Hurricane Harvey: Brazos River Rising After 5 Days Of Unrelenting Rain

FORT BEND COUNTY, TX — Officials in Fort Bend County are beginning to survey the horrific damage left after five days of unrelenting rain as Hurricane Harvey pounded the Houston area.

Like communities all along the Texas Gulf Coast, the cities of Sugar Land, Missouri City, Richmond and Rosenberg were hard hit with some areas falling under a mandatory evacuation order from Fort Bend County Emergency Management. (Want to get daily updates about Hurricane Harvey and other events going on in your area? Sign up for the free Sugar Land Patch morning newsletter.)

Missouri City Mayor Allen Owen said police and firefighters have been working around-the-clock since Saturday to rescue people who were stranded by the high water. The city has instituted a curfew to protect the city from looters, he said,

Also See: Houston Turns To 'Cajun Navy' And Civilian Fleets To Help With Rescues

“Missouri City and Sugar Land were impacted very heavily (by this flood),” Owen said.

READ: Harvey Continues Wrath While Houston Rescues And Recovers

There are about 100 homes in the Lake Olympia Subdivision that have taken on water, as well as dozens more in Missouri City, he said.

Sugar Land Mayor Joe Zimmerman said he and other city officials have begun surveying the area, particularly area levees along the Brazos River that were evacuated on Monday

Residents in Sienna Plantation and Pecan Grove fled the storm after the City of Sugar Land issued a mandatory evacuation order on Monday.

RELATED: Hurricane Harvey: Mandatory Evacuations In Pecan Grove, Sienna Plantation

“We have been coordinating with Fort Bend County, and we’ve been coordinating with the other cities and we’ve been getting reports from the National Weather Services about when the river is going to crest,” Zimmerman said.

The National Weather Service predicted that the Brazos River would crest at 59 feet by Tuesday, but new data shows that the river is at 56 feet, which is still a higher than the previous record from the 2016 flood.

Still, the chances of the river rising higher are still likely as water flows downstream.

Robert Delgado, who lives in Richmond, spent three days volunteering with evacuation efforts on the Brazos River.

Many of the families that he and others helped evacuate live in the affected areas of Pecan Grove and Sienna Plantation in Sugar Land, but not all of them left and may require a helicopter if the river does indeed crest at catastrophic levels.

“They just didn’t want to listen,” he told Patch.

As he was driving home, he was informed that the Brazos River flowing into Wharton, south of Fort Bend County, is flooding residents out of their homes. They need help evacuating.

“Some of them are in water up to their chest,” Delgado said.

But the water is still rising in some areas, and the real question may be if the levees along the Brazos River can hold, or if those residents who stayed behind will dodge a bullet.

“A lot of people are being stubborn and they think they’re going to be OK,” Delgado said. “We don’t want a situation that’s dangerous for us when we have to come and get them. It’s bad.”

Epic Flooding: : Familes are unloaded at Memorial Drive and North Eldridge Parkway in the Energy Corridor of west Houston, Texas where residents were rescued from their flooded homes and apartments due to high water coming from the Addicks Reservoir after Hurricane Harvey on August 30, 2017 in Houston, Texas. Harvey, which made landfall north of Corpus Christi August 25, has dumped more than 50 inches of rain in some areas in and around Houston. (Photo by Erich Schlegel/Getty Images)

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