NATION/WORLD
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
East Oregonian
Page 9A
Harvey rain is heaviest in history
By NOMAAN MERCHANT
and JUAN LOZANO
Associated Press
HOUSTON — As the
human toll and the strain
on flood defenses mounted,
the city of Houston moved
Tuesday to open two
and possibly three more
mega-shelters, and the rain
from
Harvey
officially
became the heaviest tropical
downpour in U.S. history.
Louisiana’s
governor
offered to take in Harvey
victims from Texas, and
televangelist Joel Osteen
opened his Houston mega-
church, a 16,000-seat former
arena, after critics blasted him
on social media for not acting
to help families displaced by
the storm.
The city’s largest shelter,
the George R. Brown
Convention Center, held
more than 9,000 people,
almost twice the number
officials originally planned to
house there, Mayor Sylvester
Turner said. The crowds
included many from areas
outside Houston.
“We are not turning anyone
away. But it does mean we
need to expand our capabili-
ties and our capacity,” Turner
said. “Relief is coming.”
Louisiana Gov. John Bel
Edwards said he expects
Texas officials to decide
within 48 hours whether
to accept his offer, which
comes as Louisiana deals
with its own flooding. About
500 people were evacuated
from flooded neighborhoods
in southwest Louisiana,
Edwards said.
In all, more than 17,000
people have sought refuge
in Texas shelters and that
number seemed certain to
increase, the American Red
Cross said.
After
the
mayor’s
announcement, volunteers
and donors lined up outside
the Toyota Center, the down-
town arena that is home to the
Houston Rockets, in anticipa-
tion that it will be one of the
new shelters. Details of the
new shelters were expected
soon.
The mayor said the city
has asked the Federal Emer-
gency Management Agency
for more supplies, including
cots and food, for an addi-
tional 10,000 people, which
he hopes to get no later than
Wednesday.
Almost four days after
the storm ravaged the Texas
coastline as a Category 4
hurricane, authorities had
confirmed only four deaths.
But unconfirmed reports of
others missing or presumed
dead were growing.
Six members of a family
were feared dead after
their van sank into Greens
Bayou in East Houston. A
Houston hotel said one of its
employees disappeared while
helping about 100 guests
and workers evacuate the
building.
Houston police confirmed
that a 60-year-old officer
drowned in his patrol car after
he became trapped in high
water while driving to work.
Sgt. Steve Perez had been
with the force for 34 years.
Authorities acknowledge
that fatalities from Harvey
could soar once the floodwa-
ters start to recede from one
of America’s most sprawling
AP Photo/LM Otero
People rest at the George R. Brown Convention Center that has been set up as a shelter for evacuees escaping
the floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey in Houston on Tuesday.
AP photos by David J. Phillip
LEFT: Rescue boats fill a flooded street as victims are evacuated as floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey rise
Monday in Houston. RIGHT: Airplanes sit at a flooded airport near the Addicks Reservoir on Tuesday.
Trump offers flag-waving
optimism in Harvey’s path
CORPUS CHRISTI,
Texas (AP) — With
flag-waving optimism,
President Donald Trump
answered Harvey’s wrath
Tuesday by offering
in-person assurances to
those in the storm zone
that his administration
will work tirelessly to help
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
the region recover from
President Donald Trump
holds up a Texas flag af-
the massive flooding and
storm-inflicted destruction. ter speaking in Corpus
Christi, Texas, on Tuesday.
“We are going to get
you back and operating
immediately,” Trump told an impromptu crowd that
gathered outside a Corpus Christi fire station about 30
miles from where the storm made landfall on Friday.
The president did not mention those who died in the
storm or those forced from their homes by its floodwaters
as he basked in the attention of cheering supporters outside
the fire station where officials briefed him on the recovery.
“What a crowd, what a turnout,” Trump declared before
waving a Texas flag from atop a step ladder positioned
between two fire trucks. “This is historic. It’s epic what
happened, but you know what, it happened in Texas, and
Texas can handle anything.”
Trump is clearly determined to seize the moment and
show a forceful response to Harvey, mindful of the political
opportunities and risks that natural disasters pose for any
president. Trump has been suffering from low approval
ratings and self-created crisis, and the White House is eager
to show him as a forceful leader in a time of trouble.
The president kept his distance from the epicenter of
the damage in Houston to avoid disrupting recovery opera-
tions. But he plans to return to the region on Saturday, and
Vice President Mike Pence will visit as well.
Trump spoke optimistically about the pace of the
recovery, and predicted his response would be a textbook
case for future presidents.
“We want to do it better than ever before,” he said. “We
want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as,
‘This is the way to do it.’”
metropolitan centers.
The storm continued to
take a toll even as the weather
outlook improved slightly.
A pair of 70-year-old
reservoir dams that protect
downtown Houston and a
levee in a suburban subdi-
vision began overflowing
Tuesday, adding to the rising
floodwaters from Harvey that
have crippled the area after
five consecutive days of rain
that set a new continental
U.S. record for rainfall for a
tropical system.
The rains in Cedar Bayou,
near Mont Belvieu, Texas,
reached 51.88 inches as of
3:30 p.m.. That’s a record
for both Texas and the
continental United States, but
it does not quite pass the 52
inches from Tropical Cyclone
Hiki in Kauai, Hawaii, in
1950 (before Hawaii became
a state).
The previous record was
48 inches set in 1978 in
Medina, Texas, by Tropical
Storm Amelia. A weather
station southeast of Houston
reported 49.32 inches of rain
as of Tuesday morning.
Engineers began releasing
water from the Addicks and
Barker reservoirs Monday
to ease the strain on the
dams. But the releases were
not enough to relieve the
pressure after the relentless
downpours, Army Corps of
Engineers officials said. Both
reservoirs are at record highs.
The release of the water
means that more homes and
streets will flood, and some
homes will be inundated
for up to a month, said Jeff
Lindner of the Harris County
Flood Control District.
Brazoria County author-
ities posted a message on
Twitter warning that the levee
at Columbia Lakes south of
Houston had been breached
and telling people to “GET
OUT NOW!!” Brazoria
County Judge Matt Sebesta
said residents were warned
that the levee would be over-
topped at some point, and a
mandatory evacuation order
was given Sunday.
The levee was later forti-
fied, but officials said they
did not know how long the
work would hold.
Officials in Houston
were also keeping an eye on
infrastructure such as bridges,
roads and pipelines that are in
the path of the floodwaters.
Water in the Houston Ship
Channel, one of the nation’s
busiest waterways, which
serves the Port of Houston
and Houston’s petrochemical
complex, is at levels never
seen before, said Jeff Linder,
with the Harris County Flood
Control District.
The San Jacinto River,
which empties into the
channel,
has
pipelines
and roads and bridges not
designed for the current
deluge, Linder said, and the
chance of infrastructure fail-
ures will increase the “longer
we keep the water in place.”
Among the worries is
debris coming down the river
and crashing into structures
and the possibility that pipe-
lines in the riverbed will be
scoured by swift currents.
In 1994, a pipeline
ruptured on the river near
Interstate 10 and caught fire.
Although forecasters had
feared that another 2 feet
could fall in some places,
it appeared that the outlook
had improved somewhat on
Tuesday. The weather service
said 2 to 3 more inches was
expected to fall, perhaps a
little less in Houston proper,
as the storm moved east.
But southeastern Texas
and southwestern Louisiana
are still likely to see “relent-
less torrential rains,” with
another 6 to 12 inches of rain
across the upper Texas coast
through Friday as Harvey
moves slowly east over the
Gulf of Mexico, the National
Hurricane Center said.
It is expected to make
landfall again Wednesday
morning, probably in south-
western Louisiana.
The system could creep
as far east as Mississippi by
Thursday, meaning New
Orleans, where Hurricane
Katrina unleashed its full
wrath in 2005, is in Harvey’s
path. Foreboding images of
Harvey lit up weather radar
screens early Tuesday, the
12th anniversary of the day
Katrina made landfall in
Plaquemines Parish.
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