Drone footage shows the wreckage Hurricane Harvey left after landfall, and the havoc it's wreaking still
Hurricane Harvey made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane in Rockport, Texas, on Friday night. Port Aransas and surrounding coastal towns, like Rockport, were under mandatory evacuation order, and those who chose to stay — like Bill and Paulette Rogers — were told to write their Social Security numbers on their arms for easy identification of their bodies. Bill and Paulette and their two dogs spent Friday night in their Port Aransas house, then their car, then finally up to their shoulders in water in their floating Ford F-250 truck. "This is the dumbest thing I've ever done," Bill told The Dallas Morning News afterward, when the storm surge had receded. This is the scene they woke up to, in Rockport and Aransas County.
Harvey was downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane and then a tropical storm, but the storm was just getting started. Here is some drone footage of Houston, parts of which will get 50 inches of rain before Harvey peters out over the Gulf of Mexico. Much of America's fourth-largest city is underwater.
On Monday in Washington, FEMA Administrator Brock Long said that more than 30,000 people are going to need shelter in Texas, and "the sheltering mission is going to be a very heavy lift."
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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