With two major storms churning and taking aim at the Gulf Coast, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is mobilizing state resources in case they strike Texas.
Some Houston residents say they endured difficult, often hazardous living conditions while waiting months, even years for help from the city to fix flood-damaged homes after Hurricane Harvey.
Marco is first and is moving in the Gulf where it could bring a lot of rain to parts of Louisiana and along the upper Texas Coast, and any small shift west in the forecast would bring hurricane conditions to the Houston/Galveston metros.
Laura is forecast to reach the Gulf early this week, where intensification into a hurricane is possible. The coasts of Texas and Lousisana are also expected to take a hit from this storm.
Governor Abbott has signed a State Disaster Declaration for 23 Texas counties.
Three years after Harvey, some Houston residents feel angry and abandoned as their repair efforts were bogged down by a city program they described as slow and bureaucratic. The program has finished rebuilding less than 70 homes since it started January 2019.
City officials admit the repair program’s progress has been slow but blame this partly on the Texas General Land Office, or GLO, which oversees the funding. The city accused the land office of providing muddled guidance, resulting in rejection of homeowners’ applications.
The land office said the city was unprepared to run the program and rejected help.
“The city of Houston’s lack of progress is unacceptable,” said GLO spokesperson Brittany Eck.
The city sued the GLO to stop it from taking over the funding. The GLO also began its own repair program in Houston, adding to residents' confusion.
Harvey dumped up to 50 inches (1.3 meters) of rain in the Houston area after making landfall on Aug. 25, 2017. It killed 68 people and caused about $125 billion in damage in Texas.
The city received nearly $1.3 billion in federal funding to repair and rebuild homes, provide rental assistance and create new affordable housing. A third of the funding — nearly $428 million — went to a program for home repair and reconstruction.
As of the end of July, the program had fixed 68 homes and reimbursed 73 people who did their own repairs. The land office had fixed nearly 1,800 homes across Texas as of Aug. 13.