Normal life and regular services in the Houston area remain crippled by the effects of the storm and continued rising floodwaters, worsened by more appalling weather on Tuesday. The authorities are warning Texans to expect the immediate disruption to continue for weeks and perhaps months to come.
Transportation at a standstill
The road system in and around Houston was still inundated on Tuesday with no signs of abatement in the flooding. Maps on a regional website operated by a partnership of local, county and state representatives recorded 442 locations around the metropolitan areas where road closures had been forced by high water. Major arteries such as I-10 running east-west to the north of downtown Houston, I-69 dissecting it north-south and the I-610 loop around the city are badly affected, with large sections closed. Floodwaters are still rising as the rain continues, and the emergency planning services are having to release water from several reservoirs to prevent uncontrolled overflow and worse flooding, putting the transportation system under further strain for many days to come. The weather forecast for the weekend is good, but floodwaters will not have begun subsiding by then, making access to most flooded areas still extremely problematic.
Both of Houston’s two major airports remained closed on Tuesday, having suspended flights since early Sunday. The Federal Aviation Administration’s website states that Houston’s Hobby airport is expected to reopen on Wednesday morning at 8am local time and George Bush intercontinental airport is expected to be operational again on Thursday at noon local time, although as the driving rain continues, operational plans are subject to change. Jack Brooks regional airport in Beaumont was also closed Tuesday, although flights in and out of Corpus Christi resumed and flights were operating out of Galveston. Flight disruptions are expected to continue across the region for the rest of the week and the poor weather is likely to begin affecting operations in Louisiana and, later, Mississippi.
Evacuations and the struggle to reach safety
The American Red Cross reported that 17,000 people affected by the flooding were in emergency shelters in southern Texas by Tuesday afternoon, but that number was expected to rise. The majority of people are in shelters on safe ground within the Houston area, with the city’s George Brown convention center hosting almost 10,000 evacuees already. After an influx of people there between Monday and Tuesday, the center is operating with only half the number of cots needed and many people are sleeping on the floor with pillows and blankets, the Red Cross said. An additional shelter is likely to be opened nearby later on Tuesday.
“This storm is beyond catastrophic. But anyone who is seeking refuge can reach out to the Red Cross. Anyone who is stranded is urged to call 911 or the US Coast Guard even though those services are very busy,” Red Cross spokesman Anthony Tornetta told the Guardian. Reports are coming in that volunteers from across the country are loading up emergency vehicles with food, clothing and cleaning materials and heading to Houston, from as far away as California, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York and the Midwest, Tornetta said.
Houston mayor Sylvester Turner said city officials were looking for more shelter space. Meanwhile Dallas, 240 miles north-west of Houston, has opened its Kay Bailey Hutchison convention center to accommodate 5,000 flood refugees, and the city has been asked to prepare to receive many thousands more, according to Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings. Evacuees have been flown in from Galveston, where the airport is open, and are expected to arrive in fleets of buses once interstate route I-45, which connects the two mega-cities, is passable. It was under water at the Houston end on Tuesday. Dallas’s neighbor city of Forth Worth has opened five emergency shelters to house 1,000 people fleeing the floods.
Mass rescues under way
Houston police have rescued more than 3,400 people from the floodwaters, police chief Art Acevedo said in a tweet on Tuesday. “Every passing hour, more boats are getting into the water,” he said. Emergency services and ordinary members of the public have deployed various kinds of craft, from formal rescue boats to kayaks, to enter the flooded streets of Houston and the region. Soaked families and individuals who had to flee from their homes or vehicles, often clutching soaking wet babies or pets in the pelting rain, struggled to safety, with small boats often being buffeted by strong currents in flooded streams and coastal surges.
Texas has deployed all of its National Guard troops, numbering around 12,000, and units are in action from other states, as far afield as Alaska, according to the defense department. Arizona and New York are among a number of states that have sent military aircraft, including helicopters, transport and reconnaissance planes, making up a fleet of around 60 military aircraft now deployed from Corpus Christi to Houston in search, rescue and supply efforts.
“Continuing rainfall from the hurricane is expected to cause devastating and life-threatening flooding throughout this week,” Army Col Robert Manning warned in a media briefing on Monday. High winds had hampered air rescue efforts over the weekend but on Monday and Tuesday the US Coast Guard had 20 helicopters operating in the Houston area, with air and ground teams rescuing stranded people and taking in supplies.
‘Very little sleep’ for medical workers
Approximately 20 hospitals and 20 nursing homes in south-east Texas have been evacuated because of the flooding, around half of those in the Houston area, and a further 25 hospitals are experiencing difficulties with power, supplies or access for ambulances.
The Ben Taub County Hospital in Houston was preparing on Tuesday to evacuate its 300 patients, with ambulances waiting to take them to other area hospitals. At least 40 hospitals in the Houston area are safe from flood effects and were operating normally on Tuesday, according to Darrell Pile, chief executive of the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council, which overseas medical services in the region under the joint umbrellas of state health services and federal disaster preparedness authorities.
“There is very little sleep being had among emergency planners, and staff who are working are not able to be replaced because other staff cannot get into work. The efforts of hospital staff, nursing home staff and first responders has been incredibly good in the circumstances,” Pile told the Guardian on Tuesday. The West Houston Medical Center was on Tuesday in the process of deciding whether to evacuate, because of power problems. Many hospitals which are operational have scaled back routine surgeries or other non-essential work in order to conserve supplies and prepare for any influx of patients being evacuated from elsewhere, Pile said.
No end in sight
Services, businesses and homes that have been affected by the storm are not expected to go back to normal quickly. The Red Cross has warned that people may still find themselves forced to stay in shelters into October or November and medical chiefs say hospitals will be disrupted for a considerable period. “The waters will continue to rise and our recovery from these may take weeks or even months. It will be next week before we can determine how that situation will affect hospitals, nursing homes and assisted living facilities going forward. At this point I am still expecting more evacuations,” said Pile.
