Harvey's Misery Keeps On Spreading, Keeps On Getting Worse

An exhausted woman tries to sleep as floodwaters
rise around her in a Port Arthur evacuation center.

The news about the Harvey flooding in Texas and Louisiana continues to be pretty much all bad, and it's spreading to new areas, and the news is hitting new depths.

The latest cities to fall under the worst of Harvey's viciousness are Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas.

As of early this morning, water had poured into an evacuation center in Port Arthur, and hundreds of people retreated to bleachers above the floor awaiting rescue. And that's going to take awhile.

Nobody can get into Port Arthur to help. They want to take the hundreds of people stranded in the evacuation center to another one that's above water five miles south of town, says the Weather Channel.

However, that second evacuation center has no supplies yet. And it's going to be hard to move people and supplies there until the water goes down.

Overnight, Twitter and Facebook were filled with pleas from Port Arthur residents begging to be rescued from flooded homes. The people crying for help included the elderly, children and pregnant women.

Port Arthur received 26 inches of rain in 24 hours, more than double the old record for the city. The storm total there is up past 42 inches.

The whole city is under water. Several houses are on fire, apparently sparked by electrical shorts in the flooding. Nobody can get to the burning houses, so they will burn down completely to the water line.

The world's largest oil refinery in Port Arthur is at least partially shut down. Many other refineries and chemical plants are also down across the western Gulf of Mexico.

With 12 percent of the nation's refining capacity off line due to Harvey, expect fuel shortages and spiraling gas prices nationwide. 

Between the higher gas prices we're all going to pay, and such a broad area of the nation's economy centered around Houston, I wouldn't be surprised if United States economic growth temporarily stalls due to Harvey.

You can see a time lapse of the flooding in Houston at the bottom of this post.

This is not a storm-tossed lake. It is the middle of Interstate 10
just west of Beaumont, Texas.

The misery is going to keep spreading. Flash flooding from Harvey, now finally inland, could extend as far north as southern Ohio in the coming days. The lower Missisissippi River all the way through western Tennessee is especially under the gun.

Harvey has produced the heaviest rainfall in continental U.S. history.

A weather station near Cedar Bayou, Texas recorded 51.88 inches of rain in the storm beating the old record of 48 inches for the continental United States. I'm still guessing we'll see localized totals topping 50 inches.

The death toll from Harvey is uncertain, as it's still hard to get to flooded areas for inspections. It does  appear that so far at least two dozen people have died, including a Houston Police officer caught in flood waters on his way to work during the emergency.

I'm going to have a lot more to say about Harvey in the coming days, including what people do once the water recedes.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Irma has just formed far out over the eastern Atlantic.  It will will likely turn into another hurricane and is heading west. And there's a chance, just a chance, this would-be hurricane could end up in the Gulf of Mexico in less than two weeks.

I'll also wade into the question of whether climate change had anything to do with Harvey's destruction. Some people are saying we shouldn't talk about that while we are still trying to rescue people and recover from the damage.

But the nation can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can help all those people affected by Harvey, and we can also look at the science of Harvey so we can learn and prepare for the inevitable  next time.