• At least 2 deaths blamed on the storm.
  • About 6.8 million people, or one-quarter of the Texas population, affected.
  • Average rainfall totals in some parts of Texas expected to end up around one metre.
  • U.S. President Donald Trump to visit Texas on Tuesday.

People in the path of tropical storm Harvey were advised to continue to shelter in place as “catastrophic and life-threatening” flooding continued in southeast Texas and headed east toward Louisiana on Monday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center warned.

Harvey, which made landfall late Friday as a Category 4 hurricane, was set to dump more rain on Houston on Monday, worsening flooding that has paralyzed the U.S.’s fourth-largest city. The storm was expected to dump an additional 38 to 63 centimetres of rainfall on the Houston and Galveston areas before moving offshore through Tuesday and then following a “slow northeastward motion.”

Rescue workers were overwhelmed attending to emergency calls and had to give top priority to life-and-death situations,
leaving many affected families to fend for themselves as several hospitals in the Houston area were evacuated due to the rising waters.

It was not clear how many people were plucked from the floodwaters. Up to 1,200 people had to be rescued in Galveston
County alone, said county judge Mark Henry who holds the county’s top administrative post.

The U.S. Coast Guard posted aerial video of catastrophic flooding in Houston in the aftermath of the hurricane.

Before Harvey is gone, some parts of Houston and its suburbs could get as much as 1.3 metres of rain, which would be the highest amount ever recorded in Texas, the U.S. National Weather Service said. Some areas have already received about half that amount since Thursday. Average rainfall totals will end up around one metre.

“The breadth and intensity of this rainfall is beyond anything experienced before,” the NWS said in a statement.

The White House announced that President Donald Trump would visit Texas on Tuesday.

Costs of the damage were still being assessed as the storm continued, but one of the world’s largest reinsurers on Monday said damages from Harvey are estimated to be well below those from major storms that hit New Orleans and New York.

Hannover Re said that insured losses for Katrina in 2005 were around $80 billion US, while losses from Sandy in 2012 were $36 billion. 

“We are far from Katrina and Sandy in magnitude in the case of Hurricane Harvey,” a spokeswoman for the company said.

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