News

Actions

Drone footage shows Harvey's impact on Houston

Posted at 1:02 PM, Aug 29, 2017
and last updated 2017-08-29 15:02:52-04

Aerial footage taken by a drone has captured the full impact of Hurricane Harvey's floods on Houston, Texas.

So Fly Video Productions made the footage available via Storyful. See it below:

 

The catastrophic flooding that has already swallowed thousands of homes in Texas could get worse after a levee breached south of Houston.

"Get out now!" Brazoria County officials tweeted Tuesday.

The levee breached after inland waterways rapidly swelled to major flood stage, county spokeswoman Sharon Trower said.

"The Brazos River is being pounded, and all of that water is coming down from the tributaries and creeks into the river," she said. "All the roads around us are flooded. We don't have any evacuation routes to tell people to take."

Brazoria County sits between the Gulf of Mexico and Houston, which remains the site of Harvey's most appalling devastation. Houston police have rescued more than 3,500 people from the floodwaters, Police Chief Art Acevedo said.

That number is almost certain to keep rising, as countless residents remain trapped in their deluged homes three days after Hurricane Harvey struck.

"Every passing hour, more boats are getting into the water," Acevedo said Tuesday. "This is a catastrophic event."

Four people have died from the calamitous storm, and with another landfall expected, the devastation could intensify.

Latest developments
-- President Donald Trump landed in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Tuesday to meet with local officials and relief organizations. He will also visit Austin but will not visit the most hard-hit parts of Texas because "the President wants to be very cautious about making sure that any activity doesn't disrupt the recovery efforts that are still ongoing," White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said.

-- Several rain gauges southeast of downtown Houston report more than 48 inches of rain from the storm known as Harvey. That marks the most rain ever recorded in the contiguous United States from a tropical storm that made landfall. The previous record was held by Tropical Storm Amelia, which hit Texas in 1978.

-- Houston's George R. Brown Convention Center is hosting nearly 10,000 evacuees, about double the number of cots available. Those who couldn't get a cot were given pillows and blankets to sleep on the floor, Red Cross spokeswoman Betsy Robertson said. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said city officials were looking for more shelter space.

-- Houston officials will not ask for immigration status or documentation from anyone at any shelter, according to tweets in English and Spanish from the city's verified account.

-- Dallas opened a mega-shelter at its downtown convention center.