As Hurricane Harvey continues to pound the Gulf Coast, drivers across the U.S. are bracing for the impact on their wallets. <br /><br />With gasoline costs already edging up following the most destructive storm since Hurricane Sandy in 2012, analysts said prices at the pump are likely to rise between 5 cents and 15 cents nationwide in the weeks ahead.
Texas is changing how weather-related insurance lawsuits are handled starting Sept. 1, when Tropical Storm Harvey has barely ceased dumping historic levels of rain on Houston and other parts of southeast Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed the law, HB 1774, on May 27, promoting it as a way to protect insurance companies from frivolous hailstorm-released lawsuits, though it applies to all weather-related property damage, including from hurricanes, wildfires, and floods.
We’ve all seen plenty of heartbreaking images from Texas this weekend, as vicious floods continue to destroy lives and property in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. But some of the most chilling footage has been taken from the sky, as hobby drones in the region document the devastation that’s still taking place.
Swollen rivers in east Texas aren’t expected to crest until later this week, but federal officials are already predicting Tropical Storm Harvey will drive 30,000 people into shelters and spur 450,000 victims to seek some sort of disaster assistance.
Emergency workers begin releasing water into the Buffalo Bayou from two flood-control dams in Houston on Monday, a move that could impact thousands of residents, officials said.
Tornado and flash flood watches and warnings covered parts of southwest Louisiana as Harvey began dropping torrential rains on Louisiana. The National Weather Service radar for the Lake Charles area early Monday was lit up in orange and red where heavy rains from one of Harvey’s outer bands streamed from the Gulf of Mexico onto the Louisiana coast.
Tropical Storm Harvey is drifting back into the Gulf of Mexico and will meander near the upper Texas coast the next few days, bringing more torrential rainfall to the flooded Houston metro area, piling onto record-breaking, catastrophic flooding.
Every so often, the worst-case scenario comes to pass. As of Sunday afternoon, the remnants of Hurricane Harvey seem likely to exceed the worst forecasts that preceded the storm.
The sprawling and soaked Houston metro area and other deluged towns in southeast Texas braced for devastating floods and pummeling rainfall on Sunday as Tropical Storm Harvey stalled over land and drenched dogged searchers and anxious residents.
The toll that Harvey is taking on Texas is staggering. Already, it has dumped 11 trillion gallons of water over the state, says Ryan Maue with WeatherBell, a weather analytics company. And by the time it dissipates, the state will have seen 25 trillion gallons of rain, he predicts.
Oil markets were roiled on Monday after Tropical Storm Harvey wreaked havoc along the U.S. Gulf Coast over the weekend, crippling Houston and its port, and knocking out numerous refineries as well as some crude production.
The destruction that heavy rain and floods from Hurricane Harvey could inflict on Texas would add to the pile of debt owed by a federal flood insurance program that is due to expire in September, advocacy groups said.
Hurricane Harvey’s second act across southern Texas is turning into an economic catastrophe -- with damages likely to stretch into tens of billions of dollars and an unusually large share of victims lacking adequate insurance, according to early estimates.
Gov. Rick Scott dispatched 25 Florida Fish and Wildlife Conversation Commission officers, two Mobile Command Centers, eight shallow draft vessels and four patrol boats to Houston, according to a news release.
