From .
In Texas, where the weather is no laughing matter, it鈥檚 not an exaggeration to say storms are wreaking havoc in many parts of the state.
On Thursday, tornadoes touched down near Rockport and Refugio. KUT Ausin鈥檚 says at least three Texas communities recovering from Harvey 鈥� Holiday Beach, Seadrift, and Woodsboro 鈥� are once again picking up the pieces.
And in the small city of Port Arthur, city leaders are struggling with Harvey recovery efforts while also worrying that many people displaced by the hurricane won鈥檛 come back.
Even before Harvey hit, people living in Port Arthur were already having a hard time making ends meet. The Texas Observer reports the city had , which could give some residents less incentive to return.
Port Arthur Mayor says the damage is an ongoing struggle.
鈥淔rom Hurricane Harvey, we lost approximately $26 million worth of service trucks, grapple trucks, vaccum trucks, the things we use to provide service for our citizens,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been working to clean it out and get our city cleaned back up, but it鈥檚 been an uphill battle.鈥�
He says the city is also coping with other types of damage 鈥� the city鈥檚 property tax revenue has been hit hard, and some of the aging infrastructure was destroyed in the storm. In total, he says the city needs to come up with .
鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to leverage our state funds, our federal funds, our insurance funds,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e just making sure that we can do more with less.鈥�
Freeman says Port Arthur is focused on getting residents back to the city. He credits the community with a lot of the progress they鈥檝e been able to achieve, like rebuilding homes that have been condemned since the storm.
鈥淲e鈥檙e a minority majority city,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e about 40 percent African American and 40 percent Hispanic, and our Hispanic community has been resilient.鈥�
Still, Freedman says he鈥檚 worried about one particular obstacle on the horizon.
鈥淭he census coming up is ,鈥� he says. 鈥淏ecause we were teetering on that 55,000 population number, and if we drop below 50, obviously that cuts off certain automatic funding from the federal government and the state. So we want to make sure we get our people back. We鈥檙e doing programs and getting dollars from our regional planning commission to make sure that we show folks that this is where they need to spend their rebuilding dollars.鈥�
Written by Jen Rice.
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