ouston area copes with flooding as Harvey delivers pounding rainfall

(CNN)The sprawling and soaked Houston metro area and other deluged towns in southeastern Texas braced for devastating floods and pummeling rainfall on Sunday as Tropical Storm Harvey drifted over land and drenched dogged searchers and anxious residents.

The second fatality in the ferocious storm occurred in the Houston area when a woman drove her vehicle into high water, city police said. Police said they believe the car became inoperable or the water was too high to pass through. The victim got out of her vehicle, was overtaken by water and drowned.

The death occurred amid dire warnings to the region's residents:

A flash flood emergency was in effect for parts of the Houston area. The National Weather Service and local officials are advising Houston-area residents to avoid traveling. Three to 4 inches of rainfall were reported in the region in one hour's time. The storm spawned tornadoes and lightning, with extensive damage reported.

"Stay put," the National Weather Service said.

"It's going to last four to five days," said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who urged drivers to stay off the road. "This is Day One."

"It's not done yet. It's going to rain all night long," CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said. "People are in danger tonight."

Hard-hit Rockport

The first fatality was reported in the hard-hit coastal city of Rockport, where the person died in a house fire during the storm, Aransas County Judge Burt Mills said Saturday afternoon. "We didn't know about it until today," he said.

At least a dozen people were injured, Mills said.

With dire warnings of tornadoes, torrential downpours and days of flooding to come, broad swaths of southeast Texas were littered with uprooted trees, toppled signs, flagpoles that snapped like toothpicks and clusters of bricks peeled like scabs from walls and rooftops.

Additional fatalities were feared in Rockport, where an estimated 5,000 residents had stayed put for the storm that blasted ashore as a Category 4 around 11 p.m. ET Friday between Port Aransas and Port O'Connor, Aransas County Sheriff Bill Mills said.

A damaged home sits amid a flood on August 26, 2017, after Hurricane Harvey slammed Rockport, Texas.

Callers to the local emergency dispatch line told of walls and roofs collapsing on people across the city, where an official had warned those who opted to stick out the storm to write their Social Security numbers on their arms for body identification.

CNN meteorologist and severe weather expert Chad Myers warned residents of Houston to move to higher ground.

"The storm isn't moving, but the rain bands are moving like a pinwheel," he said. "You are going to get a pinwheel (Saturday night) that will wake up -- or you'll wake up with 12-18 inches of new rainfall on the ground."

Rockport home sliced in half from Hurricane Harvey.

Shortly after Harvey became a tropical storm, with sustained winds of 70 mph, Saturday afternoon, Gov. Greg Abbott told reporters that the state had more than 1,000 workers involved in search and rescue operations.

"There's been widespread devastation," Rockport Mayor Charles Wax told CNN late Saturday morning. He said emergency workers were going house to house to check on residents and assess damage.

"We've already taken a severe blow from the storm, but we're anticipating another one when the flooding comes," he said.

Photos: Hurricane Harvey slams Texas

The storm was a Category 1 by late Saturday morning, packing winds of 75 mph before Harvey stalled during the afternoon. Some places even far inland were predicted to get as much as 40 inches of rain through Wednesday.

While the worst of the storm surge had ended by midday Saturday, the coastal flooding threat was due to increase as already-swollen rivers and bayous get pounded with heavy rain, CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said. Sea water pushed onto the shore also won't recede quickly, he said, meaning "this is going to be a long, ongoing flood event."

Abbott said the 210-mile-long corridor between Corpus Christi and Houston was expected to receive as much as 30 more inches of rain on top of the double-digit rainfall figures that had already fallen

News Courtesy: www.cnn.com