Mayor Sylvester Turner of Houston, Texas, said that the focus of the local government now is on rescue operations before damage assessment. According to the National Hurricane Center, as of 4 a.m., Wednesday, tropical storm Harvey made its second landfall in Southwest of Cameron, Louisiana, and is expected to trod along the northeast, slowly weakening and turning into a tropical depression by Wednesday night.
Harvey leaves a trail of 30 confirmed flood related deaths
A Texas mom is among the many who died trying to save her daughter from rising waters. The unidentified woman was floating in Beaumont, two hours away from Houston, with her baby miraculously clinging to her lifeless body. Rescuers got to them by boat before they went under a trestle. The child suffered from hypothermia and is now under medical care, reports USA Today.
Police Officer Sgt. Steve Perez is one of the casualties of the calamity. He made the ultimate sacrifice by reporting to work despite treacherous flood waters and torrential rains.
He went missing on roll call day that triggered a search and rescue for the missing officer. The rescuers narrowed down his location with divers called in for the search and found his lifeless body.
Relief efforts for victims of Harvey
The George R. Brown Convention Center with a seating capacity of 5,000 took in 10,000 hurricane victims. New evacuees went to the NRG center that could accommodate 10,000 more people. The Toyota Center, home of the NBA Houston Rockets, took in lesser numbers.
Tele-evangelist Joel Osteen megachurch has a capacity of 16,000. Critics violently bashed the evangelist due to its closure of the megachurch to evacuees amidst the hurricane. The preacher's Lake Wood Church later reversed its decision not to house the lost sheep in the storm.
Local and federal agencies local and federal agencies rescued over 13,000 people yet nobody knows how many are still in their homes. Mayor Turner implemented a curfew from 12mn to 5 a.m. to thwart looters from taking advantage of abandoned homes.
The response to calamity
President Donald Trump's priority is to take care of the people of Texas, according to the White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. One fifth of the refineries in Texas was temporarily shut down due to flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey. Motiva Enterprises, a factory producing 603,000 barrels per day, closed down due to rising waters.
Fuel shortage is looming in the horizon as prices soared up for petroleum products.
Harvey caused damages to two Exxonmobile refineries as well that resulted in the release of dangerous pollutants, The Guardian reports.
The storm is on its way back to the mainland
Torrential rains are now pouring in the Southwestern Texas region and the western part of Cameron, La. Scientists expect five to 10 inches of rain when the storm returns. Due to the water saturation and landfall, the drenched soil may not hold the trees, and high winds from 50 to 60 kph could topple them down.
The past four days saw over a trillion gallons of rainwater cascade through Texas and Louisiana, enough to supply the Niagara Falls for 15 days, according to Jeffrey Lindner, meteorologist of the Harris County Flood Control District.
Three weather stations exceeded the rainfall record of 48 inches by tropical storm Amelia in 1978. Cedar Bayou weather station has a record of 51.88 inches. Water reservoirs were over capacity and are in danger of overspilling. Authorities are monitoring the dams' structures, and it is no threat of a breach.