Harvey causes havoc in Texas
Tropical Storm Harvey lashed central Texas with torrential rains yesteraday, unleashing "catastrophic" floods after the megastorm -- the most powerful to hit the United States since 2005 -- left a deadly trail of devastation along the Gulf Coast.
The storm has caused at least two deaths since making landfall late Friday as a Category Four hurricane, pummeling the town of Rockport outside Corpus Christi with sustained winds of 130 miles (215 kilometers) per hour, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
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One person was killed when their house caught fire in the Rockport area, local officials said. And in Houston, a woman drowned when she left her car which had stalled in high water, local media reported citing police.
Harvey slowly weakened as it advanced, ripping off roofs, flipping mobile homes, and leaving hundreds of thousands of people in the dark on the Gulf Coast, home to some of the country's most important oil refineries.
The National Weather Service issued more than a dozen tornado warnings overnight for southeast Texas, including several in the Houston area.
Forecasts show Harvey hovering over the shore for the next days, dumping dangerous amounts of rain.
In Houston, a city of 2.3 million, the city streets turned into fast moving rivers with officials warning residents to stay home.
"Catastrophic and life-threatening flash flood ongoing!" the NWS said on Twitter.
President Donald Trump, aware of the damage to George W Bush presidency's for his tardy response to Hurricane Katrina, said he was closely monitoring relief efforts from Camp David in Maryland. He will visit Texas next week.
Harvey is the most powerful hurricane to hit the mainland since Wilma struck Florida 12 years ago.
2005 was a huge year for hurricanes -- before Wilma, Hurricane Katrina pummeled New Orleans, leaving more than 1,800 dead.
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