Major dangers for the U.S. Gulf Coast area loomed after an explosion at a Texas chemical plant early Thursday and the threat of major flooding further east near the Texas-Louisiana line as Harvey's floodwaters began receding in the Houston area after five days of torrential rain.

Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, struggled with rising water as the area was pounded with what remained of the weakening storm, while Houston's fire department said it would begin a block-by-block search Thursday of thousands of flooded homes. Assistant Fire Chief Richard Mann said the searches were to ensure "no people were left behind."

The confirmed death toll climbed to at least 31, including six family members — four of them children — whose bodies were pulled Wednesday from a van that had been swept off a Houston bridge into a bayou.

"Unfortunately, it seems that our worst thoughts are being realized," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said after the van that disappeared over the weekend was found in 10 feet of muddy water.

The Houston-area chemical plant that lost power after Harvey engulfed the area in extensive floods was rocked by two explosions early Thursday, the plant's operator said. The Arkema Inc. plant had been left without refrigeration for chemicals that become volatile as the temperature rises.

The Harris County Sheriff's Office said in a tweet that a deputy was taken to the hospital after inhaling fumes. Nine other deputies drove themselves to the hospital as a precaution.

The company shut down the Crosby site before Harvey made landfall last week, but a crew of 11 had stayed behind. That group was removed and residents living within a 1.5-mile radius were told to evacuate Tuesday after the plant lost power.

Another threat was emerging east of Houston where weather conditions deteriorated close to the Louisiana line.

Beaumont and Port Arthur worked to evacuate residents after Harvey completed a U-turn in the Gulf of Mexico and rolled ashore early Wednesday for the second time in six days. It hit southwestern Louisiana as a tropical storm with heavy rain and winds of 45 mph.

When Harvey paid its return visit to land, it hit near Cameron, Louisiana, about 45 miles from Port Arthur.

Port Arthur found itself increasingly isolated as floodwaters swamped most major roads out of the city.

More than 500 people — along with dozens of dogs, cats, a lizard and a monkey — took shelter at the Max Bowl bowling alley in the city, said the establishment's general manager, Jeff Tolliver.

"The monkey was a little surprising, but we're trying to help," he said.

Floodwaters also toppled two oil storage tanks in South Texas, spilling almost 30,000 gallons of crude. It was not immediately clear if any of the spilled oil was recovered. More damage to the oil industry infrastructure is expected to emerge as floodwaters recede.

Forecasters downgraded Harvey to a tropical depression late Wednesday from a tropical storm but it still has lots of rain and potential damage to spread, with 4 to 8 inches forecast from the Louisiana-Texas line into Tennessee and Kentucky through Friday. Some spots may get as much as a foot, raising the risk of more flooding.

For much of the Houston area, forecasters said the rain is pretty much over.

"We have good news," said Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the Harris County Flood Control District. "The water levels are going down."

Houston's two major airports were up and running again Wednesday. Officials said they were resuming limited bus and light rail service as well as trash pickup.

At Hermann Park, south of downtown, children glided by in strollers and wagons, joggers took in midday runs and couples walked beside cascading fountains and beneath a sparkling sun. People pulled into drive-thru restaurants and emerged from a store with groceries.

At the same time, many thousands of Houston-area homes are under water and could stay that way for days or weeks. And Lindner cautioned that homes near at least one swollen bayou could still get flooded.

Officials said 911 centers in the Houston area are getting more than 1,000 calls an hour from people seeking help.

Altogether, more than 1,000 homes in Texas were destroyed and close to 50,000 damaged, and over 32,000 people were in shelters across the state, emergency officials reported. About 10,000 more National Guard troops are being deployed to Texas, bringing the total to 24,000, Gov. Greg Abbott said.

In Orange, Texas, about 30 miles east of Beaumont, residents of a retirement home surrounded by thigh-deep water were rescued by National Guardsmen and wildlife officers, who carried them from the second floor and put them aboard an airboat.

Harvey initially came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane in Texas on Friday, then went back out to sea and lingered off the coast as a tropical storm for days, inundating flood-prone Houston.

Harvey's five straight days of rain totaled close to 52 inches, the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the continental U.S.

Frank Bajak, Matt Sedensky and Michael Graczyk in Houston; Diana Heidgerd and David Warren in Dallas; Seth Borenstein in Washington; Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas; and Tammy Webber in Chicago contributed to this report</s>Harvey's floodwaters started dropping across much of the Houston area and the storm weakened slightly Wednesday but major dangers remained for the U.S. Gulf Coast area, including the threat of an explosion at a stricken Texas chemical plant and major flooding further east near the Texas-Louisiana line.

The scope of the devastation caused by the hurricane came into sharper focus, meanwhile, and the murky green floodwaters from the record-breaking, 4-foot deluge of rain began yielding up more bodies as predicted.

The confirmed death toll climbed to at least 31, including six family members — four of them children — whose bodies were pulled Wednesday from a van that had been swept off a Houston bridge into a bayou.

"Unfortunately, it seems that our worst thoughts are being realized," Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said after the van that disappeared over the weekend was found in 10 feet of muddy water.

As the water receded, Houston's fire department said it would begin a block-by-block search Thursday of thousands of flooded homes. Assistant Fire Chief Richard Mann said the searches were to ensure "no people were left behind."

While conditions in the nation's fourth-largest city appeared to improve, another crisis related to Harvey emerged at a chemical plant about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Houston. A spokeswoman for the Arkema Inc. plant in Crosby, Texas, said late Wednesday that the flooded facility had lost power and backup generators, leaving it without refrigeration for chemicals that become volatile as the temperature rises.

"The fire will happen. It will resemble a gasoline fire. It will be explosive and intense in nature," said Janet Smith, spokeswoman for the French company.

The last of the plant's employees evacuated on Tuesday and residents within 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) were told to leave, Hill said.

Arkema submitted a plan to the federal government in 2014 outlining a worst-case scenario that said potentially 1.1 million residents could be affected by such an event over a distance of 23 miles, according to information compiled by a nonprofit group. But the company said Wednesday that a worst-case scenario was "very unlikely."

Another threat was emerging east of Houston where weather conditions deteriorated close to the Louisiana line.

Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, struggled with rising floodwaters and worked to evacuate residents after Harvey completed a U-turn in the Gulf of Mexico and rolled ashore early Wednesday for the second time in six days. It hit southwestern Louisiana as a tropical storm with heavy rain and winds of 45 mph.

Forecasters downgraded Harvey to a tropical depression late Wednesday from a tropical storm but it still has lots of rain and potential damage to spread, with 4 to 8 inches forecast from the Louisiana-Texas line into Tennessee and Kentucky through Friday. Some spots may get as much as a foot, raising the risk of more flooding.

For much of the Houston area, forecasters said the rain is pretty much over.

"We have good news," said Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the Harris County Flood Control District. "The water levels are going down."

Houston's two major airports were up and running again Wednesday. Officials said they were resuming limited bus and light rail service as well as trash pickup.

At Hermann Park, south of downtown, children glided by in strollers and wagons, joggers took in midday runs and couples walked beside cascading fountains and beneath a sparkling sun. People pulled into drive-thru restaurants and emerged from a store with groceries.

At the same time, many thousands of Houston-area homes are under water and could stay that way for days or weeks. And Lindner cautioned that homes near at least one swollen bayou could still get flooded.

Officials said 911 centers in the Houston area are getting more than 1,000 calls an hour from people seeking help.

In Houston's flooded Meyerland neighborhood, hundreds of families emptied their homes of sodden possessions under a baking sun as the temperature climbed into the 90s. They piled up couches, soggy drywall and carpets ripped out of foul-smelling homes where the floodwaters had lingered for more than 24 hours.

The curbs were lined with the pickup trucks of cleanup contractors and friends.

For Harry Duffey, a 48-year-old computer security specialist, this was flood No. 3 in as many years. Just before the flood, he got a notice that his flood insurance premium had nearly doubled to $5,300 a year.

"Everywhere we look this water has cost me money after money after money. It just does not end," he said. But he said he has no intention of moving: "This is in my blood. This is where I'm from."

Altogether, more than 1,000 homes in Texas were destroyed and close to 50,000 damaged, and over 32,000 people were in shelters across the state, emergency officials reported. About 10,000 more National Guard troops are being deployed to Texas, bringing the total to 24,000, Gov. Greg Abbott said.

Confirmed deaths from the storm include a married couple who drowned after their pickup truck was swept away while they were on the phone with a 911 dispatcher asking for help, officials said.

Others among the dead include a woman whose body was discovered floating in Beaumont, a man who stepped on a live electrical wire in floodwaters, and a woman who died after she and her young daughter were swept into a drainage canal in Beaumont. The child was rescued clinging to her dead mother, authorities said.

When Harvey paid its return visit to land overnight, it hit near Cameron, Louisiana, about 45 miles from Port Arthur.

Port Arthur found itself increasingly isolated as floodwaters swamped most major roads out of the city.

More than 500 people — along with dozens of dogs, cats, a lizard and a monkey — took shelter at the Max Bowl bowling alley in Port Arthur after firefighters popped the lock in the middle of the night, said the establishment's general manager, Jeff Tolliver.

"The monkey was a little surprising, but we're trying to help," he said.

In Orange, Texas, about 30 miles east of Beaumont, residents of a retirement home surrounded by thigh-deep water were rescued by National Guardsmen and wildlife officers, who carried them from the second floor and put them aboard an airboat.

Harvey initially came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane in Texas on Friday, then went back out to sea and lingered off the coast as a tropical storm for days, inundating flood-prone Houston.

Harvey's five straight days of rain totaled close to 52 inches, the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the continental U.S.

Associated Press writers Frank Bajak, Matt Sedensky and Michael Graczyk in Houston; Diana Heidgerd and David Warren in Dallas; Seth Borenstein in Washington; Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas; and Tammy Webber in Chicago contributed to this report.

This version of the story corrects the last name of the Arkema spokeswoman to Smith from Hill.

Sign up for AP's daily newsletter showcasing our best all-formats reporting on Harvey and its aftermath: http://apne.ws/ahYQGtb .</s>HOUSTON (AP) – Harvey’s floodwaters began to drop across much of the Houston area and the sun peeked through thinning clouds Wednesday in the biggest glimmer of hope in days for the besieged city. But as the crisis eases, the storm could begin to give up its dead.

“We have good news,” said Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the Harris County Flood Control District. “The water levels are going down. And that’s for the first time in several days.”

The number of confirmed deaths rose to 20 when authorities reported that two men drowned on Monday. One of them drove around a barricade and into standing water, while the other tried to swim across a flooded road.

Authorities expect the toll to rise as the waters recede and they are able to take full stock of the death and destruction wrought by the hurricane.

Many thousands of homes in and around the nation’s fourth-largest city were still swamped and could stay that way for days or longer. And some Houston-area neighborhoods were still in danger of more flooding from a levee breach. Officials said 911 call centers in the Houston area were still getting more than 1,000 calls an hour from people seeking help.

Nevertheless, forecasters said the rain is pretty much over for the Houston area, and the water is already back within its channels in some places.

Also, the water in two reservoirs that protect downtown Houston from flooding was likely to crest Wednesday at levels slightly below those that were forecast, officials said.

As for Harvey, it rolled ashore early Wednesday for the second time in six days, hitting southwestern Louisiana close to the Texas state line as a tropical storm with winds of 45 mph.

But it was “spinning down” and was expected to weakend into a tropical depression sometime Wednesday, National Hurricane Center meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said. A tropical depression has winds of 38 mph or less.

From there, the remnants of the hurricane are expected to move from Louisiana into Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky in the next few days, with flooding possible in those states.

“Once we get this thing inland during the day, it’s the end of the beginning,” Feltgen said. “Texas is going to get a chance to finally dry out as this system pulls out.”

The reprieve from the rain in Houston was welcome.

Eugene Rideaux, a 42-year-old mechanic who showed up at Osteen’s Lakewood Church to sort donations for evacuees, said he had not been able to work or do much since the storm hit, so he was eager to get out of his dark house and help.

“It’s been so dark for days now, I’m just ready to see some light. Some sunshine. I’m tired of the darkness,” Rideaux said. “But it’s a tough city, and we’re going to make this into a positive and come together.”

The dead include a former football and track coach in suburban Houston and a woman who died after she and her young daughter were swept into a rain-swollen drainage canal in Beaumont. The child was rescued clinging to her dead mother, authorities said.

Meanwhile, the Texas community of Port Arthur found itself increasingly isolated Wednesday as Harvey’s rains flooded most major roads out of the city and swamped a storm shelter. Motiva Enterprises closed its Port Arthur refinery, the largest in the nation, because of flooding.

When Harvey paid its return visit to land overnight, it hit near Cameron, Louisiana, about 45 miles from Port Arthur.

Jefferson County sheriff’s Deputy Marcus McLellan said he wasn’t sure where the 100 or so evacuees at the civic center in Port Arthur would be sent. Most were perched on bleacher seats to stay dry, their belongings left mostly on the floor under about a foot (30 centimeters) of water, he said.

Port Arthur Mayor Derrick Freeman posted on his Facebook page: “city is underwater right now but we are coming!” He also urged residents to get to higher ground and to avoid becoming trapped in attics.

In the Houston area, Harvey’s five straight of rain that totaled close to 52 inches, the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the continental United States.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said 30,000 to 40,000 homes, perhaps more, may have been damaged.

“It could be more,” he told Houston’s KTRK-TV. “We just don’t know. A number are irreparable. We’ve got some difficult months and perhaps years ahead.”

Some 13,000 people have been rescued in the Houston area, and more than 17,000 have sought refuge in Texas shelters. With the water still high in places and many hard-hit areas still inaccessible, those numbers seemed certain to increase.

About 195,000 people have filed for financial assistance, and about $35 million in direct aid has been distributed — numbers expected to climb dramatically in coming days and weeks, the chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said.

“This is going to be an incredibly large disaster,” Brock Long said in Washington. “We’re not going to know the true cost for years to come. … But it’s going to be huge.”

Harvey initially came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane in Texas on Friday, then executed a U-turn and lingered off the coast as a tropical storm for days, inundating flood-prone Houston.

Associated Press writers Frank Bajak and Michael Graczyk in Houston, Diana Heidgerd and David Warren in Dallas, Seth Borenstein in Washington and Tammy Webber in Chicago contributed to this report.

Sign up for AP’s daily newsletter showcasing our best all-formats reporting on Harvey and its aftermath: http://apne.ws/ahYQGtb.

© Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>HOUSTON (AP) — The Latest on Tropical Storm Harvey (all times local):

All students in the largest district in Texas will be eligible to receive three free meals per day at school as the state recovers from Harvey.

The Houston Independent School District on Wednesday announced the plan promising free meals on campus to 216,000 students during the 2017-2018 school year.

An HISD statement says federal and state agriculture departments have waived the usual required application process, part of the National School Lunch/Breakfast Program, to help with Harvey recovery.

Superintendent Richard Carranza says the waiver will give families one less concern as they begin the process of restoring their lives.

Thousands of people have been forced from their homes in Houston since Harvey struck, submerging the city with torrential rain.

There are more than 32,000 people in shelters across Texas as Harvey continues drenching the state’s Gulf Coast.

Gov. Greg Abbott says Texas also has an additional 30,000 beds “available as needed” for those who fled or are still fleeing floodwaters associated with the storm.

At a news conference in Austin, Abbott said there are still about 107,000 power outages statewide, down from nearly 140,000 over the weekend. Harvey roared ashore as a hurricane Friday, then triggered deadly floods as a tropical storm.

Abbott refused to speculate on the final costs of the storm in terms of property damage. But he suggested that the scope of destruction far exceeded that of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or 2012’s Superstorm Sandy, meaning the financial impact will likely be far greater than both.

Officers have located a submerged van in which six members of a Houston family were traveling when it was swept off a Houston bridge and into a storm-ravaged bayou.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez says the van is in about 10 feet (3 meters) of muddy water in Green’s Bayou in northeast Houston. He says the bodies of two adults can be seen in the front seat but that if the four children’s bodies are inside they are obscured because of the water conditions and the angle of the vehicle.

Authorities are trying to decide whether dive team members will retrieve the bodies or if it would be safer to pull the van from the treacherous water first.

Samuel Saldivar told deputies he was in his brother’s van rescuing his parents and relatives from their flooded home Sunday when the van was tossed by a strong current into the bayou as it crossed a bridge. He escaped through a window but the others were trapped.

Authorities say a 3-year-old girl who was found clinging to the body of her drowned mother in a rain-swollen canal in Southeast Texas is doing well and should be released from the hospital soon.

Beaumont police on Wednesday identified the girl’s mother as 41-year-old Colette Sulcer.

Officer Carol Riley says the toddler, who was suffering from hypothermia when she was rescued Tuesday afternoon, has now been reunited with her family. Riley says the girl is in stable condition and should be released from the hospital on Wednesday.

Authorities have said the mother’s vehicle got stuck in a flooded parking lot of an office park just off Interstate 10. A witness saw the woman take her daughter and try to walk to safety when the swift current of a flooded drainage canal next to the parking lot swept them both away.

Officials say the child was holding onto the floating woman when police and fire-rescue team in a boat caught up to them a half-mile downstream.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it has assigned about 150 employees from around the country to help with disaster relief efforts in Houston.

The agency said Wednesday that 139 agents and officers from Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, El Paso, Houston, Washington, New York, San Diego and Tampa are on scene. They are on 25-member teams that answer to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

ICE also has another dozen employees on another team that assists FEMA. It says it is prepared to send more employees if needed.

The agency says it is not doing immigration enforcement operations in storm-affected areas.

President Donald Trump is promising billions to help Texas rebuild from Harvey, but his Republican allies in the House are looking at cutting almost $1 billion from disaster accounts to help finance the president’s border wall.

The pending reduction to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief account is part of a spending bill that the House is scheduled to consider next week when Congress returns from its August recess. The $876 million cut, part of the 1,305-page measure’s homeland security section, pays for roughly half the cost of Trump’s down payment on a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

It seems sure that GOP leaders will move to reverse the disaster aid cut next week. The optics are politically bad and there’s only $2.3 billion remaining in disaster coffers.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it’s not conducting immigration enforcement operations in storm-affected areas.

The agency’s statement Wednesday came in response to reports a day earlier that impersonators were knocking on doors in Houston and identifying themselves as Homeland Security Investigations agents. ICE says the impersonators are reportedly telling people to evacuate, presumably with the intention of robbing their empty homes.

ICE is encouraging people to demand to see badges and credentials. The agency has sent employees to help with search-and-rescue operations.

The latest statement is more explicit than one issued earlier this week and perhaps more reassuring to people in the country illegally. On Monday, ICE said it won’t conduct “routine, non-criminal immigration enforcement operations” at evacuation sites and shelters, but that the law will not be suspended.

Venezuela says it will offer aid to victims of Harvey through the U.S. subsidiary of its state oil company.

Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza announced Wednesday that President Nicolas Maduro had ordered Venezuelan officials to develop a plan to help those affected by the storm.

Arreaza says that Citgo will provide up to $5 million in heating products to people in Houston and that when someone fills up their tank at a Citgo, station “they will be supporting the recovery.”

Harvey hit Southeast Texas last week as a Category 4 hurricane and has since downgraded to a tropical storm.

The gesture follows the imposition of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s government that prohibit banks from providing it with new financing. Citgo is also restricted from sending dividends back to Venezuela. The sanctions were imposed because of the country’s creation of a government-loaded constitutional assembly that overrides the opposition-dominated congress.

The National Hurricane Center says Harvey should soon slow to a tropical depression.

Meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said Wednesday that Harvey is “spinning down,” and while it is still a tropical storm with 45 mph (72 kph) winds, “it should be a depression sometime tonight.”

A depression has maximum sustained surface winds of 38 mph (61 kph) or less.

Feltgen says Beaumont, Texas, and Cameron, Louisiana, are “still under the gun” for rain from Harvey, and conditions won’t improve until Wednesday night.

The storm is forecast to then move from Louisiana into northwestern Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky.

The National Weather Service is predicting 5 to 6 inches (13 to 15 centimeters) of rain in western Tennessee. Flood watches and warnings have been issued for parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee.

Houston City Council is holding its weekly meeting at a shelter for people displaced by Harvey because city hall is flooded.

Mayor Sylvester Turner opened the meeting Wednesday at the George R. Brown Convention Center by thanking Houston’s first responders, prompting a standing ovation from council members and observers.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo told the meeting that his officers and other first responders continue to work, despite personal hardships including their own flooded homes.

The convention center has become a temporary home for more than 10,000 people since Friday, when Harvey struck the Southeast Texas coast as a Category 4 hurricane. Harvey has since weakened to a tropical storm.

City hall is closed because torrential rain flooded its basement and the bottom floor of an annex building, knocking out power.

Three Carnival Cruise Line ships that are based in Galveston but detoured to New Orleans to wait out Harvey could soon be back in storm-battered Texas.

The ships, carrying more than 15,000 passengers and crew, were scheduled to return to Galveston last weekend but changed course when Harvey slammed into Southeast Texas as a Category 4 hurricane. Harvey has since weakened to a tropical storm that has dumped more than 50 inches (127 centimeters) of rain in parts of Southeast Texas.

Carnival spokeswoman Christine de la Huerta says the Carnival Freedom and the Carnival Valor were departing Wednesday from New Orleans as preparations continue to reopen the Port of Galveston. She says the Carnival Breeze left New Orleans on Tuesday.

Miami-based Carnival, its parent company Carnival Corporation and the Micky and Madeleine Arison Family Foundation, are donating $2 million to Harvey relief efforts. Mickey Arison is Carnival’s chairman.

Harris County flood control officials are concerned that a levee could fail in a suburban Houston subdivision in the north of the county, thus adding to the Harvey-related floods.

Spokesman Jeff Lindner says if the weakened section of levee along Cypress Creek in Inverness Forest is breached, water is going to rise “very quickly and very fast, and it is going to be deep.”

He says the water could reach the rooftops of homes immediately in the levee area. The area is under a mandatory evacuation order due to Harvey, but some residents have remained.

Lindner says county authorities are working with several agencies to figure out how to increase pressure on the outside of the levee to compensate for the tremendous pressure inside due to record amounts of water.

A sheriff’s official north of Houston says two men died this week in separate drownings, bringing the number of confirmed Harvey-related deaths to 20.

Montgomery County sheriff’s Capt. Bryan Carlisle said Wednesday that 33-year-old Joshua Feuerstein of Conroe died when he disregarded a barricade and drove his pickup into standing water Monday.

Carlisle says witnesses saw the pickup’s reverse lights illuminate, indicating that Feuerstein was attempting to back out of the water. But the pickup was carried into deeper water. The witnesses swam to help, but Carlisle says he was already dead.

Separately, an unidentified man died as he tried to swim across a flooded roadway Monday.

Carlisle says people nearby saw the man sink under the fast-moving water. His body was found a day later in the same area.

Joel Osteen is defending the decision not to open his Houston megachurch as a shelter during the initial flooding from Harvey in the face of withering criticism on social media.

The televangelist maintained on ABC’s “Good Morning America” Wednesday that his Lakewood Church was inaccessible due to floodwaters during the early part of the storm. He says the 16,000-seat former basketball arena is prone to flooding and “the last thing we would do is put people in it right at the beginning.” He says the city didn’t ask the church to open as a shelter initially.

Osteen tells NBC’s “Today” show that a “false narrative” on social media was to blame for the backlash.

The elected official in charge of the county that includes Houston says Harvey could have damaged 30,000 to 40,000 homes.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett told TV station KTRK on Wednesday that it’s just an estimate officials are discussing, but that it could be even more.

He says some homes have been damaged irreparably and that there will difficult months or even years ahead.

Emmett says one priority in trying restore some sense of normalcy is getting kids in the region back to school. He says it won’t be easy because so many people have been displaced.

This item has been corrected to show Emmett spoke Wednesday, not Monday.

An official says it’s too early to say if the thousands of Houston-area homes flooded by Harvey’s torrential rains can be rebuilt.

Jeff Lindner of the Harris County Flood Control District says: “When water sits in a house for several weeks, the house begins to degrade.”

About 4,000 homes in the areas near the Addicks and Barker reservoirs have been flooded, some with 3 to 6 feet (90 to 180 centimeters) of water. Linder says some of those will remain flooded “for an extended period of time.”

He says it’s unclear what condition those properties will be in when those residents return.

Lindner says controlled water releases from the two reservoirs continue to flow into Buffalo Bayou, and that some homes in the area could be flooded again. But he expects no additional homes to take on water in the area.

Officials say nearly all Houston-area waterways inundated by Harvey’s record rainfall have crested, but that water levels continue to rise in two flood-control reservoirs.

Jeff Lindner of the Harris County Flood Control District says river levels are going down Wednesday “for the first time in several days.”

Army Corps of Engineers regional engineer Edmond Russo says water in the Barker and Addicks reservoirs in west Houston rose slightly overnight and is likely to crest Wednesday, but slightly below forecast levels.

The reservoirs have received 32 to 35 inches (81 to 89 centimeters) of rain since Harvey hit last weekend, but Russo says less than an inch (2.5 centimeters) of rain is forecast in the coming week.

Lindner says “we’re getting very close to the peak of both reservoirs.”

Motiva Enterprises has closed its refinery in Port Arthur, Texas — the biggest in the nation — because of floodwaters that are inundating the area east of Houston near the Louisiana border.

CNN reports that company officials Wednesday opted to temporarily cease operations as Harvey continues to batter coastal regions. The tropical storm has dropped a record amount of rain on Texas.

The company had just announced Tuesday that it had cut output to 40 percent. Motiva, which is owned by Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company of Saudi Arabia, said it was dealing with restrictions in the flow of crude oil coming in and products such as gasoline going out through pipelines and ports.

Refineries operated by Exxon, Shell and other companies have released pollutants as torrential rains damaged storage tanks and other industrial facilities on the Texas Coast.

Best Buy says it is “deeply sorry” following accusations of price gouging after a photo posted online showed cases of water for sale at one of the electronic retailer’s Houston-area stores for more than $42.

The photo , which was widely shared on Twitter, appeared to have been taken by a Houston resident.

Best Buy says the sale was “clearly a mistake on the part of a few employees at a single store.” The company explained in a statement that it doesn’t have pricing for cases of water in its system and employees priced the water “by multiplying the cost of one bottle by the number of bottles in a case.”

The company says it’s “deeply sorry that we gave anyone even the momentary impression that we were trying to take advantage of the situation.”

An emergency management official east of Houston says the area bordering Louisiana is virtually isolated because primary roads are flooded and water levels are rising.

Marcus McLellan, spokesman for the Jefferson County emergency management office in Beaumont, said Wednesday that Interstate 10 is flooded, as are several highways and many secondary roads.

I-10 from Houston to New Orleans is one of the most heavily traveled roads in the country, normally carrying tens of thousands of vehicles each day.

McLellan says he’s stationed at the emergency operations center in downtown Beaumont and to leave the area he’d have to travel east on secondary roads toward Louisiana, which is receiving the brunt of Tropical Storm Harvey.

Beaumont Mayor Becky Ames on Wednesday told NBC’s Today show that every body of water around the city is overflowing and that the rain continues to fall.

A shelter near Houston for at least 100 displaced people has been overrun by Harvey floodwaters, forcing weary evacuees to retreat to bleacher seats.

Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy Marcus McLellan said Wednesday that the Bowers Civic Center in Port Arthur was inundated overnight due to overwhelming rainfall and a nearby overflowing canal.

Cots and belongings have been abandoned on the civic center floor, which is under about a foot (30 centimeters) of water.

McLellan says it’s not clear where the evacuees will go. Some have been at the civic center since Monday.

He says he’s not sure if a Salvation Army shelter in Beaumont has space, and the Beaumont Civic Center can hold 600 people but it’s already at capacity. Beaumont is just northwest of Port Arthur.</s>HOUSTON — A pair of 70-year-old reservoir dams that protect downtown Houston from flooding began overflowing Tuesday, adding to the rising floodwaters from Harvey that have crippled the city after five consecutive days of rain.

Engineers began releasing water from the Addicks and Barker reservoirs Monday to ease the strain on the dams. But the releases were not enough to relive the pressure after one of the heaviest downpours in U.S. history, Army Corps of Engineers officials said. Both reservoirs are at record highs.

The release of the water means that more homes and streets will flood, and some homes will be inundated for up to a month, said Jeff Lindner of the Harris County Flood Control District.

The county is trying to determine where the water will go, Lindner said.

Meanwhile, more than 17,000 people are seeking refuge in Texas shelters, the American Red Cross said. With rescues continuing, that number seemed certain to grow.

Calls for rescue have so overwhelmed emergency teams that they have had little time to search for bodies. And officials acknowledge that fatalities from Harvey could soar once the floodwaters start to recede from one of America’s most sprawling metropolitan centers.

More than four days after the storm ravaged the Texas coastline as a Category 4 hurricane, authorities had confirmed only three deaths — including a woman killed Monday when heavy rains dislodged a large oak tree onto her trailer home in the small town of Porter. But unconfirmed reports of others missing or presumed dead were growing.

“We know in these kinds of events that, sadly, the death toll goes up historically,” Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo told The Associated Press. “I’m really worried about how many bodies we’re going to find.”

One Houston woman said Monday that she presumes six members of a family, including four of her grandchildren, died after their van sank into Greens Bayou in East Houston.

Virginia Saldivar told The Associated Press her brother-in-law was driving the van Sunday when a strong current took the vehicle over a bridge and into the bayou. The driver was able to get out and urged the children to escape through the back door, Saldivar said, but they could not.

“I’m just hoping we find the bodies,” Saldivar said.

Houston emergency officials could not confirm the deaths.

A spokeswoman for a Houston hotel said one of its employees disappeared while helping about 100 guests and workers evacuate the building.

The disaster is unfolding on an epic scale, with the nation’s fourth-largest city mostly paralyzed by the storm that parked itself over the Gulf Coast. With nearly 2 more feet (61 centimeters) of rain expected on top of the 30-plus inches (76 centimeters) in some places, authorities worried the worst might be yet to come.

Early Tuesday, Harvey continued to drench Houston and the surrounding area. Rain fell at about half an inch (1 centimeter) per hour over Harris County — home to Houston — and up to 2 inches (5 centimeters) per hour to the east.

The Houston metro area covers about 10,000 square miles (25,900 square kilometers), an area slightly bigger than New Jersey. It’s crisscrossed by about 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers) of channels, creeks and bayous that drain into the Gulf of Mexico, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) to the southeast from downtown.

President Donald Trump was expected Tuesday in Corpus Christi and Austin for briefings on the first major natural disaster of his administration. Vice President Mike Pence said in an interview with Corpus Christi radio station KKTX that he will visit southeast Texas later this week.

Forecasters expect the storm to linger over the Gulf before heading back inland east of Houston sometime Wednesday. The system will then head north and lose its tropical strength.

It could creep as far east as Mississippi by Thursday, meaning New Orleans, where Hurricane Katrina unleashed its full wrath in 2005, is in Harvey’s path. Foreboding images of Harvey were lighting up weather radar screens early Tuesday, the 12th anniversary of the day Katrina made landfall in Plaquemines Parish.

Rescuers meanwhile continued plucking people from inundated Houston neighborhoods. Mayor Sylvester Turner put the number by police at more than 3,000. The Coast Guard said it also had rescued more than 3,000 by boat and air and was taking more than 1,000 calls per hour.

Chris Thorn was among the many volunteers still helping with the mass evacuation that began Sunday. He drove with a buddy from the Dallas area with their flat-bottom hunting boat to pull strangers out of the water.

“I couldn’t sit at home and watch it on TV and do nothing since I have a boat and all the tools to help,” he said.

Nearly 6,000 inmates displaced by flooding have been moved from prisons in the Houston area to other facilities in South and East Texas, according to the state Department of Criminal Justice.

A mandatory evacuation was ordered for the low-lying Houston suburb of Dickinson, home to 20,000. Police cited the city’s fragile infrastructure in the floods, limited working utilities and concern about the weather forecast.

In Houston, questions continued to swirl about why the mayor did not issue a similar evacuation order.

Turner has repeatedly defended the decision and did so again Monday, insisting that a mass evacuation of millions of people by car was a greater risk than enduring the storm.

“Both the county judge and I sat down together and decided that we were not in direct path of the storm, of the hurricane, and the safest thing to do was for people to stay put, make the necessary preparations. I have no doubt that the decision we made was the right decision.”

He added, “Can you imagine if millions of people had left the city of Houston and then tried to come back in right now?”

By Tuesday morning, more than 9,000 people were at the city’s largest shelter set up inside the George R. Brown Convention Center — which originally had an estimated capacity of 5,000.

Red Cross spokesman Lloyd Ziel said that volunteers made more space inside the center, which also was used to house Hurricane Katrina refugees from New Orleans in 2005, in part by pushing some cots closer together. A shortage of cots means some people will have to sleep on chairs or the floor.

The center settled down at night, after an occasionally chaotic day that saw thousands of evacuees arrive in the pouring rain. Officers and volunteers at times rushed to attend to those with medical needs.

Before the storm is gone, up to 20 more inches (51 centimeters) of rain could fall, National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said Monday.

That means the flooding will get worse in the days ahead and the floodwaters will be slow to recede once Harvey finally moves on, the weather service said.

Sometime Tuesday or early Wednesday, parts of the Houston region will probably break the nearly 40-year-old U.S. record for the biggest rainfall from a tropical system — 48 inches (120 centimeters) — set by Tropical Storm Amelia in 1978 in Texas, meteorologists said.

Associated Press writers Juan Lozano and Nomaan Merchant in Houston and David Warren in Dallas contributed to this report.</s>HOUSTON (AP) — Firefighters began a block-by-block search of tens of thousands of flooded Houston homes Thursday to look for anyone who might have been left behind in Harvey’s fetid floodwaters, and the loss of power at a chemical plant set off explosions that prompted a public health warning.

Searchers will also be looking for any bodies that could add to the confirmed death toll of at least 31. They said it could take up to two weeks to check all neighborhoods that were submerged by more than 4 feet of rain.

As the water began to recede in the nation’s fourth-largest city, the threat of major damage from the storm shifted to a region near the Texas-Louisiana state line.

The fires and two explosions that rocked the Arkema Inc. plant northeast of Houston ignited a 30- to 40-foot flame and sent up a plume of smoke that the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency initially described as “incredibly dangerous.” FEMA later backed away from that statement, saying that Administrator Brock Long issued the warning out of an abundance of caution.

An Environmental Protection Agency analysis of the smoke showed it posed no immediate threat to public health, the agency said.

The French operator of the plant feared that up to eight more chemical containers could burn and explode.

In Houston, the latest surveys indicated that the storm and floodwaters have caused major damage to more than 37,000 homes and destroyed nearly 7,000, the Texas Department of Public Safety reported.

The confirmed death toll now includes six family members — four of them children — whose bodies were pulled Wednesday from a van that had been swept off a Houston bridge into a bayou.

Farther east, Beaumont and Port Arthur struggled with rising water after being pounded with what remained of the weakening storm. Beaumont lost water service after its main pump station was overwhelmed by the swollen Neches River. That forced Baptist Beaumont Hospital to airlift nearly 200 patients to other facilities.

Port Arthur found itself increasingly isolated as floodwaters swamped most major roads out of the city. More than 500 people — along with dozens of dogs, cats, a lizard and a monkey — took shelter at the Max Bowl bowling alley, general manager Jeff Tolliver said.

“The monkey was a little surprising, but we’re trying to help,” he said.

The chemical plant in Crosby lost power after the storm, leaving it without refrigeration for chemicals that become volatile as temperatures rise. Arkema shut down the plant before Harvey made landfall.

The blasts were small and that some deputies suffered irritated eyes from the smoke, fire officials said.

In the largely rural area surrounding the plant, authorities went door to door to explain the situation and called on residents to evacuate, but leaving was not mandatory.

Floodwaters also toppled two oil storage tanks in South Texas, spilling almost 30,000 gallons (114,000 liters) of crude. It was not immediately clear whether any of the spilled oil was recovered. More damage to the oil industry infrastructure is expected to emerge as floodwaters recede.

Forecasters downgraded Harvey to a tropical depression late Wednesday from a tropical storm, but it still has lots of rain and potential damage to spread, with 4 to 8 inches (10 to 20 centimeters) forecast from the Louisiana-Texas line into Tennessee and Kentucky through Friday. Some spots may get as much as a foot, raising the risk of more flooding.

For much of the Houston area, forecasters said the rain is pretty much over.

“We have good news,” said Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the Harris County Flood Control District. “The water levels are going down.”

Residents were warned about the dangers of heat exhaustion if they have lost power or must toil outdoors, with temperatures expected to climb into the low 90s through the weekend.

Houston’s two major airports were up and running again Wednesday. Officials said they were resuming limited bus and light rail service as well as trash pickup.

At Hermann Park, south of downtown, children glided by in strollers and wagons, joggers took in midday runs and couples walked beside cascading fountains and beneath a sparkling sun. People pulled into drive-thru restaurants and emerged from a store with groceries.

At the same time, many thousands of Houston-area homes are under water and could stay that way for days or weeks. And Lindner cautioned that homes near at least one swollen bayou could still get flooded.

Houston-area 911 centers are getting more than 1,000 calls an hour from people seeking help, officials said.

Altogether, more than 1,000 homes in Texas were destroyed and close to 50,000 damaged, and over 32,000 people were in shelters across the state, emergency officials reported. About 10,000 more National Guard troops are being deployed to Texas, bringing the total to 24,000, Gov. Greg Abbott said.

In Orange, Texas, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) east of Beaumont, residents of a retirement home surrounded by thigh-deep water were rescued by National Guardsmen and wildlife officers, who carried them from the second floor and put them aboard an airboat.

Harvey initially came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane in Texas on Friday, then went back out to sea and lingered off the coast as a tropical storm for days, inundating flood-prone Houston.

Harvey’s five straight days of rain totaled close to 52 inches, the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the continental U.S.</s>"We have good news," said Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the Harris County Flood Control District. "The water levels are going down."

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the city's two major airports would be up and running again in the afternoon.

At Hermann Park, south of downtown, children glided by in strollers and wagons, joggers took in midday runs and couples walked beside cascading fountains and beneath a sparkling sun. People pulled into drive-thru restaurants and emerged from a store with groceries.

Xyrius Langston, 26, went fishing along with several family members at a pond in the Houston suburb of Missouri City.

"I've been waiting to go fishing for a while now," he said. "Once the water went down this morning, we were out."

At the same time, many thousands of Houston-area homes are under water and could stay that way for days or weeks. And Lindner cautioned that homes near at least one swollen bayou could still get flooded.

Officials said 911 centres in the Houston area are getting more than 1,000 calls an hour from people seeking help. About 10,000 more National Guard troops are being deployed to Texas, bringing the total to 24,000, Gov. Greg Abbot said.

Altogether, more than 1,000 homes in Texas were destroyed and close to 50,000 damaged, and over 32,000 people were in shelters across the state, emergency officials reported.

"This is going to be an incredibly large disaster," Brock Long, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in Washington. "We're not going to know the true cost for years to come. ... But it's going to be huge."

Maricedalia Osorio, who is living the U.S. without permission, was staying with her seven children at a shelter set up at Houston's NRG Center. She went there only after Houston authorities assured her she would not be asked about her immigration status.

"They know that we have no house," she said of her children, who were waiting in line to eat. "I said, 'We are OK, we are together. We are going to get back everything.'"

Confirmed deaths from the storm include a married couple who drowned after their pickup truck was swept away while they were on the phone with a 911 dispatcher asking for help, officials said.

Others among the dead include a woman whose body was discovered floating in Beaumont, a man who tried to swim across a flooded road, and a woman who died after she and her young daughter were swept into a drainage canal in Beaumont. The child was rescued clinging to her dead mother, authorities said.

When Harvey paid its return visit to land overnight, it hit near Cameron, Louisiana, about 72 kilometres from Port Arthur.

Port Arthur found itself increasingly isolated as flood waters swamped most major roads out of the city and spilled into a storm shelter with about 100 people inside. Motiva Enterprises closed its Port Arthur refinery, the largest in the nation, because of flooding.

Port Arthur Mayor Derrick Freeman posted on his Facebook page: "city is underwater right now but we are coming!" He urged residents to move to higher ground and avoid getting trapped in attics.

More than 500 people — along with dozens of dogs, cats, a lizard and a monkey — took shelter at the Max Bowl bowling alley in Port Arthur after firefighters popped the lock in the middle of the night, said the establishment's general manager, Jeff Tolliver.

"The monkey was a little surprising, but we're trying to help," he said.

In Orange, Texas, about 48 kilometres east of Beaumont, residents of a retirement home surrounded by thigh-deep water were rescued by National Guardsmen and wildlife officers, who carried them from the second floor and put them aboard an airboat.

Harvey initially came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane in Texas on Friday, then went back out to sea and lingered off the coast as a tropical storm for days, inundating flood-prone Houston.

Harvey's five straight days of rain totalled close to 132 centimetres, the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the continental U.S.</s>Tropical Storm Harvey continued to deluge southeast Texas with rain and surging floodwater Tuesday, breaking the record for the most extreme rainfall on the U.S. mainland.

Since Harvey made landfall Friday night as a hurricane, some areas of Houston have seen up to 50 inches of rain — more than they usually receive in a year.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Mont Belvieu industrial suburb east of Houston recorded 51.12 inches of water, breaking the highest previous record of 48 inches from 1978's tropical storm Amelia in Medina, Texas.

"It's the heaviest storm on record anywhere in the U.S. outside Hawaii," said John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas state climatologist and professor at Texas A&M University. "And it's still raining."

With muddy brown water engulfing huge swaths of the nation's fourth-largest city and much of the Gulf Coast, at least 10 people are dead and thousands are in shelters.

Federal officials have estimated as many as 30,000 displaced residents may seek temporary shelter and more than 450,000 people likely are to seek federal aid.

"In four days, we've seen a trillion gallons of water in Harris County — enough water to run Niagara Falls for 15 days," said Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the Harris County Flood Control District, who estimated as many as 100,000 homes in the 1,777-square-mile area had flooded. "It's beyond anything we've ever seen and will probably ever see."

As a light rain continued to drizzle, a reservoir west of downtown Houston spilled over for the first time in its history, leaving yet more residents desperately scrambling to safety.

In a Tuesday morning press briefing, Police Chief Art Acevedo said officers had rescued 3,500 people across the city and were launching more boats in the water every hour. They also arrested a crew of armed robbers who were hijacking vehicles.

"We're still trying to get to folks," Acevedo said. "Don't give up on us. Seek the higher ground. We will get to you."

Overnight, the number of people sheltering at the George R. Brown convention center swelled to 9,000 people. Its capacity is supposed to be 5,000. Mayor Sylvester Turner said the city asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for cots and food for an additional 10,000 people, and officials are planning to open other mega shelters.

"We are not turning anyone away," Turner said.

Houston highways remained mostly empty and blocked by police early Tuesday. A few cars and trucks navigated wet streets downtown.

Families still were arriving at the massive convention center, some with sleeping pads and rain boots, others with their belongings in garbage bags. Some feared for relatives left behind, and others worried they might soon face shortages of food and other supplies.

By Tuesday, the death toll had risen to at least 10 after a man in Montgomery County, north of Houston, drowned Monday night while trying to swim across a flooded road.

Officials in Harris County, which includes Houston, have reported at least six "potentially storm-related" fatalities. A 60-year-old woman died Monday in Porter, a small community north of Houston, when a large oak tree fell on her mobile home. Another person died in the small coastal town of Rockport, near where Harvey made landfall. A 52-year-old homeless man was found dead in La Marque, a small city near Galveston.

Early Tuesday, a major dam outside Houston began to overflow, threatening some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods to the west of the city. Engineers had tried to prevent Addicks Reservoir from overspilling by releasing some of its water Monday, but flood control officials reported Tuesday morning that water was beginning to seep over the top of a spillway, the first time water had breached the dam.

In some areas, the water in the Houston area was so deep that rain sensors no longer were working. The Harris County Flood Control District, a government agency that works to reduce the effects of flooding in the area that includes Houston, announced multiple water level and rain sensors were out of service due to flooding.

In Brazoria County, south of Houston, the Brazos River was beginning to overflow its banks. On Tuesday morning, a levee breached in the Columbia Lakes neighborhood.

"We are asking residents to please get out," said Sharon Trower, a spokeswoman for the county, which already has rescued hundreds of residents after severe flooding from heavy rainfall. "The additional river flooding is just going to be catastrophic."

Major roads throughout the county already were closed because of flooding.

While catastrophic flooding continues across southeast Texas, flash flood watches dropped for western portions of the Houston area as light to moderate rain fell Monday night. The National Weather Service said the threat of flooding is gradually shifting east.

"Expect improving conditions this afternoon and evening across the area as Harvey pushes northeast," the National Weather Service's Houston/Galveston office said in an update.

After assuring Texas on Monday that Congress would deliver swift federal aid, President Donald Trump visited the storm-ravaged state Tuesday.

As Harvey moved closer to neighboring Louisiana on the 12th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu urged residents to stay home and shelter in place.

A few inches of rain could cause serious problems in New Orleans, which still is recovering from flooding after thunderstorms this month overwhelmed the city's drainage system.

More than 5 inches of rain fell in some parts of the city Monday, causing localized floods. Flash flood watches were in effect as meteorologists forecast 4 more inches of rain Tuesday.

"Today, we are a resilient city with greater resolve, but we remain vigilant in the face of another threatening storm," Landrieu said in a statement. "While this is a somber day for New Orleanians, the determination and spirit of our people gives us great hope for the future."</s>A van that was reportedly swept away during by Harvey flooding with six family members still trapped inside has been found, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said on Wednesday.

A van that was reportedly swept away during by Harvey flooding with six family members still trapped inside has been found, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said on Wednesday.

(Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle via AP). Chris Gutierrez, second from right, helps his grandmother, Edelmira Gutierrez, down the stairs of their flooded house and into a waiting fire department truck in the Concord Bridge neighborhood as Addicks Rese...

(Michael Ciaglo/Houston Chronicle via AP). People wade through chest deep water down Pine Cliff Drive as Addicks Reservoir nears capacity due to near constant rain from Tropical Storm Harvey, Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017 in Houston.

(Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman via AP). Volunteer Elizabeth Hill, 8, plays with evacuee Skyler Smith, 7, at a shelter at St. Thomas Presbyterian Church in west Houston as Tropical Storm Harvey continues to affect the area Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017.

(Godofredo A. Vasquez/Houston Chronicle via AP). The Arkema Inc. chemical plant is flooded from Tropical Storm Harvey, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017, in Crosby, Texas. The plant, about 25 miles (40.23 kilometers) northeast of Houston, lost power and its bac...

(Melissa Phillip/Houston Chronicle via AP). CORRECTS CREDIT - Danny Hannon carries his dry boots in his backpack as he goes to check his home in the aftermath of Harvey, Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2017 in Houston. Harvey's floodwaters started dropping across ...

HOUSTON (AP) - The Latest on Tropical Depression Harvey (all times local):

Officials say flood waters are expected to be gone from most of Houston and Harris County by late Friday or early Saturday.

Jeff Lindner, meteorologist for the Harris County Flood Control District, said Harvey flooded an estimated 136,000 structures in Harris County, or 10 percent of all structures in the county database. He called that a conservative estimate.

Lindner said 70 percent of the county's land mass, or about 1300 square miles, was submerged by at least 1½ feet of water. The heaviest rainfall recorded in Harris County was 47.4 inches on Clear Creek at Interstate 45 in the southeastern part of the county, near the NASA Johnson Space Center.

He said there has been a very slight fall in the waters of Buffalo Bayou, which flows past downtown Houston into the Houston Ship Channel, but flood waters remain in the residential areas on the margins of the Addicks and Barker reservoirs that control flooding on Buffalo Bayou and the Houston Ship Channel. Col. Lars Zetterstrom, commander of the Galveston District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, says they remain full but that their water pools have lowered very slightly.

Zindner said the reservoirs will take three months to fully drain after 35 to 40 inches of rain fell on their watershed.

Zetterstrom says that the Addicks and Barker dams are withstanding their load well.

Houston firefighters are finishing the first of six areas where they went door-to-door checking for anyone left behind in the Harvey flooding.

Fire Chief Sam Pena says firefighters hope to complete the checks in all six areas on Friday. He did not say whether anyone was found dead or alive.

Deputy Police Chief Larry Satterwhite says police have received 30 reports of missing people since Harvey began and have found 11 of those. He says authorities believe most of the remaining 19 have lost the means to communicate and are either in shelters or otherwise safe. He cautioned not to assume they are dead: "It doesn't mean the worst." The death toll from Harvey so far is 32.

Mayor Sylvester Turner says areas on the east and west sides of the city are still dealing with flooding issues, but the rest of Houston is "drying out and drying out well" and traffic is returning to the streets.

Turner says Houston is "turning the corner," with the number of people decreasing in city emergency shelters. He expects to move people from the Toyota Center downtown to the nearby George R. Brown Convention Center on Friday. The convention center, which once housed 10,000 people at one point, sheltered about 8,000 late Thursday.

Officials say a 61-year-old Southeast Texas woman has become the 32nd person confirmed to have died in Texas because of Harvey.

Newton County Sheriff Billy Rowles says Clementine Thomas died Wednesday afternoon when the car she was driving was swept from Texas 87 south of Newton, about 60 miles northeast of Beaumont.

In a statement Thursday, Rowles said witnesses reported that several people risked their lives to rescue Thomas but were unsuccessful. Her body was recovered Thursday afternoon.

Law enforcement officials from the federal government and Texas and Louisiana have formed a working group to investigate and prosecute illegal activity related to Hurricane Harvey.

Houston-based Acting U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez says storm victims already have suffered devastation and "the last thing that victims of the damage need is to be victimized again."

Authorities say bringing about a dozen agencies together into a single focused group is an optimal way to address calls they're already getting about scams in the wake of Harvey. Those calls are going to relevant agencies.

He says they're also employing lessons learned from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and will bring "a comprehensive law enforcement focus" against illegal activities.

Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton says there's no place for fraud or shady practices in rebuilding Texas and Louisiana.

Local officials in the southeast Texas city of Beaumont struggled to cope after flooding swamped the municipal water system.

The already swollen Neches River rose further as water from more northerly reaches made its way toward the Gulf of Mexico. It led to more rescues by helicopter and boat just like Houston had seen days before, but also to the water system failure. Beaumont's main water pumps are in the Neches, but by early Thursday morning they were underwater. The backups failed, too.

Kyle Hayes, manager of the city of about 120,000 people, said the flooding is making it hard to send in water and other needed resources. The city was still trying to amass enough water to open water distribution stations. Hayes said one truck had arrived Thursday morning.

Donald Marvels runs Beaumont's branch of the Salvation Army. He said he gave out at least 1,500 cases of water Thursday. Flooding was causing problems for his convoy of storm responders trying to get to Beaumont.

The head of the Texas agency that regulates the oil and gas industry is urging people to wait three or four days to fill their cars and trucks with gasoline if they can.

Railroad Commissioner Ryan Sitton said Thursday that people are panicking and that's causing a run on gas and empty fuel pumps.

He says there is plenty of gas in Houston and elsewhere, but there are logistical problems of making sure all of the stations are getting it.

He says he doesn't think it will be an issue a week from now as long as people stay calm and fill up their tanks as they normally would.

A health expert warns standing water from Harvey could create a boom in the mosquito population and the potential transmission of mosquito-borne diseases.

Joon Lee is a medical entomologist at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. He says Harvey's floodwaters will wash away immature mosquito populations from their breeding grounds, but they can be quickly re-established in stagnant water. Lee says mosquito populations will likely explode within the next two weeks and will stay for at least a month or two.

Lee says that could be mean increased transmission of potentially life-threatening, mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile virus and St. Louis encephalitis. Lee says outbreaks of Zika, dengue fever and Chikungunya are also possible, but those diseases must originate from a person already infected.

The Trump administration is trying to assure victims of Harvey living in the country illegally that they will not be targeted as they try to access emergency services - as long as they haven't committed other crimes.

Trump's Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert says that: "in terms of immediate lifesaving, no individual human being should worry about their immigration status unless they've committed a crime on top of coming here illegally when it comes to getting food, water and shelter."

He also says that no routine sweeps will be conducted in emergency shelters.

Still, he said that people living in the country illegally should not expect long-term federal assistance reserved for citizens.

He says: "I don't think there's going to be a lot of benefits going out to illegal immigrants."

A Texas A&M University analysis of floodwater samples from the Houston area shows E. coli levels that are 125 times higher than is considered safe for swimming.

Terry Gentry, an associate professor in the university's Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, says even walking through floodwater could lead to infections and other problems.

Gentry says tests from a sample in Cypress, a suburb northwest of Houston, showed bacteria levels 15 times higher than acceptable for wading.

E. coli in water isn't what causes illnesses but is an "indicator bacteria" that signals the presence of fecal matter, which can make people sick.

Filling fuel tanks is becoming increasingly difficult in parts of Texas where some stations were out of gas and pump costs have risen steeply.

In Dallas, lines of cars a block long were common for the few gas stations that had gasoline to sell Thursday. The scene was reminiscent of the gas lines seen during the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s.

One Chevron station in downtown Dallas that sold regular gas for $2.29 a gallon just before the storm was charging $2.99 on Thursday. Others charged well over $3, and one downtown Shell station charged $3.97 for a regular gallon of gas. At three gas stations in north Dallas, yellow bags or caution tape was wrapped around pumps just after noon.

The Texas attorney general's office said anyone seeing gas prices of $4 or higher should take pictures and report the stations as price-gouging.

The U.S. Postal Service has posted a list of locations where Houston-area residents can pick up government benefit checks after Harvey forced the temporary closing of several post offices.

The list posted Thursday includes pickup site addresses by ZIP code. Government checks including Social Security payments, Department of Veterans Affairs disability benefits and checks from the Office of Personnel Management and the Railroad Retirement Board can be picked up starting Friday. The locations will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Sunday.

The Postal Service says to pick up a check, customers must show proper identification. Customers can also complete a change of address request if they expect to be out of their homes for an extended period.

Houston public schools will start classes two weeks late on Sept. 11 because of Harvey.

The nation's seventh-largest school district had been scheduled to start classes on Monday until Hurricane Harvey stormed ashore in Southeast Texas, leading to devastating flooding in Houston.

Houston also is the largest public school district in Texas, with about 216,000 students and 283 campuses.

Officials at Beaumont's other hospital say they've decided not to move their patients elsewhere but are operating under "extreme emergency conditions."

Christus St. Elizabeth issued a statement Thursday saying 256 patients will remain at the Texas hospital, which gets its water from wells and has a store of potable water.

The statement came hours after Baptist Beaumont Hospital said it was airlifting its nearly 200 patients to other facilities because it no longer had potable water and access was limited by flooding.

The city of about 120,000 people has been hit hard by flooding from Harvey, which came ashore last Friday as a Category 4 hurricane and hovered for days in the region.

The National Weather Service is forecasting flooding in Kentucky and Tennessee as Tropical Depression Harvey travels inland.

Forecasters say the storm is expected to drop 2 inches to 6 inches (50 to 152.4 millimeters) of rain in Kentucky, with the highest totals expected in western Kentucky near the Tennessee border. The heaviest rainfall for a wide swath of the state is expected to start late Thursday and last through Friday afternoon. Forecasters say high winds from the storm could also produce tornadoes.

Some locations in Tennessee could get more than 10 inches (254 millimeters), though most will get 4 inches to 8 inches (101 to 203 millimeters). The say high winds from the storm could also produce tornadoes. The weather service issued a flood warning for areas along several rivers in West Tennessee while a flood watch included the whole region and stretched into Middle Tennessee.

Harvey dumped nearly 52 inches (1321 millimeters)of rain on at least one spot in Texas.. It has caused more than 30 deaths.

The county in Texas that has had the most deaths from Harvey says its morgue is close to capacity because of storm-related bodies and deaths that are not related to the flooding.

Tricia Bentley, spokeswoman for the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences said Thursday that funeral homes have been unable to retrieve the bodies in the aftermath of the storm and it has asked for a large refrigerated 18-wheeler to store more of them.

The county has confirmed 18 storm-related deaths and is investigating 10 more as potentially Harvey-related.

Bentley says the morgue has about 175 bodies total - most of them not related to the storm - and it has a capacity of 200. The agency has requested approval from the state for the tractor-trailer and expects to receive it Friday.

So far, the death toll from Harvey is at least 30.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared Sunday a day of prayer for his waterlogged state.

The Republican governor and Vice President Mike Pence visited a church in the city of Rockport on Thursday that was damaged when Harvey came ashore last Friday as a Category 4 hurricane.

Abbott says Texans will pray on Sunday for those affected by the storm and for everyone who has helped them, including first-responders.

Harvey has caused record flooding in parts of the state and has been blamed for the deaths of more than 30 people.

The Harris County Director for FEMA says the federal disaster agency is looking for unique ways to house the tens of thousands of people whose homes were damaged or destroyed by Harvey.

Tom Fargione said Thursday that FEMA hasn't discounted any ideas because the housing problem is so big.

He says the first priority is getting people out of shelters and into some other form of temporary housing.

FEMA's use of mobile homes following Hurricane Katrina became an issue after unhealthy formaldehyde emissions were detected in the trailers.

Fargione says the agency has trailers in stock and has ordered more, but that they aren't necessarily the best solution.

He says people need to register with the agency to start the process of getting federal help.

Beaumont officials say it's unclear when their Texas city will be able to provide residents with potable water.

City manager Kyle Hayes said during a news conference Thursday that continually rising flood waters on the Neches River are covering pumps that are the primary source for drinking water.

Hayes says city workers won't be able to check the pumps for any needed repairs until the water recedes.

Beaumont's backup water source in nearby Hardin County also has failed.

Earlier Thursday, Baptist Beaumont Hospital evacuated nearly 200 patients by air because of the lack of water.

The city plans to get bottled water as soon as possible and make it available to residents.

The U.S. Border Patrol says it has rescued about 450 people since dispatching vessels to the Houston area on Monday.

John Morris, chief of staff in South Texas, says agents are not enforcing immigration laws and are "absolutely 100 percent here for rescue and safety."

Morris says the agency had 35 boats navigating flooded streets on Thursday. They were brought from stations that patrol areas along the Rio Grande, which is the busiest corridor for illegal crossings.

The Border Patrol did not suspend highway checkpoints in Texas when the storm moved into parts of the state, drawing criticism from advocates who said lives were being put at risk. The arrival of Border Patrol boats in Houston has put some immigrants on edge, but agency leaders have been emphatic that they are only being used for search and rescue.

A company that operates a pipeline that moves nearly 40 percent of the South's gasoline estimates that it will resume carrying fuel through Texas by Sunday.

Steve Baker, a spokesman for Colonial Pipeline, said Thursday that the pipeline is underwater in parts of Texas dealing with flooding from Harvey and that those sections would have to be inspected before it could resume operating. But he says the pipeline is still operating from Louisiana to the eastern states, though deliveries will be "intermittent."

Reopening the shuttered Texas sections of pipeline could help avoid major gas shortages, but huge challenges remain, as several giant Texas refineries were shut down due to the storm.

All of these problems have sent gasoline prices surging. The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline has risen from about $2.35 a week ago to $2.45 now.

Gasoline prices in Texas and across the country have increased by at least 10 cents since Harvey came ashore and caused record flooding in places.

AAA Texas on Thursday reported the average price at the pump statewide was $2.26 per gallon. That's 12 cents higher than a week ago, before Harvey made landfall, and 4 cents higher than on Wednesday.

The association survey says U.S. gasoline prices Thursday averaged $2.45 per gallon, which is 10 cents higher than a week ago and 5 cents more than on Wednesday.

Harvey made landfall along the Texas coast last Friday and lingered in the region for days, causing catastrophic flooding, killing at least 31 people and causing major disruption to the region's energy sector.

The House will act as early as next week to provide money for relief from tropical storm Harvey.

That's according to a House leadership aide who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private deliberations.

Members of the Texas and Louisiana delegation are pressing for fast action when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill from their summer recess next week.

The initial money would be a down payment for immediate recovery efforts - to be followed by a larger aid package later on. It will take weeks or months to assess the full extent of the damage and the needs.

It's not yet known how much money the administration will ask for but a request from the White House is expected within days.

Troy Callihan says he asked his younger brother, Travis, to ride out Harvey with him and his family in the Houston suburbs, but he declined, saying he'd "just kind of hunker down."

Travis Callihan, who lived in Houston, died Monday when he left his pickup truck and fell into floodwaters during the storm.

Troy Callihan told The Associated Press on Wednesday that he's still trying to get more details on exactly what happened.

He says he'll really miss his 45-year-old brother, whom he described as a conservative talk radio fan with a dry sense of humor and a good uncle to his nieces and nephews.

Harvey came ashore last Friday as a Category 4 hurricane and hovered over the region for days, causing record flooding. The confirmed death toll from the storm stood Thursday at 31.

One of the nation's largest convenience store chains plans to stop selling gasoline at about half of its 135 stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, as it anticipates shortages due to refinery and pipeline shut-downs.

QuickTrip spokesman Mike Thornbrugh told The Associated Press on Thursday that the company will direct gasoline deliveries to half of its stores, and intends to have stores with gas in all parts of the metro area. All stores will remain open, though only half will have gasoline.

The company is enacting its plan after several major refineries and a key gasoline pipeline shut down after Harvey slammed into the Gulf Coast.

Oklahoma-based QuickTrip enacted a similar plan last year in metro Atlanta, where it has about 133 stores, when the Colonial Pipeline closed due to a leak in Alabama.

The Texas Department of Public Safety reports that more than 37,000 homes have sustained major damage and nearly 7,000 have been destroyed by Harvey and its flooding.

Those figures come from a daily damage estimate compiled from reports by local officials and the figures have been rising.

Harris County, which includes Houston, reports that nearly 30,000 homes suffered minor damage and nearly 12,000 have major damage. Jefferson County, which includes Port Arthur and Beaumont, reports that 5,500 homes were destroyed and 16,000 others sustained major damage in areas where officials have warned that flooding could continue for days.

The report says there has been $180 million in damage to public property across the affected Gulf Coast counties so far.

A Southeast Texas hospital is evacuating nearly 200 patients by air after the local water supply failed because of flooding from Harvey.

Baptist Beaumont Hospital spokeswoman Mary Poole said Thursday that Beaumont's main pumping station lost service so the hospital no longer has potable water.

Poole says access to the hospital is limited, so patients will be airlifted to other facilities.

She says the acute care hospital is working with HCA Healthcare to move patients to facilities that system has in the Houston suburb of Pasadena and elsewhere.

It's not known if Beaumont's other hospital, Christus St. Elizabeth, is being evacuated. A message left for an administrator was not immediately returned.

The U.S. Navy is sending two ships to provide humanitarian aid to areas affected by Harvey.

News outlets report that the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge and the dock landing ship USS Oak Hill are set to depart Virginia for the Gulf Coast on Thursday.

The ships can provide medical support and maritime security, among other things.

North Carolina, meanwhile, is sending five swift water rescue teams to help out. The state's Department of Public Safety says the teams can conduct a variety of rescues, including using small boats and other equipment to rescue people from flooded homes.

Harvey initially came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane in Texas on Friday, then went back out to sea and lingered off the coast as a tropical storm for days, inundating flood-prone Houston.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told lawmakers from Texas and Louisiana on a conference call that "we are with you."

The call Wednesday night included federal officials from the Department of Homeland Security. They say the full scope of damages might not be known for weeks or more.

No specific dollar figures or timing was discussed, according to a House GOP aide who requested anonymity to disclose details of the private conversation.

But there will likely be the need for immediate support - and McCarthy and other leaders made clear the House is prepared to act.

Congress returns next week from its August recess and a response to Harvey will be at the top of the agenda.

Colonial Pipeline says it plans to shut down a key line that supplies gasoline to the South due to storm-related refinery shutdowns and Harvey's effect on its facilities west of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

The Georgia-based company said in a statement that it expects to shut off the line Thursday. The company had already closed down another line that transports primarily diesel and aviation fuels.

The pipeline provides nearly 40 percent of the South's gasoline.

In September 2016, a leak and gas spill in Alabama that closed the Colonial Pipeline led to days of empty gas station pumps and higher prices in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

The company didn't say how long it expects the closure to last, saying it will know more when workers can evaluate its facilities.

Local officials say explosions at a flooded Houston-area chemical plant produced no toxins, although federal authorities are describing the resulting plumes as "incredibly dangerous."

Assistant Harris County Fire Chief Bob Royall told a news conference Thursday that the explosions emitted 30- to 40-foot (9- to 12-meter) flames and black smoke.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said no toxins were released and that there's no danger to the community. He says sheriff's deputies who were hospitalized suffering from irritated eyes after the blasts have all been released.

But at a news conference in Washington, D.C. Thursday, FEMA administrator Brock Long said he considers plumes from the explosion "incredibly dangerous."

Gonzalez says he expects the fire to burn itself out.

This item has been altered to correct the spelling of Bob Royall's name. It had been misspelled as Rayall.

A Houston mother is warning people in the area to stay out of Harvey's floodwaters after her son was electrocuted while wading through the water to check on his sister's home.

Jodell Pasek says her 25-year-old son Andrew was unaware that a landscape light had electrified the water when he stepped into it Tuesday afternoon. She said he fell and grabbed a lamppost and told a friend who was with him to stay away because he was dying.

She says she's speaking out despite her grief to ensure her son didn't lose his life in vain.

Pasek lost her older son in a car accident in 1993. She tells KPRC-TV that she's pulling her strength from that experience.

Two explosions have been reported at a Houston-area chemical plant that lost power amid flooding from Harvey.

The Houston Chronicle says a statement from the company says the Harris County Emergency Operations Center reported two explosions and black smoke coming from the Arkema Inc. plant early Thursday.

In a tweet, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said a deputy was taken to the hospital after inhaling fumes. Nine other deputies drove themselves to the hospital as a precaution, the paper reported.

A spokeswoman for the plant in Crosby, Texas, said late Wednesday that the flooded facility had lost power and backup generators amid Harvey flooding, leaving it without refrigeration for chemicals that become volatile as the temperature rises.

Beaumont, Texas, has lost its water supply because of Harvey.

Officials there say the city has lost service from its main pump station due to rising waters of the Neches River caused by Harvey.

The pump station is along the river and draws water from it as a main source for the city's water system.

The officials added in their statement early Thursday that the city has also lost its secondary water source at the Loeb wells in Hardin County. They say there's no water supply for Beaumont's water system at this time.

They say they must wait until the water levels from Harvey recede before determining the extent of damage.

Major dangers for the U.S. Gulf Coast area loomed Wednesday with the threat of major flooding further east near the Texas-Louisiana line and an explosion at a Texas chemical plant as Harvey's floodwaters began receding in the Houston area after five days of torrential rain.

As the water receded, Houston's fire department said it would begin a block-by-block search Thursday of thousands of flooded homes. The confirmed death toll climbed to at least 31 on Wednesday, including six family members - four of them children - whose bodies were pulled Wednesday from a van that had been swept off a Houston bridge into a bayou.

Another crisis related to Harvey emerged at a chemical plant about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Houston. A spokeswoman for the Arkema Inc. plant in Crosby, Texas, said late Wednesday that the flooded facility had lost power and backup generators, leaving it without refrigeration for chemicals that become volatile as the temperature rises.

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Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.</s>HOUSTON — Harvey’s floodwaters started dropping across much of the Houston area and the sun came out Wednesday in a glimmer of hope for the stricken city, even as the storm doubled back toward land and pounded communities farther east, near the Texas-Louisiana line.

The scope of the devastation caused by the hurricane came into sharper focus, meanwhile, and the murky green floodwaters from the record-breaking, 4-foot deluge of rain began yielding up bodies as predicted.

The confirmed death toll climbed to 23, including six family members — four of them children — whose bodies were pulled Wednesday from a van that had been swept off a Houston bridge into a bayou.

Authorities are investigating at least 17 more deaths to determine whether they were storm-related.

“Unfortunately, it seems that our worst thoughts are being realized,” Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said after the van that disappeared over the weekend was found in 10 feet of muddy water.

 While conditions in the nation’s fourth-largest city appeared to improve, authorities warned that the crisis in Houston and across the region is far from over. The storm, in fact, took a turn for the worse east of the city, close to the Louisiana line.

Beaumont and Port Arthur, Texas, struggled with rising floodwaters and worked to evacuate residents after Harvey completed a U-turn in the Gulf of Mexico and rolled ashore early Wednesday for the second time in six days. It hit southwestern Louisiana as a tropical storm with heavy rain and winds of 45 mph.

Forecasters predicted that a wobbling and weakening Harvey would be downgraded to a tropical depression late Wednesday or early Thursday and completely dissipate within three to four days.

 But it still has lots of rain and potential damage to spread, with 4 to 8 inches forecast from the Louisiana-Texas line into Tennessee and Kentucky through Friday. Some spots may get as much as a foot, raising the risk of more flooding.

For much of the Houston area, forecasters said the rain is pretty much over.

“We have good news,” said Jeff Lindner, a meteorologist with the Harris County Flood Control District. “The water levels are going down.”

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the city’s two major airports would be up and running again in the afternoon.

At Hermann Park, south of downtown, children glided by in strollers and wagons, joggers took in midday runs and couples walked beside cascading fountains and beneath a sparkling sun. People pulled into drive-thru restaurants and emerged from a store with groceries.

At the same time, many thousands of Houston-area homes are under water and could stay that way for days or weeks. And Lindner cautioned that homes near at least one swollen bayou could still get flooded.

Officials said 911 centers in the Houston area are getting more than 1,000 calls an hour from people seeking help.

In Houston’s flooded Meyerland neighborhood, hundreds of families emptied their homes of sodden possessions under a baking sun as the temperature climbed into the 90s. They piled up couches, soggy drywall and carpets ripped out of foul-smelling homes where the floodwaters had lingered for more than 24 hours.

The curbs were lined with the pickup trucks of cleanup contractors and friends.

For Harry Duffey, a 48-year-old computer security specialist, this was flood No. 3 in as many years. Just before the flood, he got a notice that his flood insurance premium had nearly doubled to $5,300 a year.

“Everywhere we look this water has cost me money after money after money. It just does not end,” he said. But he said he has no intention of moving: “This is in my blood. This is where I’m from.”

Altogether, more than 1,000 homes in Texas were destroyed and close to 50,000 damaged, and over 32,000 people were in shelters across the state, emergency officials reported. About 10,000 more National Guard troops are being deployed to Texas, bringing the total to 24,000, Gov. Greg Abbott said.

“This is going to be an incredibly large disaster,” Brock Long, chief of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in Washington. “We’re not going to know the true cost for years to come. … But it’s going to be huge.”

Confirmed deaths from the storm include a married couple who drowned after their pickup truck was swept away while they were on the phone with a 911 dispatcher asking for help, officials said.

Others among the dead include a woman whose body was discovered floating in Beaumont, a man who tried to swim across a flooded road, and a woman who died after she and her young daughter were swept into a drainage canal in Beaumont. The child was rescued clinging to her dead mother, authorities said.

When Harvey paid its return visit to land overnight, it hit near Cameron, Louisiana, about 45 miles from Port Arthur.

Port Arthur found itself increasingly isolated as floodwaters swamped most major roads out of the city and spilled into a storm shelter with about 100 people inside. Motiva Enterprises closed its Port Arthur refinery, the largest in the nation, because of flooding.

Port Arthur Mayor Derrick Freeman posted on his Facebook page: “city is underwater right now but we are coming!” He urged residents to move to higher ground and avoid getting trapped in attics.

 More than 500 people — along with dozens of dogs, cats, a lizard and a monkey — took shelter at the Max Bowl bowling alley in Port Arthur after firefighters popped the lock in the middle of the night, said the establishment’s general manager, Jeff Tolliver.

“The monkey was a little surprising, but we’re trying to help,” he said.

In Orange, Texas, about 30 miles east of Beaumont, residents of a retirement home surrounded by thigh-deep water were rescued by National Guardsmen and wildlife officers, who carried them from the second floor and put them aboard an airboat.

Harvey initially came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane in Texas on Friday, then went back out to sea and lingered off the coast as a tropical storm for days, inundating flood-prone Houston.

 Harvey’s five straight days of rain totaled close to 52 inches, the heaviest tropical downpour ever recorded in the continental U.S.

Associated Press writers Frank Bajak, Matt Sedensky and Michael Graczyk in Houston; Diana Heidgerd and David Warren in Dallas; Seth Borenstein in Washington; Paul J. Weber in Austin, Texas; and Tammy Webber in Chicago contributed to this report.
A Harris County Flood Control District official says at the height of the flooding, 70 percent of the county’s 1,800 square miles, which includes the city of Houston, was covered with at least 1.5 feet of water, an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.