Vietnamese in Houston cope with flooding caused by Hurricane Harvey

Vietnamese people in the Houston metropolitan area, Texas, have been stockpiling food for weeks, worried about floodwaters inundating their homes during the strongest storm in more than 50 years.

Passengers stranded at the airport in Houston are provided with beds and food. Photo: Chloe Vo.

Chloe Vo, 27 years old, from Vinh Long, has lived and worked in Texas for 7 years, but this is the first time she has experienced such a big storm.

The road around Chloe's house near Jersey Village, Harris County, was knee-deep in water, reaching halfway up the parking lot but not into the house. "Thank God!" she told VnExpress.

But her uncle was not so lucky. He had to be evacuated by helicopter to safety when water almost covered the fence around his home in Friendswood, Galveston County.

Both counties are in the Houston metropolitan area, where Hurricane Harvey has been ravaging since late last week. "Catastrophic flooding in the Houston metropolitan area is expected to worsen," the National Weather Service said on August 27. "This event is unprecedented and the full impact is not yet known, but is expected to exceed anything previously experienced."

The storm forced the closure of William P. Hobby International Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) in Texas. Across the United States, more than 5,000 flights have been canceled since August 25 due to the storm. Chloe, who works as an international passenger assistance officer at IAH, has been eating, sleeping, and working overtime for the past three days because some of her colleagues have been unable to get to work due to the flooding.

On her Facebook account, she shared images of an empty airport, with only a few stranded passengers remaining. Here, they were provided with temporary beds, blankets and food.

On August 27, Chloe was stuck in traffic for an hour on the highway because the water was up to one wheel. She had to turn around and couldn’t get home. Meanwhile, Nam Ngo, who lives in Katy, a city near Houston, had his car stalled in the middle of the road and had to be towed away.

"I have lived in the US for 7 years. Three years ago there was a similar storm but it was not as severe as this year. This year more vehicles were damaged due to flooding," he said. In the city of Katy where Nam lives, which borders Houston, the water rose about 40 cm.

"The water is getting more and more, and it's not going to drain fast enough," he said, adding that if the water got too high, his family would have to evacuate. But Katy is still on higher ground, so it's less flooded than areas like Dickinson, League City, and Galveston County. Images on social media showed water up to the level of seniors in a Dickinson nursing home.

Nam said that while some people were scared, others remained calm, even rowing boats and surfing on flooded roads. He himself was delighted to discover many crayfish crawling from the swamp near his house.

Texas is a coastal state and regularly experiences hurricanes. However, Harvey is the strongest storm to hit the US in 12 years, and the strongest to hit Texas in more than 50 years. Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, killing more than 1,800 people and causing $151 billion in damage.

With the forecast of the dangerous power of the storm, Chloe, Nam and Vinh Trieu, who live in Houston, all stocked up on enough water, instant noodles, and food to last one to two weeks, and even bought a gas stove in case of a power outage.

"People are evacuating just a block away. The current storm is much worse than the previous ones, but it's not over yet because it could come back tonight or tomorrow, lasting until next Thursday," said Trieu, 25, who came to Houston from Ho Chi Minh City.

More than 2 feet of rain fell in Houston and the Galveston area in 24 hours. Another 20 inches of rain is expected before the storm clears. If the Houston area receives more than 4 feet of rain, it will be the worst flooding event in U.S. history, according to Fox 32 News. At least five people have died and more than 10 have been injured as a result of the storm, and the toll is expected to rise.

In the Houston Vietnamese Association Facebook group with nearly 17,000 members, people post photos, videos and updates about the flooding situation hourly.

The US Army Corps of Engineers released floodwaters from two reservoirs near Houston, Texas, at midnight on August 27 to avoid the risk of dam failure, causing some Vietnamese people to worry about the possibility of water rising and flooding their homes.

Rescuers are struggling to recover from the storm, but are being hampered by power outages and severe flooding. Houston's emergency lines are overloaded with more than 6,000 calls for help. The US Coast Guard has rescued 1,200 people from the storm, 200 of whom were airlifted to safety.

According to VNE