Port Arthur is a small city of 60,000 people located along the Texas coast. As the national media has, understandably, concentrated on the millions at risk in the Houston area, the situation 70 miles to the east has been growing steadily more dangerous.
The mayor of Port Arthur, Texas, said early Wednesday that his entire city “is underwater” but that crews would continue conducting rescue missions in the wake of Tropical Storm Harvey.
“Our whole city is underwater right now but we are coming!” Mayor Derrick Freeman wrote on Facebook. “If you called, we are coming. Please get to higher ground if you can, but please try stay out of attics.”
This flooded-out building isn’t a home or business—it’s the shelter where people in Port Arthur had gathered after they were already driven from their homes.
A list of tweets from the area is agonizingly full of people reporting trapped loved ones with water up to their roofs. People who are calling out for help as time runs out.
What’s happening in Port Arthur today includes some of the most horrific scenes from this whole long, awful, awful situation.
Port Arthur also contains a number of oil refineries and storage areas, some of which were damaged by Hurricane Rita in 2005. The flood waters in the area represent a risk of spills of oil and other chemicals.