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HOUSTON. — After pouring record rains on Texas, Tropical Storm Harvey made a second landfall yesterday to strike Louisiana, a state that still bears deep scars from 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.
The second hit comes five days after the monster storm slammed onshore as a Category Four hurricane, pummelling the US Gulf coast with torrential rains that turned neighbourhoods into lakes in America’s fourth largest city, Houston.
Harvey made its second landfall just west of the town of Cameron, the National Hurricane Centre said, with “flooding rains” drenching parts of south-eastern Texas and neighbouring south-western Louisiana.
Louisiana residents braced for Harvey’s ferocious maximum sustained winds nearing 72 kilometres per hour, with forecasters predicting another 13 to 25 centimetres of rain could pour on the region.
They expected Harvey would gradually weaken to a tropical depression by Wednesday night, meaning maximum sustained winds should slow.
But low-lying New Orleans was still girding for the storm, just a day after the 12-year anniversary of Katrina, which ravaged the vulnerable city famous for its jazz music and cuisine.
The New Orleans branch of the National Weather Service said a heavy rain threat remained over southeast Louisiana and southern Mississippi through Thursday, when relatively drier weather is finally slated to arrive.
One night prior to the second landfall, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu tweeted to “remind #NOLA that we are not yet in the clear,” urging residents to “remain vigilant and cautious.”
Meanwhile, Houston strained under the arrival of tens of thousands of people fleeing submerged homes and flooded roads yesterday and faced an outbreak of looting and armed robberies that forced a midnight curfew.
The city opened the George R. Brown Convention Centre over the weekend with a plan to house 5 000 people and be run largely by American Red Cross volunteers.
The centre’s size quickly doubled, as people streamed in from areas south and west of the city. Despite promising two more “mega” centres early Tuesday, Houston opened one, at a basketball arena, and two smaller centres.
That proved too little for county officials who set up their own location as an outbreak of looting and armed robberies prompted the city to order an indefinite curfew from midnight to 0500 to 1000 GMT.
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said late Tuesday individuals impersonating police officers knocked on doors in at least two parts of the city telling residents to evacuate their homes.
More than 3 000 Houston homes were underwater and thousands more were threatened by two reservoirs swollen by an estimated 90cm of rain.
Area churches and aid organisations donated clothing, bedding and food for those forced to leave their home. The American Red Cross brought at least 1 000 volunteers to staff the city’s convention centre, and provided cots, blankets and food for 34 000 across the region, officials said. — AFP/Reuters.
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