The National Weather Service said that between June 1 and Sunday, Houston had received 46 inches (117 centimeters) of rain — almost as much as it would expect in a year — in only three months.
“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall are beyond anything experienced before,” the NWS said, as the storm spawned tornadoes and lashed east and central Texas with torrential rains.
While the disaster response is now focused on the huge city of Houston, center of a fast-growing but loosely-planned urban area now home to more than six million people, many of those living in smaller communities by the coast were also driven from their homes.
Robert Frazier, 54-year-old foreman mechanic, left his home in La Porte, south of Houston, with his housewife Judy on Sunday morning and made it as far as a motel in Hankamer on the road towards Louisiana and still in Harvey’s path.
“We’re trapped,” Frazier said, speaking to AFP after he had tried to return home for some of his abandoned possessions, but finding the highway cut.
“I haven’t been through nothing like this.”
His wife Judy said she could only pray the rain would stop, after leaving home with just two sets of clothes, their medicine and their dog. (Agence France Presse)
