Rivers continued to rise in southeast Texas on Saturday after a night of evacuations and rescues from floodwaters that flooded roads, stranded cars and submerged homes.
Emergency responders in airboats searched flooded roads and lots around Houston and rescued 73 people and 42 animals from stranded cars and rooftops by Saturday morning, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said.
Officials stressed the urgency of evacuation orders for residents in low-lying areas and warned that the worst was yet to come.
Harris County Chief Judge Lina Hidalgo said, “This threat continues and will only get worse.” “This is not your typical river flooding.”
Hidalgo on Thursday issued an evacuation order for about 5,000 people living in sparsely populated areas in northeastern Harris County along the East Branch of the San Jacinto River.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said Saturday that there were 122 people in American Red Cross shelters in six Texas counties.
North and east of Houston, small towns like Cut and Shoot and Shepard are experiencing catastrophic flooding, and some rivers have not yet reached their banks, FEMA said.
The U.S. Coast Guard used a helicopter to evacuate a 12-hour-old infant and her mother from a hospital in Cleveland, a small town north of Houston where ambulances were unable to get through due to flooding. The baby was suffering from hypoxia at the Texas Emergency Hospital, which does not have a neonatal intensive care unit.
The mother and child were taken to the intensive care unit at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston in stable condition, Coast Guard Petty Officer Alejandro Rivera said.
Roughly a quarter of the 178 river levels tracked by the National Weather Service in Houston are experiencing flooding, and many are expected to flood over the weekend or early next week.
Jeremy Justice, hydrologic operations manager for the Harris County Flood Control Department, said Saturday that areas north of Houston have received 12 to 20 inches of rainfall since Monday.
“A lot of that area is in floodplains,” he said, adding that some areas of Harris County suffered from Hurricane Harvey in 2017, which killed at least 68 people and caused $125 in damage. Floods near record levels recorded in 2017 are possible, it added. Damages in the billions.
The National Weather Service placed much of southeast Texas under a flood watch from Saturday through Sunday afternoon.
Forecasters expected another 1 to 3 inches of rain to fall Saturday night into Sunday morning, worsening flooding conditions in the monitored area as the soil was already saturated.
In its Saturday morning forecast, the Bureau of Meteorology said it was warning of a cluster of storms that would “spread more rain into areas that don't need more rain” over the weekend.
Houston Mayor John Whitmire was investigating flooding in the Northeast neighborhood of Kingwood, a Lake Houston community, on Saturday, said Mary Benton, a spokeswoman for the city.
“We must be careful not to give the false impression that we have been exonerated.” Mr. Whitmire said Friday at a press conference in Kingwood. “The water is coming this way.”
No injuries or deaths were reported as of Saturday.
Brent Taylor, a spokesman for Houston's Office of Emergency Management, said damage assessments can only begin after the threat of flooding has passed.