A north-east couple today told how they have been living off frozen pizza and are stranded 17 floors up after Hurricane Harvey hit.
Jane and Michael Braid, originally from Bieldside and who now live in Houston, have been stuck in their apartment since Saturday afternoon and they fear running out of food.
The couple, who moved to the city 18 months ago, described the situation as “pretty horrific”.
Jane, 32, who works as a lawyer for an oil company, said: “We haven’t been hit by the water as we are high up, but we aren’t able to leave the house at the moment.
“We are living off frozen pizza. We don’t know when we will get to leave as the rain has not stopped since Saturday.
“The last few days have been pretty horrific for us, but I feel for the people who have been evacuated in lower lying areas.
“A lot of people have been put up in temporary shelters across the city and we have friends who have gone to help them.”
As a result of the constant downpours many of the shops in the city have closed leaving people unable to buy supplies.
Jane added: “Everything is shut so we can’t get any more food. I have been here when it was bad rain but this is just constant, you don’t see anything like this in Aberdeen.
“Hopefully the rain will stop soon but we haven’t heard otherwise. Clearly we won’t be going to work over the next few days so it is just a matter of waiting it out.”
Meanwhile, on the outskirts of the city Kris Niddrie, 37, and wife Sarah, 33, originally from Aberdeen and Peterhead, had to move their belongings upstairs in their house in Houston as roads became rivers and rising water swamped their property – wrecking two cars.
The couple were trapped as their home became an island when flooding engulfed the surrounding streets.
The pair, who have lived in America’s fourth largest city for more than four years, watched in horror as water started filling their garage.
Harvey, which made landfall late on Friday as a Category Four hurricane and has lingered dropping heavy rain as a tropical storm, caused devastating floods in Houston.
Kris, a former Highland League football player for Keith, said that water at its highest was up to the steering wheel of their cars.
He said: “We have around seven steps getting up to our property above the garage and we watched as the water went up at a rate of around a step an hour.
“When the water started coming in we had to quickly move our property from the garage on to the first floor. We couldn’t move the cars to higher ground so they have been flooded.
“At its height the water was only three steps away from getting into our house and it was a worrying time as the rain was still going and you weren’t sure when it was going to stop.
“There isn’t anywhere for the water to go at the moment so we’ll have to see what the damage is like after.”
Rising floodwater sent thousands of people clambering on to rooftops or higher ground and overwhelmed rescuers who could not keep up with the constant calls for help.
It has been predicted that the floodwater could rise to 59 feet, which is three feet above 2016 records and what has been called an “1,000-year flood level”.
“We have been lucky so far that it hasn’t got into the house and I’m sure that others will have had it much worse,” Kris added.
The pair, who have been married for nine years, live in the North-west part of Houston and said they were warned before the storm hit to gather supplies to last them for a number of days.
Kris said: “It has been constantly raining since Saturday and there has been quite a bit of confusion and conflicting messages here.
“Depending on the governor you listen to, one was saying evacuate and the other saying to stay indoors.
“The shops in the days before the storm were quite chaotic and crazy as everyone was making sure they had supplies and a lot of the shelves were empty.
“We haven’t experienced anything like this before and there wasn’t a big panic from everyone here so I don’t know if people were lured into a false sense of security.
“We are now hunkered down and waiting for it to pass as there is a chance that we could end up getting more rain and flooding as the eye of the storm is just to the south of us.
“At one point we were surrounded by water and it was like we were on an island.”
In a rescue effort that recalled the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, helicopters landed near flooded freeways, airboats buzzed across submerged neighbourhoods and high-water vehicles ploughed through water-logged intersections.
President Donald Trump was expected to visit Texas today.
The president told flooding victims via a press conference yesterday that “we are 100% with you”.
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