(Newswire.net — August 31, 2017) –The exact number of victims is still unknown because rescuers are still struggling to reach many stranded in the state’s worst storm in more than 50 years.
At least 30 people are dead and tens of thousands have been displaced, but this number is certainly not final because the storm continues to batter Texas with rain and floods, and a reservoir near Houston spilled over.
On Tuesday President Trump and first lady Melania Trump visited Texas to survey the ongoing devastation from Hurricane Harvey.
While there Trump praised the efforts put into fighting the disaster ”It’s a real team and we want to do it better than ever before. We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, ‘This is the way to do it.’ This was of epic proportion. Nobody’s ever seen anything like this and I just want to say that working with the governor and his entire team has been an honor for us,” said the president in Corpus Christi, Texas.
He promised to help and support “in the most productive way possible, not through just words, but also action.”
“What I found to be the most profound during the visit was not only the strength and resilience of the people of Texas, but the compassion and sense of community that has taken over the state,” said President Trump and added: “Probably there’s never been anything so expensive in our country’s history.”
According to Chuck Watson, director of research and development at Enki Research, the estimated damage has increased to more than $ 30 billion, including its impact on transportation systems, electrical power and the work force.
“If Harvey had been a run-of-the-mill hurricane, it would have cost less than $ 5 billion of damage,” Watson said to the AFP, and added:
“The problem is that Harvey is acting more like a big, wet tropical storm. Harvey has dumped more rain in three days than Tropical Storm Allison did in five, and it’s on track to almost double the Allison rainfall.”
On August 25th, Harvey made landslide near Corpus Christi, Texas, as a category 4 storm with 130mph winds. It has also set a new US record for rainfall – more than 40in (100cm) of rain was recorded in some parts of Houston and Cedar Bayou, near Mont Belvieu, 33 miles east of Houston hitting 51.88in (132 cm) as of 3:30pm on Tuesday.
It caused catastrophic flooding, forcing a large number of people to evacuate, but also fear – what will come in the next days because Harvey is now hitting Louisiana and the worst could be yet to come.