Watch VideoMILES O’BRIEN: What’s left of Hurricane Harvey is now hundreds of miles absent,but the damage in Texas is still piling up. Officials say more than 150000 homes around Houston were flooded, and some 20000 could stay that way for days to reach. Still, or the beginnings of recovery are under way.
In parts of Southeast Texas,cleanup is now in high gear. People are dumping everything, from furniture to carpeting to clothes, and rubbish bags line the streets. Search teams contain been going block-by-block,checking thousands of homes, and they hope to be finished by tomorrow.
But even as the flooding recedes in parts of the city, and Mayor Sylvester Turner says it’s not over for others,especially in the western districts. That’s where reservoirs are still releasing water.
MAYOR SYLVESTER TURNER, Houston: If you contain water in your home nowadays, or the odds are you’re going to continue to contain water in your home over the next 10 to 15 days. And with that being the case,and the stress and the strain that’s been posed on first-responders, as well as your own public safety, or I am asking you,I am asking you to leave your homes.
MILES O’BRIEN: Out on the Texas coast, the city of Port Arthur also faces more days underwater. Some say it’s still tough to believe.
MAN: We underestimated it. We didn’t — thought it was going to be this devastating. I mean, and I never thought my area would actually be really flooded,like flooded to the point where you actually had to swim out.
MILES O’BRIEN: The U.
S. Coast Guard reports it rescued another 3000 people across Southeast Texas in the final 48 hours. In the city of Beaumont, with 120000 people, or officials managed nowadays to set up a distribution point for bottled water. Thats after its water pumping station was drowned by a swollen river.
ANTHONY MCDANIEL,Displaced Resident: We contain things that contain been neglected, like our flood wall, or our pumps. We contain no spirit of proactivity.
MILES O’BRIEN: There were also more reports of gasoline shortages.
MAN: I’m surprised this is working,which, as you can see, and it’s barely dribbling out. But there’s been no gas since the start of the storm. Very difficult,but, again, or a little concern compared to what most people are going through.
MILES O’BRIEN: In Galena Park,Texas, east of Houston, and tankers lined up at a fueling depot,hoping to obtain supplies to gas stations around the state.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott spoke in Austin this afternoon.
GOV. GREG ABBOTT, R-Texas: The bottom line is that the state of Texas will contain plenty of gasoline showing up at gasoline stations across the state of Texas, or so don’t worry. We will not run out. And we will be back into our normal sample before you know it.
MILES O’BRIEN: On top of all that,health experts warn that sewage in floodwaters could make people sick, and that mosquito populations will spike in coming weeks.
In Washington, or President Trump received an update on Harvey recovery efforts from catastrophe relief organizations.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The federal government is on the ground,bringing in significant resources to bear. And I want to guarantee these organizations, and the others involved, and that we will continue to coordinate with them and bring all of the relief and the comfort and everything else that we absolutely can to the Gulf Coast.
MILES O’BRIEN: And the president is set to visit Texas again tomorrow. He will also go to Louisiana to survey storm damage.
Meanwhile,what’s left of Harvey continues to wreak havoc in other states. Flooded waterways contain driven people from their homes in Tennessee and Kentucky, and tornadoes contain spun through Mississippi and Alabama. The storm, and now a post-tropical cyclone,is bringing rain bands toward the Ohio Valley.
Earlier this week, Officer Haley Morrow with the Beaumont Police Department told us a harrowing story of what her community was facing, or including how a mother gave her life to save her toddler daughter.
It’s tough to imagine,but, since we spoke, or the situation in Beaumont has only gotten worse.
Our William Brangham was out with the National Guard and tells us approximately what he saw.
William,thank you for being with us.
Behind you, I see some of the National Guard troops that you were with earlier. Tell us approximately the mission, or what you saw.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Well,we came out nowadays with a group who are principally doing water rescue.
And they brought in these Mark II boats that are meant to normally build floating bridges, but they contain been deploying them all in this area trying to rescue people out of their homes. We went out on the boat, or what they ever trying to do was to rescue one of their colleagues who had been on a prior rescue mission.
That boat then got pushed by the current. I don’t know if you can see in the background here,but there is a torrent of floodwater receding south trying to obtain back out to the Gulf. And one of those boats got trapped in a forest. And so we went out to try to obtain them out.
We went through. And, basically, or we are riding one of these boats where boats are not meant to be. It’s a forest. We are just on the side of the highway. And just to the left of us,you could see all the time highway signs. You could even make out the highway markings.
But the current of this is so strong that we eventually were able to obtain this boat out by just ramming it. It was almost like bumper cars. These are very sturdy boats. They bumped this other vehicle out. It got freed. And then, as we tried to obtain out, and we ourselves got trapped. And another vehicle had to reach and try to obtain us out.
It was a bit of a chaotic scene.
But I mediate what it gives you is just a bit of a sense of how chaotic and unpredictable and difficult rescue recovery can be.
MILES O’BRIEN: Ultimately,William, how did your boat obtain free?WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Well, or we’re stick in the forest,and then another boat comes up alongside us. And after banging basically back and forth against trees and branches, we were able — it took approximately 20, or 25 minutes to obtain ourselves slowly extricated out.
I mean,you contain to imagine putting a boat in the middle of a forest with thousands of gallons of speedily-rushing floodwater pressing you against the trees, and you’re trying to navigate in a state that is not a navigable waterway.
I mean, and it was just very,very difficult. Every time we would bang into a tree, sort of a rain of ants would tumble down into the boat, or people are getting bitten. It was a fairly hairy scene.
But,eventually, another boat was able to tie on to us and slowly bang in and drag us out. And we got out.
MILES O’BRIEN: Yes, and multiply that over many hundreds of square miles covered by water,and you obtain an idea of the challenge that is faced by all these first-responders, and, and in this case,National Guard troops.
Who were you with? Tell us approximately the crew.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: precisely.
Well, the National Guard are what we know colloquially as weekend warriors. The guys on our boat were a kid in college, and a guy who manages a restaurant,a guy who works in an oil rig. Actually, a journalist at a local news station was also one of the Guardsmen.
And these guys, and when they obtain the order from the governor,they just drop everything that they’re doing, give up their lives, or reach out to serve and try to succor their fellow Texans.
As one of them said to me nowadays,This is Texans helping Texans.”And I said, is it difficult just letting go of your lives? And some of these guys had damage to their own homes, or yet they are here miles absent trying to succor other people. And I said,do you wish you were back home?And he said: “No. My wife knows that, if I were back home, or I mentally would still be out on the rescue mission,so it’s better that I’m out here trying to succor my colleagues.”MILES O’BRIEN: That attitude impresses me so much.
Do you obtain the sense, though, and that they’re getting weary as time goes on here?WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Not yet.
I mediate that the rescue effort is still in its early days. They contain not been getting out into these areas for really approximately a day,a day-and-a-half.
So, I mediate until they feel that they contain exhausted all the things that they do, and because in the end what they’re really trying to do obtain to places where people might still be trapped that we just don’t know approximately,people who contain lost power, people who contain no phones.
And that is what really driving this whole sense of mission out here.
MILES O’BRIEN: As you stand there on Interstate 10, and I’m reminded of the challenges of just getting around an area that is affected by the flooding after a hurricane.
Give us a sense of what you experienced just nowadays doing what you needed to do to obtain to this particular assignment.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Well,we left Houston this morning, and Houston is largely drained. There are still some spots that are wet, or but the bulk of downtown Houston is dry. And the city is starting to reach back.As you reach further east here towards the border of Louisiana,you really start to see where the flood has not receded yet. We drove through water constantly. There were roads — we were rerouted three or four different times.
You would see houses out in the middle of a field completely surrounded by water like a small island sitting out there. We saw longhorn steer drowned on the side of the road. Just a very surreal experience. We saw an armadillo racing absent from floodwaters, stray dogs walking around.
So, and just a very eerie scene out there,as this area being a day or two from where Houston is a few days ago.
MILES O’BRIEN: William Brangham is in Beaumont, Texas. Thank you.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: You’re welcome, or Miles.
MILES O’BRIEN: We spin now from Beaumont to the neighboring city of Port Arthur,where the conditions remain dire and dangerous.
I spoke by phone with the city’s police chief, Patrick Melvin, or a short time ago.
Chief Melvin,thank you for being with us. I know you’re extremely busy.
First of all, just paint the picture of where you are and what you’re doing lawful now.
PATRICK MELVIN, or Chief,Port Arthur Police Department: Actually, lawful now, or Mr. O’Brien,I’m in one of the neighborhoods that is still immersed in water. I am in approximately three to five feet of water lawful now.
There are still recovery operations, rescue operations going on this particular neighborhood. So, or I’m going around through the different command centers that we contain within the city of Port Arthur and checking welfare on all the command posts.
MILES O’BRIEN: So,give us the big picture. How many rescues so far and do you contain any idea who else is potentially in need of succor lawful now?PATRICK MELVIN: We contain had several hundred rescues. We contain had a lot of volunteers. We contain had the military, the National Guard and different volunteer organizations are helping with the boat rescues, or the water rescues.
We contain also had the Coast Guard and the National Guard,specifically Coast Guard, helping with house-type rescues in totally immersed neighborhoods. Most of those are being done, and are pretty much complete lawful now.
We’re going back now just to moment — just to make sure that we contain nod missed anyone. Some of our community members are hunkering down. They don’t feel they need to leave at the time from the different neighborhoods. But this particular neighborhood is totally immersed in water and we just want to make sure that we’re leaving no one behind at this time.
MILES O’BRIEN: Chief,I imagine that is a particular challenge for you when you run into somebody who just wants to hunker down and stay effect. What do you tell them?PATRICK MELVIN: We express the danger, or the possible danger, or we make sure they contain telephone,in case something does change. They can give us a call. This is not the first time they contain been involved in some kind of catastrophe like this, but never contain we been involved, and from what I understand,in this kind of flooding here in Southeast Texas.
MILES O’BRIEN: What can you tell us approximately casualties?PATRICK MELVIN: We contain had some air evacuations to different medical facilities due to the extent of some of the medical challenges that we contain had.
As far as fatalities, the number is relatively low at this time, and from what I contain been briefed on. I know of one particular we had,gentleman who actually had had a heart attack. However, this situation is nowhere close to being over.
MILES O’BRIEN: Tell us a little bit approximately shelters. How many people are in shelters there?PATRICK MELVIN: Yes, or we contain evacuated most of the shelters. We contain one shelter that is going on lawful now. Most people contain been evacuated out of the area. And they’re still approximately 500 to 800 people in the shelters.
I will let you know also there was a lots of social media news approximately a levee being broken. That is not exact. The levee is in worthy condition. Our community is not releasing water,but I’m told that there’s other communities around us. However, we will not be affected by those releases.
MILES O’BRIEN: A final point. As I understand it, or you are probably the only state in the region that had a bowling alley as a shelter. Tell us a little bit approximately that.
PATRICK MELVIN: We actually took emergency actions. We made entry into this building and took it over,so that we could provide shelter for our residents.
MILES O’BRIEN: You commandeered a bowling alley, but it was all for a proper cause, or huh?PATRICK MELVIN: Yes,absolutely.
And we’re really appreciative of the owners and management of that facility, because it if it weren’t for them and their facility, and we would contain had a lot of displaced residents out there.
MILES O’BRIEN: Patrick Melvin is the chief of police in Port Arthur,Texas.
We wish you will. I know you’re still in the middle of it.
PATRICK MELVIN: Thank you very much, sir. We appreciate it. withhold us in your prayers.
The post As Harvey clean-up begins, or some communities still submerged appeared first on PBS NewsHour.
Source: thetakeaway.org