A Texas coastal community is becoming increasingly isolated as Storm Harvey-fed rains flooded most major roads leading out of the city and swamped a shelter for those displaced in the Houston area.
Jefferson County sheriff's deputy Marcus McLellan said he was not sure where the 100 or so evacuees at the Bowers Civic Centre in Port Arthur would be sent.
Most of them were perched on bleacher seats to stay dry, their belongings largely stranded on the shelter floor below them under about a foot of water, he said.
"People started coming to the shelter on Monday," Mr McLellan said.
"And now it's just all the rainfall that's coming in, and there's a canal by there also that's overflowing."
With at least 18 people killed by Harvey and 13,000 more rescued in the Houston area and surrounding cities and counties, yet more people were still trying to escape from their inundated homes.
Weakened barriers were in danger of failing, even as a less-ferocious but still potent Harvey returned to shore.
Harvey initially made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane on Friday then lingered off the coast of south east Texas for five days as a tropical storm that dropped record amounts of rain on Houston, the nation's fourth largest city, and the surrounding area.
It made landfall for a second time early on Wednesday, coming to shore near Cameron in south west Louisiana and bringing with it a heavy dose of rain that is forecast to spread further north as the day progresses, perhaps as far as Missouri, Tennessee and Arkansas.
Authorities expected the human toll to continue to mount, both in deaths and in the tens of thousands of people made homeless by the catastrophic storm that is now the heaviest tropical downpour in US history.
In all, more than 17,000 people have sought refuge in Texas shelters, and that number seemed certain to increase, the American Red Cross said.
Houston's largest shelter housed 10,000 of the displaced – twice its initial intended capacity – as two additional mega-shelters opened on Tuesday for the overflow.
Louisiana's governor offered to take in Harvey victims from Texas, and televangelist Joel Osteen opened his Houston megachurch, a 16,000-seat former arena, after critics blasted him on social media for not acting to help families displaced by the storm.
In an apparent response to scattered reports of looting, a curfew was put into effect from midnight to 5am, with police saying violators would be questioned, searched and arrested.
In Port Arthur, near the Louisiana border, Jefferson County Sheriff Zena Stephens told KFDM-TV that county resources were struggling to rescue residents because of the flooding.
Port Arthur mayor Derrick Freeman posted on his Facebook page that the "city is underwater right now but we are coming".
He also urged residents to get to higher ground and to avoid becoming trapped in attics.
Mr McLellan said on Wednesday that the city and surrounding area is becoming increasingly isolated because Interstate 10, highways and many secondary roads are flooded.
Speaking from nearby Beaumont, where he has been stuck for more than 24 hours because of the flooding, he said roads leading east into Louisiana are still open, but likely will lead evacuees right into Harvey's path.
A much-weakened Tropical Storm Harvey steered into new territory, coming ashore again early Wednesday just west of Cameron, Louisiana, with maximum sustained winds of 45 mph, the National Hurricane Centre said.
"To get out of this area I'd have to head east toward Orange [Texas] and into Louisiana," Mr McLellan said.
Harvey is expected to weaken, but will slog through Louisiana for much of the day before taking its downpours north.
Arkansas, Tennessee and parts of Missouri are on alert for Harvey flooding in the next couple of days.
"Once we get this thing inland during the day, it's the end of the beginning," National Hurricane Centre meteorologist Dennis Feltgen said.
"Texas is going to get a chance to finally dry out as this system pulls out."
But Mr Feltgen cautioned: "We're not done with this. There's still an awful lot of real estate and a lot of people who are going to feel the impacts of the storm."
Houston has asked the Federal Emergency Management Agency for more supplies, including cots and food, for an additional 10,000 people, Mayor Sylvester Turner said.
