HOUSTON — Harvey was taking aim at Texas again Tuesday, forecast to make landfall later somewhere along the border with Louisiana after swamping the Houston area with record rainfall and deadly flooding.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner imposed an indefinite 10 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew, warning Tuesday night that criminals impersonating law enforcement officers were going door to door to lure residents out so they could rob them. In addition, 14, people have also been arrested on suspicion of looting, the Harris County district attorney’s office said.
Latest from the storm
- Harvey, now a tropical storm with maximum winds of about 50 mph, was about 30 miles east-southeast of Galveston, Texas, at 5 p.m. ET Tuesday and was moving northeast at about 6 mph. It is expected to remain offshore in the Gulf of Mexico before making landfall again in 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 the Labor Day weekend, forecasters say.
- Five people have been officially reported dead as a result of the storm.
The storm literally became historic on Tuesday, when the record for rainfall from a tropical cyclone in the continental United States was smashed at 51.88 inches in Mont Belvieu, 35 miles east of Houston, the National Weather Service reported.
Among the latest confirmed victims of the hurricane-turned-tropical storm was veteran Houston police Officer Steve Perez, 60, who drowned while driving to work on Sunday, Police Chief Art Acevedo confirmed just hours after his Perez’s body was found earlier Tuesday.
“The wife told me she asked him not to go in,” Acevedo said, his voice choking with emotion. “His response was, ‘We’ve got work to do.'”
Acevedo said Tuesday night that his officers were under a deep strain. In addition to the loss of their colleague, almost 200 officers’ homes have been destroyed or damaged, he said.
As it makes landfall again, Harvey was expected to pack winds up to 45 mph and drench the upper Texas coast and southwestern Louisiana with 6 to 12 inches of rain before heading deeper inland, the National Weather Service warned. Forecasters said final localized rain totals up to 50 inches were possible in Texas by later this week.
“The whole problem with Harvey the entire time is that it has basically been stationary, and it continues to be fed by moisture coming off the ocean,” said Danielle Banks, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel.
Parts of southwest Louisiana have already recorded more than a foot of rain from Harvey’s outer bands, and 5 inches or more are possible through Thursday, said the National Weather Service, which projected tides up to 2 feet above normal along the coast west of the Mississippi River. A coastal flood advisory is in effect.
The system is expected to sweep southwest to northeast across the state, passing through major cities like New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Flash flood watches spanned the entire state except for the far northeast corner.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards warned that there could be power outages and that hundreds of trees could topple because the ground is already saturated.
About 500 people were evacuated from the Gulf Coast near the Texas-Louisiana border, where Harvey is expected to make landfall around midday Wednesday, Edwards said.
“This storm is going to play out over the next 48 to 72 hours,” Edwards said at a news conference. “It has tremendous potential to continue to drop heavy amounts of water and to prevent people from going about their normal business in a safe manner.”
In New Orleans, Mayor Mitch Landrieu marked the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated his city — and sparked an exodus to residents to new lives in Houston.
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“We lost 1,800 fellow Americans, and the devastation we experienced was great,” Landrieu said. “No city welcomed more New Orleanians following Katrina than Houston, and our hearts break for them as Hurricane Harvey displaces so many of their citizens.”
Later, when it appeared that New Orleans wasn’t directly in Harvey’s sights, Landrieu announced that schools and public buildings would be open Wednesday. He said the forecast called for 3 to 5 inches of rain.
“We believe we can handle this,” Landrieu said. “We are prepared for whatever comes our way.”
Photos: Eerie Aerials Show Houston Drenched in Floodwater
There had been fears that New Orleans wouldn’t be able to withstand a huge storm because a large number of the pumps and turbines that keep the low-lying city from being swamped by rainwater weren’t working.
President Donald Trump has already 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.
Harvey slammed into Texas on Friday as a Category 4 hurricane and then stalled over Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, and its surrounding suburbs, turning highways into rivers and doing billions of dollars in damage.
Five people were confirmed dead, and Acevedo, the police chief, warned that the number could rise dramatically once the water that has hampered rescue efforts finally recedes. Among the likely but unconfirmed victims were six members of the Saldivar family who were feared dead after their van was swept into Houston’s Greens Bayou.
Almost 275,000 customers remained without power across the state Tuesday.
Turner reported that more than 3,500 people have been rescued since the weekend and that 150 remained in “critical” situations.
The city’s 911 operators were struggling to answer numerous desperate calls for help, authorities said. With the George R. Brown Convention Center at double its capacity of about 5,000 people seeking shelter, the Houston Rockets basketball team agreed to open its arena, the Toyota Center, for overflow evacuees, Turner said Tuesday night..
The U.S. Homeland Security Department said it was sending reinforcements to Texas to help bolster security forces, while Gov. Greg Abbott ordered the entire Texas National Guard — about 12,000 members — to report for duty.
As the Federal Highway Administration made $25 million in emergency funds available to help with road and bridge repairs in Texas, Trump arrived in the state on Tuesday and praised the recovery efforts from the “epic” storm.
The city’s major airports both said they would finally reopen in the next couple of days — William P. Hobby on Wednesday morning and George Bush Intercontinental on Thursday afternoon.
Meanwhile, the Coast Guard was taking more than 1,000 calls per hour. Coast Guard Lt. Mike Hart said the agency had 22 helicopters, three fixed-wing planes and 28 boats from as far away as Maine and California in the state to help with rescues.
Phil McCausland reported from Houston. Alex Johnson reported from Los Angeles. Corky Siemaszko reported from New York City.