Estimated reading time: 6 minute(s)
(Source: FinalCall.com) Hurricane Harvey unleashed unprecedented rain, causing massive damage in just a three-day span, but the worst was yet to come for Lone Star State.
The terrible Texas storm system began as a tropical wave east of Barbados in the Caribbean gathered strength in the southern area of the Gulf of Mexico and then it struck.
It stalled over Houston for about 24 hours as a Category 3 Hurricane before hitting landfall, and then Aug. 25, Harvey was upgraded to a Category 4 and pummeled the city of Rockport, Texas with 130 mph winds.
Eight people died, according to reports, as Harvey dumped trillions of gallons of rain on Houston and other parts of the state and region. Meteorologists predicted rainfall would reach 50 inches or higher at Final Call presstime.
“You have to keep in mind that flooding is not abnormal in the Houston area, but this storm lingered over this area for so long that it spawned tornadoes that impacted parts of Missouri City and the surrounding areas, and the flooding that came, dropping gallons and gallons of rain,” said Jeffrey Boney, councilman-elect of Missouri City, Texas’ District B and associate editor of the Houston Forward Times.
In three days, Houston received the amount of rain it typically gets in a year and Harvey visited Austin, San Antonio, Central Texas, and moved further northeast and to the east, he stated.
“It was surreal in a couple of instances, just thinking about where do you go? But you have no other place to go but back home and sit put and wait it out and pray and hope for the best,” Mr. Boney told The Final Call.
“What makes this unprecedented is that it is not a 100 year, 500 year, but a 1,000-year flood event, which is to say that it is unprecedented because it goes beyond any records that have been measured in modern times,” said Dr. Abdul Haleem Muhammad, an urban planner, environmental consultant, and Nation of Islam student minister for the Southwest Region. He is based in Houston.
Harvey’s devastating floods poured into the nation’s fourth-largest city and rising water chased thousands of people to rooftops or higher ground and overwhelmed rescuers who could not keep up with the constant calls for help.
