Brooke Simpson- Hurricane Harvey: The Devastation and What Comes Next

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/28/us/hurricane-harvey-texas.html?mcubz=1

Hurricane Harvey: The Devastation and What Comes Next

Hurricane Harvey has covered Texas and Louisiana in rain, leaving cities flooded and people stranded, and hundreds of courageous volunteers who have gone to save people who have gone out to save people from their houses.  The floodwater is filled with chemicals and people trying to get rescued from their flooded homes.  Thirty-nine people have died due to the storm, and thousands are homeless.  The rain that Harvey poured on the land, up to 50 inches in some areas reminds victims of Hurricane Katrina of being trapped on their roofs in 2005 when New Orleans was flooded, but Houston and its neighbor cities have flooding even worse than Katrina in some areas.  There are ways to help by donating to Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund and more like it.

The authors of the article are Niraj Chokshi and Maggie Astor for the New York Times.  The authors’ point of view is that the storm was a massive hurricane that left lots of areas flooded, and that there is a lot that needs to be done to clean up the mess it left.

The article was published on August 28, 2017, which was before the storm was completely finished.  This can affect the complete credibility of the article because the storm’s damage hadn’t been fully understood yet.  The article cannot have the full meaning of the storm until Hurricane Harvey has completely fallen apart and we can see the full effects of the hurricane on Texas and Louisiana cities. 

Hurricane Harvey hit Texas August 25^th, and South Texas cities had been preparing for days before it.  My family has been watching the news to ensure safety for our family, in Dallas and in San Antonio.  I have seen footage of Houston floods and I have heard from my friends in Rockport who have had their houses destroyed, giving me perspective of the damage the hurricane has caused, which has led me to have an understanding of the extent to which the hurricane has affected the people of South Texas and Louisiana before reading the article.

This article was written for Americans all across the country who may not be as aware of the hurricane as Texans are.  The New York Times’ headquarters is in Manhattan, but it is sold and read in 50 states.  This is a negative article because of the way it talks about the death toll and how the hurricane can be compared to Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy that hit New Orleans and the Northeastern United States.  There is a positive section of the story when it talks about volunteer efforts, but the emotion that I felt from the article is empathy for the victims of the hurricane.

This article was written to inform Americans of the devastations that Harvey has brought to South Texas.  People want to know how their fellow Americans are doing, and this article, while short, does a good job of covering main points that people want to be informed about.  The article covers how much rain some areas have received and that the rain was the worst part of the storm, a chemical plant explosion, the lives lost, the volunteer effort, the article compares Harvey flood devastation to Katrina flood devastation, and provides links to organizations to help those affected by Harvey in South Texas.

The article is trying to convey that Harvey was a massive storm, that recovery will take a long time, and this storm left towns like Port Arthur completely underwater.  There are thousands of people in shelters with no homes to go home to after the floodwater subsides.  The authors of this article want people to know that this hurricane did not cause a 500-year flood like it has been called, though it was a horrible flood, covering Texas and Louisiana in water. 

The article is important because people want to know what is going on in Texas and Louisiana, and reading the effects of Harvey can tell you a lot about what you need to know.  The article covers many topics, and I can conclude that cities like Houston and Port Arthur are looking forward to recovery, but it will take years to get to.  Everybody was affected by the storm in South Texas because of the rainfall and flooding, you could have the nicest house or the smallest house on the street but your house was flooded, and now its time to rebuild from it.  It is a reminder that all we have can go away at any moment, and we have to be thankful for what we have now.

Hurricane Harvey was a powerful and deadly storm, but it’s not the only one like it to hit the United States.  Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012.  No one knew that the storms would be so damaging.  Harvey was expected to hit San Antonio with tons of rain, not Houston to the extent that it was.  People in Houston were prepared for a storm, but not the massive flooding that came with it.  In 1908 Galveston, Texas was hit by a large storm named Isaac, but because of the lack of technology that they had in 1908, no one knew or was prepared for the flooding that the storm caused the little beach town.  Now that we have the tools to prepare ourselves, we can protect more people, and the next time the United States meets a hurricane, perhaps the death toll will be the lowest a Category 4 hurricane has ever caused.