History Book: Hurricane Harvey hits Texas

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Monday, August 22nd. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. Next up: the WORLD History Book.

A few notable events during this fourth week of August: This week marks the first publication of the Guinness Book of World Records in 1955. Also, 15 years ago this week, the first instance of the Hashtag on Twitter.

Hashtag poundsign.

REICHARD: WORLD’s Paul Butler now with a couple more entries. This week: remembering Hurricane Harvey and the very first Little League World Series.

PAUL BUTLER: The Little League baseball program began in 1939 with three local teams in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

LITTLE LEAGUE PROMO: Little league is designed for boys nine to 12 years...

Audio here from a 70-year old promotional film:

LITTLE LEAGUE PROMO: It teaches good sportsmanship and teamwork, on and off the playing field. And importantly, it builds healthy minds and bodies for the use of our land.

That first season, local businesses sponsored teams of 30 boys for $30 to help with equipment and uniforms.

LITTLE LEAGUE PROMO: Little League Baseball is a real community project and everyone participates: mother, dad, sister, and brother. It's entirely amateur and completely nonprofit. Sponsorship of the team is strictly a local undertaking.

It didn’t take long for Little League teams to spring up all across the region…

LITTLE LEAGUE PROMO: The purpose of Little League is for them to play ball. Big league ball the Little League way— properly planned and supervised…

The very first National Little League Tournament happened 75 years ago this week. It featured 12 teams. Don Deiter played for the Perry County team that lost in the second round. He also returned the following year. In 2015, he reflected back on the most memorable part of the experience for PennLive.com:

PENNLINE.COM: Well Mr. Deiter, what are your memories of the 1947 Little League World Series? DEITER: It was really a big deal to us as kids. We stayed overnight, so that definitely made it a big deal. I believe it might even been the first time I was away from my parents. It was fun.

That first tournament ended on August 23rd, 1947 as the Maynard Midgets beat the Lock Haven All Stars, 16-7.

LITTLE LEAGUE PROMO: Yes, sir, these boys are champions in every sense of the word. They represent the best in sportsmanship and theirs is the honor so justly earned.

The Little League World Series is currently underway, with 20 teams from around the world competing in the tournament. The final game is scheduled for Sunday, August 28th.

Our second and final story today is from five years ago: August 25th, 2017. Audio here from NBC Nightly News:

HURRICANE HARVEY NEWS: Tonight along the Texas Gulf Coast, utter devastation in the town of Rockport entire blocks are decimated.

Hurricane Harvey comes ashore as a powerful Category 4 hurricane. It’s the strongest hurricane to make landfall in the U-S since 2004. Amanda Evans speaks with NBC in front of her destroyed home:

EVANS: By one o'clock it was terrible. It was so I was crying. I was on my knees praying that we make it.

Winds from the storm peak at 130 miles per hour. But that doesn’t mean it is a fast moving storm. The hurricane crawls across the region dropping huge amounts of rain. Texas Governor Greg Abbott:

ABBOTT: We want to do everything we possibly can to keep people out of rising water.

Many areas are hit with more than 40 inches of rain, with other spots recording as much as 60 inches over four days. News coverage here from ABC News:

HURRICANE HARVEY NEWS: Now you're looking here at the satellite image of where Harvey is right now a category one hurricane about 30 miles southwest of Victoria, Texas.

Harvey spawns more than 20 tornados. Flooding and storm damage kills more than 100 people. 336,000 people lose electricity and tens of thousands require rescue. Eastern Texas’s refinery industry is hit hard, creating a fuel shortage across the region. In the end, Hurricane Harvey causes $125 billion in damage.

A recent study of the Houston area found that five years after the storm, about seventy five percent of those affected report they are mostly to completely recovered.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book, I’m Paul Butler.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.