Wilmington storm chaser in Houston for Harvey, talks about current conditions

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Harvey is still causing catastrophe for millions in Texas.

“Disaster unfolding here in slow motion because this is happening over the course of several days.”

That is what Wilmington storm chaser Mark Sudduth said as he is experiencing everything first hand with Harvey.

“What is going to be now known as the Houston flood from Harvey is going to be very similar in that a lot of people are going to be trapped, but except in this case Houston did not evacuate. You do not evacuate for rain fall necessarily, certainly not a city of 4 million people.”

Suddeth said this storm reminds him of Hurricane Katrina.

“Well the only thing we can compare this to in the last, in the recent memory 12 years ago would be Hurricane Katrina. This is a flood event that will be very similar, but it is from rain fall not storm serge in the Houston area,” Suddeth said.

He said the city is at a standstill due to the heavy bands of continuous rain.

“People are driving the wrong way on the interstate to try to get off the interstate system, get home and it was a little bit nerve wracking to be honest with you. I was very safe, but this sort of panic mode when you know that the water is rising all over a good deal of Houston and you’ve got to get somewhere,” Sudduth said.

And unfortunately, things aren’t forecasted to get any better, any time soon.

“This is going to last for several more days. 3 to 5 more days from today, which is absolutely unprecedented and it’s just going to get worse from here and that is the absolutely truth. This is the beginning of this catastrophe,” Sudduth said.

As a Wilmington resident, the storm chaser wants people to always be prepared.

“Everybody back in North Carolina, and my hometown there of Wilmington, we need to look at Matthew of last year and Harvey today and remember that we are certainly vulnerable maybe not in the same way as Houston is, for obvious reasons, but we’ve been fairly lucky in South East North Carolina. Despite what we had last year and maybe use this as an example,” Sudduth said.

Sudduth said he will be returning back home to North Carolina soon.