Harvey death toll rises to 50 as residents begin long recovery

Over a week after Tropical Storm Harvey first inundated T🧔exas, death tolls have risen 🌼and hundreds are still missing, as displaced victims start making their way back home and others are told to evacuate.

Evacuations for about 4,600 houses in western Houston started at 7 a.m. Sunday following an evacuation order by Mayor Sylvester Turner. Hundreds of people in the area still have not left their homes anꦆd flooding is expected to last another two weeks.

Harvey’s death toll rose again to at least 50, authorities said,🐭 with the addition of an 8-year-old who died after he couldn’t get his asthma treatment during an attack and a man who was found floating in Cypress Creek floodwaters. His death brings the total in Harris County, which includes Ho🐽uston, to 29.

Houston police and volunteers with the Texas Center for the Missing are fielding hundreds of reports about p🎐eople separated from their families, with their efforts converging in the George R. Brown Convention Center, where thousands of displaced people are staying, .

Thousands of Texans continued to make th𝄹e♈ir way home, greeted by streets lined with debris, flooded houses and lost memories.

In one east Houston neighborhood, the piles of mattresses, carpets and other belongings ripped out of homes r🌺eached 8-foot h♊eights.

One resident, Adrian Rodriguez, returned Saturday t🐟o his flooded home, where he l♋ived with his wife and three sons.

“I lost everything. All my children’s pictures of them growing up. Their birthday pictures. Vacation pictures. Their school proje💫cts of what they wanted to be w🧸hen they grow up,” he said. “Everything in the house is history.”

Harvey first ro🦹lled into Texas on Aug. 25, bringing with it close to 52 inches of rain in some locations and♔ displacing 1 million people.

Thirteen heavily contaminated former industrial zones, known as Superfund sites, were flooded or damaged by the hurricane, the US Environmental Protect༺ion Agency said.

The impact of flooding on the sites is unknown and the EPA said its workꦓers had not been ❀able to safely access the sites but will do so once floodwaters recede.

The announcement came amid rising concerns about the health risks posed by ꦡHarvey floodwaters, which include chemicals, oil and bacteria from Houston’s sewer system.