Originally Posted: September 2, 2017
After Harvey’s destruction, will a new and different Houston emerge?
In the end, Hurricane Harvey’s most powerful weapon was the rain.
For five days, the storm hovered over Houston and southeast Texas, dumping more than 50 inches of water in the state’s most populated region.
Inch by accumulated inch, more than 20 trillion gallons of water pooled in southeast Texas, swamping hundreds of thousands of homes, cutting off roads, displacing more than 30,000 people and spurring more than 13,000 rescues.
The death toll, which stood at 43 Saturday morning, could have been much higher, as many had feared.
But Harvey’s long-term legacy might not be the deaths caused or even the destruction created but its economic, social and environmental impact. In its wake, the storm of the century leaves the lingering threat that severe, sustained and frequent flooding can and will cripple this major American city and destroy a critical global energy center. READ MORE