Harvey the latest threat to flood-prone Houston
HOUSTON — Hurricane Harvey slammed into the Texas coast some 175 miles from Houston, but the nation’s fourth-largest city has never needed a direct strike from a catastrophic storm to flood.
Regularly inundated by floodwaters ever since its settlement in the mid-1800s, Houston looked on warily even before Harvey roared ashore. In Houston, the chronic deluges that have repeatedly swamped its neighborhoods are getting worse and more costly — not just for locals, but for federal taxpayers.
An Associated Press analysis of government data found last year that if the county that is home to Houston were a state, it would have ranked in the top five or six in every category of repeat flood losses. That’s defined as any property with two or more losses in a 10-year period each totaling at least $1,000.
Nationally, repeat federal flood relief payouts averaged about $3,000 per square mile (2.5 square kilometers). But in greater Houston, the payouts were nearly a whopping $500,000 per square mile (2.5 square kilometers).
Harvey, which blasted ashore as a major Category 4 hurricane before weakening to a tropical storm, has swamped roads and paralyzed neighborhoods throughout the city. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said more than 2,000 calls for help had been received by midday Sunday. Flooding was so bad that residents were being urged to seek refuge on their roofs.
The National Weather Service said Sunday that some parts of Houston may receive a Texas record of 50 inches (1,270 millimeters) of rain.
An abandoned vehicle sits in flood waters on the Interstate 10 highway Sunday in Houston, Texas. (Associated Press)