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Houston Begins to Recover From Fatal Storms

As the sun came up Tuesday, just hours after an overnight torrent that flooded highways and inundated neighborhoods, greater Houston faced yet one more painful recovery brought on by its occasionally lethal mix of climate and topography.

By Mike Tolson

As the sun came up Tuesday, just hours after an overnight torrent that flooded highways and inundated neighborhoods, greater Houston faced yet one more painful recovery brought on by its occasionally lethal mix of climate and topography.

It was a familiar scene: Authorities looking for bodies swept away by swollen bayous, residents cleaning out waterlogged homes, confused drivers trying to track down cars abandoned in a panic as flood waters rose with amazing speed, officials totaling up the loss and explaining how it came to be.

The fierce thunderstorms that raked the Houston area from about 10 p.m. Monday until the early morning hours stunned a region already saturated by weeks of rainy weather and brought echoes of Tropical Storm Allison, the 2001 mega-storm that caused unprecedented water damage and almost two dozen local deaths.

This time around, officials confirmed at least four storm-related deaths, and there is a possibility at least two more victims -- an elderly couple who fell from a boat during an attempted rescue -- will be added to the list. Another man died of what appeared to be a heart attack after pushing his vehicle from a flooded street.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday added Harris County to a growing list of 46 Texas counties under disaster declarations, opening the door for homeowners and businesses to potentially receive federal compensation for damages suffered in flooding and allowing local governments to be reimbursed for their response and recovery efforts.

Mayor Annise Parker said an estimated 4,000 residential homes have suffered "significant damage" from the floodwaters. City staff have inspected about 1,000 of these, she said, but more detailed inspections are hampered by high water. The good news is that the water is receding, with 12 of the 14 bayou segments measured by electronic gauges back within their banks.

"The sun is shining out here right now, and the city is slowly getting back to normal, but this is a little bit of a situation of a tale of two cities," Parker said. "Much of Houston was unaffected by the weather, but the parts that were affected were very severely hit. We've had 10 days, two weeks, of steady rain. The grounds were completely saturated and there's really been no place for the water to go."

But, of course, it had to go somewhere. And as the intense rains pounded the city and nearby communities for hour after hour, the bayous rose and streets and highways became impassable. Of the 500 or so emergency calls to the Houston Fire Department after midnight, most were from stranded motorists, officials said. An estimated 750 vehicles were cleared from roadways and taken to city impound lots.

Other calls came from people trapped in their homes as water breached their doors and windows. Southwest Houston was hit hard, nowhere worse than a portion of the Meyerland subdivision near Loop 610 where residents found their homes invaded by rainwater that quickly overflowed the banks of Brays Bayou. The luckier homes, sitting a little higher or a little further away, only saw a few inches. The unlucky dealt with virtual inundation.

Dell Everett and his 12-year-old daughter Kaelin watched tensely as water started to seep inside their Meyerland home. A few inches, then a few more, and finally almost three feet -- enough to send the pair into their attic, along with their two dogs and Bruno, Kaelin's bearded dragon.

"We sat it out up there," said Everett, 54. "The scary part, usually (when it floods) it goes right out," but not this time. When he peeked outside after dawn, the water was still there, with items from the kitchen now floating in a bedroom.

It was the worst flooding the house has ever been hit with, he said, despite the recent construction of nearby retention reservoirs and drainage systems.

"I guess they weren't enough for it," he said, ruefully.

Jeff Lefkowitz lives a few streets over, on a slightly raised plot of land. The house didn't flood, but he woke up to find water lapping over the hood of his gold Chevy Suburban. Water covered the streets, sidewalks, even driveways.

"There was water everywhere, he said. "It was like living in a houseboat."

Bad as it was, the rising water could have claimed more houses. The Harris County Flood Control District along with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been engaged in a $530 million flood mitigation project that include a series of detention basins along the bayou. The work that has been done helped with this storm, said spokeswoman Kim Jackson.

"It could have been much worse for them," Jackson said of Meyerland residents. "They're surrounded on both sides by some significant detention basins. About 8.5 inches of rain fell there, and that alone would probably overwhelm any system we have in Harris County, internal and bayou as well."

No estimate of the physical damage done by the storm was available so soon after the event, though Abbott's disaster declaration allows state funds to be used in the recovery effort and means officials can tally damage incurred and apply for assistance from the federal government.

The human cost, however, began to unfold even before dawn when the first victim was found inside the cab of a flooded pickup truck near the intersection of Ranchester and Harwin. A few hours later, when helicopters had enough light to take off, a Houston Police Department chopper recovered the body of a 50-year-old woman from Brays Bayou. Authorities had first reported spotting the woman's body floating near the 5400 block of Ardmore, but the current pushed it about a mile and a half downstream near South MacGregor Way and Cullen Boulevard.

Another person was later found dead inside a vehicle that was towed from the 1700 block of Studewood in the Heights area. And a fourth drowning victim was found early Tuesday evening in Brays Bayou. Police said he was an Asian man and may have been one of the people who were lost during an HFD water rescue earlier Tuesday morning.

The names of the victims were not released.

Authorities are still searching for the elderly couple, ages 85 and 87, who fell into the water when the rescue boat capsized. Firefighters had pulled the couple and their middle-age daughter from fast-moving flood waters and placed life vests on them, said Capt. Ruy Lozano, an HFD spokesman. They were in the process of rescuing a fourth person, possibly the deceased Asian man, when the boat overturned when hit by rushing water currents, he said.

Rescuers were able to grab onto the younger woman but not her parents or the other man, Lozano said. A second rescue boat then came along and was able to pull the firefighters and woman from the water, however the others slipped away. Because the couple still had their vests on, authorities were hopeful that they were able to swim to safety, Lozano said.

City officials said the body of a fifth person was found late Monday night, though his death is not believed to be directly weather related. The victim, identified as Dennis Lee Callihan, was found lying at the exit of a parking garage at 1433 West Loop South around 11:30 p.m. A witness told police they spotted Callihan, pushing his vehicle off the flooded street during the storm. Officials believe he may have suffered a heart attack while pushing his car.

The storm's intensity and duration, and the deaths it caused, brought back memories of Tropical Storm Allison, which took place in June 2001. By comparison, however, this storm was small potatoes. Allison was a five-day event that culminated in overnight rainfall totals that doubled or tripled those of Monday's storms.

During Allison, parts of Houston were hit with as much as 38 inches of rain as the storm charted a deadly path across the region, returning after its initial strike to kill at least 22 area residents and flood more than 70,000 houses and 95,000 vehicles.

Allison took forecasters by surprise when it hit the Texas coast at the start of the hurricane season. After an initial deluge, the slow-moving storm remained in the area longer than originally expected, flooding the region three times in five days.

Media: YouTube/Bryan Rumbaugh Severe flooding swept through Texas on May 22-24, killing at least 2 people and leaving four missing in Houston, and forcing many to evacuate their homes. In Wimberley, central Texas, at least 12 people were reported missing after the nearby San Marcos ri

Houstonians were left to wade through waist-high water and sit atop stranded cars waiting for boat rides from emergency personnel and good Samaritans to return to their homes, more than 2,700 of which were destroyed. Meanwhile, water some four feet deep flowed through the streets near the Texas Medical Center, where Memorial Hermann Hospital ceased all services for the first time in its history.

At its peak, the Red Cross was housing thousands of victims in 46 area shelters.

In all, the damage Allison caused in Harris County approached $5 billion, with residential properties having sustained about $1.76 billion in damages and businesses more than $1 billion.

More than $1 billion in federal recovery money was approved after the storm. Texas also collected $5.4 billion in federal recovery funds after Hurricane Ike hit in September 2008, though that storm brought much more wind damage than widespread flooding across Houston.

"I have, as governor, declared disaster declarations from literally the Red River to the Rio Grande, where flooding has been taking place across the state," Abbott said. "But just like in so many other times of challenges, we see Texans respond by coming together. We will respond effectively to face these challenges."

President Barack Obama promised that federal assistance is on the way.

"I assured Gov. Abbott that he could count on the help of the federal government," Obama said Tuesday. "We have FEMA personnel already on the ground. They are coordinating with Texas emergency management authorities, and I will anticipate that there will be some significant requests made to Washington. My pledge to him is that we will expedite those requests."

Abbott, who arrived earlier Tuesday and toured the hardest hit parts of the city from a helicopter, said the flooding damage to his eyes was comparable to Allison.

"It's heart-wrenching when you see homes, not just houses but homes that families live in, to see the way in which their dreams and their lives are either completely disrupted or completely washed away," he said.

Texas Department of Public Safety Assistant Director Chief Nim Kidd said his staff is working closely with Parker and County Judge Ed Emmett and other local leaders to meet federal thresholds to qualify for disaster assistance for the uninsured and underinsured. For Texas, he said, those standards require that 800 homes be destroyed or sustain serious damage, and the state must exceed $35.4 million in uninsured loss.

"I think we're very close to that number," Kidd said, "and we're working very close with federal partners in order to make sure that we get the most that we can."

Parker suggested citizens who want to help can donate to the American Red Cross or give money or food to the Houston Food Bank.

"As we get through these next 24 hours, I would encourage folks check on your neighbors," Parker said. "If your house is flooded, your neighbor's house may be flooded. Make sure no one in any of these flooded properties is in distress."

In truth, distress will be ongoing for thousands of people even if no longer in harm's way. Car owners who lost their transportation have one brand of misery, and homeowners of flooded homes another.

Perhaps the only consolation is the knowledge that it might have been worse. All one had to do was look across much of southwest Houston after the water had receded. Streets remained cluttered with stalled and stranded cars and covered with leaves, mud, household detritus, and occasionally dead animals. Some spots reeked of spilled gasoline or raw sewage. An orange couch had washed up at a gas station.

It had been a tough night, one that Claire Lorenz will not forget. They had watched the Rockets win to stay alive in the NBA's Western Conference finals, and she looked out on the street to make sure nothing was amiss.

"Everything looked fine," Lorenz said. "Then all of a sudden it just went up."

As the water kept rising, Lorenz and her family, including a 15-year old daughter and 12-year-old son, decided to abandon their home. They stuffed backpacks with clothes and headed across the street, taking shelter at neighbor's home on higher ground. Lorenz's husband was the last to leave, trying to save the family's cat, which ultimately drowned. He was barely able to close the door to their house to try and stop more water from coming in.

On Tuesday morning, Lorenz and her family sat with five other families on the patio of the house across the street, staring at the submerged road that had completely inundated parked cars. Trash cans, toys and furniture floated down the road.

Tough night. And there was the certainty of tough days ahead. It's a familiar scenario, part of life along the sub-tropical Texas coast, where flat land and heavy rains are a bad mix, and not an uncommon one. For the record, June is typically Houston's wettest month.

Anita Hassan, Rebecca Elliott, Mike Morris, St. John Smith, and Mihir Zaveri contributed to this report.

(c)2015 the Houston Chronicle

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