Hurricane Harvey Relief: Jewish Federation of Cleveland Raising Money

BEACHWOOD, OH — The Jewish Federation of Cleveland is raising money for victims of Hurricane Harvey. The organization is continuing to raise funds but has already contributed $25,000 to relief efforts.

Hurricane Harvey has devastated the city of Houston and much of the Texas coast. By Monday afternoon, eight people have died because of the storm. First responders and good Samaritans are searching neighborhoods by boat to look for thousands still stranded in their homes, and mass evacuations are underway while Harvey regroups for another landfall on Tuesday.

The CEO of the Houston Jewish Federation, Lee Wunsch, says the amount of rain and resulting flooding is worse than the last massive storm that swept through the area. (To stay up to date on these stories, subscribe to the Patch Beachwood newsletter. As news breaks and the story develops, you will be the first to receive updates from Patch.)

"People whose homes are flooding are being advised to go up to their roofs so they can be evacuated; emergency workers were evacuating stranded residents throughout the night," Wunsch said in a statement from the Jewish Federation of Cleveland.

Harvey, now a tropical storm, has dropped up to 40 inches of rain in some parts of Houston and surrounding cities. Forecasters say more is on the way, which means this storm’s totality could be more than 50 inches of rain when it’s all said and done. Of note, Houston averages 50 inches of rainfall a year, making this a catastrophic event.

“This is a landmark event for Texas,” said FEMA Administrator Brock Long. “Texas has never seen an event like this.”

The Jewish Federation of Cleveland says several Jewish communal institutions in the Houston-area have been flooded, but the scope of the damage has not yet been assessed.

Donations can be made to the Federation's relief efforts by clicking here.

To learn more about the storm, read this story from one of Patch's Houston-based reporters.

Scott McDonald, Patch, contributed to this report

Top image: A resident walks down a flooded street in the upscale River Oaks neighborhood after it was inundated with water from Hurricane Harvey on Aug. 27 in Houston. Harvey, which made landfall north of Corpus Christi late Friday evening, is expected to dump upwards to 40 inches of rain in Texas over the next couple of days.

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images