>> joe >> market still has not seem to stabilize. we can't get the banks to fully participate. i think the right sector to kind of hide out in right now is health care. and, clearly, if you did what pete and jerry have been doing, you got rewarded for that this morning. >> our thanks to john. that does it for us on "halftime report." "power lunch" begins right now >> and welcome to a special edeition of "power lunch." live in galveston, texas we have melissa lee and joe kernen back at global hq a new and unneeded round of rain hitting the flood zone, this after the deadly hurricane harvey pounded houston and the texas coast all weekend long the next three days, very critical for houston and the surrounding areas. some reports suggest another 20 inches of rain could fall, but more than 11 million people and

tens of billions of dollars of economic activity at risk. contessa brewer downtown houston and jackie deang lose and morgan brennan looking at the rising cost of harvey she is up in connecticut and angie lassman is tracking the path of the storm. right now, let's see how the markets and your money are doing in reaction with joe kernen. >> yeah, stocks are down the dow, anyway. steady this hour in a narrow range. nasdaq is actually up. apple is among the top leaders announcing a product event september 12th where it is suspected to unveil its latest iphone the big moves happening in energy following harvey's destruction. gasoline prices surging as refineries shut down for the duration of the storm, at least. let's get you caught up on the latest of harvey governor greg abbott announcing he has activated the entire texas national guard

that brings the total number of deployed guardsmen roughly 12,000 12,000 new numbers out show more than 1,600 flights have been canceled because of harvey. as brian mentioned, millions under a flash flood watch. about 300,000 are without power. get back now to brian in galveston. you've been able to guess, brian. a new one from what i saw this morning. but, give us the latest on this historic storm and the impact on houston and beyond >> thank you, joe. it's been quite a day. a lot better than a lot of people in houston, texas we started here and drove up to bay town where the exxon refinery is. did a couple shots along the way here a lot of flooding. not just houston, folks. a lot of flooding really between the gulf coast of mexico and houston and i'm sure parts west of houston there's a lot of stuff that is under water. we'll show you some pictures that we saw personally later on

today. but let's get now to the economic impact of what this may be because we are all just figuring it out. this is the beginning in many ways you've got, of course, continued rainfall continued rescue efforts then there will come the long recovery hopefully an easier recovery than some expect they are expecting some more rain, unfortunately. the houston economy cannot be understated and it importance on the united states cannot be understated. approximately $500 billion of economic actevty produced out of the houston region every single year that would make it one of the largest 25 countries with an economy just about the size of sweden 3 million jobs directly associated with houston. it is the fastest growing large metropolitan area in the united states the biggest job creating area in the united states over the last 15 years the port of houston, which is up the ship channel that way behind us here in galveston is the largest port in the united states by tonnage. one of the largest by ship totals, as well. remains totally closed

every ship that wants to go to houston, whether they're unloading cars, iphones or more likely gas or exporting gasoline or oil has to go through the ship channel of galveston, which remains closed ten s of hundreds of super tankers and three cruise ships that i don't want to say, stranded, but anchored off shore in the gulf of mexico waiting for the all-clear to enter no clear symbol, guys, of when that is going to happen. i know you guys interviewed joe on "squawk box" and the commissioner report of houston tried to put the best face on it as he could. but with more rain expected. no word on when that is going to open up. the reality is this, houston, humanitarian story that's first and foremost. people's lives are at risk but there is a huge economic impact, as well. we're going to get more into that as the rest of "power lunch" rolls on. you can see here in the normally busy port of galveston and everywhere we went today, guys there is nothing going on.

school and work all closed as they should for the entire week and another hit is supposed to come through again tomorrow. this area does not need more rain let'scontessa brewer i heard that convention center is filling up. i heard your interview a few minutes ago with senator ted cruz mike newberiurg made it down he somehow. hopefully you and everybody else are safe >> we've been sharing resources here in texas. brian, you mention the normally busy port and the downtown area of houston is a ghost town, with the exception of the convention center, which is a bustling place in and of itself today 3,000 residents have come in here now seeking shelter and the rain outside is just relentless. people who are coming in here are talking about the impact on their homes that they've lost everything they can't get to their jobs there are 3 million workers in

this metropolitan houston area if you look at the flooded streets. even if their offices were open, they would have no way to get to those offices because of all the flooding on these local roads and the interstates here one of the things that's starting to happen is, people are trying to get a handle on how much is this going to cost houston and how much is this going to cost texas and how much will it cost the federal government i did talk about that a little bit with senator ted cruz who notably vo notably voted a supplemental sandy bill swept throu i asked him when he sees the scope of the damage in texas, he thinks differently about that vote whether he would have voted differently. here's his answer. >> no, of course not as i said at the time, hurricane funding is a very important federal responsibility and i would have eagerly supported funding for that, but i didn't think it was appropriate to engage in pork barrel spending where two-thirds of that

spending was unrelated spending that had nothing to do with sandy but was politicians wasting money. >> he also had a message for businesses he said it's time for pony up w they can can't get into work and help facilitate employees with how they compensate for shut down of two, three, four, who knows how many days here brian, joe, melissa, it's a hard task when you're getting people rescued and figure what is to come in the days and weeks ahead. >> contessa, thank you very much contessa brewer in houston let's look at some of the industries at risk from hurricane harvey businesses in the aerospace, specialty chemical, health care and joining us on the cnbc news line is bob mitchell, president

of the bay area houston economic partnership. bob, great to have you with us at this point, so much devastation, but you had to pinpoint the industry you're most concerned about what would that be >> it has to be the especialspe chemicalistry and the supply chain. the products we can't get in here those products come from other parts of the united states >> in terms of specialty chemicals. if you could walk us through the ripple effect. i think not many average americans think about how their lives are impacted by specialty chemicals. but they are actually important ingredients in a lot of different things that are in use every single day in industrial america. >> well, there's not a thing that you touch on a daily basis that is not producing from something in houston everything from the plastics from the capsules you take every day to theraflu and the rubber products you could go on and on and all

the products that are shipped across the united states that produces the products we all use every day. >> how much, how important is the greater houston area to that particular industry? when you take a look at the impact, are you really concerned about the flooding what specifically for that industry >> well, it's the fact that you can't get the people back and forth to work. you have to have people that operate that equipment so, that's the big -- it's a human factor thing you talk about the companies helping the people those companies are helping those people on a day-to-day basis. and people are flooded i try to get to work five times from five different directions from my house this morning and could not get to work. i took an hour and a half trying to get there it's a matter of trying to get the employees to work. >> they're not perishable, though there will be a shortage, maybe. but eventually when you're able to bring things in and get things out, i mean, it's not

like they're not going to be any good any more, right is that one positive >> well, that is a positive. but you have to look at the negatives. on the negatives on one end, you have companies out there trying to ship their product and people that are working outside of houston trying to get product here then, once we get back online which takes days to get back online, you've got, you've got manufacturing companies out there that people are sitting around waiting on their product to get to them most products today are just in time we don't inventory everything. >> i'm sure that -- i'm assuming you're a texan, bob. i'm not sure if you're in the houston area for other storms in the past, but how does this compare? what does it seem to you in terms of the ability of the city to recover this time versus in past storms? >> well, let me say this first of all, i'm 62 years old and born and raised here i started with carla and gone through ike and now this the one thing that we have to

look at is if you would have picked up hurricane harvey and set it on top of houston, where would we be today? totally devastated yes, this is a rain event. but if you picked that hurricane up and moved it here, it's worse than the rain that we're getting that could be as much as 40, 50 inches i personally have had 24 inches of water, rain right here at my house p spent all day yesterday taking the carpet out of my house from flooding but i'm more concerned for the future of protecting this region with a coastal spine because we can't afford to have that hurricane here we'll be shut down for weeks we could be shut down for multiple months if a hurricane had a direct hit on us no reason we can't protect our selves >> no reason we can't protect ourselves in what way? >> very simple we could have built a spine to keep the surf out of the bay when it hit, the bay could have

filled up. >> a coastal spine for those who don't know what it is is what? >> they build a barrier system like they do over in the netherlands across the coastline. and that prevents the water surges from getting into the bay. you have gates and you have berms. and the netherlands, for example, 60% of their country is below sea level. 80% of the gross national product are below sea level. but they are able to protect their area because they built a coastal spine around their region that is something we have been working on for eight years it's basically, what they've done in new orleans. they spent $15.5 billion in new orleans to build a dike around new orleans to protect 6,000, 7,000 people in less than 1/16 of the product we produce here we can do it for $11 billion because we're not below sea level. >> bob, thank you. president of the bay area houston economic partnership. coming up, he took charge

after hurricane katrina devastated new orleans lieutenant general russell honoree with what he thinks the next critical steps are in rv'shaey aftermath "power lunch" will be back in two minutes. what's the secret to turning a no into a yes? do you know how to network like a champ? and when is a good time to have some fun in the office i'm jj ramberg and i have some great answers to all of these questions which might help you run a better business. check out the your business page for an exclusive online video series to help you work smart, grow fast and go further

welcome back to "power lunch. some headlines outside of storm harvey

uber is naming its new ceo dara khosrowshahi has been in charge of expedia since 2005 and credited with expanding its global presence. former g and hewlett-packard enterprise meg whitman couldn't agree on terms expedia saying he has been asked to lead uber but nothing is finalized. shares are down 4% following the news amazon closing its $14 billion buyout of whole foods and changes are already under way. whole foods cutting prices on items like bananas, salmon and many other products. amazon also selling its amazon echo and devices at whole foods and planning on giving amazon prime members special savings. pharma shares are soaring.

gilead is buying for a 30% premium and check shares of juno as well as bluebird for that matter both soaring under reports possible takeover targets because they, too, are in that kite space very hot area. >> if i ever leave, comcast goes down 6%. >> if you specifically leave you're not the ceo of comcast. >> but it's better for a ceo if you're leaving and the stock goes down. >> yes, clearly. >> it's not always the case, as you know a lot of times -- >> we've seen a pop. think of how terrible you feel terrible >> really bad. our next guest served as commander of the joint task force that was responsible during katrina for coordinating relief efforts for that event, which affected areas across the gulf he is lieutenant general russell honore u.s. army retired

lieutenant general you're jumping right into the controversy. we had michael brown on who, also, you might recall, from katrina. we haven't learned our lesson because we don't evacuate areas that should have been evacuated. you think houston should have been evacuated >> that's what we do we evacuate people who are in danger and that is our doctrine for first responders that plans as part of our national security -- national homeland security plan as far as fema and for whatever reasons, the mayor has stated his reason and he's got to live with that but, by and large, i've been calling for an evacuation since friday. >> we have a pretty good idea about, you know, who wanted to do it and who didn't and, you know, we're still right in the middle of this. probably not a great time to be fingerpointing but, apparently, the governor

greg abbott said it should be done but the mayor was familiar with a previous time where maybe it shouldn't have been evacuated and there were 100 lives lost during the evacuation process, including, i think, 23 senior citizens in a horrific bus fire. so, it seems like it's just not a slam dunk that you should do that but in hindsight, obviously, maybe that would have been the right move it would be nice to know how bad the hurricane was actually going to be before you evacuate. >> well, you evacuate based on the predictions. hurricane rita looked like it was going to come more into texas than it did into louisiana. they did the right thing tried to evacuate some of houston. but i think the part that they skipped is that you evacuate the vulnerable population in the flood zone you evacuate people that want to evacuate that don't have rides and then you encourage volunteer

evacuation i would never personally tell people to evacuate and we'll try to rescue later. that's not a good model. and i hope in the future, because this is the beginning of hurricane season when the next hurricane comes, that they will practice that low lying areas, if you're in an area that flooded. if you need a ride or you're in a nursing home and to encourage voluntary evacuations. i think people will do that. they just have to figure out how to control the roads and that's their job they have to figure it out but, as you said, there's no need to stop and argue about it now. and get ready for the next storm. it's going to be worse tomorrow than it is today their challenge is how to scale up because they don't nearly have enough assets in terms of

helicopters and troops to do what needs to be done. this is bring the grid back on line and pump the water out and bring the electric grid back on line and open the roads. they need more troops than what they got let me just say this, though people that are evacuated when you start encouraging people, as soon as you have access to a computer to start signing up for fema, check your tetanus shot. if you're not sure, go by one of the stores that are open and get your tetanus shot. local communities need to start getting generators in to gas stations because the gas station will be able to pump gas, but they will need generators. and check on your neighbor use text opposed to voice because the cell system is downgraded and check on your flood insurance paperwork. you need that if you want to apply for your flood insurance those will be some good tips right now. but if you sign up now, you might not have money in your

bank within 24 hours >> lieutenant, you've been there for the preparation also and the aftermath and having seen now some of the video and the pictures of the destruction that the area has endured, how long of a road do you think the people of texas have in front of them how difficult will it be to get out from this immense amount of flooding >> well, the immediate -- it's going to be months before many of them will get back to their homes. they won't have the infrastructure in their community. it will take a month to bring the electric grid back online. so many transformers went out because they left the transformers on when the hurricane came in. that blew all the transformers they'll have a significant job you can't do nothing until you bring the electricity up from that, people can start coming back and start bringing business 40% of the small businesses are going to fail as a result of this storm >> general, thank you for phoning in today, we appreciate it

and be well, thanks. >> just sign up for fema sign up for fema the cost of this storm could top hurricane katrina. coming up, we're live at one insurer's national catastrophe center a look at how they're handling the storm straight ahead

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latest hi, ahman. >> expecting the president to go to corpus christi, texas, tomorrow, where he will have the opportunity to talk to those people in person the president spent most of the weekend at camp david this past weekend where he was able to monitor developments and get real-time updates from his team in washington and on the ground in texas president alsoputting out a couple of tweets over the weekend. the first one saying, wow, now experts are calling harvey a once in 500-year flood we have an all-out effort going and going well the president also saying historic rainfall in houston and all over texas floods are unprecedented and more rain is coming. spirit of the people is incredible thanks those are the tweets from the president. we are expecting to hear from him in person here at the white house this afternoon he's meeting with the president of finland and there will be a press conference at 4:20 eastern time here at the white house so, he'll have another opportunity to address all this, as well, joe, from here at the white house. >> all right, thank you. we'll check back at some point

we'll see you again soon, my friend maybe tomorrow morning straight ahead, rockport one of the hardest hit areas what is ahead for the city as they try to pick up the pieces. "power lunch" is back in two minutes. fidelity, where smarter investors will always be. and the wolf huffed like you do sometimes, grandpa? well, when you have copd, it can be hard to breathe. it can be hard to get air out, which can make it hard to get air in. so i talked to my doctor. she said... symbicort could help you breathe better, starting within 5 minutes. symbicort doesn't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden symptoms. symbicort helps provide significant improvement of your lung function. symbicort is for copd, including chronic bronchitis and emphysema. it should not be taken more than twice a day. symbicort contains formoterol.

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hello, everyone. i'm sue herrera. here is the latest on hur kricae harvey houston airport is not expected to open until thursday activated the entire national guard bringing the deployment to roughly 12,000 more than 5,500 people have been evacuated throughout the city. about half of those evacuees are in the houston convention center the facility has enough room for 4,000 people and as evacuees arrive volunteers also showed up to help. >> it's not good you know, it feels good to help people, but helpless i mean, helpless feeling i left my apartment knowing that my mother was going to be right behind me and she's -- >> the kentucky international guard is on its way to texas, as well the group is heading to ft. hood

to help with storm relief. the red cross also sending a volunteer for us to help with recovery that is the latest at this hour joe, i'll send it back to you. >> thank you, sue. turns out that rockport, texas, was one of the hardest hit cities in that state jackie deangeles has witnessed the devastation with her own eyes and since moved to corpus christi. that's where she joins us live now. and i don't even want to hear about the journey. must have been interesting since i saw you this morning >> it was a lot to take in, joe. good afternoon to you. here in corpus christi, we're awaiting for governor greg abbott and senator cornyn to do a quick briefing before they take a trip to rockport to view the devastation there. we talked to several homeowners. several people that were impacted by this storm that literally said they've lost everything and we saw it with our own eyes. we saw blocks upon blocks of

this small town where literally structures, businesses and homes were torn apart. roofs were across the street from the structures that they were supposed to be in trees were down. every intersection had traffic lights down, as well this is a place right now that's surviving without power. without cell phone towers, without sewage systems the mayor has advised people who have evacuated not to come back. he said, don't be part of the problem right now. we're trying to get everything together and get the inf infrastructure back in shape the question at this point now that we know that governor abbott has deployed the national guard, roughly 12,000 people to help with suearch and rescue is how much of that aid will come to this area since a lot of people are focused on houston which, right now is, und, is unr water. residents said it would be a real shame if they forgot about these coastal towns right now just because they're not flooded. others said, look, they should go help the people in houston

right now, they need it more at the end of the day, no matter what you say, it will take a lot of patience and a lot of perseverance and a lot of cooperation throughout texas to be able to get through this disaster back to you guys >> all right, jackie, thank you. harvey is not done with rockport and the rest of texas, unfortunately. for more on the storm's path, let's get to angie lassman >> things not looking great for much of the southeast. you can see portions of texas, louisiana, mississippi, all dealing with that heavy rain threat again today we see houston, again. seeing torrential rains there. we continue to watch most of the heavy bands of rain moving into portions of louisiana. so, flash flood watches and warnings are in effect they continue to be in effect. 11 million people under the flash flood watch. you can see why. rain totals checking in above that 20 inch mark. above the 30 inch mark some of us pushing closer to 40 with the latest numbers coming in in the past hour. we still have much more on the way. we're talking 15 to 20 more

inches of rain and the next week goes on, mainly most of that rain coming in the next three days so, we've broken records of course, this has been a historic storm i want to show you some of the records we've seen you can see, yesterday we checked in with 16.07 inches of rain our previous record of daily max rainfall is 8.32 you can see, we doubled that nearly if you add in saturday's rain to sunday's rain, you can see with one of our next records that we have beat the total max rainfall amount for the wettest month of all time it used to be june of 2001 and now august of 2017 and that happened in just two days unfortunately, the records will continue to be shattered because, as i said, we have 15 to 20 inches more of rain. the good news is, for some in houston, that most of that rain will start to shift to the east. still, they aren't going to be dealing with those flooding issues from the dams being let out overnight and they will have

to continue to do that still, a developing situation that we have to monitor over the next couple of days. joe, back to you. >> hoping for the best, angie. how do cities in texas begin the recovery process joining us now is mark, director of recovery for emergency management consulting firm hagerty. mark is also former fema deputy director and most recently helped new york city recover from super storm sandy mark, so far, you make these comments it appears that all the agencies including fema are doing a pretty good job. it's difficult to ascertain that and it's a wide geographic area and maybe we just don't know how confident are you that things are going pretty, as well as can be expected with a storm like this >> i'm confident that the agency and the local municipalities and the state of texas have put forward a very robust response everything that they're doing is, you know, based on lessons learned from previous events

and making sure that, you know, public safety and health are priority number one right now. and they also have already begun work on plans for the future in regards to recovery and how quickly they'll be able to help these municipalities recover from the storm. >> by definition, these are catastrophic events that are difficult to deal with no matter who's involved or how earnest you are in your efforts. we saw katrina, at least the initial response and then, for whatever reason, the way it was -- we now remember the response to katrina. fair or not. does it really differ that much? can fema be in a great position to deal with something and then in another situation totally drop the ball or is it just difficult in any case to deal with something like this is this much better than the katrina response >> i think the response is significantly better than the

katrina response however, i will agree with you that absolutely these types of scenarios and the amounts of impact that they have are huge and always difficult to deal with you know, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. i think, you know, what the agency has done and specifically in partnership with states and locals, as i said, is pretty robust they really focused on the right things they prepositioned a lot of material assets, as well as personnel. it seems like, you know, with as often as they are having this discussion and coordination between state, local and federal, you know, that they're in a much better position than the agency found itself and the people found themselves during katri katrina. >> do you think we have a pretty good feel for the damage that's been done so far remember, it kept getting worse as i recall with katrina we didn't immediately know how bad it was and, so, are we, are we halfway through this? do we have a pretty good idea

how the ultimate damage, how significant it is going to be or do we till have a ways to go and we don't know yet? >> i don't think we know exactly yet. i think the next three days or so will give us that type of information. i will say that the agency has gotten very good at predictions just based on their work with, you know, the river forecast center, as well as the information coming out of noaa on the ground teams and satellite imagery, certainly all help that picture. but i think as everybody knows, rainfall itself is difficult to predict when you have a range and depending on how inundated an area is, it can get significantly worse or pass without significant harm i think the next 72 hours will show that. >> they're going to return, the utilities probably won't be back up because such extensive flooding, et cetera.

a lot of people may not even have flood insurance i'm just cure ious if you can ge us a sense of how many people will be able to rebuild and how many have flood insurance and people just decide to leave this area because they just don't have any other choice. >> across the gulf coast, i know that there are around 450,000 policies i can't say exactly how many will be in the areas that are most affected for this event but, i will say that normal insurance doesn't cover these items. what the federal programs provide, you know, can be a significant portion of that recovery but there is always some number of financially vulnerable households that are forced to make a really difficult choice i think the key here for the local municipalities and the state and fema to work on is what is the plan in regards to who they bring back and try to make sure that they are keeping the industries that form their

tax base alive and that leads to an overall better recovery >> mark, one of the points you make is that fema usually deals with individuals but in this case, there are some key industries that are so crucial to the state and national economy that fema may need to tack away -- i just don't even know how you say that gently because it seems like you have to take care of individuals. that's got to be a priority. it almost sounds like a difficult case to be made that you got to go protect industries but in this case, i think you have to walk that line, i guess. it's a fine line >> so, every state in the post-post post-katrina environment has basically formed a joint state-led housing task force not only do they work on fema with what the housing options are that will be offered after an event, but specifically if there are certain priorities

if there is any constraint on resources how that would work. the agency will target trying to make sure the resources are fully available across the board. if any of those things are timed in nature, typically what you'll see is the agency will say, let's address the needs of, let's say, first responders. because when people start coming back to a community, they need to be safe so, police, firemen, ems, doctors, others that are required for that life, health and safety really need to be back to support those areas before a large number of people come back. and then, secondary to the life safety issue is oftentimes and certainly happened in katrina. there is some weighing out of, you know, what are the industries that form the biggest pieces of the tax base and are there any priortuization of those resources sometimes that can happen when there are significant national interests in a particular industry that could affect the national economy >> is that reflected in who gets processed quickly and if somebody has flood insurance with the u.s. government that perhaps somebody who may work,

just let's say for example in the specialty chemical industry and maybe they get an rv or some other living accommodations before others in other industries that may not be so economically important to the area? >> as far as the capability to actually process and determine eligibility, usually there's not a priortuization in that sense it comes later when you start talking about those direct housing options. so, let's just say that x thousand units may be delivered in a particular week you know, who gets those units what communities are prepared to support those units? there are a lot more decisions that go into that type of factor but the initial eligibility for the most part is determined pretty quickly by fema you know, they're at a pretty high rate of being able to autoprocess once an inspection is complete. so, those eligibility determinations and financial

assistance come very quickly people are not left without means. but the ability to come back into the community is usually a decision that happens at the local community level with the state-led housing task force >> we appreciate all the experience you brought for us today. mark, thank you for your time. we appreciate it >> absolutely. thank you. let's get back to brian in galveston with what he has coming up. hey, brian >> hey, melissa, joe thank you. we talked a lot about refining coming up after the break, we'll talk about why harvey may impact oil production the actual drilling on shore and off shore and breaking news for the port of corpus cishrti, texas, involving a tug boat and a drilling rig

quick check on some of the markets moving right now watching the dollar index very closely and hitting a 16-month low and most of the weakness being seen against the euro, which is strengthening in today's session.

gold is rising hit a 9 1/2 month high and yields hitting the lowest level since june 27th let's get to brian in galveston now. brian? >> hey, melissa, thank you very much i'm going to get to oil and refining in just a bit but we have some breaking news out of corpus christi, texas cnbc just confirmed that a rig broke off a moand sunk a fen, a drilling rig just recently breaking off of a dock or a moring and sinking a tug boat no word on injuries. hopefully everybody is okay and the port of corpus christi is officially closed as is the port of galveston and the port of houston where we are you see oil is down 3% and gasoline is up 3%. the reasons are clear. about 15% of the u.s. is refining capacity is off line. much of that is done right around here because the storm and there's a thought that,

well, if you're not refining, you're going to use less oil and therefore more oil and the price comes down i'll throw a little twist into that, as well. 22% of the off-shore oil production in the united states, according to the federal government, is currently off line remember, it's not just on shore. there's a lot off shore and about 400,000 barrels a day are currently off line also, don't just focus on this region i know houston is getting the attention it deserves. in between here and houston getting the attention it deserves but pay attention if you care about the oil markets to the eagle ford shale that is a huge oil producing region really going from south to southwestern texas and there has been some talk that producers and drillers there could have issues because of power outages, road problems, labor shortage that is a major oil production area, as well. eog, a number of companies have heavy operations there we'll try to get you updates, again, because they're a little

more dispersed but oil production, keep in mind, could be impacted onshore, as well, guys, not just refining we focus on the refining of crude products and get to the eagle ford and talk about that, as well. no word yet when these refineries are going to open and i heard your guests talking earlier about how long it takes and that's an important point. after hurricane ike in 2008 the second biggest facility in the country was closed for about a month. you can't just shut the refinery down and say everything is okay. you need to make sure they are safe, if you have water on them, you need to make sure the chemicals aren't dispersing into the environment and make sure the men and women who can work there can get there and if we get the rain that they're talking about over the next 48 hours, having driven extensively around this region, i'm not sure

how anybody is going to get anywhere there are not many roads open. when you drive down a road and you think it's okay and it's not. a lot of variables onshore it could be impacted. >> brian, that accident was totally unrelated to harvey? even without harvey that could have happened. like murphy's law. an accident that shut down corpus christi they had nothing to do with harvey or was it related to harvey >> i don't know, joe my sort of spider sense tells me that something got weakened, a dock got weakened or rope and accidents do, again, happen. but this gulf coast region can't catch a break. >> right what a time for this in corpus christi. that's amazing thank you. >> thank you >> we'll see you, again. still ahead, a look at how insurers are responding to the devastation. morgan brennan is live in windsor, connecticut morgan >> hey, melissa. take a look behind me, we have

weather analytics. social media feeds, big data this is all some of the tools that insurers like travelers are begin assessing damage before hurricane harvey before the adjusters are even on the ground we have that story coming up when "power lunch" returns. befh ground

welcome back, harvey can top hurricane katrina. how are insurance companies are dealing with the devastation they don't have to worry about floods can you believe that >> morgan is live at the traveler national center, hi morgan brennan john, i want you to take a look at this. we are in the national center for travelers. you can see behind me, we got weather and analytics and big data and social media feed all of this is monitored at a realtime look at harvey. which is still sitting in texas and parts of louisiana now a lot of technology in it is relatively new

it did not exist for hurricane katrina or did not exist for 2008 this center did not exist and yet it is a crucial part of the claims process for travelers >> many of the new tools have expedited the claim process, for example, we can actually build out the footprint of a property before we are on-site to inspect it travelers is one of the biggest insurers in texas. and nearly 8% for commercials. in the coming days, the center is going to get busier because we are going to be seeing more claims begin to come in. insurers have three mobile claims unit. the adjusters that are being sent down there. most of them are drone certified. they'll be using drones to do the first round of assessments of those properties.

they all are resources to be deployed in the area with a lot of business in texas, harford and progressive and hathaway and metli metlife, the storm is very much under way and it is a key point that it is very much a flooding event. it is going to complicate things here the flooding on the residential is covered by largely by the federal government, wind damage is covered for the homes by the insurers and commercial and autopolicies are covered by insurers as well it is really going to be the commercial and the autolosses that you are going to want to take a look at with these stocks and with these companies moving forward. guys >> is the flooding on the business side in terms of the water damage that's the unknown out there the insurance will stop and the ones that's publicly trade will take a hit in today's session.

but, yet in terms of financial stability, these insurance companies had $700 million in surplus. theoretically, they are in great position to deal with tremendous losses >> that's right. $709 billion is the number when you are talking about large losses, you can have hurricane katrina and 2016 you can have an event like that and an industry will be able to absorb this. near term is another story but, really the big swing factor according to a number of analysts right now is the autolosses because there are a lot of people and a lot of cars there that got stuck in the flooding sometimes the pricing cycle, it can improve after you raise

premiums and remember buffet after that year, that horrible year, they were not able to raise it and five to ten years taking it right to the bank. morgan, thank you. crazy day. >> we got team coverage on this historic flooding. live in galveston and houston with the latest at this hour the ceo joins us on clean up efforts on tcehe storm clears. second hour of "power lunch" straight ahead it's time for the biggest sale of the year with the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses your every move and automatically adjusts on both sides to keep you effortlessly comfortable. and snoring.... does your bed do that? the new 360 smart bed is part of our biggest sale of the year where all beds are on sale. and right now save 50% on the labor day limited edition bed. won't replace the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. no, i picked the wrong insurance company.

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welcome to "power lunch. top story at this hour of tropical storm harvey. 25 to 34 inches of rain in the houston area and another 10 to 12 inches of rain is expected the next 72 hours. the hurricane have been downgraded to tropical storm status fema is saying today texas have never seen an event like harvey. >> we are expecting based on

this event over 450,000 registered disaster victims. that's a huge number we are ready to go the process, we already processed over nearly 15,000 calls over the last 24 hours of getting citizens registered. >> just the last two hours governor abbott activated the entire texas guards to 12,000. the president is expected to travel to texas tomorrow >> houston area is a major economic center for the country especially for energy. lets get back to brian sullivan in galveston looking at the economic impact. hey brian. >> reporter: hey, joe, do you remember after a number of years ago, we kept ongoing to galveston and houston. that's the only area of the united states that were growing after the financial crisis and oil and gas was the only

industry that was adding jobs. the fastest growing metropolitan area in the united states over the last 15 years added more jobs than any large metropolitan area in the industry whether you like it or not is incredibly important not only to the region but to the united states there are at least eight major oil and gas refineries with 60 miles radius of where we are right now. not all of them are shut in. valero says two corpus cristi refinery are not operational we were there earlier today. they would not give you a clear answer they don't give updates for security reasons effectively we don't see a lot of cars in the parking lot.

baytown facility, 540,000 capacity there we should have videos of one or two cars of what should have been 7,000 workers coming in out of that facility so about 2 million barrels a day. lets not forget of the export market melissa, you talk about these, it is chemicals. it is not just oil that we can refine in gasoline and jet fuel. it is chemicals that go into everything else that we may use from paint to roofing materials as well, you got 3.3 million workers here and roughly 6.5 metro area population and gdp of 500 millions we have been talking about it a lot. we got to get more updates on the status and figure how long these folks are going to be out of work. you had the interview earlier today in the show where the gentleman, i cannot remember his name, my brain is fried, i

apologize. he says it could be months before people can go back to work that's restaurants and retails if your house is under three feet of water, i am not sure the last thing to think about is going to dinner at a tgif's on a saturday night there is a huge economic impact that's just getting started. it is not just oil and gas but still that's the life blood of this area. >> right just got to make sure you take care and doing it in the right order, right, brian? >> you don't want to sign too heartless but you got to keep in the back of your mind, we heard of tax dollars and the local economy and just like you said people getting back to work. you have the start thinking of economy and it does not make you

a bad person to think that way >> we are cnbc money does matter. you got to rebuild a lot of these people are left without homes and they don't have flood insurance we heard the number from morgan bra brennan. you maybe on the hook to rebuild your own house you are going to need help and a job and you are going to need whatever kind of assistance from fema that you can get. that's the story of the next weeks and months and years i will leave you with this i will see in a bit. this nation has had a lot of issues lately. the stuff that we have seen and a lot of people have seen and witnessed is pretty special. men and women, i don't care what their race or creed of color is coming out in jet skis and driving on flooded highways and pulling people out of cars, everybody, nobody cares what your politics are right now. nobody cares i am sure they will at some

point, there will be politicized, right now people are doing what they can to help out their cousins or neighbors and random strangers >> i don't know if you saw -- >> reporter: i am amazed that it took this long representative king is a lifelong new yorker, i will vote for harvey and ted cruz is a constituent. unlike ted, i am not going to abandon texas. a relief bill that some texans bought was -- >> more than 20 representatives voted against sandy aid. >> two third of two-thirds ofsa.

>> much more is on the way contessa >> reporter: it will be interesting to see whether the senate, now that the republicans in the majority have not learned their lesson and would avoid adding any kind of pork on a harvey texas aid bill to senator cruz's point because he said he did not regret working on that bill we are out here on 288 everything is shut down, the restaurants are not operating because of this. in houston, you cannot get around the sign up here says if there is water on the road don't turn around you can see what i am seeing here, you cannot get through and this is not the only one, take a look on your iphone out of google map and what you see is road closures and there is no way of getting around here take a look here of all the water going through the storm. in houstons there are all these

shots and restaurants. they are down underneath keeping people cool, right now they are flooded out and cars are flooted out. it brought the city to a standstill and rescues are still happeni happening. ph families are not at work today and schools are shut down. listen to this >> we came across a couple of critters because of where we were we had water to our chest. >> that dad brian hubbard had three jobs we are waiting to see when the city dries out enough that people can get around and if they still have a car to do so and buses get back and running.

melissa and joe, it is a mess out here >> thank you, we'll see you again soon >> lets get to our congressman, president trump is expected to travel to texas tomorrow as millions of people there are battling the historic flooding michael brown talked about the lack of evacuations before the storm earlier. >> if you had the ability two or three days to make to dallas or san antonio or waco where it needs to be to get out of town, do that. i don't think we have learned a lesson in this country people are going to be suffering. they are suffering need lessly because they did not need to be there. >> one of the controversies we were talking about whether to evacuate or not. on the news now represent kevin brady. >> right now we are facing major

in land flooding because our rivers and creeks will crack later this evening >> as far from what you can tell and i don't know if you -- can go on the record here. it is impossible to tell now are we passed mid way, i would hope >> look, we had a little break today and the rain is half the level as they were than yesterday. our challenge is they're coming back as the storm comes back ashore they're predicting and we are getting a day which is really helpful. rivers and creeks continue to rise we are still doing evacuations and rescues as we speak. it is a little better conditions to do that today than yesterday. >> you were around, i know

for -- we have been watching this from time to time and over the decade, fema sometimes to be good and working together. does this seems like look, this is the time where we did rise to the occasion better. what is the difference of this response than katrina response >> so far so good in the state and federal local preparations that's excellent for an unprecedent event but time will tell the first 72 hours or so, your local in the 7th degree state. after that, you begin to transfer the needs or systems or whether it is housing or food or whether it is healthcare or to the state federal level. that's where we'll see of the cord inauguratiordination pays . we still got a lot of stuff to do there this one is unprecedent and i

know with both katrina and ike and rita those all have different responses, too as a matter of fact, i am pleased with federal and state and locals are working together. >> is it possible to know beforehand whether you are going to be right about the decision of evacuate or not it is always with the benefit of hindsight either you should or should not by the way, when you are as we learn, you are evacuating four million or more people, that's dangerous, too >> and so i think our local officials is a mayor outcome

>> remember we have been talking about senator ted cruz and peter king and they are going back and forth of representatives voted against it, too. there were too much pork and do you think we just heard contessa, have government officials to learn a lesson just to focus on harvey and don't try to put other stuff in here and get voted. >> why did you vote against it >> we'll see that. right now our biggest challenge is getting people mandatorily evacuated. we got our major lake that's giving record releases so that the dam can stay with key integrity so that's the last thing i am worried about i will get a chance to turn to that after this week is over >> i am assuming that you would give me the same answer to whether this pushes back the

timetable on tax reform, too >> that's a great question, joe, i think it is a fair one the answer is no i have continued to work with speakers on our end of the tax reform issue and the white house and senate as well at this point, i have not seen anything that knocks us out of the timetable this year. >> and you dealt and spoken with if president and the job that he's done so far what kind of grade would you give him on that >> well, i will tell you i listen closely to our state and governor abbott and local officials, they seem pleased, our challenge is rising rivers and creeks and what we do about that over the next two days. sort of a imagine the entire year's rain for your community landing on you in five days, it is just tough to deal with that. >> right, you may actually, next

time you come onto talk, it won't be as horrible when we are grilling you on that and we don't have to talk about this. we can get back to talk about other stuff. >> you always grill me the right way. >> mr. chairman, if i can get in here for a moment, it is melissa. i understand that you want to focus on the immediate needs of the people of your home state right now. you are a capable congressman and you can multi task just as you are focusing on what is going onto your backyard when you get to the aid bill, are you confident that you will be able to get the support from your s when you ask them for th support. >> i hope so besides what we are doing right now for the immediate challenges, i know congress colbeson is leading a bipartisan effort and putting together an

estimate of what a bill would look like so we'll take it step by step. >> congressman, thank you. >> you bet, thank you. >> okay, see you later here is what's coming up on "power lunch." a major role clean up after harvey the company has 2400 employees in houston the company's ceo is joining us next what will happen to oil and gas prices we'll take a lk ooat the airlines of the autoindustry, "power lunch" will be right back

welcome back, our next guest is president and ceo of waste management president and ceo, mr. jim fish >> we are trying to get to everybody right now. not everyone has power and availability in terms of cell phone coverage we are trying to get in touch of all of our employees making sure they are safe and they're displaced in their homes and they are finding shelters for them and working with them to this crisis.

>> where are our headquarter >> is it in one of the high-rises in houston, is it not? >> it is right downtown. on my commute in, i have not been able to get downtown. looks like the gulf of mexico downtown sometimes these things get over stat stated everything you heard is absolutely accurate. this is devastating in houston we are trying to get our employees located. it is difficult because of the logistics. you cannot move between communities because of the roads being shut down. >> interesting you said the lead on drugs is

gulf of houston and it looks like the gulf of mexico, that's pretty amazing and descriptive and horrific lets say that you were able to deploy some of your trucks and some of your people, how can waste management help? you can do more than service du dumpst dumpster for all businesses in houston and all the other things as well, right >> that's right. a couple of things, we are announcing today of $3 million donation, cash donation to various entities and fund the american red cross and organizations in and other parts of texas such as victoria and east texas living in heart hiars trying to get to our critical customer as i mention specifically hospitals and i have reached out to both waste

and connection because it is fine to pick up a hospital but if you have nowhere to take their materials, it does not do much good we are trying to not only assess where we have access and people available to operate those assets but also where we have disposals and reaching out to those companies and we'll exchange information, we have three of our landfills opened in the area, our recycle facilities were shut down it is a bit of a puzzle trying to find out where you go and where you pick it up >> what is possible for you to do do you find shelter or financial systems or i guess whatever that's necessary you have a phone number to call?

>> so we asked all employees to reach out to their immediate supervisors and they'll have the numbers of those immediate supervisors. we have daily briefings going on but we have a combination of operation employees and corporate employees so it is different people reaching out to them in terms of financial system, we are looking to identify hotel space for them which we'll cover obviously from the waste management side so they adodon' have to bring their own. once the storm is passed, we'll have management employees and we'll have employees through that mechanism for weeks and months to come >> jim fish, thank you ceo of waste management. we saw a couple of weeks ago and did not expect you to be talking

to you this soon >> exactly >> yeah, good luck and we are thinking of you and everyone in houston and corpus cristi and elsewhere. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> thank you very much hurricane harvey is a major disruption to the oil industry, what does it mean for gas prices, the answer is next on "power lunch."

prices after harvey. gas prices are expected to go up higher >> obviously a big question, when refineries are able to come back online in order to alleviate some of the spikes and prices can you do any comparisons of what we saw in past forms and the impact of prices that we saw then >> this event of so much

rainfa rainfall the last major storm that we can compare it to. katrina caused at least months or lasting damage. hurricane harvey and the after effect oil industry are scaling back maybe you can say a quarter of the amount damage or less than half the impact at the pumps still is going to be noticeable for millions of americans are preparing to hit the roads for labor day weekend. >> sure, we become spoil whened it comes to gas prices when we take a look at what's happening now, we don't know the effects and the refinery industry was completely different from what was back then of the impact, it is not going to be the tremendous spike that we saw before >> that's right, so much has changed gasoline inventory is still much better than they were in hurricane katrina

we added the equivalent of several refineries since katrina. we were talking about 50 million barrels of capacity and now we are talking about production we are still finding out how susceptible it is and water that's shutting down not only refineries and pipelines and keeping refinery workers being able to get to work. those are some tremendous challenges that we have in the weeks ahead. lets be clear here, you said gas prices going up to 20 or 30% a gallon in the gulf region. everyone across the country should expect some sort of increase, right? and what they are paying at the pump we'll see an impact and maybe less than what we are seeing in the gulf it will jump closer to the higher side of that range.

that's something will trans pyre in the next couple of weeks. the gulf coast will see a quicker increase of anywhere between 20% or 35% motorists are finding out areas in texas are a challenge you talk about the west coast and the midwest and the east coast could see increases of 15 cents. they see a rapid response to changes. the great lakes average prices could start increasing as soon as tomorrow and that could be anywhere from 15 to 25 cents >> patrick, thank you for joining us sue herrera with the latest on the storm. hi sue >> hi joe. thank you. the sports in business world are stepping up to try to help the victims of harvey. bob mcnar, the owner of the houston texans, he and the team will donate $1 million to the united way fund. that was matched by the nfl

foundati foundation robert craft and his family pledged to match all funds donated to the american red cross up to $1 million and starbucks is donated 250,000 to the american red cross and tha they'll set up red cross donation sites in their stores the coast guards have rescued nearly 1500 people from the flooding in the houston area they have 18 helicopters and nine flood teams deployed in the search and rescue effort the mayor of dallas maike rawlings is holding a conference for that city is making from influx of residents from the houston area >> we may have thousands and thousands of more individuals that will get bigger than this conventi convention center. i am not going to say it is going to happen. we have been asked to prepare

for folks of numbers that could be up in the tens of thousands >> louisiana is expecting some flooding you are up to date, i will send it back to you, melissa. >> sue herrera, thank you. >> jim fish, pleads $3 million and i am sure all of these things are changing in terms of the pledges coming in. a big drop for oil as hurricane harvey disrupts the industry lets get back to brian in galveston, texas brian. >> reporter: yeah, i think melissa, it is easy to forget that houston boomed under oil and suffered from oil. we have been here a lot because of the oil price collapsed houston has not recovered. there is a bunch of drilling platforms and we'll show you just a bit which should be out there with people on them working but because the price of oil being down over the last couple of years, they have come back in, it is about the only industry being impacted. we'll show you more of our continuing coverage of harvey harvey at the galveston bay,

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a quick check at the market. the nasdaq, the only index right now, any positive growth is the first and fourth session the dow industrials average is

down by 27 points s&p 500 is down the worst performance energy and ensuring we know it is falling on the back of harvey for travelers. travelers is the biggest drag right now on the dow thor soaring about 5%. taking a check on gold which just closed topping 1300 that was an 11th month high. oil markets is closing for the day. lets get to kate rogers. >> the big story of the day is gasoline trending higher than 2.5% it did get higher than $1.77 today. this is due to the major flooding of tropical storm harv harvey stores were closed due to in coming tracks. refining outages and looking at that gas higher by more than 1%.

this of course, is expecting to refineries, back over to you do down in galveston texas, brian >> reporter: it is not just the storm. you can see it is raining and galveston by the way is supposed to get hit hard tomorrow and maybe wednesday which could mean the port is closed longer and the shipping channels is closing longer lets hope those forecast -- i don't want anybody to be wrong but it is one case where i hope they are wrong it is not just the storm i reference just the break houston had been struggling a bit.

unemployment rate is higher than the national average already 47 bucks a barrel, it does not pay to have those offshore rigs out there. that's the most expensive kind the last time i was here, those were not here. maybe it was one i confirmed the gentleman over here people should be out there working on those they're not. i bring it up because as the economy of oil slows down, it is not just the salary worker that is are going to get hurt there is a lot of hourly workers as well who won't be able to make that mpaycheck this is money you are not going to get back and of course, you got the cost associated with the clean up and i know we talked about it and it is monday, joe

and melissa, i heard your question of what ending in mid way. i hope that's right, as we have seen from storms ike and tropical storm here. i am not going to reference katrina because that's so much more in many ways, lets hope this is not near that. the clean up can belonger than t the beginning of the storm we are supposed to get more here and areas north of us as well. >> brian, i saw a quick flash on one of the blog sites that maybe there is an improving track for the storm that may not be quite, you know, the worst case scenario, maybe there is hope that's not as bad. well, i am glad you brought it up my brain is cooked

>> if it does move to the east, it goes away, if it goes to the east, towards beaumont, again, watch out for gasoline the biggest refinery in america, 600,000 barrels per day. if the rain moves there which is a houston base oil and gas estimates that potentially 30% of refining capacity coming offline. no word yet but that's an if if you believe the storm is moving heavy to the east from a gasoline perspective, that's something else that everybody here has to watch. if there was not enough or had to watch out already >> all right, brian. >> i need a new hat. >> you had a friend next -- it looks very friendly listening closely. >> there he is

>> that's my fan >> that's the fan. he's here. >> he's the one. what's happening bob [ laughter ] >> so charming >> reporter: lighten my mood on a tough day >> could use one >> thanks bob. [ laughter ] >> lets talk more about harvey impact on the energy market. joining now is suzanne, i will kick it off with you and pick up exactly where brian left off in terms of are refining and the potential impact if the rain moves further east, do we have a good handle of the impact on the refining sector is and could be. currently there is about 2.5 million barrels capacity offline. where it he wants 25%. i think it is important to realize that it represents 13% of the u.s. capacity which means that 87% of u.s. refinery

capacities are still online. that's an important thing to focus on we certainly have some regional ir issues going on. i would think also the fact that gasoline inventories should be pretty high. that should help alleviate any spikes that we should see, across the country, suzanne. >> one of the things i have found interesting while i dug into these numbers, the gulf region is a hole and making of $2.2 billion a day of barrels in gasoline well, we have been exporting about 550,000 barrels a day. due to the fact that the shipping channels are currently shut down and were not exporting that lack of exports and should provide some sort of cushioning to december tick supplies. then, also just think about this

and i am not trying to flip at all. houston is 130,000 barrels in the near term, actually, i think there is some cushioning going on during the lack of export and lack of just demand destruction. >> this is a market of wti more so had struggled to get to 50 and stay above 50 for any period of time. wti were down 2.7% on the day and this happens what is your outlook now for wti? >> this is a significant look for wti, we had a large drawl. we have 14 million barrel spr release that we are looking at we are still watching events coming and september and

october, you know what's going to happen with venezuela and undoubtedly to have this much crude backing up right before maintenance season and spr release, that's not good in any way for wti. >> any shot you think the u.s. government does not release the $14 million from spr >> we have not heard anything on that we hear it is a plan relief. we. >> reporter: -- we were talking about this last problem if terms of the storm this is an added head wing for the complex. >> what's the downside >> are we going to 42? i think we need to borrow major development to crack 50 now. a lot of people are expecting 50 this year and we have not been able to breakthrough helina croft and suzanne minter,

thank you both rock pt ortexas, one of the areas that's hit hard in texas that's next on "power lunch. i love you, couch.

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rockport, texas, is one of the hardest hit areas. jackie deangelis is joining us now again from rockport. hi jackie. >> reporter: we are actually in corpus cristi right now. we are waiting for the briefing from governor abbott and senator corn cornyn they'll be traveling to rockport as one of the hardest hit coastal town s in this area many of them did not evacuate. some of them chose to hunker down and stick it through. some of them close to go to shelters we spoke to a couple of people who did stick out of their home and they explained what the experience was like and how devastating those winds were listen to one gentlemen that we spoke to, rick miller.

>> i did lose everything so it is difficult to put everything into words. rick got really emotional as he was telling us his story he showed us his home. he tried to take us inside this is a house where the roof is completely torn off when you look inside, you can see feet of mud on top of all of his belongings everything is trdestroyed. he was lucky enough that had a neighbor that had a generator. he maintained a positive attitude and try to rebuild. that does not do away of the kind of frustration of the people in rockport are facing. the mayor says they should not have power for the next two or three weeks. they have no cell service, this is a town that's in the stage of

disaster these coastal towns will not get the attention they need because houston is under water back over to you guys. >> those are long periods, we are lucky, it is easy to those numbers and think about living through it. that's very difficult. maybe that's the worst case. >> reporter: absolutely. >> president trump meanwhile is expected to head to corpus christi tomorrow there's already a lot of talk about whether or not the president should go now or maybe wait to head to the region so all the resources could be focused on recovery efforts. our own contessa brewer spoke with senator ted cruz and here's what he had to say about his visit. >> when i spoke with the president he expressed a concern saying he didn't want to come too soon and distract resources that need to be in search and rescue, and i think that that's the right instinct as i understand it right now his current plan is to go to central texas, perhaps adviceit corpus

i don't believe he's coming to houston. i think there's a balance. when i can tell you is the president told me directly, said, ted, whatever texas need, the answer is yes. >> he also talked about voting against aid for sandy, and i think that will probably come up again and again. voted against it back then had no regrets because two-thirds of that had pork in it, so, airports in houston set to be closed for a few more days how the storm is impacting the airlinand to iuse aundtries. that's coming up on "power lunch.

houston's airport is still closed today and it could be a while before they are fully operational. a look at how this storm is affecting the airline industry phil >> reporter: two airlines in particular we'll be talking about, united and southwest, but before we talk about them let me give you an update on the two airports in houston. what we're seeing and what we're expecting. first of all, they remain closed they are expecting houston international to be closed at least until thursday afternoon houston hobby says it will be closed until further notice. most are saying don't expect it to open before wednesday cancellations since saturday totaling more than 1,900, and this map from flight aware says

it all the cancellations in this country are all focused over houston, and it will be like that for the next couple of days let's talk first about united. it has sent down an additional 130 people to assist its staff down in houston when operations start back up. again, that's not expected until at least thursday afternoon, and then when you look at southwest which flies out of houston hobby, a neat story here, melissa. they have some people who were stranded at that parent who got on some of the last flights in on saturday. they had four planes fly out of there, not on scheduled flights but on sunday night and flew them up to dallas, them along with some of the southwest staff that were stuck at houston hobby airport. that's the latest regarding the airlines down in houston guys, back for you. >> wow, phil, thank you. phil lebeau in chicago >> let's get back to brian one more time on "power lunch" in gavelston, texas hi, bri. >> reporter: hey, joe. you know, just to wrap up. i'll tell you what what phil says strikes home.

root for houston you can't get out of houston the airports, as phil just says are closed people are stuck in the city we've driven around extensively. most of the roads are closed the interstate, as we showed you this morning from yesterday, a lot of it is flooded and here's two pictures today driving around, cars-ins pools of water and flooded gas stations it really is an isolated area. people are coming together, but it's an isolated area. root for houston we'll see you tomorrow. >> see you tomorrow, brian great work out there meantime, we'll be right back with more on the impact of this massive storm. stay with us this is not a cloud. this is a tomato tracked from farm to table on a blockchain, helping keep shoppers safe. this is a financial transaction secure from hacks and threats others can't see.

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welcome back we've seen so much video and pictures from out there about the damage we want to here from you though, our viewers. we asked you to send in your photos and stories about how you're dealing with harvey what you're seeing in your own homes and backyards. you can send them to us at "power lunch" or tweet them to us @powerlunch. >> markets fairly stable nasdaq up and dow down gold and the dollar. >> and the treasury yields. >> and treasury yields. >> yeah. but it's a january of 2015, the last time the dollar index was down here, so what is that, a couple of years? >> yeah. >> and then gold, you know, through 1,300. it's been a while. of course, moving with the dollar you would think after maybe disappointment last week

that yellen didn't say more, i guess. >> exactly and also the strength in the euro is really pushing this all around of course, the president, president trump, visiting texas tomorrow so that's going to be certainly something that we're watching, corpus christi, so we'll watch that thanks for watching "power lunch," and thank you for joe kernin. >> "closing bell" meantime starts right now >> and do not adjust your television for the world wide exchange it's "closing bell." welcome everybody, i'm sara eisen here in for kelly oven. >> and will i'm wilfred frost in for bill griffeth. more rain in houston is expected and a number of refineries along the gulf coast have shut down until the storm is passed. we speak to the head of parentso