Harvey, now a tropical storm, drenches Texas after devastating coast

The first fatality from Hurricane Harvey was reported in the hard-hit Texas city of Rockport, Aransas County Judge Burt Mills said Saturday afternoon. The victim died in a house fire during the storm. "We didn't know about it until today," he said. At least 12 people were injured.

Texans who rode out the most powerful hurricane to hit the United States in a decade ventured out Saturday to find "widespread devastation" as Hurricane Harvey lumbered north in what was "now turning into a deadly inland event."

With dire warnings of tornadoes, torrential downpours and days of flooding to come, broad swaths of southeast Texas were littered with uprooted trees, toppled signs, flagpoles that snapped like toothpicks and clusters of bricks peeled like scabs from walls and rooftops.

Fatalities were feared in coastal Rockport, Texas, where an estimated 5,000 residents had stayed put for the storm that blasted ashore as a Category 4 around 11 p.m. ET Friday between Port Aransas and Port O'Connor, Aransas County Sheriff Bill Mills said.

A damaged home sits amid a flood on August 26, 2017, after Hurricane Harvey slammed Rockport, Texas.

Callers to the local emergency dispatch line told of walls and roofs collapsing on people across the city, where an official had warned those who opted to stick out the storm to write their Social Security numbers on their arms for body identification.

Shortly after Harvey was downgraded to a tropical storm, with sustained winds of 70 mph, Saturday afternoon, Gov. Greg Abbott told reporters that he couldn't confirm any fatalities. The state had more than 1,000 workers involved in search and rescue operations.

"There's been widespread devastation," Rockport Mayor Charles Wax told CNN late Saturday morning. No deaths had been confirmed, he said, noting that emergency workers were just beginning to go house to house to check on residents and assess damage.

"We've already taken a severe blow from the storm, but we're anticipating another one when the flooding comes," he said.

Photos: Hurricane Harvey slams Texas

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The storm by late Saturday morning was still a Category 1, packing winds of 75 mph as it slowed its trek northward to just 2 mph. Some places even far inland were predicted to get as much as 40 inches of rain through Wednesday.

While the worst of the storm surge had ended by midday Saturday, the coastal flooding threat was due to increase as already-swollen rivers and bayous get pounded with heavy rain, CNN meteorologist Michael Guy said. Sea water pushed onto the shore also won't recede quickly, he said, meaning "this is going to be a long, ongoing flood event."

Abbott said the 210-mile-long corridor between Corpus Christi and Houston was expected to receive as much as 30 more inches of rain on top of the 20 inches that had already fallen.

Harvey wielded the "highest potential to kill the most amount of people and cause the most amount of damage," Brock Long, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, had warned. He echoed forecasters who predicted Harvey would be leave areas "uninhabitable for weeks or months," echoing language last seen ahead of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.