How Hurricane Harvey Could Cause Long-Term Devastation
The record floods predicted as the storm stalls on the Texas coast might wreck the federal flood insurance program, and cause financial ruin for insured and uninsured homeowners alike.
Beyond the Category 4 130 mile-an-hour winds, the devastating eye wall, and the storm surge hundreds of miles wide, the most destructive part of Hurricane Harvey as it bears down on the Texan Gulf Coast might be the rain.
The storm is projected to basically sit over the region as it runs it course, in the process pouring biblical amounts of rain—30 inches—on Texan coastal areas from Corpus Christi to Houston. Even outside the area of truly catastrophic rainfall predictions—which were so high that some weather maps had to add brand new colors to their legends—places like the lower half of Louisiana seem likely to receive a foot or more of rain.
