Houston Faces Worsening Flooding Conditions

 

Houston, a city in the American state of Texas, will face worsening flooding conditions as Tropical Storm Harvey continues to rain on the city.

On Friday, Harvey, the strongest storm to strike Texas in 50 years, came ashore¹ near Corpus Christi, about 354 km south of Houston. It has since remained around Texas' Gulf² Coast.

The storm's rains submerged cars and flooded highways. Schools, airports and office buildings in the fourth largest city in the United States were closed as high waters filled some neighborhoods.

More flooding is expected to come as the storm moves back in the direction of Houston. Weather reports say some areas in Texas could have as much as 1.27 meters of rain from the storm.

Brock Long is the administrator³ of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. At a news conference on Monday, he said that more than 30,000 people are expected to be placed temporarily in shelters.

The area immediately surrounding Houston, called the metropolitan⁴ area, is home to 6.8 million people. It is also home to many oil refineries⁵ in the U.S.

Many have stopped operations, likely for weeks, due to the storm, including Exxon Mobil’s facility in Baytown. It is the United States' second largest refinery⁶.

As of Monday morning, the shut down reduced about 2.4 million barrels of oil, or 13 percent of daily U.S. production.

The outages will limit the availability of U.S. gasoline and other refined products and push prices higher, experts said.

Federal authorities predicted it would take years to repair the damage from Harvey. The rains brought back memories of Tropical Storm Allison, which struck Texas in 2001. It flooded 70,000 homes and caused $9 billion in damage.

Damages are not likely to be as extensive as Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which killed 1,800 people in and around New Orleans. Nor will damages likely be as high as Sandy, which hit New York in 2012. Those storms caused $80 billion and $36 billion in insured losses, respectively, according to Hannover Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurance companies.

I'm Alice Bryant.

Words in This Story

worsen – v. to make (something) worse or to become worse

administrator – n. a person whose job is to manage a company, school, or other organization

refinery – n. a place where something, like oil, is refined

reinsurance -- n. insuring (something) again so that the insurance is shared by more than one company

1 ashore   

adv.在(向)岸上，上岸

参考例句：

• The children got ashore before the tide came in.涨潮前，孩子们就上岸了。
• He laid hold of the rope and pulled the boat ashore.他抓住绳子拉船靠岸。

2 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

3 administrator   

n.经营管理者，行政官员

参考例句：

• The role of administrator absorbed much of Ben's energy.行政职务耗掉本很多精力。
• He has proved himself capable as administrator.他表现出管理才能。

4 metropolitan   

adj.大城市的，大都会的

参考例句：

• Metropolitan buildings become taller than ever.大城市的建筑变得比以前更高。
• Metropolitan residents are used to fast rhythm.大都市的居民习惯于快节奏。

5 refineries   

精炼厂( refinery的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The efforts on closedown and suspension of small sugar refineries, small saccharin refineries and small paper mills are also being carried out in steps. 关停小糖厂、小糖精厂、小造纸厂的工作也已逐步展开。
• Hence the sitting of refineries is at a distance from population centres. 所以，炼油厂的厂址总在远离人口集中的地方。

6 refinery   

n.精炼厂，提炼厂

参考例句：

• They built a sugar refinery.他们建起了一座榨糖厂。
• The purpose of oil refinery is to refine crude petroleum.炼油厂的主要工作是提炼原油。