Houston residents evacuate their homes amid Harvey flooding after a reservoir spilled over for the first time in history. (Dalton Bennett,Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)
HOUSTON — The remnants of deadly Hurricane Harvey menaced Texas and Louisiana alike on Tuesday, while a reservoir west of downtown Houston spilled over for the first time in its history due to record-shattering rainfall.Even as officials struggled to determine the storm’s true impact, its scope appears to be staggering.
A flood official in sprawling Harris County — home to Houston, the country’s fourth-largest city — said that as much as 30 percent of the county’s 1,777 square miles was underwater Tuesday. That scale was described to The Washington Post on Tuesday by Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the Harris County Flood Control District.
President Trump arrived in Texas on Tuesday to survey this ongoing devastation, while storm clouds continued a drenching onslaught that has already dropped more than three feet of rain in some areas. Trump’s visit, following his pledge of swift action by the federal government to provide relief to states affected by Harvey, comes on the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina making landfall in Louisiana.
Yet even as Houston officials struggled to determine the extent of the tragedy, authorities said the storm had hit close to home for the first responders facing seemingly endless flooding.
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said Tuesday that Sgt. Steve Perez, 60, a veteran officer, drowned Sunday while driving on duty in the floodwater.
“He laid down his life,” Acevedo said during a briefing Tuesday afternoon. “He was a sweet, gentle public servant.”
Perez had spent more than three decades with the Houston police, Acevedo said. He left his house at 4 a.m. Sunday morning in heavy rain to head into work, spending about two and a half hours trying to get to his duty station but was unable to find a path due to the rain, Acevedo said.
Authorities recovered Perez’s body shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday, said Acevedo, who grew emotional during the news conference. Acevedo said Perez’s wife said she asked him not to go in because conditions were so bad, but Perez insisted “because he has that in his DNA.”
It is with a heavy heart that we announce the tragic in the line of duty death of Sergeant Steve Perez. pic.twitter.com/cHJxjnFgII— Houston Police (@houstonpolice) August 29, 2017
Perez "died in trying." RIP, sergeant. Houston thanks you and mourns all who have died in #HarveyFlood.— Sylvester Turner (@SylvesterTurner) August 29, 2017
Including Perez, at least 16 people appear to have died as a result of the storm, officials said, though they warned this number could rise as authorities pursue reports of people apparently lost in the torrential downpours unleashed by Harvey since Friday.
Lashing rain continued to pound Houston on Tuesday, falling on people who desperately sought groceries or trudged through water in search of shelter. The streets downtown were littered with abandoned cars, and almost no stores appeared to be open, though people said they needed food and supplies.
Outside a Kroger grocery store in southwest Houston, dozens of people had lined up hours before the store opened. Another crowd had lined up outside Fiesta, a nearby grocery store, where the line grew so long that store officials were limiting how many people they let inside.
“Meat,” said Morgan Lewis, 23, who was first in line at Kroger at 7:30 a.m. “I need some meat. I’m tired of eating sandwiches.”
The Harris County district attorney’s office said Tuesday that 14 people arrested for looting would “face stiffer punishments” due to the crisis, saying that under Texas law, penalties increase if a crime is committed in a county deemed a disaster area.
The National Weather Service reported that more than 42 inches of rain has already fallen in Houston due to Harvey. Some parts of Louisiana have also seen more than a foot of rain, and flash flood warnings and watches were in effect for much of the Lake Charles region as the rain is expected to continue. New Orleans was under a tornado and flash flood watch until Thursday.
In Texas, one of the two massive stormwater reservoirs to the west of downtown Houston began spilling over on Tuesday — despite U.S. Army Corps of Engineers efforts Monday to release water as water levels in the reservoirs swelled to record levels.
The Army Corps of Engineers said that water was spilling out from around the dam gates of the Addicks Reservoir, and officials also said they expect the Barker Reservoir — to the south of Addicks — to also begin overflowing some time Wednesday. Near the Barker dam, helicopters were attempting to rescue families, while some people spent their morning hopping onto jet skis and into boats to help as well.
“We never flood,” said a dismayed Gloria Strayhorn, a retired interior designer who was out for a walk with her husband Bill. They were in raincoats and shook their heads at a nearby man-made lake that was overflowing, saying these were only adding to the problem when the dam releases: “They were just refurbished this spring and they spent so much money setting up benches and now look.”
Officials in Brazoria County, south of Houston, also warned that a levee there had breached.
Harvey continued grinding toward the northeast, with its center expected to be just off the upper Texas coast through Tuesday night, the National Hurricane Center said. After that, the storm is forecast to move inland on the northwestern Gulf Coast on Wednesday.
Forecasters say more than a foot of additional rain is still expected to fall through Friday over parts of the Texas coast and Louisiana, and the National Weather Service warned Tuesday of potential flooding in southern Mississippi as well as southeastern Louisiana.
1 trillion gallons of rainfall has fallen in Harris County over 4 days which would run Niagra Falls for 15 days #houwx #houwx #txwx #harvey— Jeff Lindner (@JeffLindner1) August 29, 2017
During a news briefing in Corpus Christi, Trump praised the response from local officials in Texas as well as federal authorities who were grappling with the devastating storm. He also spoke to a group that had gathered to see him.
“This is historic, it’s epic what happened, but you know what, it happened in Texas and Texas can handle anything,” he told the crowd, which applauded his remarks and cheered more loudly when he waved the Texas state flag.
When Trump arrived, about 50 apparent supporters had gathered near the runway to wave signs bearing his name and welcome him. Suzanne Guggenheim, wearing a red hat bearing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan, said she felt he had handled the disaster well.
A small group of young Democrats protested Trump’s arrival. Marco Garcia, chairman of the Texas Young Democrats Latinx Caucus, called Trump’s visit is disrespectful of the region and of the nation’s Latino community.
“Trump should be focusing on getting help to the people who need it, not taking resources by tying up the roads and creating chaos in this region that needs so much help,” said Garcia, a 24-year-old business management major at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, who said he has been helping evacuees from Rockport who have no shoes or food.
The Department of Labor on Tuesday announced that it had approved an initial $10 million grant to help with cleanup efforts in Texas. Trump on Monday declared “emergency conditions” in Louisiana, and not long before that, federal authorities had warned Harvey could force more than 30,000 people from their homes by the time skies are expected to clear later this week.
Life across Texas has abruptly shifted as floodwater turned streets into rivers. Hundreds of schools shut down in the state. Thousands of people have already piled into shelters in Houston and beyond, seeking safety from the storm without a clear idea of when, or if, they could return home.
The George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston had taken in 9,200 people as of Tuesday morning, said Charles Maltbie, a regional disaster officer for the Red Cross who is at the convention. That number is nearly double the center’s anticipated capacity of 5,000.
The convention center is the evacuation site for all air evacuations, Maltbie said, and bus evacuations are being diverted to other shelters around the city. When asked what the center’s top capacity is, Maltbie said: “We will meet the need.”
Hundreds of families found shelter at Wedgewood Elementary School in Friendswood, Tex., after Tropical Storm Harvey's floodwaters forced them out of their homes. (Zoeann Murphy,Thomas Johnson/The Washington Post)
Turner, the Houston mayor, said Tuesday that city officials have identified other “mega shelter locations” that will be set up to house people, though he did not name these other facilities.
The immediate focus for many remained on Houston, the country’s fourth-largest city and a sprawling metropolitan area that is facing a deluge without precedent. Even neighborhoods far from creeks or bayous flooded. The hardest-hit areas were in the south and southeast, the downstream end of the waterways.
Of those confirmed dead as of Tuesday, at least eight were in Harris County, which includes Houston. Officials also said some of the other people were killed in the South Texas town of Rockport, near where Harvey made landfall; and in Porter, a town north of Houston, where a woman in her 60s was napping when a large oak tree landed on her mobile home.
Air Force Maj. Gen. James Witham, the National Guard Bureau’s director of domestic operations, said there are currently about 3,000 Texas National Guardsmen on duty in response to the hurricane, with about 1,000 more joining them within a day. That number could potentially multiply nearly eightfold in coming days, as 20,000 to 30,000 additional National Guardsmen join the mission.
There are currently about 30 National Guard helicopters carrying out search-and-rescue missions, medical evacuations and other assignments, and the Texas government already has requested 24 more, Witham said.
“There is the potential that we could grow up to 100 helicopters as required by the state of Texas as we continue to respond to the historic flooding around the Houston area,” he said.
The southwest sections of the Houston area may be the next venue for catastrophe. The Brazos River, which runs through Fort Bend County, home to more than 716,000 people, has been swelling as the runoff from the storm collects in its banks. National Weather Service models showed the river rising to 59 feet by Tuesday, topping the previous record of 54.7 feet.
Earlier Tuesday, evacuation orders were given for two prisons with thousands of inmates near the Brazos. Fort Bend County Judge John Hebert warned Monday night that more than a hundred square miles along the river could flood overnight and into Tuesday as the river swells to unprecedented heights.
“They can guarantee we’ll have a record flood in for Fort Bend County,” he said. “In areas under mandatory evacuation, the danger is very real.”
Authorities issued mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders for parts of that area and warned that anyone who ignores mandatory evacuation orders will not be aided by first responders when the waters rise. But with virtually all the main thoroughfares already closed because of high water, many of the affected residents saw no way out.
Edward Ward, 41, stood in line with hundreds of other outside a grocery store Monday morning when Fort Bend Sheriff’s deputies arrived and announced that the area was under mandatory evacuation orders as the nearby Brazos River continued to rise towards record levels.
Although they were waiting for their first access to groceries in two days, people in line dispersed and the store closed, he said.
“I went home and told my wife there’s a mandatory evacuation, and she’s looking at me like, ‘where are we supposed to go?” said WArd, a father of two.
Roads out of the area were already flooded. Ward packed up his third floor apartment and took his family to the nearby Sugar Creek Baptist Church, where hundreds of other sought refuge. But the church never planned to be a permanent shelter, and on Tuesday morning they asked evacuees to find somewhere else to say.
When Sugar Land Independent School District decided to open its schools as shelters late Monday night, the superintendent emailed and tweeted out to everyone in the district asking for help. Early Tuesday morning, hundreds of parents and students turned up with food, clothing, pillows and blankets. Hundreds of volunteers sorted and distributed the goods. The school kitchen staff came in on their own accord and cooked the food that today would otherwise have been served to 2,400 students.
Jorge Rodriguez, 45, owner of Imperial BBQ and a graduate of Kempner High School, brought his trailer smoker and some of his staff to serve free smoked meat.
“We don’t have any boat so the best we can do here is to cook,” he said.
Among those helping first responders with the rescue efforts were volunteers with boats. On Monday afternoon, dozens from both groups crowded near the Grand Vista subdivision on Harlem Road in the Brazos River area, on the edge of the water that stretched from the road to the rainy horizon.
Boats were unloading evacuees — among them the elderly and children — onto the road, then turning back into the flood.
“It messed me up seeing the kids and babies,” said Jorge Ramirez, 28, who brought over his Alumacraft flat-bottom boat after seeing on Facebook that folks were stuck in this neighborhood.
“That’s who we’re trying to get out first.”
He said he’d made about five trips in four hours.
Authorities also faced new questions about whether they should have evacuated Houston. Asked Monday about the decision to recommend that people shelter in place rather than leave the city, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said there was no point in thinking about past decisions.
“We are where we are now,” he said.
WP
Berman reported from Washington. Emily Wax-Thibodeaux, Alex Horton, Dylan Baddour and Brittney Martin in Houston; Ed O’Keefe, Wesley Lowery, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Katie Zezima, Brian Murphy, Sandhya Somashekhar, Amy B Wang and Dan Lamothe in Washington; Ashley Cusick in New Orleans; and Mary Lee Grant in Corpus Christi, Tex., contributed to this report.
Caption
Houston officials described a vast rescue effort and said about 3,500 people had been brought to safety.
Aug. 29, 2017 Texas Army National Guard members help families that were rescued from Pine Forest Village. Erich Schlegel/Getty Images
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