As Hurricane Harvey barrels toward the Texas coast, the Houston metropolitan area, prone to flooding and home to more than 5 million people, is bracing for the potentially devastating storm.
Houston’s school system has already canceled classes on Monday, the first day of classes. The city’s parks and main zoo are closed.
The Houston Dynamo, the city’s Major League Soccer team, canceled this weekend’s games and Coldplay nixed its Friday night concert, all in preparation for Harvey, which was expected to make landfall by early Saturday.
Houston’s main concern is the risk of flooding. In May, the city was hit by heavy flooding when 240 billion gallons of rain fell on the city. That claimed eight lives, flooded more than 1,000 homes and caused more than $5 billion in damage, according to officials.
Now the city is staring down Harvey, which Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, called “the first major hurricane the nation has dealt with since 2005.”
Houston is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in the country and one of the fastest growing, according to the US Census Bureau.
The National Weather Service office in Houston warned flooding and winds could render parts of South Texas “uninhabitable for weeks or months.”
And CoreLogic, an analytics firm, said Harvey, which developed into a Category 4 storm on Friday, could bring $20 billion worth of damage to metropolitan Houston alone.
Harris County, home to Houston, has issued voluntary evacuation orders for several communities near Trinity Bay. But Houston itself has not been put under an evacuation order.
“Right now, it appears that the Houston area will be spared the brunt of the hurricane force and the surge that goes along with it,” said Gov. Greg Abbott at a press conference. “So that will minimize some of the danger.”
Still, the governor encouraged people to consider evacuating.
City at risk of flooding
Houston floods easily because of how flat it is, according to CNN meteorologist Jennifer Varian.
“They start flooding between two and three inches,” Varian said, and the amount of rain anticipated to drop on Houston throughout the course of Harvey is “going to be far exceeding that.”
“In the next seven days,” Varian said, “Houston is looking at 22-and-a-half inches.”
Harvey has drawn a lot of comparisons to 2001’s Tropical Storm Allison, which killed dozens and caused billions of dollars in damage in Texas. Allison eventually stalled over land, and dumped more than 30 inches of rain over Houston, causing catastrophic flooding.
Like Allison, Harvey is expected to stall when it makes landfall and drench Houston for days. But compared to Harvey, Varian said, “Allison was a measly little storm.”
Official: Use ‘common sense’
Mayor Sylvester Turner told CNN Friday the city has been preparing for the storm over the last four or five days and is aware of which areas are susceptible to flooding.
“It’s all hands on deck,” Turner said. “The fire department is ready, the police department is ready. The emergency management is 24 hours. We will stay with this thing all the way through.”
He asked Houston residents to “exercise common sense,” and stay off the streets through the weekend.
“People need to know this is not a one, two-day event and done,” he said. “Even though it may seem like it will get better, this is a four or five-day event starting tomorrow evening, going through Monday or Tuesday.”