Page 4 - ARUBA TODAY

A4 U.S. NEWS
Thursday 31 augusT 2017
Floodwaters drop in Houston as Harvey takes a second swipe

By NOMAAN MERCHANT sands of homes in and
JUAN LOZANO around the nation’s fourth-
Associated Press largest city still were under
HOUSTON (AP) — Harvey’s water from the record-
floodwaters started drop- breaking deluge of 4 feet
ping across much of the of rain and could stay that
Houston area and the sun way for days or weeks.
peeked through thinning Officials said 911 call cen-
clouds Wednesday in the ters in the Houston area
first glimmer of hope in days were still getting more than
for the besieged city. But 1,000 calls an hour from
the crisis was far from over, people seeking help. The
with the storm doubling Coast Guard said it was
back toward land and bat- operating 21 helicopters
tering communities near and more than two dozen
the Texas-Louisiana line. shallow-draft boats to help
The storm, meanwhile, be- in the effort. About 10,000
gan to give up some of more National Guard
its dead. The confirmed troops are being deployed
death toll from the hurri- to Texas, bringing the total
cane climbed to 21 after to 24,000, Gov. Greg Abbot
a woman’s body was dis- said. The scale of the ca-
covered afloat in Beau- tastrophe in Texas began
mont. Also, the bodies of Members of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries help rescue Mike Henry, right, and to come into sharper focus:
six family members, includ- his partner Rosemarie Carpenter during flooding from Tropical Storm Harvey in Orange, Texas, More than 1,000 homes
ing four children, were Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017. were destroyed and close
pulled from a van that had (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) to 50,000 damaged, and
been swept off a Houston 10 feet of muddy water. turn and rolled ashore early nels in some places. Hous- over 32,000 people were
bridge into a bayou, and While conditions in Hous- Wednesday for the sec- ton Mayor Sylvester Turner in shelters across the state,
authorities were investi- ton appeared to improve, ond time in six days, hitting said the city’s two major emergency officials report-
gating 17 more deaths to the disaster took a turn for southwestern Louisiana as airports would reopen late ed. Authorities expect the
determine whether they the worse east of the city, a tropical storm with heavy in the afternoon.”We have death toll to rise as the wa-
were storm-related. “Un- close to the Louisiana line. rain and winds of 45 mph. good news,” said Jeff Lind- ters recede and bodies are
fortunately, it seems that Beaumont and Port Arthur, For much of the rest of the ner, a meteorologist with found in cars and homes.
our worst thoughts are be- Texas, struggled with rising Houston area, forecasters the Harris County Flood The confirmed deaths from
ing realized,” Harris County floodwaters and worked said the rain is pretty much Control District. “The water the storm include a man
Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said to evacuate residents af- over and the water is al- levels are going down.” who tried to swim across
after the van was found in ter Harvey completed a U- ready back within its chan- Nevertheless, many thou- a flooded road, a former
football and track coach
in suburban Houston, and
a woman who died after
she and her young daugh-
ter were swept into a drain-
age canal in Beaumont.
The child was rescued
clinging to her dead moth-
er, authorities said.
About 195,000 people
have filed for financial as-
sistance, and about $35
million in direct aid has
been distributed — num-
bers expected to climb
dramatically in the coming
days and weeks, the chief
of the Federal Emergency
Management Agency
said.“This is going to be an
incredibly large disaster,”
Brock Long said in Wash-
ington. “We’re not going
to know the true cost for
years to come. ... But it’s
going to be huge.” Harvey
itself was “spinning down”
and expected to weaken
sometime Wednesday
into a tropical depression,
meaning winds of 38 mph
or less, National Hurricane
Center meteorologist Den-
nis Feltgen said.q