Port Arthur Faces Harvey Flooding Disaster: ‘Our Whole City Is Underwater’

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In Port Arthur, Harvey Continues Path of Destruction

Homes and shelters were flooded and the largest oil refinery in the U.S. was shut down after heavy rains flooded Port Arthur, east of Houston, overnight Tuesday.


By MALACHY BROWNE, BARBARA MARCOLINI and CHRIS CIRILLO on August 30, 2017.


Photo by Beulah Johnson, via Associated Press.

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Even as the sun began to show in Houston on Wednesday, signaling a small measure of hope after days of devastating rainfall from Tropical Storm Harvey, a region east of the city faced disaster anew after it was pummeled by rain overnight.

Residents of cities in Jefferson County, Tex., about 100 miles east of Houston, were desperate for help Wednesday morning after rain there caused floodwaters to rise precipitously and lightning made things particularly difficult for those responding to the storm.

Many, finding emergency services unresponsive, sought assistance on social media, where their calls were amplified by digital onlookers seeking to help from afar.

Port Arthur’s mayor, Derrick Freeman, said on Facebook early Wednesday morning that rescue teams were contending with fires while trying to get residents to safety.

“Our whole city is underwater right now,” he wrote, in a message of encouragement that nonetheless communicated the distress the city was facing.

The mayor of Beaumont, Becky Ames, told NBC that the flooding was like nothing she had ever seen before.

“Every single body of water around us is at capacity and overflowing and the rain is still coming down,” she said.

About 254,000 people live in Jefferson County, which Brock Long, the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Wednesday had been “slammed with 20 inches of rainfall” overnight.

As news reports teemed with images from Port Arthur showing flooded homes and shelters, the city’s name began to trend on Twitter early Wednesday morning as dozens of residents posted their addresses and conditions, saying that they were trapped in their houses with children and older people in dire need of assistance. Even the city itself used Twitter to call for help.

A judge in Jefferson County, Jeff Branick, told a local news reporter that hundreds if not thousands of people were stranded on their roofs, on top of cars and in attics.

Sites that may have been able to withstand less forceful weather gave way to the pouring rain. The Robert A. Bowers Civic Center, where at least 100 people had taken shelter, was flooded overnight, according to a county sheriff’s deputy, and reports said that people were being removed.

The Port Arthur-based Motiva oil refinery, the nation’s largest such facility, confirmed reports that it had started a controlled shutdown in response to the flooding.

In a video broadcast from his own flooded home, where the water was about knee high on Wednesday, Mayor Freeman said that the military and Coast Guard were helping with rescue efforts. He said that 911 lines were flooded, but that the city was continuing its rescue attempts.

“Harvey was not playing,” he said, as he sloshed through water that had invaded rooms, closets and his backyard, his optimism mingling with shock at the state of his house. “I know one thing though, it’s not going to defeat us.”

Tevin Baker, 18, who was trapped in his Port Arthur home with his mother, Kathy Baker, 56, tweeted for help throughout the night. The two were rescued shortly after 7:30 local time.

“My house just started to flood,” he said in a phone interview. “We weren’t ready at all. It was very horrific for me and my mom.”

He said that the water had come in at a rate of about five or six inches an hour throughout the night, and he took videos of the flooding.

“At 1 it was in the garage, but by 4 it was at our ankles in the house,” he said. “By 7 we were just begging for help. We stood outside, we finally found someone who helped us.”

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Speaking from a shelter in the city, he said that he and his mother had been rescued by men in boats, and that he did not know where they would stay in the immediate future.

“Seeing that coming through the door and the back door and the garage door like that, you’re helpless, you feel helpless,” he added. “It was the worst feeling I’ve had in a long time.”

Amber Robinson, 27, whose friend Keith Pinault tweeted on her behalf, was rescued with her parents, ages 67 and 61, after water flooded their home on Memorial Boulevard in Port Arthur. Mr. Pinault deleted the call for help once the family was rescued.

Ms. Robinson said Wednesday that they had known that the storm was coming but did not expect the rain to be as fierce or unforgiving as it was. Her family had expected water to flood in from the garage, but instead it started coming up through the floor and was soon waist deep.

The family put a flatbed truck in the garage and opened the garage door so that they could be seen by rescue workers. They were on the truck from 3 a.m. until around 10 a.m., when they were taken to a temporary shelter in a bowling alley.

“We don’t know where we’re going to go for sure,” she said. “But we are definitely better now.”

Michelle Preble, 45, in Oregon City, Ore., was one of many people on Twitter trying to compile a list of the addresses being tweeted into something that could be useful to emergency medical workers and others responding to victims.

In a phone interview Wednesday, Ms. Preble, who grew up in Houston and has many friends and family there, said that she had taken a list of names, addresses and conditions and passed them along to the Cajun Navy volunteer force. She was able to contact the Navy’s dispatcher through the walkie-talkie style communication app Zello.

She said that while it initially had been difficult to track whether individual requests for help were being answered by the group, she began to get confirmations Wednesday afternoon that the people whose addresses she had sent had been picked up by the Navy, including a 99-year-old man whose granddaughter had tweeted on his behalf.

Eric Vargas, 19, had been waiting for help on a balcony in Port Arthur since early Wednesday morning, after the water inside his home rose to his stomach. He was initially with nine other adults and 10 children, including two as young as 2 years old, he said.

He said he had reached the Coast Guard, and the person he spoke to had told him to make sure that there was a white blanket in plain sight. But Mr. Vargas said that he had not been given any update as to when, or whether, the much-needed help would arrive.

“I’m just trying to be patient, but I guess I’m going to have to call again,” he said.

Reached again nearly four hours later, Mr. Vargas, who had decided to leave the balcony along with some relatives, still had not been rescued.

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