Over a week after Tropical Storm Harvey first inundated Texas, 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 and 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 Houston, to 29.
Houston police and volunteers with the Texas Center for the Missing are fielding hundreds of reports about people 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 their 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 reached 8-foot heights.
One resident, Adrian Rodriguez, returned Saturday to his flooded home, where he lived 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 projects of what they wanted to be when they grow up,” he said. “Everything in the house is history.”
Harvey first rolled 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 Protection Agency said.
The impact of flooding on the sites is unknown and the EPA said its workers 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 Harvey floodwaters, which include chemicals, oil and bacteria from Houston’s sewer system.