CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — As residents of the Texas Gulf Coast braced for days of "catastrophic" flooding and storm surges from a weakened Hurricane Harvey meandering on shore, towns like Rockport that took the brunt of the Category 4 storm reported widespread damage Saturday as emergency teams searched for any survivors trapped in low-lying areas or collapsed buildings.
"We know there is widespread devastation," Rockport Mayor C.J. Wax told The Weather Channel. "I think it’s safe to say we took a Cat. 4 (hurricane) right on the nose, and we’d appreciate everyone’s prayers."
At least 10 injuries were reported from collapsed roofs in the town of 10,000 people about 25 miles northeast of Corpus Christi.
Just got out of Rockport; no cell service there; catastrophic damage; homes, businesses destroyed. #hurricaneharvey
Early Saturday, Harvey’s destruction could be seen as far south as Corpus Christi, with downed street lights and trees blocking some downtown streets.
Thirty miles north, Fulton, a seaside community just north of Rockport, was a tangle of downed power lines, upended RVs and crushed homes. Downed trees blocked some roads in town; others were completely covered in floodwaters.
The roof from a nearby building was strewn across Texas State Highway 35, blocking one of the main entrances to Fulton and Rockport. In the middle of the night, as Harvey’s roars turned to quiet from the hurricane’s eye, some residents retreated to a local elementary school building.
“It was like being in another world,” said David Cameron, assistant chief of the Fulton Volunteer Fire Department, who helped rescue residents. “And there’s still a lot to do.”
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Hurricane Harvey hits Texas
Kevin Carruth, city manager of Rockport, said the courthouse had been hard hit, with a cargo trailer ending up halfway in the building. He said several people were taken to a makeshift hospital at the county jail for treatment after the roof of a senior housing complex collapsed.
Rockport found itself on the deadly right-hand side of the eye of the storm as Harvey came ashore packing 130-mph winds.That location left it vulnerable to the dangerous storm surges as the winds piled up the Gulf waters and drove it ashore.
At 10 a.m. CDT, the National Hurricane Center clocked Harvey's sustained wins at 75 mph, making it a Category 1 hurricane. It will likely slow to a tropical storm later in the day. The center of the storm was located 25 miles west of Victoria, Texas, and was crawling to the north at 2 mph.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas said Saturday morning in a statement that more than 211,000 consumers were without power along the Gulf Coast, with more than 100 circuits currently out of service.
In Corpus Christi, city officials appealed to residents to reduce their use of toilets and faucets because of power outages at the city's wastewater treatment plants.
President Trump tweeted Saturday morning he was closely monitoring the hurricane, "leaving nothing to chance."
Although no longer a major hurricane, Harvey is far from a spent force. The National Weather Service says Harvey is expected to stall and spin for the next three to five days, delivering storm surges up to 12 feet in some areas and "catastrophic" flooding along the middle and upper Texas coast. It could also slip back into the Gulf and regenerate as a powerful storm and head up the coast toward Louisiana.
Closely monitoring #HurricaneHarvey from Camp David. We are leaving nothing to chance. City, State and Federal Govs. working great together!
Harvey "may be nothing short of a flooding disaster," for Texas, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski, who said some communities could be underwater for days. Forecasters were already measuring 28-foot-high waves near the eye of the storm.
The Coast Guard, which urged Texas residents to remain where they are and stay off the water, sent helicopter crews to respond to three tugboats sending distress signals from near the Lydia Ann Channel near Port Aransas. The Coast Guard said one barge with four people aboard had broken free of its mooring and was adrift. On Friday, the Guard snatched 12 people aboard a 160-foot vessel taking on water near Port Mansfield, Texas.
The hurricane also left some 20,000 passengers stranded on four cruise ships that found conditions too dangerous to return to Galveston, KTRK-TV reported. The Carnival Valor and Carnival Freedom, which planned to return to Galveston on Friday, will instead head for New Orleans, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The Carnival Breeze stayed in Cozumel Friday night and was expected to leavet for Galveston Saturday, while the Royal Caribbean Liberty of the Seas was expected to wait until Sunday to sail back to Texas, according to the report.
Pres. Trump granted my request for a disaster declaration allowing FEMA to swiftly help Texans rebuild their lives from #hurricaineharvey.
With Harvey hitting as a Category 4 hurricane, the record 4,324-day span between U.S. “major” hurricane (Category 3 and above) landfalls has ended, said University of Miami meteorologist Brian McNoldy. Before Harvey, the most recent major hurricane landfall had been Wilma in October 2005.
Harvey is only the fourth Category 4 or 5 hurricane to hit the U.S. since 1970, according to Colorado State University hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach. The other three were Hugo, Andrew and Charley.
