Hurricane Harvey Will Drive 30,000 to Shelters in Texas

More than 30,000 people will need shelter as a result of the unrelenting rains and flooding of Tropical Storm Harvey overwhelming Texas, reported USA Today. 

Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather Service, said some areas of southeast Texas around Houston have already seen more than 30 inches of rain. A wide swath of the region has been hit with 15-20 inches of rain, he said.

Harvey, now spinning near Port O'Connor, Texas, was forecast to move back into the Gulf of Mexico today, the National Hurricane Center said. It will meander over the Gulf for a couple of days before making a second landfall somewhere near the Texas/Louisiana border, likely on Wednesday.

Harvey is then expected to slowly move northeast across Louisiana and Arkansas as a tropical depression from Thursday into Saturday.

As it spins offshore, the storm is expected to dump an additional 15 to 25 inches of rain through Friday over the upper Texas coast and into southwestern Louisiana, exacerbating the life-threatening, catastrophic flooding in the Houston area, the hurricane center said.

Isolated storm totals may reach 50 inches over the upper Texas coast, including parts of the Houston/Galveston metropolitan area.

President Trump, who was scheduled to visit Texas on Tuesday, issued a federal disaster declaration Monday for many parishes in southwestern Louisiana. Gov. John Bel Edwards sought the declaration, saying he expects "significant damage" in his state.

In flood-gorged Houston, residents continued rescuing neighbors throughout the night and braced for days of heavy rains. Hundreds of residents sought refuge in the George R. Brown Convention Center, where volunteers assembled 1,300 cots. The center will be outfitted to handle 5,000, city officials said.

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