Hurricane Harvey blasted ashore as a Category 4 around 11PM last night, between Port Aransas and Port O’Connor, Texas. Right now it’s a Category 1 with winds at 80-90 mph.
Coastal cities are anticipating a 13-foot storm surge with inland locations are predicted to get as much as 40 inches of rain through Wednesday.
According to CNN, here are the bullet points:
• Harvey’s impact will be devastating and leave areas “uninhabitable for weeks or months,” forecasters said.
• Even though Harvey had made landfall and weakened, it was still a dangerous storm and “turning into a deadly inland event,” the FEMA chief tweeted.
• More than 213,000 customers were without power around 7:30 a.m. ET, on the Texas Gulf Coast, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said, amid reports of downed power lines and trees.
• Almost 10 inches of rain was reported by 5 a.m. ET at a few locations in southeast Texas, the National Weather Service said.
• A tide gauge in Port Lavaca, Texas, reported storm surge of 6.4 feet, the hurricane center said.
• Structural and building problems were reported in Rockport, Aransas Pass, and Port Aransas, Texas, said Tom Beal, a meteorologist with National Weather Service office in Corpus Christi.
• Rockport’s mayor had advised residents who refused to evacuate to write their names and Social Security numbers on their forearms to “help out first responders should they find a body.”
Roy Laird, assistant chief with the Rockport Volunteer Fire Department, told CNN early Saturday,
“We had probably 140-mph winds earlier. It was howling.”
Joey Walker, 25, rode out the storm from a house on Galveston Island and posted a video of near-white out conditions overlooking Stewart Beach.
This will be going on for days…
Hurricane #Harvey is steadily weakening over land, but excessive rainfall and storm surge threats remain pic.twitter.com/KXwYTEi4yt
— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) August 26, 2017
Catastrophic & life-threatening flooding is expected in SE Texas from heavy rainfall of 15-30 inches, with isolated totals up to 40" #Harvey pic.twitter.com/y2JV10zsBL
— NHC Atlantic Ops (@NHC_Atlantic) August 26, 2017
(Photo, screen grab; via CNN)
