Aerial footage of Houston captures the catastrophic scale of Hurricane Harvey

August 30, 2017

Aerial footage of Houston captures the catastrophic scale of Hurricane Harvey

harvey flooding homes texas

With winds topping 130 mph and downpours reaching four inches per hour, Hurricane Harvey made landfall on Texas' Gulf Coast on Friday night. Since then, it has killed at least 31 people, damaged or destroyed approximately 20,000 homes, and displaced tens of thousands.

It's set to be one of the worst natural disasters in US history, and it's not even over. Harvey just made second landfall in Louisiana, and several counties in the Houston and New Orleans area are under flash flood watch until Thursday evening.

Marco Luzuriaga, a photographer based in Houston, captured the ongoing devastation in the city with a drone.

On August 27, the drone flew over Brays Bayou, a river in Harris County, where rainfall has measured as high as 51 inches. As you can see below, Harvey has submerged the majority of buildings in the area:

Several other people have posted drone footage of the affected areas, including Port Arkansas, Rockport, and League City in Texas. Gizmodo did an extensive roundup of these videos if you'd like to check out more.

If you'd like to help those affected, there are lots of food banks and charities, both local and large-scale, raising money for Harvey relief. Before giving, it's a good idea to research the reliability of these organizations.

Harvey could cause $48 billion to $75 billion in damage, Enki Research estimated. When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in 2005, it led to over $100 billion in damage. Aerial footage is one way to document the wreckage.

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