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PHOTOS: Houston Flood Caused By Harvey Sends Residents Scrambling For Safety

Water bubbles up through a manhole in downtown Houston.
Katie Hayes Luke for NPR
Water bubbles up through a manhole in downtown Houston.

The remnants of now-Tropical Storm Harvey have all but parked over south Texas and the storm is inundating the region around Houston with "unprecedented" rain, according to the National Weather Service.

Houstonians have been stranded in their homes, and some of those who were on the roads were in need of rescue as areas of Houston received as much as two feet of rain with no immediate end in sight.

Then-Hurricane Harvey made landfall late Friday evening near Corpus Christi, Texas, as a Category 4 hurricane, one of the strongest storms to make landfall in recent history.

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The city's 911 services were overwhelmed with calls for service and rescues, said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. He said that while some people were having to wait, the system was working, and he asked people to only call 911 if they had life-threatening emergencies.

"It's like a river, the water is all the way up to the embankment and you can't even see if there's any vehicles down there right now," said Gail Delaughter of Houston Public Media. "Once the water drains out, who knows what they are going to find down there."

Turner warned residents to not be lulled by pauses in the rain. The National Weather Service said Sunday afternoon it expected up to 50 inches of rain in some areas of the region. That much rain would be the highest rainfall ever recorded in Texas, according to The Associated Press.

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