The tugboat Signet Enterprise sinks. Coast Guard rescued 15 people in distress near Port Aransas, Texas in response to Hurricane Harvey, Saturday, Aug. 26, 2017. Coast Guard photo by Air Station Corpus Christi.
Update: The U.S. Coast Guard said it rescued 15 people aboard vessels in distress near Port Aransas, Texas, Saturday. The rescues include:
-Seven people were rescued aboard the tugboat Sabine and airlifted to a rig near Aransas Pass.
-Four people were rescued aboard the vessel Signet Enterprise that was taking on water and airlifted to safety.
-Four people rescued aboard vessel Sandy Point.
#BREAKING The Coast Guard rescued four people aboard a sinking vessel in response to #HurricaneHarvey! https://t.co/yi2KxPGDoD pic.twitter.com/D6eKK66WW7
— USCG Heartland (@USCGHeartland) August 26, 2017
Breaking News: @USCG Air Station Corpus Christi rescued 12 as #HurricaneHarvey nears. Updates to follow soon at https://t.co/AJyH7tl8P9. pic.twitter.com/WRA8KzFQdy
— USCG Heartland (@USCGHeartland) August 25, 2017
#BREAKING Lower Mississippi River waterway restriction from mile marker 781-776 due to grounded barge. Current queue: 1 upbound 1 downbound
— USCG Heartland (@USCGHeartland) August 26, 2017
Breaking News: @USCG Air Station Corpus Christi rescued 12 as #HurricaneHarvey nears. Updates to follow soon at https://t.co/AJyH7tl8P9. pic.twitter.com/WRA8KzFQdy
— USCG Heartland (@USCGHeartland) August 25, 2017
By Brian Thevenot ROCKPORT, Texas, Aug 26 (Reuters) – The most powerful storm to hit Texas in more than 50 years has killed at least one person and is now threatening catastrophic flooding as search and rescue teams deploy to the hardest-hit zones, authorities said on Saturday.
Harvey hit Texas, the heart of the U.S. oil and gas industry, late Friday as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of 130 miles per hour (209 km per hour), making it the strongest storm to strike the state since 1961.
The storm has ripped off rooves, snapped powerlines, and triggered tornadoes and flash floods, while also curtailing a large portion of America’s oil and fuel production and prompting price hikes at the pumps.
It has since weakened to a tropical storm, but is expected to lash Texas for days as it lumbers inland, bringing as much as 40 inches (102 cm) of rain, affecting heavily populated areas like Houston. Texas utility companies, meanwhile, said nearly a quarter of a million customers were without power.
One person died in a house fire in the town of Rockport, 30 miles (48 km) north of the city of Corpus Christi, as Harvey roared ashore overnight, Mayor Charles Wax said in a news conference on Saturday, marking the first confirmed fatality from the storm.
Across Rockport, which took a direct hit from the storm, the streets were flooded and strewn with power lines and debris. At a recreational vehicle sales lot, a dozen vehicles were flipped over and one had been blown into the middle of the street.
“It was terrible,” resident Joel Valdez, 57, told Reuters. The storm ripped part of the roof from his trailer home at around 4 a.m., he said. “I could feel the whole house move.”
Valdez said he stayed through the storm to look after his animals. “I have these miniature donkeys and I don’t know where they are,” he said, as he sat in a Jeep with windows smashed by the storm.
Resident Frank Cook, 56, also stayed through the storm.
“If you have something left of your house, you’re lucky,” he said, surveying the damage from his vehicle.
Before the storm hit, Rockport’s mayor told anyone staying behind to write their names on their arms for identification in case of death or injury. A high school, hotel, senior housing complex and other buildings suffered structural damage, according to emergency officials and local media. Some were being used as shelters.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Saturday said he would activate 1,800 members of the military to help with the statewide cleanup while 1,000 people would conduct search-and-rescue operations.
The streets of Corpus Christi, which has around 320,000 residents, were deserted on Saturday, with billboards twisted and strong winds still blowing. City authorities asked residents to reduce use of toilets and faucets because power outages left waste water plants unable to treat sewage.
A drill ship broke free of its mooring overnight and rammed into some tugs in the port of Corpus Christi, port executive Sean Strawbridge said. The crews on the tugs were safe, he added.
The city was under voluntary evacuation ahead of the storm.
Harvey was a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale when it hit the coast, the second-highest category, and the most powerful storm in over a decade to come ashore anywhere in the mainland United States.
Harvey weakened to tropical storm from hurricane strength on Saturday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. The center of the storm was about 60 miles (95 km) east-southeast of San Antonio with sustained winds of 65 mph and barely moving, the center said.
Houston, the fourth most populous city in the United States and home to a third of the 6 million people that could be impacted by Harvey, has gotten about 16 inches of rain so far, and will receive 2 to 3 more feet in the coming days, Mayor Sylvester Turner said Saturday afternoon.
“This is serious,” Turner said in a televised interview as Harvey turned into a tropical storm expected to linger over the mid Texas coast. “It is important that people stay off the roads.” Turner said the city, which has faced flooding in recent years during smaller storms, is prepared for what he described as a “major water event.”
Other authorities warned of the potentially life-threatening impact of heavy rains between Houston and Corpus Christi over the next several days.
The latest forecast storm track has Harvey looping back toward the Gulf of Mexico coast before turning north again on Tuesday. (http://tmsnrt.rs/2g9jZ0W)
“This rain will lead to a prolonged, dangerous, and potentially catastrophic flooding event well into next week,” the National Weather Service said. Harvey has triggered flash floods, the NWS said.
The size and strength of Harvey dredged up memories of Katrina, the 2005 hurricane that made a direct hit on New Orleans as a Category 3 storm, causing levees and flood walls to fail in dozens of places. About 1,800 died in the disaster made worse by a slow government emergency response.
U.S. President Donald Trump, facing the first big natural disaster of his term, signed a disaster proclamation on Friday.
He met with his cabinet and staff on Saturday to discuss the federal reaction to the storm, according to a White House statement.
“President Trump emphasized his expectations that all departments and agencies stay fully engaged and positioned to support his number one priority of saving lives,” according to the statement.
Utilities American Electric Power Company Inc and CenterPoint Energy Inc reported a combined total of around 240,000 customers without power.
Several refiners shut down plants ahead of the storm, disrupting supplies and pushing prices higher. Many fuel stations ran out of gasoline before the storm hit, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency loosened gasoline specifications late on Friday to reduce shortages.
The American Automobiles Association said pump prices rose 4 cents in four days in Texas to reach $2.17 a gallon on Friday.
Disruptions to fuel supply drove benchmark gasoline futures to their highest price in four months.
More than 45 percent of the country’s refining capacity is along the U.S. Gulf Coast, and nearly a fifth of the nation’s crude is produced offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.
Just under 25 percent of Gulf output, or 429,000 barrels per day (bpd) had been shut in by the storm, the U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement said on Saturday.
(Additional reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault, Jarrett Renshaw, Taylor Harris, Devika Krishna Kumar and Sophia Kunthara in New York; Liz Hampton, Ernest Scheyder and Gary McWilliams in Houston; Writing by Simon Webb and Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Lisa Shumaker)
(c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2017.
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