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HOUSTON (AP) – Relief workers used boats Friday to rescue some 60 residents of a Houston area community still trapped in their homes by the floods that followed one of them. the wettest tropical cyclones in American history.
At least four deaths have been linked to the remnants of Tropical Storm Imelda, which flooded parts of Texas and Louisiana and made comparisons with Hurricane Harvey two years ago. Officials took advantage of the floodwater recession to begin assessing the number of houses and cars flooded.
Nearly 16 feet of stagnant water was reported in Huffman, northeast of Houston, when a nearby bayou overflowed. The Harris County Sheriff's Office deployed its maritime unit to evacuate the approximately 60 residents. The authorities have warned residents that they may not see the high waters retreat to their neighborhoods before the weekend.
Tuesday, Martin, one of the Huffman residents who was rescued, could not help thinking of Harvey when floodwaters from Imelda invaded his home.
"Harvey touched us, we lost the entire first floor," said Martin. "So, it's like two years later, we do not want to do it again."
In the east of Houston, Jefferson County, which has been hit by more than 40 centimeters of rain, officials have also begun to take stock of their damage. They also announced the death of Malcolm Foster, a 47-year-old resident of Beaumont, whose body was found inside his vehicle.
The heaviest rains ended Thursday night in southeast Texas, but forecasters warned that parts of northeastern Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Louisiana could see a sudden flood while the remains of Imelda would have moved to the north.
Officials from Harris County, which includes Houston, said that there had been a combination of at least 1,700 high water rescues following Thursday's torrential rains.
"The water is going down and it's time to assess and recover," said Judge Lina Hidalgo, of Harris County, the county's highest administrator.
Most of the Houston area roads, which were waterlogged after heavy rains on Thursday, resulted in the abandonment of more than 1,650 vehicles, which were then towed, which were generally dry on Friday.
© provided by the Associated Press
On this photo provided by the Chambers County Sheriff's Office, the floods surround a house on Thursday, Sept. 19, 2019 in Winnie, Texas. The region has experienced severe flooding due to the tropical depression of Imelda. (Brian Hawthorne / Chambers County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Parts of one of the main arteries running through southeastern Texas – Interstate 10 – remained closed Friday due to flooding caused by torrential rains in the Beaumont area. Another section of the highway, closer to Houston, was also closed, with the authorities assessing damage to its bridges on the San Jacinto River after being hit by two barges released from their moorings.
Nearly 123,000 vehicles normally cross bridges every day, according to the Texas Department of Transportation.
More than 900 flights were canceled or delayed in Houston on Thursday. The city's airports resumed normal business on Friday.
Authorities claim that two of Imelda's deaths occurred in the Houston area: an unidentified man in his forties or fifties who drowned on Thursday while driving a van in waters of flood of a depth of 8 feet and a man whose body was found Friday in a ditch. believed to be drowned.
In Jefferson County, in addition to Foster's death, officials said a 19-year-old man had drowned and was electrocuted Thursday while he was trying to put his horse safe.
The National Weather Service said preliminary estimates suggested that Jefferson County had been hit by more than 102 centimeters of rain in 72 hours, making it the seventh-worst tropical cyclone in the Americas.
"The problem is that you can not have 40 inches of rain in 72 hours and you are perfectly prepared for that," said Friday to the Associated Press, the county spokesman said. Jefferson, Allison Getz. "For the moment, we have not been able to fully assess what happened."
Getz said dozens of people had traveled to the county with boats from Louisiana and other parts of Texas to participate in rescue efforts, a wave of support reminiscent of volunteer efforts deployed to Harvey.
In neighboring Chambers County, preliminary estimates indicate that about 800 homes and businesses have been damaged by floods, said county spokesman Ryan Holzaepfel. Emergency personnel saved about 400 people during the flood, mainly from their homes, he said.
Emergency teams evacuated Thursday 87 residents of a retirement home in Porter, northeast of Houston, as floodwater began to seep into the home, Meghan said. Ballard, spokesperson for the Montgomery County Emergency Management Office.
In Winnie, a town of about 3,200 residents located 60 kilometers east of Houston, a hospital was evacuated.
For many Houston residents, the heavy rains and floods of Imelda have brought to mind the memory of Harvey, who dumped more than 127 centimeters of rain on the country's fourth largest city in 2017. Imelda is the first storm since influence the Houston area.
After Harvey, the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, commissioned a report warning that penalizing storms would become more frequent as a result of climate change. Scientists say climate change is responsible for more extreme and more frequent extreme weather events such as storms, droughts, floods and fires, but without extensive study, they can not directly link a single weather event to climate change.
Abbott said that it was "impossible" for him to say he thought that global warming caused by man was at the origin of the kind of disasters to which the state asks the locals to get used to it.
Hidalgo attributed this week's floods in part to "a lack of recognition of climate change".
The Imelda flood was caused by Hurricane Humberto, which devastated the roofs and knocked down trees on the British island of Bermuda in the British Atlantic. Hurricane Jerry was to move to the northern islands downwind Friday and north of Puerto Rico. In Mexico, the people of Los Cabos were preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Lorena.
Follow Juan A. Lozano on Twitter: https://twitter.com/juanlozano70
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Diana Heidgerd, Terry Wallace and Jamie Stengle, Associate Press Editors, Dallas; Clarice Silber and Paul J. Weber in Austin; and Jill Bleed in Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to this report.
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