Hurricane Harvey made its second landfall on Wednesday, with record rains that spurred more flood water in small cities east of Houston. Harvey made landfall at dawn near the Texas-Louisiana border, bringing on rains in towns, including Orange, Port Arthur, and Beaumont, drenching them in over two feet of rain. Much of Port Arthur was said to be underwater, with a shelter for flood victims already being flooded.
Tiffany Hamilton, a former city councilwoman in the town, stated that they need boats, large trucks, and generators because the entire city has already been flooded.
Devastation in Houston
Houston, on the other hand, is just beginning to recover, but not before discovering the extent of damage the storm has done not only in their buildings but to Houstonians, as well. Nearly 35,000 people were relocated to shelters as thousands of homes remain submerged in water. At least 37 people died, but the numbers are still rising as the receding water reveals the toll. Among the casualties is a family of six found in a van that had been washed off the road a few days earlier. All of them were found dead.
The bodies of two friends who had gone out on a boat on Monday were also found a few miles away. They were trying to rescue their neighbors from the flood, but lost control of their boat in the current, and drifted towards the sparks of a power line.
They fell and died through electric-shock drowning.
Recovery efforts
On Wednesday, Texas Governor Greg Abbott held a press conference to discuss recovery efforts from the hurricane, which is said to be the biggest rainstorm ever recorded in the continental United States. While conditions in Houston seems to be improving, the storm crisis is far from over, and in fact took a turn for the worst close to the Louisiana line.
Forecasters also predicted that Harvey would be downgraded to a tropical depression later in the week, and could completely dissipate within three to four days. However, it can still do a lot of potential damage with 4 to 8 inches of rain forecasted from the Louisiana-Texas line and into Tennessee and Kentucky until Friday.
Some areas are also predicted to get as much as a foot of rain, raising more risks for potential flooding.
As for Texas, acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke said that Houstonians are expecting a many-year recovery and that the federal government is in it for the long haul. President Donald Trump himself pledged a swift federal aid in response to the devastation left by the storm.
