Douglas Brinkley is professor of history at Rice University in Houston and author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast . As a survivor of Hurricane Katrina, I saw firsthand how recreational boats — used for fishing, hunting and waterskiing — can become a kind of People's Navy. One of the unsung stories of Katrina was how recreational boaters became true rescue-and-relief heroes. But now, as the roads have turn to rivers, and bayous bleed into strip malls, rescue boats are a desperately needed commodity. The National Weather Service has now deemed the Great Houston Flood a catastrophic rain event "beyond anything experienced."

Source: CNN August 28, 2017 04:07 UTC