Houston by air: A sunken city emptied of inhabitants
A deserted city, now populated by birds and patrolling boats, awaits the retreat of the floodwaters with increasing apprehension.
Thursday 31 August 2017 04:12, UK
From 800ft above Houston, the scale of Harvey's devastation is all too apparent.
Whole stretches are a sunken city, almost emptied of inhabitants, populated only by birds and the odd patrolling boat.
From the air we witnessed a few people still jumping aboard rescue craft and heading out to dry land.
The professional and volunteer boat crews desolately hope that people in neighbourhoods at risk heeded the advice to evacuate.
But no-one knows for sure how many people are hunkered down inside their homes. They don't know how many may have died there.
Buffeted by strong winds from the departing Harvey, we swung across the areas still suffering new and worrying surges of water.
The water coming from the city's two big reservoirs is pouring into streets and homes, creating fresh havoc even as the sun shines and much of Houston dries out.
The only traffic on Memorial Drive is the sort of airboat you usually see out fishing here. A short distance away a jet ski races around what used to a cul-de-sac.
A kayaker waves his arms towards an apartment complex, presumably believing it needs to be searched. Rescue boats are heading his way.
At every point where the water gives up the road surface beneath, small groups of people huddled, waiting for a returning boat or news from inside the flood zone.
There is very little to do for those who have left their homes but wait and wonder what will be left when they return.
The rain has largely gone but Houston's more normal heat and humidity has returned. It will perhaps make that wait an uncomfortable one, especially if it stretches into weeks.
As we return to Hobby airport, we fly over the NRG Centre complex, usually home to the Houston Texans NFL team but now temporary home to 10,000 displaced Texans. Next door to it, Houston's iconic old Astrodome.
I followed many of Hurricane Katrina's victims from New Orleans to the Astrodome in 2005.
Today the people running the shelter prefer to call evacuees 'guests' or 'neighbours'. They don't need to be stigmatised by their situation, they say.
Otherwise, there are many echoes of Katrina.
The distress, uncertainty and anxiety are just the same for those suffering from Harvey - in a place which has become the starting point, just as it was 12 years ago, for putting life back together after the storm.