Flying over the Houston area most days is a postcard of America: crisscrossing highways, skyscrapers, hulking shopping plazas, oil refineries, big houses, cattle pastures. Then there's the view after Harvey.
Homes are surrounded by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Spring, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
"I had an idea, but once you can get up there and actually physically see it, the water is never-ending," said David Phillip, an Associated Press photographer who has called Houston home for two decades.
Click to Gallery
Flying over the Houston area most days is a postcard of America: crisscrossing highways, skyscrapers, hulking shopping plazas, oil refineries, big houses, cattle pastures. Then there's the view after Harvey.
"I had an idea, but once you can get up there and actually physically see it, the water is never-ending," said David Phillip, an Associated Press photographer who has called Houston home for two decades.
Interstate 69 is covered by floodwaters at the San Jacinto River bridge as floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey caused the river to overflow Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Humble, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Phillip got a bird's-eye view this week after Harvey dumped more than 50 inches (127 centimeters) of rain in and around the nation's fourth-largest city. His photographs show rows of suburban streets turned into canals and brownish floodwaters creeping up to rooftops. In one photo, a mansion's long cul-de-sac driveway resembles a drawbridge over a moat.
Phillip was taken aback by water submerging the Interstate 69 bridge over the San Jacinto River.
"It makes you pause and think about it. This is my home. It has been for 20 years. It's tough to see your friends and neighbors and people in the community go through that," he said.
Phillip hasn't stopped often since Harvey made landfall Friday night. He started in Galveston and by Sunday was driving the wrong way down Houston's flooded Interstate 610, normally one of the busiest sections of highways in the U.S. Later he was on board a rescue boat when it struck something, flipping him backward and out of the boat.
Phillip, who is 51, is no stranger to photographing major storms, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As the water from Harvey recedes he sees familiar devastation. "Everything, generally, 4 feet down is taken out of every house." Streets in Houston are now becoming lined with couches, hardwood flooring, baseboards and pianos.
"People have had to break windows of neighbors' homes to get to their second floor while swimming through floodwaters. Crawled through windows. Swam to be picked up," Phillip said. "Everybody has a survival story."
C.E. King High School's football field is covered by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Interstate 69 is covered by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Humble, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Interstate 69 is covered by floodwaters at the San Jacinto River bridge as floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey caused the river to overflow Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Humble, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Phillip got a bird's-eye view this week after Harvey dumped more than 50 inches (127 centimeters) of rain in and around the nation's fourth-largest city. His photographs show rows of suburban streets turned into canals and brownish floodwaters creeping up to rooftops. In one photo, a mansion's long cul-de-sac driveway resembles a drawbridge over a moat.
Water is released from Lake Conroe Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Conroe, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Phillip was taken aback by water submerging the Interstate 69 bridge over the San Jacinto River.
Homes are surrounded by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Spring, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
"It makes you pause and think about it. This is my home. It has been for 20 years. It's tough to see your friends and neighbors and people in the community go through that," he said.
Homes are surrounded by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Spring, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Phillip hasn't stopped often since Harvey made landfall Friday night. He started in Galveston and by Sunday was driving the wrong way down Houston's flooded Interstate 610, normally one of the busiest sections of highways in the U.S. Later he was on board a rescue boat when it struck something, flipping him backward and out of the boat.
The propeller got his leg before Phillip was pulled from the water, leaving a bruise. He lost his glasses and ruined a camera lens.
A burned out home is surrounded by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Spring, Texas. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
Phillip, who is 51, is no stranger to photographing major storms, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005. As the water from Harvey recedes he sees familiar devastation. "Everything, generally, 4 feet down is taken out of every house." Streets in Houston are now becoming lined with couches, hardwood flooring, baseboards and pianos.
He called covering Harvey more personal than previous storm assignments. Phillip said Wednesday was his first day he could travel the roads freely again, and in the neighborhood of Meyerland, he found homeowners tearing out drywall and trying to salvage belongings.
A home is surrounded by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey on Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
"People have had to break windows of neighbors' homes to get to their second floor while swimming through floodwaters. Crawled through windows. Swam to be picked up," Phillip said. "Everybody has a survival story."
Water flows over the spillway at Lake Houston Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
C.E. King High School's football field is covered by floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
LONDON (AP) — Salman Rushdie’s account of a stabbing attack that blinded him in one eye is among contenders announced Thursday for a prestigious nonfiction book prize.
Rushdie’s memoir “ Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder ” is among 12 books on the long list for the 50,000 pound ($66,000) Baillie Gifford Prize.
The 77-year-old novelist recounts being attacked at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York in 2022 as he was about to deliver a lecture on keeping writers safe from harm. A New Jersey man, Hadi Matar, is awaiting trial for the stabbing.
Prize judges called the book “brutally clear, honest and, best of all, funny.”
Rushdie won the Booker Prize for fiction in 1981 for “Midnight’s Children.” He spent years in hiding after Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa, or edict, in 1989 calling for his death for the alleged blasphemy in his novel “The Satanic Verses.”
Other semi-finalists for the nonfiction prize include Australia’s Richard Flanagan for his memoir “Question 7” and several works on Asian history, including Gary J. Bass’ “Judgement at Tokyo: World War II on Trial and the Making of Modern Asia” and Viet Thanh Nguyen’s “A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial.”
Founded in 1999, the Baillie Gifford Prize recognizes English-language books from any country in current affairs, history, politics, science, sport, travel, biography, autobiography and the arts. It has been credited with bringing an eclectic slate of fact-based books to a wider audience.
Last year’s winner was John Vaillant’s real-life climate-change thriller “Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World.”
Finalists for the 2024 prize will be announced Oct. 10 and the winner will be crowned Nov. 19 at a ceremony in London.
FILE - Salman Rushdie poses for a portrait to promote his book "Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder", at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, Germany, May 16, 2024. .(AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)