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Boats, helicopters in desperate race against time in Texas

HOUSTON — The rain had started to fall again on Sunday afternoon when there was a roar over Interstate 610. A Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter was hovering overhead, a rescuer and a resident joined together by a harness and arms.

A helicopter lifting a person as Houston’s Meyerland area was evacuated on Sunday. Residents were also ferried by boats and carried on the backs of soldiers as rescue efforts were improvised. Photo: The New York Times

A helicopter lifting a person as Houston’s Meyerland area was evacuated on Sunday. Residents were also ferried by boats and carried on the backs of soldiers as rescue efforts were improvised. Photo: The New York Times

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HOUSTON — The rain had started to fall again on Sunday afternoon when there was a roar over Interstate 610. A Texas Department of Public Safety helicopter was hovering overhead, a rescuer and a resident joined together by a harness and arms.

The men touched down in an empty traffic lane. They unhooked from each other. Seconds later, the rescuer and his helicopter were off again.

Mr Robert Durbin, 33, then was left to find his wife, Danielle, who had been airlifted in her pyjamas minutes earlier. Shoeless, he ran through the parking lot that had sprung up on the interstate, searching, his eyes scanning the cars and vans. He soon found her in a television crew’s vehicle.

They had been on the roof of their home since about 8am, and they expected to lose all of their possessions, except those in the attic. “That was insane,” Mr Durbin said of his family’s ordeal.

The Durbins, whose first task after being reunited was to retrieve their daughters from a relative’s house, were hardly alone in being plucked to safety.

Houston on Sunday was a study in desperate improvisation, streets and highways turned into rivers, boats and helicopters more useful than cars, and dramatic rescues taking place virtually everywhere one looked.

The National Guard and a flotilla of private boat operators swarmed the city in search of residents in distress, many of whom had been frantically calling authorities for help all day long.

Stranded residents mounted the backs of some soldiers who waded through thigh-high waters to take evacuees to trucks that would drive them to safety.

During a break from Sunday’s rain, the unflooded stretch of interstate near the Meyerland Plaza shopping centre in south-west Houston became an impromptu staging area for emergency responders and volunteers offering powerboats, kayaks and rafts.

On the highways, some motorists, stalled themselves, got out and tried to push others to safety.

People searched their phones for traffic alerts and safe passages.

Even National Guard soldiers travelling in civilian vehicles were left to consult Google Maps.

Once residents were rescued, whether by emergency officials or volunteers, they were typically unsure of where they would spend Sunday night and beyond.

National Guard soldiers used a Chevrolet van to ferry rescued passengers across more flooded areas to another dry spot where they would be relocated once again.

“They’re going to take you from there to a shelter or something like that,” Major Randy Stillinger of the Texas Army National Guard told some of his passengers.

“I’m not sure, but it’s better than being here.”

He added, “I wish I could do so much more for you.”

During one ride, a woman asked if she would be safe in her eventual destination: “It’s high enough that we’re not going to drown?”

The rescues and searches played out all day. Earlier in the afternoon, Mr Raoul Njobi had shouted to the men launching a small motorised boat into a flooded section of interstate.

Begging for help, he explained that his sister was trapped in her car. He thought she was nearby, but her phone’s battery had been drained.

Dressed in what looked like a swimsuit, he anxiously told his tale.

“I was talking to her, but now the communication doesn’t work,” he said. “Her phone is dead, and we aren’t able to communicate.”

The last time the two spoke, Mr Njobi said, the water had begun to come into his sister’s car.

“I told her to stay on the top of the car, and wait and wave so people can see her,” he said.

“Now we don’t know what’s going on exactly.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES

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