WHAT’S HAPPENING: Trump visits Harvey victims

HOUSTON – A week after Harvey made landfall as a category 4 hurricane, one Texas city is struggling to restore its drinking water system, while President Donald Trump made a visit to Houston. A look at what’s happening:

ON THE GROUND

Trump and first lady Melania Trump met with Harvey victims in Houston as they surveyed the storm’s damage in Texas and Louisiana. It was Trump’s second trip to Texas in a week, and this time his first order of business was meeting with those affected by the record-setting rainfall and flooding.

Meanwhile, officials in Beaumont, Texas, population almost 120,000, worked to repair their water treatment plan t, which failed after the swollen Neches River inundated the main intake system and backup pumps failed.

And in Crosby, outside of Houston, authorities were monitoring a chemical plant where three trailers of highly unstable compounds ignited in recent days, sending thick black smoke and tall flames into the air.

TOXIC SITES

The Associated Press visited several Superfund sites in and around Houston — and most of them are still only accessible by boat after Harvey. Water several feet deep has inundated some of those intensely contaminated sites seen by the AP. The Environmental Protection Agency says its experts will inspect the sites when floodwaters recede.

NO ONE SPARED

Across Houston, Harvey didn’t discriminate . Its destruction made its way through neighbourhoods black and white, rich and poor. There’s every expectation that Houston’s poor and working class will struggle most to rebuild, as they lacking the resources of the affluent. But now, as the waters begin to recede, residents of all colours and socio-economic statuses find themselves united in loss, despair and resilience.

“Harvey didn’t spare anyone: The whole city is traumatized,” said Lynnette Borrel, whose backyard pool filled with murky water and schools of minnows from Brays Bayou on the city’s southwest side not far from downtown.

A SURVIVOR’S TALE

Katlyn Perkins’ first announcement that something was very wrong at her home in northeast Houston came at 8:19 p.m. on Aug. 24, when she updated her Facebook status, writing that she was scared. Like many 20-year-olds, Perkins lives out her life on social media. As Hurricane Harvey approached and in the days since, she’s continued to provide updates .

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