A north-east woman caught up in the flooding chaos in Texas has revealed how some of her colleagues had their homes devastated as Hurricane Harvey overran the southern US state.
Stephanie Smart, originally from Aberdeen, was on a work trip to the US when she was caught up in the unfolding emergency as 130mph winds swept landward from the Atlantic, dragging in torrential downpours.
The inches and inches of rain that fell, clogged the drainage systems around Texas, bringing widespread flooding which saw cars disappear under torrents of water and major recuse operations launched.
Five people were killed and 1,000s more were left stranded as a result.
Just a week ago Ms Smart visited one of her colleague relatives house in Texas – which was later hit with six foot of floodwater.
She said: “It’s absolutely horrific.
“The people that I work with, their relative’s houses have been ruined.
“I was at a girl I work with sister’s house last weekend. It’s now six feet in water. She had to rescued. That’s quite scary when it’s somewhere you’ve been and someone that you know.”
Ms Smart has been stuck inside a hotel in Sugar Land, a city just southwest of Houston, for the last four days waiting for the rain to stop.
The Glasgow based 26-year-old is the communications manager for subsea oil services company Seanamic Group Ltd, which has offices in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Houston.
She was due to fly back today after a two week trip to see clients.
But, even if the airport reopens, she faces a struggle to get to the departure lounge due to the sheer amount of flooded underpasses and the lack of transport – like Uber which Stephanie has been relying on it to get around.
She said: “Even if the airport is open the roads and all the underpasses, the bottom layers of the roads, are totally flooded.
“So if the airport was open, it would probably be a bigger challenge getting there due to the rainfall.”
“I went to a supermarket with a friend on Thursday night and it was chaos. There was no water, very little food and everything was running out.
“It started raining pretty heavily on Friday lunchtime and by Friday night that was when the thunderstorms started.
“It’s been pretty constant rain since then and we’ve had a few tornado warnings.”