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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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