Maps: Tracking Harvey’s Destructive Path Through Texas and Louisiana

Houston received the brunt of Harvey’s rain, with parts of the city receiving more than 50 inches (here are more detailed maps of Houston). The storm made its final landfall in East Texas and Louisiana, dropping dozens of inches of rain on Port Arthur and Beaumont on Tuesday and Wednesday.

An initial damage assessment by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, released early on Wednesday, estimated that almost 60,000 structures were damaged in Texas. More than 25 percent of those structures sustained major damage or were destroyed, and reports of damaged structures are almost certain to grow.

Shelters big and small have opened across the state, as far away as in Dallas, where some evacuees ended up after fleeing the storm. The Texas Department of Public Safety counted nearly 35,000 people in about 240 shelters on Wednesday morning.

The number of people in shelters has more than doubled since Tuesday. At least 47 shelters were opened in Houston and the largest by far was the downtown convention center.

This video, based on composite satellite imagery, shows the storm’s path through the Gulf of Mexico from August 23 to Thursday.

Preliminary data collected by the Dartmouth Flood Observatory from satellites shows extensive flooding along the Texas coast.

Not all areas have been completely surveyed, so the map represents a minimum estimate of the flooded area, according to G. Robert Brakenridge, director of the observatory. The actual extent of the flooding is likely to be greater.

Floodwaters continued to rise in inland rivers as the storm moved through the region.

Before Harvey, fewer than a dozen storms in the past century have reached land in the region as a Category 4 hurricane or higher.

As the hurricane approached, seven coastal counties in Texas and one Louisiana parish ordered mandatory evacuations in some areas. Corpus Christi mayor Joe McComb also encouraged residents to leave.

The hurricane made landfall in southern Texas Friday night as a Category 4. As the storm spun offshore and then back again, it continued to dump massive amounts of rain on Texas and Louisiana, raising the risk of additional flooding (path shown in Central daylight time). This map shows the available data from the National Weather Service.