HOUSTON — The devastating storm once known as Hurricane Harvey, already the biggest rainstorm in the history of the continental United States, made landfall again Wednesday morning, delivering another punishing wave of rain to Texas and Louisiana.
Five days after roaring ashore in Texas — leaving behind more than 24 trillion gallons of water, disastrous flooding across Houston and a mounting death toll that had reached at least 22 people — Harvey made landfall before dawn near tiny Cameron, La., and began grinding its way northeast.
Now a tropical storm and expected to weaken over land, Harvey’s immediate impact is not expected to pack the same destructive power as when it slammed into Texas as a Category 4 hurricane last week and dropped foot after foot of rain.
But forecasters said the danger was far from over, and alarming amounts of rainfall in Texas have been battering cities such as Beaumont and Port Arthur. The National Weather Service warned Wednesday that “catastrophic and life-threatening flooding will continue in and around Houston eastward into southwest Louisiana for the rest of the week. ”
The service also warned that “expected heavy rains spreading northeastward from Louisiana into western Kentucky may also lead to flash flooding” across those areas, imperiling a new swath of the population.
[‘Where are we supposed to go?’ Thousands forced from their homes]
According to the Capital Weather Gang, the Beaumont and Port Arthur area east of Houston saw more than 26 inches of rain fall on Tuesday alone, pushing rain totals to more than 47 inches since Friday. That gave the area a new annual record for rainfall — with four months still left to go in 2017.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said Wednesday that officials were “immediately deploying far more” members of the National Guard to southeast Texas in response to “emergency conditions” there.
“The worst is not yet over for southeast Texas as far as the rain is concerned,” Abbott (R) said at a briefing Wednesday.
Abbott said the total National Guard deployment across Texas would reach 24,000 troops, with about 10,000 of them deployed there from other states.
The rainfall in Port Arthur, a city in Jefferson County, was so powerful that a shelter there reportedly evacuated after flooding. Refineries in the city, including a Motiva facility that is the country’s largest, were shuttered. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, in a message it posted online for Port Arthur, said the city was being “inundated” with hundreds of rescue calls.
“Many homes in Port Arthur are flooding and people are becoming trapped,” the sheriff’s office said in a message on Facebook. First responders and volunteers alike had taken to boats to rescue people, they said.
As Harvey approached, storm-battered Louisiana — where memories of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall in the state 12 years ago this week, are still fresh — had hunkered down, evacuating hundreds of people and deploying the Louisiana National Guard.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D), in a news briefing Wednesday, said the threat of flooding appeared to be decreasing in southwest Louisiana, but he reminded people that the storm would linger over the state throughout the day.
“Southwest Louisiana for now remains the center of gravity as it relates to this storm in Louisiana,” he said. Cautioning people to remain alert, he added: “Somewhere between being complacent and being panicked is the right place, and that’s where we’re going to ask the people of Louisiana to settle.”
Flash flood warnings were issued across eastern Texas and western Louisiana, areas facing mounting rainfall totals as Harvey continued its onslaught. Parts of Interstate 10 near Beaumont, Tex., were swallowed up by floodwaters — with road signs poking above the wind-driven chop.
About 60 miles to the east, Lake Charles, La., had seen more than a foot of rain, and forecasts say the downpours are expected to continue. A storm surge warning was posted across the coast of southern Louisiana, from Holly Beach to Morgan City.
Between 400 and 500 people were evacuated from Calcasieu Parish, Dick Gremillion, director of the parish’s office of homeland security and emergency preparedness, said at a briefing Tuesday night.
“There is high water just about every section of the parish,” he said. “If we get 3 [inches] to 5 [inches] of rain, it’s probably going to be in the entire parish.”
[Louisiana hunkered down as Harvey approached]
The storm’s path at least appeared to offer a break to New Orleans, which this week postponed Katrina remembrance events due to Harvey. “By the grace of God, this is going to miss us,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu told CNN on Wednesday.
Harvey’s movement up the coast also gave Houston a respite from the heavy rains that have pelted the city since the weekend, even as officials noted it could be years before storm’s true toll is known. More than 50 inches of rain over four days had turned the country’s fourth-largest city into a sea of muddy brown water, as boats skimmed along what had been neighborhood streets in search of survivors.
The impact in the Houston area was staggering. Between 25 and 30 percent of Harris County — home to 4.5 million people in Houston and its near suburbs — was flooded as of Tuesday afternoon, according to Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the county flood control district. That is an area potentially as large as New York City and Chicago combined.
On Wednesday morning, with rain lashing other parts of the Gulf Coast, Houstonians awoke to sunshine for the first time since Harvey arrived. Under voluminous clouds, scores remained without power, debris littered the city and water continue to rise and recede, but the rain, at least, had abated.
[Wet, so wet, with little hope of getting dry]
Cleanup doesn’t begin to describe what’s next for southeast Texas. On highways that allow for some traffic, large pickups — some outfitted with monster truck-style tires — hauling boats made up the majority of those who dared to travel in recent days. But now, a few more are venturing out looking for supplies where there may not be any to be had. Others sought to see what Harvey left behind.
“I feel like I’m dreaming,” said Julie Steptoe, who ventured Wednesday morning to an intersection in Kingwood, north of Houston. Never taking her eyes off of the water that engulfed the area, she continued: “I don’t know what to think. I’m hoping it turns out okay for everyone.”
Even though the heavy rain had departed and glimmers of hope — along with glimpses of the sun — had returned to Houston, officials were still struggling to define the enormity of what had happened.
At least 28 deaths were blamed on the storm, a number expected to rise as authorities are able to enter flooded homes and cars. The toll includes Sgt. Steve Perez with the Houston Police Department. The 60-year-old veteran officer’s body was found early Tuesday morning, officials said, after he drowned while driving in to work early Sunday morning during the storm’s peak.
“He laid down his life,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said during an emotional news briefing Tuesday.
[Harvey’s death toll rises amid stories of harrowing attempts to escape rising waters]
Other stories of loss, grief and agony began to emerge. Six family members were apparently swept away while trying to escape the storm in a van; the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday that they had recovered six bodies from the van.
Police in Beaumont, Tex., said Tuesday that a woman and her young child had gotten out of their car on a flooded road and were swept into a canal. When authorities found them, the young girl was clinging to her mother and about to go under a trestle, where they would have been lost for good, police said. The mother died, while the young girl was in stable condition.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner imposed a curfew in the city starting Tuesday from midnight to 5 a.m. local time to deter looting of abandoned homes.
“There are some who might want to take advantage of this situation, so even before it gets a foothold in the city, we just need to hold things in check,” Turner said at a news conference.
It was still too early to assess the total number of homes and other buildings damaged, in part because rescue crews were still having trouble even reaching some areas because of flooded or flood-damaged roads, said Francisco Sanchez, spokesman for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
“We’re still in the middle of the response,” he said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Wednesday that it had more than 230 shelters in Texas housing more than 30,000 people, a number that is expected to change. More than 195,000 people have registered asking for federal assistance, a number that is expected to go up, William “Brock” Long, the FEMA administrator, said during a news briefing.
It will take “many, many years” before the full scope of Harvey’s impact is clear, Long added.
“We expect a many year recovery in Texas and the federal government is in this for the long haul,” Elaine Duke, the acting Homeland Security secretary, said at the same briefing Wednesday.
Duke said she had no answer Wednesday regarding whether the Trump administration would accept the Mexican government’s offer to help.
About half a million people will have their homes “impacted in some way” by the storm, according to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price told Fox News.
President Trump has pledged swift federal aid in response to Harvey’s devastation. On Wednesday, Abbott, the Texas governor, said that given the sheer number of people and geographic area impacted, he expects the federal government’s aid package “should be far in excess” of the roughly $120 billion in funds allotted for Gulf Coast recovery after Katrina.
Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), who represents central Houston, has estimated the federal response will total at least roughly $150 billion.
[Disaster relief agencies ready to help Harvey victims, but they can’t get in]
Speaking in Missouri on Wednesday, Trump praised the first responders and local officials for their handling of the storm. Trump also made a point of talking about victims of the storm and their suffering, something he did not do during his trip to Texas a day earlier.
Thousands have been rescued amid the churning waters, authorities said. These official tallies of rescues are likely low, leaving out the scores of civilians who took to boats in an effort to rescue neighbors, friends and strangers alike.
In some cases, these ended with tragedy. On Monday morning, five people — three brothers and two of their friends — took a small boat in northeast Houston to rescue anyone they could find. They made two trips and brought two families — seven people in total — to safety.
Then they went out a third time.
“Everybody told them to stay, that they had already done their part,” said Stepheny Jacquez, 25, a family member. “But they said, ‘No, we have to go back, there’s a lot of people in danger.’”
During that third trip out Monday afternoon, the group lost control of their boat in strong currents and drifted toward downed power lines throwing off sparks.
“They all jumped in the water and got electrocuted, and the current took them,” Jacquez said.
Now two of the men are dead, two are missing and one is in the hospital with electrical burns, Jacquez said.
“They’re heroes; they were just trying to help people,” Jacquez said.
Others expressed calm about the storm. Carol Headrick said that when waters began to rise to the height of the front desk lobby her nursing home in Kingwood, Tex., outside of Houston, rescue crews told her to leave and took her out on a pontoon boat before she had time to grab much of anything.
“I never was scared,” said Headrick, 83, as her face shifted from one of feigned outrage at the question to a mischievous smile. Referring to a previous storm, she added: “I’ve got my Bible. And God promised he never was going to do this again.”
Headrick betrayed no sign of worrying about the storm, because she was too busy deciphering the crackle of her old handheld AM-FM radio to be bothered with worry. She had to keep her nursing home mates informed as they sat in a U-shaped group in the Kingwood Bible Church’s multipurpose room, discussing the Louisiana State University Tigers, her favorite team.
She was happy with the sandwiches she was given and grateful for the care from volunteers and to still be among her friends.
“Last week they gave us these special glasses to watch the eclipse and who would have thought we’d be here now,” she said.
Around Houston and beyond, schools and universities were closed, with some unable to say when they would reopen. The storm had pushed water to spill over in reservoirs west of downtown Houston, raising fears that the overflow would eventually make its way to the soaked downtown.
But officials said Wednesday this was unlikely. Lindner, the Harris County flood control meteorologist, said the reservoirs had stabilized and authorities were more optimistic that significant water would not make its way downtown. The Army Corps of Engineers and Houston flood-control officials said at a news conference Wednesday water-levels in city’s bayous and reservoirs were peaking and new flooding citywide should be less than initially feared.
David Russo, of the Army Corps of Engineers, said that the water is no longer predicted to escape the Barker Reservoir, while water from the Addicks Reservoir — which overflowed its spillway on Tuesday — was diminishing.
Thousands of homes near the reservoirs are inundated or under water, some of it reaching as high as six feet, Lindner said. But while water may yet rise in some areas, structures that have not been inundated are less likely to flood, he said. Linder said water levels in several other key Houston waterways, including Lake Houston, have also peaked.
“The watersheds are falling, and while most of them remain well over their levels, and some remain at record levels, the water levels are going down,” Linder said. But he cautioned that some homes already under water may “degrade.”
Flood officials quickly followed their news conference by urging people in the Inverness Forest subdivision to leave because a levee protecting it might be over-topped.
Across Texas, the storm shut down 14 oil refineries, causing damage at some that released harmful chemicals. In Crosby, Tex., a fertilizer plant was in critical condition Tuesday night after its refrigeration system and inundated backup power generators failed, raising the possibility that the volatile chemicals on the site would explode.
Arkema, a maker of organic peroxides, evacuated all the personnel from the plant and was attempting to operate the facility remotely. The material must be kept at low temperatures to avoid combustion.
As scores were forced from their homes, massive venues opened their doors to house people. The George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, which next month was scheduled to host a concert as well as a “High Caliber Gun Knife Show,” had taken 10,000 people as of Tuesday morning, double the expected capacity. Houston then opened what the mayor had called other “mega shelters,” turning to the NRG Center, a convention center near the old Astrodome, and the Toyota Center, home of the Houston Rockets basketball team.
About 250 miles to the north, the city of Dallas was preparing to take at least 6,000 evacuees from the Houston area, according to Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins, the county’s top official. There were showers. Phone-charging stations. There was a dining hall manned by volunteers, including the Texas Baptist Men and local Israeli-American and Muslim-American groups.
The Dallas shelter was still mostly empty on Tuesday because the storm was too bad to get evacuees out of Houston.
“The planes are grounded, so we can’t get C-130s in” with evacuees, said Jenkins (D). “The roads are covered with water, so we can’t get buses in.”
Dallas housed 28,000 evacuees after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Jenkins said. He said he’s not sure if that many will come this time.
“We don’t know what we’ll get,” he said, “until the water recedes.”
Berman reported from Washington. Tim Craig and Kevin Sullivan in Houston; David Fahrenthold, Herman Wong, Steven Mufson, Ed O’Keefe, Wesley Lowery, Brian Murphy, Katie Zezima, Dave Clarke and Jason Samenow in Washington; Ashley Cusick in New Orleans and Leslie Fain in Lake Charles, La., contributed to this report, which will be updated throughout the day.
