Hurricane Harvey

• 1. Introduction

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  Hurricane Harvey left a measurement of 60.58 inches of rain in Nederland, Texas. No other tropical cyclone in the United States has ever dropped more water on a single place. In late August 2017, the storm settled over the eastern part of Texas and barely moved. Over four days, many areas collected more than 40 inches. Hundreds of thousands of homes were flooded, and more than 17,000 people had to be rescued. Hurricanes are usually judged by their wind. This one is remembered for its water. How did a storm that had once fallen apart over the Caribbean return so violently? Why did one of the largest cities in the country absorb such punishment? And what did the aftermath reveal about who was protected and who was not?

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• 2. A Storm That Died Twice

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  On the 12th of August 2017, a tropical wave rolled off the coast of Africa and began drifting west across the Atlantic. By the 17th it had become a tropical depression, and later that day it received the name Harvey, with winds of 45 mph. It was the eighth named storm of an extremely active hurricane season. Harvey made landfall on Barbados and then on Saint Vincent on the 18th. Wind shear soon tore at it. By the 19th it had degenerated into a tropical wave with no organized surface center, yet its remnants kept producing thunderstorms across the Caribbean Sea and the Yucatán Peninsula.

  On the 23rd of August, the remnants reached the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico and gathered around a new surface low. That evening they regenerated into a tropical storm. The environment was highly favorable. An eye formed, the central pressure dropped quickly, and Harvey became a hurricane on the 24th. By the next day it had reached Category 4 strength. Around 03:00 UTC on the 26th, it came ashore on San Jose Island, just east of Rockport, with 130 mph winds and a pressure of 937 mbar. Three hours later it struck the Texas mainland at Rockport. Harvey was the first major hurricane to hit the United States since Wilma in 2005, which ended a record 12-year gap.

  Then the storm lost its drive. Moving inland, it slowed to a crawl and weakened to a tropical storm on the 26th. For about two days it sat just inland, dropping heavy rain and causing catastrophic flash flooding. Its center eventually drifted southeast and re-emerged over the Gulf of Mexico on the 28th. Deep thunderstorms stayed fixed north of the center, near the Houston area, along a stationary front. Early on the 30th, Harvey made its fifth and final landfall, just west of Cameron, Louisiana, with winds of 45 mph. It became a post-tropical cyclone on the 1st of September and was absorbed by another system on the 3rd. Long before that, people along the Texas coast had already faced the question of whether to leave.

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• 3. Warnings and Evacuations

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  The first alerts went out at 15:00 UTC on the 17th of August, about six hours before Harvey even had a name. A tropical storm watch covered Dominica, and a warning covered Barbados, Martinique, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Farther west, Honduras issued a green alert for several departments, and Campeche in Mexico issued a blue alert, which signals minimal danger. Mexico also posted a watch in Tamaulipas when Harvey redeveloped, then lifted it on the 25th once the threat faded.

  In Texas, the warnings stacked up quickly. On the 23rd of August, a hurricane watch covered the coast from Port Mansfield to San Luis Pass. By the 24th there were hurricane, tropical storm and storm surge warnings along much of the coast. As the eyewall approached, forecasters issued an extreme wind warning for parts of Aransas, Calhoun, Nueces, Refugio and San Patricio counties. It warned of an immediate threat of winds between 115 and 145 mph. Governor Greg Abbott declared a state of emergency for 30 counties on the 23rd and added 20 more on the 26th. Mandatory evacuations covered Calhoun, Jackson, Refugio, San Patricio and Victoria counties, plus parts of Brazoria and Matagorda counties.

  Louisiana prepared for a storm that had not yet reached it. Governor John Bel Edwards declared a state of emergency for the whole state. Cameron Parish ordered a mandatory evacuation of communities including Holly Beach and Johnson Bayou. The Louisiana National Guard prepared about 500,000 sandbags. FEMA placed response teams on standby in Austin, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The USGS also activated the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters, which provides satellite coverage for humanitarian response. In New Orleans, officials worried about the drainage system, because only 105 of the city's 120 water pumps were working.

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• 4. Why Houston Flooded

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  Houston sits on the Gulf Coastal Plain, where clay-based soils drain poorly. The land is a very flat flood plain, and rainwater creeps toward the sea through a network of channels and bayous. The main waterways, the San Jacinto River and Buffalo Bayou, run slowly and carry heavy loads of mud. They have little room for storm water. The region also has a history of slow storms, including Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979 and Tropical Storm Allison in 2001.

  Human development made the geography worse. Between 1992 and 2010, almost 25,000 acres of wetlands disappeared around Houston, which cut the region's capacity to hold water by four billion gallons. Harvey is estimated to have dropped more than fifteen trillion gallons. The Katy Prairie in western Harris County once soaked up floodwater, but suburban growth has shrunk it to one quarter of its former size. One analysis found more than 7,000 housing units built inside the 100-year floodplain in the county since 2010. The ground itself is also sinking. Parts of the metro area north and west of the city have lost between 0.4 and 1 inch of elevation per year as aquifers are drained. Oil extraction, surprisingly, is not a significant cause here.

  The atmosphere played a part as well. Harvey approached Houston over sea-surface waters well above average temperature, and warm water feeds hurricanes. Regional sea temperatures near Houston have risen about 0.5 degrees Celsius in recent decades, which added 3-5% more moisture to the air. The World Meteorological Organization stated that climate change very likely increased Harvey's rainfall. Hurricanes in August are normal for the Gulf, so warming cannot explain the storm's existence. The stall had its own cause. Weak winds beneath a greatly expanded high-pressure system had pushed the jet stream north, and simulations link that pattern to human-caused climate change. Officials from the Harris County Flood Control District called Harvey the third 500-year flood in three years.

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• 5. Lives and Homes

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  Guyana lost the first life attributed to Harvey. In the village of Jawalla, four homes were demolished, and a 29-year-old woman died when her house collapsed. Earlier, winds in Barbados had knocked out power across the island, ripped the roof off a church and flooded a fuel depot in Speightstown. In Suriname, the roof of the Presidential Palace in Paramaribo was damaged.

  In the United States, 107 people died in storm-related incidents. Of those, 103 were in Texas, two in Arkansas, and one each in Tennessee and Kentucky. Sixty-eight of the Texas deaths came directly from the storm, the highest such number in the state since 1919. Another 35 were indirect. An estimated 300,000 structures and 500,000 vehicles were damaged or destroyed in Texas alone. About 336,000 people lost electricity. More than 210,000 people registered with FEMA for assistance, and about 32,000 were sheltering across the state by the 31st of August. The George R. Brown Convention Center, the largest shelter, filled with 8,000 evacuees.

  Rescue came from many directions. Texas Governor Abbott deployed the state's entire National Guard, and other states sent their own. The Cajun Navy, an informal group of Louisiana volunteers with boats, drove to Texas for high-water rescues. About 150 Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees helped with relief and said no immigration enforcement would take place. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner imposed a midnight-to-5 a.m. curfew on the 29th, citing looting. In Lake Charles, Louisiana, floodwater reached 4 feet in places, and about 500 people were rescued across that state by the 28th.

  The storm spawned 53 tornadoes across six states, 22 of them in Texas. An unusually long-tracked EF2 tornado cut through Alabama near Reform and Palmetto. In Memphis, more than 19,000 people lost power. When the remnants reached North Carolina on the 1st of September, hail larger than softballs struck Willow Spring. Wildlife felt it too. After the storm, many feared that only 10 Attwater's prairie-chickens survived in the wild. By spring 2018, surveyors found about a dozen.

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• 6. Fire and Fuel

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  At 2:00 a.m. on the 31st of August, two explosions rocked a chemical plant in Crosby, Texas. Days earlier, the CEO of Arkema had warned that the plant could explode or burn because it was losing refrigeration for its stored materials. Eight of its nine refrigeration units failed without power, so the chemicals began to decompose and become combustible. Workers and residents within 1.5 miles had been evacuated. Even so, 21 emergency personnel were briefly hospitalized.

  The Gulf Coast is also the center of American oil refining, and the storm hit that system hard. About 2.25 million barrels per day of refining capacity went offline for several days, roughly 12% of the national total. Refineries were affected at Corpus Christi, Port Arthur, Beaumont and Lake Charles. Gulf of Mexico oil output fell by about 21%, and the Eagle Ford shale formation cut production by 300,000 to 500,000 barrels per day. Several energy ports closed, delaying about fourteen crude oil tankers. Two ExxonMobil refineries shut down after storm damage and releases of hazardous pollutants. Two Burlington Resources storage tanks in DeWitt County spilled 30,000 gallons of crude.

  Motorists felt it at the pump. When refineries closed ahead of the storm, a fuel shortage followed, and anxious drivers formed long lines. Many gas stations across Texas closed. Prices rose nationwide, helped along by the Labor Day weekend, which normally brings heavy travel. The result was the highest gas prices in two years, though the increase was smaller than after Hurricane Katrina.

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• 7. Counting the Cost

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  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration put Harvey's damage at $125 billion, with a 90% confidence interval of $90-160 billion. That figure ties Harvey with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as the costliest tropical cyclone on record. After adjusting for inflation, the National Hurricane Center considers Harvey the second-costliest. In Texas it was the costliest natural disaster recorded until a severe winter storm in February 2021 crippled the state's power grid. That storm was estimated at no less than $195 billion in 2021 dollars.

  Early estimates varied widely. Moody's Analytics first put the economic cost between $81 billion and $108 billion or more. Aon Benfield estimated $100 billion, including $30 billion insured. An AccuWeather estimate reached $190 billion, and Governor Abbott projected $150-180 billion. Economists Michael Hicks and Mark Burton at Ball State University estimated $198.63 billion for the Houston area alone. The Planalytics weather analytics firm expected Houston-area retailers and restaurants to lose about $1 billion in revenue.

  A huge share of the loss was uninsured. In September 2017, the Insurance Council of Texas estimated insured losses at $19 billion. That included $11 billion in flood losses covered by the National Flood Insurance Program, $3 billion in windstorm and other property losses, and about $4.75 billion for vehicles. Regular homeowner policies generally exclude flooding. In Harris County, only 15% of homes carried federal flood policies, compared with 41% in Galveston County. The flood program had paid out $7.6 billion by the 1st of January 2018. Some homeowners also sued authorities, claiming that reservoir releases damaged their homes.

  Congress responded on the 8th of September, when President Donald Trump signed H.R. 601, which set aside $15 billion for Harvey relief. Trump had asked for $5.95 billion on the 31st of August, most of it for FEMA.

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• 8. Houston Strong

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  On the 29th of August, the Houston Astros were forced to move their series against the Texas Rangers to Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Florida. The Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans preseason game was moved to Arlington and then canceled so the Texans could return home. After the flooding, the Astros wore patches reading "Strong" and promoted the hashtag Houston Strong all the way to the 2017 World Series title. Manager A. J. Hinch said the team wanted to lift the city's spirits as well as win. Houston's women's soccer team, the Dash, played a home match in Frisco, Texas, and gave all ticket proceeds to a Red Cross relief fund.

  Money poured in. By the 30th of August, corporations had donated more than $72 million, and 42 companies had given at least $1 million. A fundraiser started by Texans defensive lineman J. J. Watt exceeded $37 million, and he later won the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award. Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander gave $4 million, as did the Astros. Celebrities collectively gave more than $10 million. Operation BBQ Relief expected to serve at least 450,000 meals. In Houston schools, every student in the district became eligible for free lunch during the 2017-18 school year.

  Help also came from abroad. Singapore sent Chinook helicopters to work alongside the Texas National Guard. Israel pledged $1 million, and Venezuela offered $5 million through the oil company Citgo, which runs a refinery in Corpus Christi. Mexico sent volunteers and rescue teams, but later withdrew its commitment after Hurricane Katia struck Mexico's Gulf Coast on the 9th of September.

  Some effects arrived slowly. Houston officials said the city's drinking water and sewer systems stayed intact, but researchers estimated that hundreds of thousands of people in the affected counties relied on private wells. Two Superfund sites in Corpus Christi were flooded. Months later, Corpus Christi Medical Center reported a 17% rise in births. In April 2018, the World Meteorological Organization retired the name Harvey, and it was replaced with Harold for the 2023 season.

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