>
Article snippet: HOUSTON — The water has receded in some parts of the city, leaving cakes of mud, branches and garbage baking in the heat wherever the current dropped them. Abandoned cars, too, appear every so often, left where they were in the moment the storm overtook them. The downtown streets are dry now, but the gleaming office towers are mostly empty and the wide sidewalks oddly quiet. Some streetlights flash red. Along neighborhood streets, long strips of businesses sit shuttered, darkened and with stools atop tables and handwritten signs promising to reopen soon. On one dry block, a jogger ran by in the steamy Houston heat, as neighbors collected debris that had grown tangled in their lawns. Not far away, barricades marked off a street where darkened houses and cars suddenly vanished into a murky brown soup that showed no sign of retreat. In the silence, a shredded tree bobbed in the water near the tops of submerged cars. Such were the scenes of Houston on Wednesday, as the sun appeared at last — the first sign of blue sky in nearly a week — and as some in the city began to come out of their homes to see what was left. The images were a study in contrast in this vast city: of neighborhoods moving on and of others doing anything but that. “It’s a re-emerging city,” said Kim Wisner, 60, who walked two dogs through downtown, where a growing number of delivery trucks and utility workers were making their way through vacant streets. “You can see for the first time today, peopl... Link to the full article to read more