm with maximum winds of about 45 mph, was around 100 miles east-southeast of Port O’Connor, Texas, at 5 a.m. ET Tuesday and was slowly moving back toward coastal waters.
- It is expected to remain offshore in the Gulf of Mexico before 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 260,000 customers are without power.
- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has begun releasing water from both major Houston-area dams — something that has never been done before.
- President Donald Trump will tour parts of Texas on Tuesday. He declared a disaster in five parishes ahead of the storm’s arrival in Louisiana.
The National Weather Service highlighted that “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding” remained a threat to southeastern Texas and portions of southwestern Louisiana early Tuesday.
A 60-year-old woman in east Montgomery County, north of Houston, died when a tree fell on her while she slept, the county sheriff’s office said Monday. That raised the confirmed number of deaths to three.
Six members of a family trying to flee were swept away in their van on Sunday and remained missing, two relatives told NBC News on Monday. Authorities said they hadn’t found a submerged van, but relatives said the six — four children and their great-grandparents — were feared dead.
More than 260,000 customers in Texas remained without power early Tuesday, utilities reported, and some areas might not get their power back until Saturday with flooding make it difficult for crews to restore electricity.
The Department of Homeland Security said it was sending personnel to the state to help bolster security forces, while Gov. Greg Abbott said the entire Texas National Guard — about 12,000 members — would be deployed.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it was taking more than 1,000 calls per hour, and Police Chief Art Acevedo said he feared the worst was yet to come.
“We know in these kind of events that, sadly, the death toll goes up historically,” Acevedo told The Associated Press. “I’m really worried about how many bodies we’re going to find.”
President Donald Trump, who is scheduled to travel to Texas on Tuesday afternoon with First Lady Melania Trump, signed a disaster declaration to help get federal funds to stricken areas.
The Coast Guard sent assets from as far away as Maine and California, 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.”
Houston set up its largest shelter inside the George R. Brown Convention Center, which has a capacity for about 5,000 people. But by Monday night, 7,000 people arrived there, according to the AP.
As thousands of people flocked to shelters throughout the region, Turner debunked rumors that immigrants were being ordered to produce valid immigration papers to receive shelter and other aid.
“I and others will be the first ones to stand up with you,” Turner told reporters Monday. “If you need help and someone comes and they require help, and then for some reason, then somebody tries to deport them, I will represent them myself, OK?”
The city reinforced the message Monday night, tweeting: “We will not ask for immigration status or papers from anyone at any shelter. This rumor is FALSE!”
The federal bureaus of Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have already said that they won’t be conducting “routine noncriminal immigration enforcement operations” at shelters or aid centers.
Officials said 1,400 inmates at two prisons in Richmond were evacuated on Monday night due to rising waters. On Saturday, 4,500 offenders were moved from three other facilities.
Little relief is in sight, as Harvey refuses to budge from its home along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. The NWS said that the system was expected to churn north and make landfall again along the northwestern Gulf coast sometime on Wednesday.
Dayton, north of Houston, had received 39.7 inches of rain by Monday afternoon, while Houston, itself, had received about 20 inches — “and there’s going to be so much more on top of that,” said Danielle Banks, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel.
The upper Texas coast could get as much as 20 more inches, taking totals in some areas up to 50 inches — including the Houston/Galveston area, the NWS said.
“Given the completely saturated ground, this rainfall and future expected heavy rainfall will keep the flash flooding threat at the forefront of this storm,” the NWS said late Monday. “Historic flooding is likely on many area rivers and bayous.”
And even then, “because of the sheer volume of water of Hurricane Harvey, it is going to take weeks to drain through the rivers of Texas,” Banks said.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Monday that it had begun releasing water from both major Houston-area dams — something that has never been done before.
While opening two reservoirs will increase water levels and worsen flooding along Houston’s Buffalo Bayou watershed, it’s a better alternative than allowing the water to spill over and around the reservoirs into additional neighborhoods, Turner, the mayor, said Monday.
The storm’s next target as it tracks north is likely to be Louisiana, the southern part of which the NWS placed under flash flood watches through Thursday. As much as 20 inches is possible in southwestern parts of the state, it said.
Trump on Monday declared a disaster in five Louisiana parishes ahead of the storm’s arrival, authorizing FEMA to coordinate relief efforts there and allowing the federal government to cover some emergency costs.
For survivors of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the devastation brought back painful memories.
“We’ve been watching the weather map, but not necessarily the weather footage, because it is very reminiscent,” said Edward L. Spears II, pastor of Faith and Love Church of God in Christ in Fort Worth, who evacuated with his family from New Orleans 12 years ago.
Harvey “is a little too close,” he told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth. “In all the languages in all the world and all the dialects, there are no words for what it feels like.”
Related: Six Family Members Swept Away in Van Feared Dead
Meanwhile, State Attorney General Ken Paxton warned that another specter was menacing the state — profiteers operating in violation of laws against price gouging.
Paxton told CNBC on Monday that his office had already fielded more than 500 complaints since Harvey arrived — including reports of up to $99 being charged for a case of water, hotels tripling or quadrupling their prices and fuel being offered for up to $10 a gallon.
Violators are subject to fines of up to $20,000 per occurrence — or up to $250,000 if the victim is aged 65 or older.