Hurricane Harvey pounded southeast Texas hard. The storm inundated the City of Houston with almost 52 inches of rain, killing at least 70 people and displacing more than a million. According to the weather forecast firm Accuweather, Harvey could be the most expensive natural disaster in U.S. history with a price tag of US$190 billion, more than Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy combined.
The Trump Administration, the State of Texas, and the Houston City government have won praise for their handling of the disaster. In comparison to Hurricane Katrina in which 1,500 people lost their lives, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) appears to have allocated resources more effectively and coordinated with local authorities in a more seamless fashion, which likely helped lower the death toll.
