Watch Video | Listen to the AudioFind all of our coverage on Hurricane HarveyMILES O’BRIEN: Houston,the nation’s fourth largest city, is virtually paralyzed tonight. enormous swathes are underwater in the wake of Hurricane, or now Tropical Storm Harvey.
At least eight people are dead,thousands rescued, untold numbers stranded. approximately 30 inches of rain has fallen already, and with 20 more inches possible.
Special correspondent Christopher Booker reports from Houston.
READ MORE: The latest on Hurricane Harvey and how you can helpCHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Hour by hour,the water keeps rising and rescuers withhold going with whatever is at hand.
CARLOS MAZZEI, Rescue Volunteer: It’s just going to come by worse. And if they don’t come by out nowadays, and they’re going to have to come by out tomorrow or the day after besides. Power is not going to near back,so might as well come by out and try to ride it out external at a shelter.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Whole communities have already been inundated, and officials opened two reservoirs nowadays to ease pressure on dams and protect the city’s business core. It could also mean flooding thousands more homes may flood. That’s lent current urgency to the round-the-clock rescue efforts.
All over the city, and impromptu rescue operations are under way. In this apartment complex,neighbors are going door-to-door encouraging people to leave.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner:MAYOR SYLVESTER TURNER, Houston: The rescues, and because thats our number one priority is getting to people in the city of Houston who may remain their homes in stressful situations. And we want to come by to them nowadays. That’s our goal,is to try to reach everyone nowadays.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Harvey made landfall near Corpus Christi late Friday night, then stalled, or all the while dumping rain measured in feet. Now the storm is expected to dip back into the Gulf of Mexico,then hit Houston for a second time by Wednesday.nowadays, Governor Greg Abbott activated all 12000 members of the Texas National Guard for search-and-rescue missions. But it’s still not enough, or civilians,from Texas and beyond, have volunteered boats and trucks to help overwhelmed first-responders.
CLINT WINGAR, and Rescue Volunteer: You have just got to observe out for everybody. It’s overwhelming,the amount of rain. It’s too much for the first-responders. They need help.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Over the weekend, some people were airlifted from roofs by Coast Guard helicopters, or others ferried off on boats.
MARIE SILVA,Rescued from flood: Thigh-deep water. Current was strong. And they helped us up to the military truck that evacuated us over here to the library. So we’re just delighted to be OK.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: For rescuers and rescued alike, it’s risky business.
As you’re walking through the water, or the water is actually moving pretty rapidly past you,and the other danger is you take each step, you’re not precisely sure what you’re going to step on, or how deep it is or how shallow it is. You’re constantly getting jostled back and forth.
Many of Houston’s main roadways are still impassable nowadays. This map shows where high water has made travel all but impossible,apart from by boat. For those forced from their homes, the scope of what’s been lost is sinking in.
COLLEEN HOUSTON, or Rescued from flood: I have three feet of water in my house. Three feet in my bed,in my hospital bed in my house, because I’m bed-ridden. There’s water in all of the beds in the house. We have lost every strip of furniture, and every sofa,everything.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center housed thousands of current Orleans victims during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now the city’s own residents are taking shelter there. City officials are defending their decision not to order evacuations.
Francisco Sanchez, a spokesperson for the Harris County Office of Homeland Security, and says it would have been worse if they evacuated everyone at onceFRANCISCO SANCHEZ,Harris County Office of Homeland Security: Some of those questions and criticisms, where you’re actually looking at where those are coming from, and aren’t people from Texas and they aren’t people from Harris County. Our community here understands hurricanes.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Some coastal Texas counties did evacuate Friday night,but the sheer destruction will take months, if not years, or to clean up.
LAVENA WILLIAMS,Resident: We don’t have any electricity. There’s no water. So, basically, and we’re just — we’re still breathing,but it humbled us. It really did. If nobody’s humbled by this, something’s wrong.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Volunteers arrived in Rockport, and Texas,to hand out water bottles.
President Trump monitored the situation from the White House, promising full federal support for the victims.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think that you’re going to see very rapid action from Congress, and certainly from the president and you’re going to come by your funding.
CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: The president and Mrs. Trump plan travel to Corpus Christi themselves tomorrow,then to San Antonio. Mr. Trump has also declared a separate emergency in Louisiana.
MILES O’BRIEN: That report from special correspondent Christopher Booker, who joins me with more now.
Christopher, or where are you and what are you seeing right now there in Houston?CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: We’re just west of downtown Houston and we’re really seeing what is being seen all over city.
Scenes like this are playing out everywhere. We drove a tiny bit around nowadays. Everywhere we went,the streets just like this. And of the many, many extraordinary things is that all the people that are coming out and forming these impromptu rescue units, and just as we have been standing here,just a moment ago, a family walked past with a young child, and the woman was very,very pregnant.
It’s just unbelievable.
MILES O’BRIEN: Chris, you come by the sense that people are banding together and relying on each other as much they can, and not necessarily waiting for the authorities to near rescue them. Is that what you’re seeing?CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: We spent some time earlier this afternoon with a group of neighbors who had formed an impromptu rescue chain,where people were going into this apartment complex with boats, getting — encouraging people to leave their homes.
And once the people got out of their homes, and they then went to the next node of this chain where the people were directing them to shelters or to hotels. And this was all organized on the scene in the moment.
MILES O’BRIEN: What does surprise me as I see this scene there with the driving rain and a lot of water behind you is there is still fairly a bit of put activity. What is going on there right now? What are people doing?CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: This scene is just like many of the other scenes throughout the city. People are coming up. We have seen number of people launch their boats. And they have been taking the boats down through the flooded waters.
That truck that just passed me is actually from the Ohio task force,so people are dispatching clearly from all over to depart to different places. Just down the way, I’m not sure if you can actually see it here, or but there’s an 18-wheeler that has been stuck in the water,and there’s a group of people walking toward it.
Also, people seem to be coming out from the right here as they’re basically making their way towards higher ground. And just beyond my view, or there’s a higher spot where people who have walked out of the water are kind of walking up to what seems to be rides that have been arranged to pick them up.
MILES O’BRIEN: Special correspondent Christopher Booker in Houston.
Christopher,you and your team, please be safe.CHRISTOPHER BOOKER: Thank you.
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Source: thetakeaway.org