HURRICANE HARVEY SPENT the weekend battering the coastal regions of American state Texas, leaving three people dead and an unprecedented trail of devastation in its wake.

Footage (above) from the US Coast Guard shows much of the area around Houston, the fourth largest city in the US, resembling a giant lake.

The sheer extent of the rainfall and flooding led state governor Greg Abbott to declare: “we’re measuring the rain in feet, not inches.”

And the worst may not yet have happened – the hurricane seems set to move into the gulf for a number of days before circling back to make landfall once more later in the week.

Thus far, the storm has produced some unforgettable images, from nursing home patients trapped in waist-deep water to mobile homes ripped apart like tissue paper:

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Water rushes through a massive sinkhole near Houston yesterday PA Images PA Images

Emily Zurawski calls her mother from an emergency command center in Port Arkansas, Texas Nick Wagner / PA Nick Wagner / PA / PA

Corpus Christi, Texas SIPA USA / PA Images SIPA USA / PA Images / PA Images

A man walks through floodwaters in Houston Charlie Riedel / Pa Charlie Riedel / Pa / Pa

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A collapsed awning at a filling station in Webster, Texas Stuart Villanueva / PA Stuart Villanueva / PA / PA

A photo made available by Nasa of Hurricane Harvey over Texas on Saturday, 26 August AP / PA Images AP / PA Images / PA Images

An Interstate 45 feeder road flooded at Galveston Yi-Chin Lee / Houston Chronicle Yi-Chin Lee / Houston Chronicle / Houston Chronicle

An unidentified man helping Carlos Torres to dry ground, near downtown Houston yesterday Charlie Riedel / PA Charlie Riedel / PA / PA

Michael Scott live streams the rain and wind of Hurricane Harvey in Galveston on Saturday Jennifer Reynolds / Pa Jennifer Reynolds / Pa / Pa

A mobile home sits on its side in Port Aransas, Texas Nick Wagner / PA Nick Wagner / PA / PA

A downed streetlight continues its cycle in Corpus Christi on Saturday night Corpus Christi Caller-Times / TNS/ABACA Corpus Christi Caller-Times / TNS/ABACA / TNS/ABACA

Residents of Dickinson, Texas, wait for help on the second floor of their apartment complex yesterday Kelsey Walling / PA Kelsey Walling / PA / PA

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