![\"texass\"](\"http:\/\/en.bornomalanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/texass-300x169.jpg\")
International desk: Hurricane Harvey lashed central Texas with torrential rains on Saturday, raising fears of “catastrophic” flooding after the megastorm — the most powerful to hit the United States since 2005 — left a deadly trail of devastation along the Gulf Coast.<\/p>\n
The latest forecasts show that Harvey, now downgraded to tropical storm status, will hover along the shore for the next four or five days — a dangerous possibility given the amount of potential additional rainfall.<\/p>\n
The storm flattened buildings, toppled mobile homes, sent boats floating into deserted streets and left hundreds of thousands of people without power on the Gulf Coast, home to some of the country's most important oil refineries.<\/p>\n
While only one person was known to have died, officials said they feared the worst was yet to come, with large areas of Texas under flash flood warnings and sporadic tornadoes touching down, tearing roofs off houses.<\/p>\n
Harvey made landfall late Friday as a Category Four hurricane, pummeling the small town of Rockport outside Corpus Christi with sustained winds of 130 miles (215 kilometers) per hour, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.It then made a second landfall a few hours later just north of Rockport, which was one of the hardest-hit areas.<\/p>\n
While most residents did heed advice to head to safety, some hunkered down in Corpus Christi — a city of about 325,000, where residents have been told to boil their water before using.<\/p>\n
“I've never seen anything like this. We do have strong winds — we're right next to the bay — but nothing like last night,” store owner Brandon Gonzalez told AFP.<\/p>\n
“I mean, I was even a little bit terrified of what was going to happen. Our building was just shaking back and forth. It really got bad. I think we held up pretty good though.”<\/p>\n
As of late Saturday, about 230,000 customers were still without power, providers said. Roads were difficult to navigate due to debris and downed power lines.<\/p>\n
“Rainfall of this magnitude will cause catastrophic and life-threatening flooding,” the NHC warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
International desk: Hurricane Harvey lashed central Texas with torrential rains on Saturday, raising fears of “catastrophic” flooding after the megastorm — the most powerful to hit the United States since 2005 — left a deadly trail of devastation along the Gulf Coast. The latest forecasts show that Harvey, now downgraded to tropical storm status, will […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":36112,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,14],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\t\n