Death toll from Storm Harvey reaches 60

Officials are blaming at least 60 deaths on Harvey after the storm dumped metres rain on several Texas counties in a matter of days.

Gaston Kirby, right, and Juan Minutella leave Kirby's flooded home in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Monday, Sept. 4, 2017.

Gaston Kirby, right, and Juan Minutella leave Kirby's flooded home in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, Monday, Sept. 4, 2017. Source: AAP

Many of those deaths were people drowning in flash floods or water-logged roads.

But county emergency management departments across southeast Texas says they are also including people in their storm-related death totals who died from indirect complications of Harvey.

The huge dump of water loosened the ground around trees that fell into at least two homes in Montgomery County and on a car in Jasper County, accounting for some of the deaths.
Power outages knocked out electricity to medical equipment that several elderly people needed to survive.

And officials said floodwaters also caused delays in responses to medical emergencies that resulted in deaths.

Authorities have lifted an evacuation order for the area surrounding a once-burning chemical plant and a major fuel pipeline has reopened in signs that Texas was edging toward recovery.

The storm dumped some 50 inches of rain on the low-lying Gulf coastal region after coming ashore on August 25, killing about 50 people and causing what the Texas governor said could be up to $180 billion (A$226.5b) in damage.

Flooding led to a series of fires at the Arkema SA chemical plant in Crosby, a town of about 2300 people some 40 km northeast of Houston. Containers of the chemicals, which are unstable if not kept refrigerated, started igniting on Thursday after power outages cut off cooling systems.
Local firefighters under the watch of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality performed a controlled burn of the organic peroxides on Sunday in order to eliminate any vestiges and reduce the danger.

On Monday, the company said the Crosby Fire Department had lifted an evacuation zone around the plant, allowing neighbours to return to their homes, and that the company had opened an assistance centre to help those affected find temporary housing.

Some 190,000 homes were damaged and another 13,500 were destroyed, the Texas Department of Public Safety said on Monday.

At least 33,000 people sought refuge in Texas shelters overnight, with another 1300 doing so in Louisiana, the American Red Cross said.

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Published 5 September 2017 6:06am
Updated 5 September 2017 9:01am
Source: AAP


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