Tech: Hurricane Harvey is moving inland, with catastrophic flooding expected — here's what you need to know

Hurricane Harvey made landfall between Port Aransas and Port O'Connor in Texas Friday night, and a second landfall hours later on Texas' northeastern shore.

• Hurricane Harvey made landfall between Port Aransas and Port O'Connor in Texas Friday night, and a second landfall hours later on Texas' northeastern shore.
• On Friday, the Category 4 storm packed maximum sustained winds of 130 mph, but has since been downgraded to Category 1.
• Rainfall is the biggest threat, with as much as 40 inches expected along the Texas coast.

Hurricane Harvey made landfall between Port Aransas and Port O'Connor in Texas on Friday night, packing sustained wind speeds as high as 130 mph. The storm later made a second landfall on the northeastern shore of Copano Bay, Texas around 2 a.m. ET Saturday morning. It has since been downgraded to a Category 1 storm with maximum winds of 80 mph.

The National Hurricane Center warned that Harvey would bring with it "life-threatening and devastating flooding." Forecasters predict that the storm will stall until Tuesday, dumping up to 40 inches of rain onto much of Texas.

President Donald Trump issued a disaster declaration in Texas Friday night.

A storm surge warning is still in effect from Baffin Bay to High Island, Texas. The storm surge is the quick rise in water caused by a hurricane's strong winds; NOAA estimates it will be between 6 and 12 feet in the region between Port Aransas and Port O'Connor. Many other coastal areas could experience 2 to 9 feet of storm surge.

At 7 a.m. CDT on Saturday morning, the storm was sitting about 20 miles southwest of Victoria, Texas, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 80 mph.

Jeff Masters, a meteorologist at The Weather Company who cofounded the weather-data website Weather Underground, told Business Insider that Harvey could cause as much as $10 billion in damage. Masters also said Harvey could produce record rainfall.

"There is an unusual amount of moisture available to this storm, and it is large and powerful, so rainfall records could topple," he said.

How bad the damage could be

In addition to dumping more than 3 feet of rain in some areas, models show that the storm could leave as many as 1.33 million Texans without power. The flooding is expected to be catastrophic and life threatening, National Weather Service director Louis Uccellini said Friday.

Hal Needham, a hurricane scientist at Louisiana State University, wrote in a blog post on the weather site WXshift that worrying about the storm's category underestimated how dangerous the rainfall could be and how much damage it could cause.

"Hurricanes and tropical storms throw three hazards at us: wind, rainfall, and storm surge," he wrote. "Think of the impacts separately. Storms with weaker winds are more likely to stall and dump heavier rainfall. This shocks people, as it would seem intuitive that a Category 5 hurricane would tend to dump more rain than a Category 1 hurricane. But the opposite is true."

While strong winds can rip shingles off roofs and tear down power lines, flooding often causes more widespread, costlier damage — and can be more dangerous for humans. Needham said that the scale used to distinguish a hurricane from a tropical storm was based solely on maximum sustained wind but that "storms are too complex to define by one number."

The major hurricane that most recently hit the Texas Gulf coast was Ike, a Category 4 storm that caused $38 billion in damage in 2008.

But the worst-case scenario for Harvey would be for the storm to continue dumping rain on Texas for a few days, then go back out into the Gulf of Mexico, intensify, and make landfall again in Louisiana.

"It's possible that this could be a double-landfall hurricane," Masters said on Thursday.

How Texas has prepared

Hurricane Harvey will be President Donald Trump's 'first serious' crisis of his presidency. The White House said in a statement on Friday afternoon that the president is closely monitoring the storm.

"President Donald J. Trump continues to closely monitor Hurricane Harvey and the preparedness and response efforts of State, local, and Federal officials. Today, the President received a briefing from Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Administrator Brock Long, Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke, his Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor Thomas P. Bossert, and his Chief of Staff John F. Kelly. Yesterday, the President spoke with Governors Greg Abbott of Texas and John Bel Edwards of Louisiana and committed to providing assistance as appropriate."

The Health and Human Services Department said it was deploying assets to Texas and Louisiana ahead of Harvey's landfall, moving six Disaster Medical Assistance Teams to the Dallas area, and Incident Response Coordination Teams to support medical personnel in both states.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stationed two 250-bed medical units in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which could be deployed anywhere in the state, the health department said. Additional medical stations were also made available in Dallas.

Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster on Wednesday for 30 counties in Harvey's path, freeing up state money and resources to respond to the storm.

Officials in many coastal cities encouraged residents to evacuate. The mayor of Corpus Christi told the city's population of over 325,000 to evacuate, particularly if they live in low-lying areas. Two cities, Port Aransas and Aransas Pass, declared mandatory evacuations.

SOURCE - PULSE.NG posted by Campus94