PHOTOS: Houston Flood Caused By Harvey Sends Residents Scrambling For Safety

By Claire Harbage,

Joe Ruiz

Published August 28, 2017 at 9:06 AM CDT

Hurricane Harvey is the largest hurricane to hit Texas in decades and high rainfall continues to cause flooding in Houston.

The remnants of now-Tropical Storm Harvey have all but parked over south Texas and the storm is inundating the region around Houston with "unprecedented" rain, according to the National Weather Service.

Houstonians have been stranded in their homes, and some of those who were on the roads were in need of rescue as areas of Houston received as much as two feet of rain with no immediate end in sight.

Then-Hurricane Harvey made landfall late Friday evening near Corpus Christi, Texas, as a Category 4 hurricane, one of the strongest storms to make landfall in recent history.

Margy (left) and Rich Reynard live in the downtown Houston area. "Where we live, the streets are fine," says Rich. "If we get 15 more inches of rain, I don't know that it can stay that way."

Neighbors with boats are using their personal boats to rescue Friendswood residents in Houston.

Two people walk down a flooded section of Interstate 610 in floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey on Sunday.

Moses Juarez, left, and Anselmo Padilla wade through floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey on Sunday in Houston.

The city's 911 services were overwhelmed with calls for service and rescues, said Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. He said that while some people were having to wait, the system was working, and he asked people to only call 911 if they had life-threatening emergencies.

Reagan Giles, driving, and his friend Crusty Chuck turn around after deciding that they could not pass through a flooded street. Earlier in the day, Giles used his motorcycle to rescue Chuck from the Sunnyside neighborhood of Houston.

"It's like a river, the water is all the way up to the embankment and you can't even see if there's any vehicles down there right now," said Gail Delaughter of Houston Public Media. "Once the water drains out, who knows what they are going to find down there."

Residents wade through floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey Sunday in Houston, Texas.

Paul Lenz (center), and his children Graham, 9 (left), and Miles, 7, photograph the flooding on I-10 in Houston.

Turner warned residents to not be lulled by pauses in the rain. The National Weather Service said Sunday afternoon it expected up to 50 inches of rain in some areas of the region. That much rain would be the highest rainfall ever recorded in Texas, according to The Associated Press.