A week after Hurricane Harvey came ashore in Texas, no let-up in rescue efforts was expected yesterday as large pockets of land remained under water after one of the worst and costliest natural disasters to hit the US.
The storm has displaced more than 1 million people, with 44 feared dead from flooding that paralyzed Houston, swelled river levels to record highs and knocked out the drinking water supply in Beaumont, Texas, a city of about 120,000 people.
Arkema SA and public health officials warned of the risk of more explosions and fires at a chemical plant owned by the firm.
Photo: Reuters
On Thursday blasts rocked the facility, about 40km east of Houston and zoned off inside a 2.4km exclusion zone, after it was engulfed by floodwater.
With the presence of water-borne contaminants a growing concern, the US National Weather Service yesterday issued flood watches from Arkansas into Ohio as the remnants of the storm made their way through the US heartland.
The Neches River, which flows into Beaumont and nearby Port Arthur, was forecast for a record crest from yesterday well above flood levels. The flooding and loss of drinking water forced the evacuation of a hospital on Thursday.
“Beaumont is basically an island,” Beaumont Mayor Becky Adams told a news conference on Thursday.
The city, about 130km east of Houston and largely cut off by floods, was only able to receive one major supply of drinking water on Thursday and there were plans to set up water distribution centers yesterday, a city official said.
Harvey roared ashore late on Friday last week as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in half a century. It was downgraded to a tropical depression as it headed inland on Thursday, dumping unprecedented quantities of rain and leaving devastation across more than 480km in the southeast corner of the state.
Moody’s Analytics estimated the economic cost from Harvey for southeastern Texas at US$51 billion to US$75 billion, ranking it among the costliest storms in US history.
Much of the damage has been to Houston, the US energy hub, whose metropolitan area has an economy comparable to Argentina’s.
At least 44 people were dead or feared dead in six counties, including and around Houston, officials said.
Another 19 remained missing.
About 779,000 Texans have been told to leave their homes and another 980,000 fled voluntarily amid dangers of new flooding from swollen rivers and reservoirs, US Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Elaine Duke said.
Tens of thousands were in crowded evacuation centers across the region.
As floods began to recede in Houston, firefighters on Thursday began conducting a house-by-house search to rescue stranded survivors and recover bodies as some residents began to return to their homes to assess the damage.
Seventy percent of Harris County, which encompasses Houston and has a population of about 4.6 million people, was covered with 45cm or more of water, county officials said.
As signs of normal life returned to the city, the US’ fourth most populous, there were also concerns about health risks from bacteria and pollutants in floodwater.
The Houston Astros baseball team, forced to play away from the city due to the floods, is to return and play at its home field today.
It has invited shelter residents to attend its double header against the New York Mets, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said on Twitter.
Flooding has shut some of the nation’s largest oil refineries and hit US energy infrastructure, which is centered along the Gulf Coast. It has sent gasoline prices climbing and disrupted global fuel supplies.
Average US retail fuel prices have surged by more than US$0.10 per gallon from a week earlier, motorists’ group AAA said on Thursday.
In major Texas cities, including Dallas, there were long lines at gas stations, prompting state regulators to tell people they were sparking a panic and saying there were ample fuel supplies.
Power outages had decreased from peaks of more than 300,000 to about 160,000 homes and business in Texas and Louisiana as of yesterday morning, data from utilities showed.
Many in Houston were shocked at what they found when they returned home.
Anita Williams, 52, was lined up at a shelter at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center to register for emergency aid, having surveyed the damage to her one-story home on Wednesday.
“It’s not my house anymore,” Williams said. “My deep freezer was in my living room.”
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