An incredible before-and-after photo shows the devastation caused by Hurricane-come-Tropical Storm Harvey.
In the photo, a tall street sign is half-submerged in water.
Weather Channel weather producer Matthew Sitkowski posted the image, saying: “This image and the forecast of what is still to fall.... This is surreal.” The photo shows Houston’s East Loop at Market Street on I-610 .
The rapid rise of the bayou prompted KHOU-11 TV to evacuate its TV station on Sunday morning.
The flooding has yet to recede, and heavy rains over the next several days could prove to be catastrophic.
It’s so bad that the NWS Houston issued a stark warning: “EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT HAS REQUESTED: IF HIGHEST FLOOR OF YOUR HOME BECOMES DANGEROUS...GET ON THE ROOF.”
Harvey came ashore late Friday as the most powerful hurricane to hit Texas in more than 50 years and has killed at least two people. The death toll is expected to rise as the storm lashes the U.S. state for days, triggering more floods, tidal surges, and tornadoes.
Harvey is forecast to arc slowly toward Houston through Wednesday. The center of the storm is still 125 miles southwest of the fourth most populous city in the United States.
Emergency services told people to climb onto the roofs of their houses rather than into their attics to escape rapidly rising waters. Authorities warned the city’s more than two million residents not to leave flooded homes because many of the city’s roads were underwater.
The Twitter account of the sheriff of Harris County, which includes most of Houston, was inundated with rescue requests. Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said his deputies responded to unconfirmed reports of a deceased woman and child inside a submerged vehicle on a highway near Houston.
Another resident described seeing a woman’s body floating in the streets during a flash flood in west Houston. The flood was several feet high, the resident told local TV station ABC13.
Gonzalez’s stretched rescue teams were struggling to deal with requests for help.
“All agencies care but everyone simply operating at maximum capacity,” he tweeted at one point.
Houston’s William P. Hobby Airport canceled all inbound and outbound flights early on Sunday due to standing water on the runway. The airport said its arrivals area was flooded, and the National Weather Service issued a flash flood alert for the surrounding area.
“The flooding in Houston is dramatic,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said in an interview on Fox News on Sunday.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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