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For Houston’s Homeless, a Terrifying Night Under Siege by Hurricane Harvey - The New York Times

posted onAugust 28, 2017
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Article snippet: HOUSTON — Before high winds and heavy rain began to lash this city overnight, Roy Joe Cox tucked into the spot under the freeway that he calls home and assessed his hurricane supplies. Four hot dogs. A bag of shrimp. A couple of cupcakes. His American Tourister rolling suitcase, fitted with a spare pair of jeans and not much else. “I have no place to go and it’s going to get bad,” he said Saturday, his T-shirt blowing in the breeze. “A hurricane is coming and I don’t know how I’m going to live through it.” Some didn’t. At least five people were reported dead in and around Houston on Sunday morning and emergency services workers were responding to large numbers of distress calls as catastrophic flooding hit the nation’s fourth-largest city and a metropolitan area with a population of more than 6 million. The National Weather Service issued repeated flash flood warnings throughout the night, and dry city streets turned to speeding rivers in a matter of minutes. Emergency lines were soon filled with people stranded on highways and residents began sending desperate tweets directly to officials. Emergency responders completed more than 1,000 high-water rescues during the night. “Travel across the area is severely hampered, if not impossible,” said an announcement from the Weather Service. City officials urged flooded residents to head to their roofs, not their attics. “We need help it’s like 12 adults and 10 toddlers....can you please call me,” one man wrote to Harris... Link to the full article to read more

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