Texas residents still wary after Hurricane Harvey again face the risk of flash flooding Wednesday as heavy rain pounds a wide swath of the state’s southeastern coast.
Flash flood watches are in effect for areas south of Houston to Brownsville, at the Mexican border, with flash flood warnings popping up as storms flare, CNN meteorologists said. The zone includes Victoria, Corpus Christi and McAllen, where hundreds of migrants seeking entry into the United States await processing at a detention center.
Tropical moisture could produce 2 to 3 inches of rain over a short period across the watch area, meteorologists said. Showers and thunderstorms are forecast to continue through Thursday, the National Weather Service tweeted.
North of Houston, the city of Port Arthur, which along with Beaumont was devastated in August by Harvey’s floods, was swamped again Tuesday by the same weather system now pummeling points south.
Video from Port Arthur showed streets turned into raging rivers as cars slowly made their way through them.
The storms conjured memories of last summer’s flooding, said Damion Robertson, of Port Arthur.
“It’s concerning. A lot of people just lost a lot of houses … over Harvey,” Robertson told CNN affiliate KBTV. “So, a lot of people are probably nervous about losing their stuff again.”
Larry Wolf, of Port Arthur, said his home has flooded twice.
“I’m to the point where I’m 75 years old,” he told KBTV. “I can’t do it anymore.”
The Beaumont Port Arthur airport “broke daily rainfall record (Tuesday), where 5.89 inches of rain fell in a 24-hour period, causing flash flooding in the area,” CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said Wednesday.
“While rainfall totals will not even come close to the amount that Harvey left in its wake, the region could still suffer damage from flash flooding, downed trees and travel disruptions,” he said.
Harvey dumped record rainfall of more than 60 inches over just a few days after it hit southeast Texas as a Category 4 storm. Dozens of people died and millions were affected in and around Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city, and along the Gulf Coast.