HOUSTON — Tropical Depression Imelda brought driving rains to Louisiana and southeast Texas on Thursday, prompting evacuations and inundating many of the same communities ravaged by Hurricane Harvey two years ago.
As much as 40 inches of rain could fall in the region on Thursday and Friday, as “significant and life threatening flash flooding is ongoing across portions of far southeast Texas,” according to an advisory from the National Hurricane Center.
Crews have rescued more than 1,000 people in the Houston area, mostly in eastern Harris County, because of rising waters, officials said.
“What we need is for folks to stay calm … and stay home,” Harris County Judge Lina Hildago, the county’s chief executive, told reporters. “The best thing you can do is remain indoors, wherever you are, to not go outside.”
And all bus and rail service has been shut down in Houston, Texas’ biggest city and the fourth largest in America, the area’s public transportation agency announced.
More than 70,000 homes and businesses in Texas, almost all in the southeast corner in the Houston area, were without power late Thursday afternoon, according to Poweroutage.us.
Both of Houston’s airports were affected by extreme rain.
Hobby Airport announced shortly after noon that departing flights would be allowed to take off, but arrivals are being turned away. George Bush Intercontinental Airport issued a full ground stop late in the morning, and before resuming flights with significant delays.
The roof of a United State Postal Service distribution facility on Aldine Bender Road in Houston collapsed during the storm at about 10:30 a.m., and three people were transported with minor injuries, Houston firefighters said.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the collapse was directly connected to the heavy rains, a USPS spokeswoman said.
Flood waters forced the hasty evacuation Thursday of Riceland Medical Center in Winnie, about 60 miles east of downtown Houston.
“It’s as bad as I’ve ever seen it. Right now I’m in an absolute deluge of rain,” Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said Thursday morning, as he took cover under a carport at an auto dealership.
“Right now, as a Texas sheriff, the only thing that I really want is for people to pray that it will quit raining.”
He added that the town “looks like a lake.”
James Revia, a 40-year-old resident of the Chambers County community of Hankamer, and his four children were rescued from their flooded trailer park home by a passing fire truck.
Revia, who owns a lawn service and is a mobile DJ, fears all of his music equipment, kept inside his truck, has been lost to floods.
“This storm grew into a tropical depression within four hours, it caught everyone by surprise,” he told NBC News.
Erika Zamora, who was stranded with her five children and husband inside their home, said the rain in Winnie was unrelenting.
“I opened the door and the water was to our door,” Zamora said.
A neighbor with a rescue boat fetched them to safety, but the family believes they’ve lost almost all of their belongings in their mobile home.
“This is my family, these are my kids and I’m pregnant. It was scary,” a tearful said Zamora Thursday at a local school cafeteria-turned-evacuation center.
In Beaumont, about 85 miles northeast of Houston, flood waters are going above and beyond what Hurricane Harvey did in August 2017, officials said.
“It’s bad,” Jefferson County Judge Jeff Branick said. “Homes that did not flood in Harvey are flooding now.”
By midday, a rain gauge just outside of Beaumont is reporting a two-day rainfall total now over 38 inches, with 34 inches coming down in the last 24 hours.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday declared a state of emergency in counties suffering from the heavy rains and floods: Brazoria, Chambers, Galveston, Hardin, Harris, Jasper, Jefferson, Liberty, Matagorda, Montgomery, Newton, Orange and San Jacinto.
Annie Rose Ramos reported from Houston, David K. Li reported from New York.
Kathryn Prociv contributed.