this is cnn breaking news. here we go. breaking news tonight. the state of texas bracing right now for what could be the worst of harvey. we're on the ground covering the storm from every angle for. you also ahead, breaking developments about the pardon of sheriff joe arpaio, a pardon president trump granted as harvey made landfall just friday. now tonight a new report from

"the washington post" that the president actually asked about the possibility of closing the case before it went to trial. good evening. i'm brooke baldwin. you are watching cnn. i want to welcome our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. but let's get straight to that breaking news out of washington. president trump reportedly asking attorney general jeff sessions whether it would be possible to drop the criminal case against the former maricopa county sheriff joe arpaio. and the key piece here that was all apparently before his case was at trial. this is all, of course, before the pardon. let's go to athena jones at the white house for us and cnn political analyst on the phone for the analysis. athena, first, just backing up on "the washington post" reporting, what more do we know? what did he ask for exactly? >> hi, brooke. according to this new report by "the washington post," the president had a conversation back in the spring with his attorney general jeff sessions. we should note that sheriff arpaio's case got under way in late june. this conversation according to

the report took place before that. i should mention that just in the last week or so through cnn's own reporting we learned that this is something the president had been planning, something that he had been preparing to do. now we're getting a sense of just how far back that thinking on the president's part may have gone. here is what an official -- a white house official told "the washington post." they put it in way. we knew the president wanted to do this for some time now and had worked to prepare for whenever the moment may come. so that is what the white house official was telling "the washington post." and, of course, this is a pardon that has gotten a lot of attention. we don't want to get the reason for that to be lost in the controversy now over the process the president went through with the pardon. this was a case sheriff arpaio was convicted of contempt for ignoring a court order to stop racial profiling, stopping latinos on the mere thinking that they might be undocumented immigrants.

that's what this is all stemming from. that is one of the reasons there is so much harsh blowback not including from the arizona republic newspaper which in an editorial said this is a slap in the face of latinos. let's go ahead and play what sheriff arpaio said after he learned of the pardon. >> he's a big supporter of law enforcement. i know it came from his heart. two years ago i supported him first rally. and i always said, regardless of pardon or no pardon, i'll be with him till the end. and i say that. so i'm really happy with all the support i received across the nation, arizona, for this pardon, and i'll have more to speak out and let the true story come out about the abuse of the judicial system and politics. >> so clearly the sheriff is

happy about this now, former sheriff. we should note, brooke, that sheriff arpaio and trump, even before he was a candidate for president, have been like-minded, and trump has been a fan of sheriff arpaio and vice versa. sheriff arpaio was an early endorser of candidate trump, he was a prominent figure on the campaign stump with president trump -- with candidate trump at rallies. and remember both of these men were proponents of the birther conspiracy theory, to question the citizenship of president obama. >> athena, thank you for perfectly setting all of this out. michael, to you. before we actually get to the legality of the pardon, of course it's constitutional although there are a lot of buts and firsts here. "the washington post" reporting on how we've now learned that apparently the president wanted to interfere before this thing even went to trial. have you ever heard of that? >> well, it's against justice department policy. for decades, to avoid the appearance of political meddling

in federal law enforcement, both democrat and republican administrations have had written policies between these contacts. mike mu kazy under the bush administration essentially said don't do this. and it goes for decades before that. and in fact, the hatch act which prohibits career and political appointees from being engaged in political activity exists for the avoiding of this particular practice. >> got it. >> so it may be that the president has that authority as the chief executive officer, but it is against public policy for decades and decades for him to try to intervene in the manner that he is said to have done so in "the washington post" piece. >> so he didn't intervene. we know how this played out. eventually arpaio was convicted

of contempt. it's unusual for a couple of reasons. the fact that arpaio hadn't been sentenced yet. he'd been convicted. he is a bit of a household political name. and that doj didn't actually play any sort of role here. does that play into how this is unique? >> right. so let's be clear, the president under article two of the constitution has the right to pardon. >> absolutely. >> he's acted lawfully. but the way the process is supposed to work is there's the office of pardon attorney in the doj. and under the policy guidelines which are set forth in the code of federal regulations, there's supposed to be a waiting period of five years after sentencing, then there's supposed to be the contact with the united states attorney who brought the criminal charges in first place. if there are victims, there's supposed to be victim offense statements. then there's supposed to be post conviction conduct.

so you are supposed to see whether the person who was convicted was contrite, whether he acknowledged his error, whether it was something that in time made sense to pardon. none of that stuff took place here. and so what you have is a very quick pardon after conviction, which the policy was designed to avoid because of the thought that to do that denigrates the seriousness of the offense. and unfortunately, the president decided to be a supporter of law enforcement, as arpaio said he is, by circumventing all the rules that govern law enforcement around pardons. >> yep, yep. hearing from republicans and democrats that the political fallout of all of this. we'll explore it in the next two hour. for now michael zeldin, thank you for calling in to cnn on this saturday night.

appreciate you. let's get to texas. catastrophic flooding is expected as the sun is setting. harvey right now stalling over victoria, texas. 20 inches of rain has already fallen. another 20 more on the way. we'll talk to the mayor there in just a couple of minutes. but my goodness, you see these pictures. just utter devastation in rockport where harvey hit as a category 4 hurricane. at least one person was killed. power lines mangled, arcing over waterlogged streets, roughly 300,000 people in the dark right now. and the lack of power. obviously, that's a massive concern in the overnight hours as the threat of tornadoes ramp up. this funnel cloud spotted just hours ago. we have live team coverage in rockport, victoria, houston. meteorologist chad myers is also standing by. let's begin in rockport with martin savidge, i see what was a

home behind you, awful for that family. >> yeah. it's like this throughout much of this community here. we're in the business section here. so a lot of what you are seeing are actually business, but there are homes as well. and this community took a direct blow from what was a category 4 hurricane harvey at the time it came ashore. and it had a devastating impact not just on the wooden structures, not just on the lighter, smaller buildings, but on concrete solid construction buildings. many of them the roofs ripped off of them. they just caved in. the only lights that are on are the television lights that you see lighting up in the background. you might see headlights, but beyond that there is absolutely no power in this town. not only that there's no power and not just that the power poles have gone down. no, on some streets the power poles are gone. that just gives you an insight as to the depth of destruction on the infrastructure here and the long road back. the good news is late this afternoon or early this evening

we began seeing a convoy of relief effort coming in. this included everything from national guard troops, which will now be out on patrol on the streets here, to heavy earth-moving equipment, which is desperately needed to lift the debris and clear the roadways to allow more help to come in. and the organization that's about to lay the foundations. there's no cell communication here. there's no telephone service. trying to get the cell towers up, but right now trying to find more victims. there's a report that there's one fatality in town. the sheriff says to be frank, he really doesn't know if there are more. there could be. to that effort there's search teams going through the city going door to door. they have developed a grid system. they hope to work through the night. they'll begin with the frantic calls that came in about this time last night. 30 of them at least that the fire department and the police department got at the height of the storm. people pleading for help but they could not go out because it simply would have been suicidal for them. they're haunted by the memories of the calls they couldn't

respond to. they're trying to check welfare now. brooke? >> how entirely frightening for them. we'll stay in close contact with you, martin savidge, thank you, in rockport. let's head to victoria, texas, this is inland from the coast. cnn's derrick van damme is there live. how is the rain? >> it's not great, not going to lie to you, brooke. but here here, we're doing it. the storm keeps surprising us. we're about 40 miles outside of the center of tropical storm harvey that continues to churn across southeast texas. i a did pretty quick walkabout. the damage you would expect was what you would expect from a category 4 hurricane. but here in victoria, 20 to 30 miles away from the coast, we've had shingled torn off of roofs, awnings off of buildings, trees

completely snapped. you go up and down some of the main roads here and trees are littered across the roadways. there was no power here about four hours ago when we originally arrived. but utility trucks have been on the scene and slowly street by street, block by block it looks like some sense of normalcy is coming back to the city, which is a bit of relief i'm sure for residents here in victoria. but still a long night ahead and several days ahead of extensive rain. very, very saturated ground here. more rain on the way will obviously bring the potential for flooding. that's the next concern. brooke? >> no, you're right. not just tonight, the next couple of days as chad myers is about to tell us. they're in texas. let's get the latest on harvey's strength. chad myers is live in the weather center. the story is this thing is far from over. >> absolutely. we're 72 hours at least from this storm even leaving texas. >> wow. >> and that's the rumor. i want to show you something

that's really just happened in the last half hour that wasn't there just two hours ago. no real indication that this was going to happen. a large, large flare-up of severe weather near houston right now. 2 to 3 inch rainfall amounts coming down to the south and west of houston moving into houston proper in the next half hour. there's that line of weather. it's a feeder band of a hurricane. we just don't have a hurricane. but all those bands, all those pinwheel bands that you would see in a tropical storm, now, one, is going to park itself over houston possibly for the next 12 hours. now, there's a threat of tornados the, too, that big red box. that's a tornado watch box. there have been tornadoes today. in fact, the weather service has issued almost 70 tornado warnings since the storm made landfall. 12 of those storms were actually confirmed tornadoed on t ees on ground. this is still a real probability. that purple area, that's 10

inches in the area. i want to put a little dot there. i haven't done this all day. hope it works. that's houston right there. that's the part that i want you to focus on. make it bigger. i want you to focus on that. this is the radar at 9:00 local time. now i'm good to move you ahead. this is the forecast model radar. it's still raining. that's 4:00 a.m. >> ooh. >> thunderstorm after thunderstorm after thunderstorm all night long. now at 10:00 a.m., it's still raining, even raining harder to the east, beaumont, port arthur. there are purple areas in this map. this is a compute generated map that says everywhere you see purple there, brooke, ten inches of rain will fall by morning. >> mm. >> i can't stress this enough that you may hear your alarms going off with flash flooding tonight in houston because it's on the way now. i hate that it's happening at

night. you can't see it. you can't hear it. but this is where we are at this point. a very dangerous night for houston proper, pasadena, baytown, cady. i don't care where you are. the entire metro area of houston is under a big threat tonight. >> hunker down, stay safe. chad myer, you are the guy we want to listen to. we'll come back to you in just a little bit. coming up here, as harvey pummels the state of texas and devastation is just beginning as chad pointed out for a number of families. we'll talk to one woman who says she has lost everything. meantime, president trump says he wants to travel to texas as soon as possible, but his response to harvey is being overshadowed by several major moves within the administration. we have those details for you ahead. and north korea launching three short-range ballistic missiles. will it reignite tensions that

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we're back, you're watching cnn on a saturday night. brooke baldwin talking about tropical storm harvey. right now it is centered near victoria, texas. it is barely moving. that's the problem for a lot of

people there with all that rain and flooding issues. joining me now the mayor of that city. mr. mayor, thank you so much for hopping on the phone with me. i know you have a lot of other really important things to do. i understand there's a curfew that you all just put in place, is that correct, sir, 6:00 your time, 6:00 in the morning? >> yes, we did that this morning. it will expire tomorrow morning. and tomorrow evening we'll have a dusk to dawn type curfew. >> how bad it is where you are? >> well, you know, it's not as bad as it could have been. we had pretty direconsequence consequences -- or prediction, rather. we're dealing with rain, we have a power outage that we're working diligently with the utility to get power restored. the other thing is running water. we did issue a boil water notice for consumption. we're hoping we can get all that

restored tomorrow and lift that boil issue. we're working hard. >> i am sure you are, mayor polasek. what about flooding? i understand pretty bad flooding is expected in your neck of the woods. are you all prepared and ready for that? >> yes, ma'am, we are. we expect some of our river crossings to become a problem as people try to return to the city as well as outside resources begin to come in, aid, et cetera, from state and government as well as we have a lot of private entities reach out and want to help. but thin things are actually sg to look good and hopefully we can get back on our feet in a few days. >> that's great. that's great. how are your emergency crews, your first responders, how are they faring so far? are they all right? >> i think so. our emergency operations center has been staffed well. we're dealing with a bit of fatigue among the leadership now. and we're starting to rotate

that out a bit so people can get some rest. the responders in the field are rotating out. they're just really eager to help. we've got some great folks. we actually had to hold them back when the weather was really bad and they couldn't get out to help, we had to make sure they didn't risk their own live. we're holding up well. >> just last question for folks who have power who are paying attention here to the tv, what do you want them to know before they go to bed here on night two? >> well, you know, stay calm and relaxed and be patient with all of us as we get the water and electricity back on. i'm very hopeful that tomorrow those things may both occur. do not travel. restrict travel. it's not safe. there's a lot of downed power lines. and help your neighbors. check on your neighbors near to you but stay inside as much as possible now. >> the mayor of victoria, texas. mayor polacek, good luck taking

care of the people who need it the most. big headlines out of the white house. president trump's pardon of the controversial arizona sheriff joe arpaio and the departure of sebastian gorka. an outspoken and combative defender of the president. cnn has new comments from both of the men. and we are staying on our tropical storm harvey coverage tonight. the ongoing threat for dangerous floodwaters. we've got a couple more days before this thing is said and done. these days families want to be connected 24/7.

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as we stay on tropical storm harvey, take a look at these pictures. this is houston, texas. i know you all are dealing with a lot of rain and clearly pretty stunning lightning storm as well over this mega city in texas where we're keeping a close eye, obviously, on what this means for a lot of you as far as flooding is concerned over the course of the next couple of days. we're going to check back in with our reporters on the ground throughout texas and with chad myers in the weather center as well. but let's talk politics on this saturday night, shall we? this is a story out of "the washington post" that president trump had previously asked attorney general jeff sessions if it was possible to drop the criminal case against arizona sheriff joe arpaio before he went to trial. when the president was told that that couldn't happen, trump allegedly decided to let the trial go ahead and simply pardon

him if he ended up being convicted. last night the president followed through, pardoning arpaio, all the while this category 4 hurricane was powering towards texas. cot scott is a former special assistant to president bush and alice is a former communications director for ted cruz. here we go on a saturday night. welcome to both of you. >> hi, brooke. >> hey, brooke. >> scott, beginning with you. let's preface this boy sy sayin this is entirely legal for the president to do, based upon his constitution at right. that said, why do you think he did it, scott? is there any other way the look at this other than a total political maneuver? >> well, look, as you pointed out, the constitution is very clear. it gives the president full power to do this. and it's consistent with his world view. he ran as an immigration

hard-liner. arpaio and he have been allied for quite some time. i don't think anybody should be surprised that he did it. regarding this article in "the washington post" where he asked about dropping the criminal case, it doesn't seem wrong to me. the president sought legal advise on what they could do. so then he found a very ordinary, very legal and very constitutional way the achieve his objective which, of course, is fully allowable and legal under the law. i think there's going to be a lot of outrage, but i don't know that it's warranted here. >> yes, very legal. i hear you on the legality. i'm not arguing with you whatsoever on that. but alice let me reference part of senator mccain's statement. the president has the authority to make this pardon, obviously this is before "the washington post" reporting came out. but doing so at this time undermines his claim for the respect of the rule of law as sheriff arpaio has shown no remorse for his actions. isn't this another issue where

people will say this is a president believing he's above the law. >> this is the president doing what he thinks is within his authority to do so. given what we've had all week, this is a total eclipse of the heart and the president's heart is with the base. the base supports what sheriff arpaio did and so does the president. the president has said all along that he believes the sheriff was doing everything within his legal bounds when he was sheriff to go after these people, and he's always said that he supports local law enforcement, enforcing federal immigration laws -- >> but alice, i'm going to stop you. phoenix new times. i don't know if you've seen their twitter feed. they've been points out all of what sheriff arpaio did. fas fact, he ran a jail thissy described as a concentration cam. more people died there than in other jals. running a mugshot of the day contest on the sheriff's website. the list i'm sure you've seen

this, goes on and on and on. scott, is this really a good look for the president of the united states to pardon this particular person? >> well, almost every person who gets a pardon has committed a federal crime and, therefore, has done something that most of us would find repugnant. >> should they be contrite? because arpaio isn't. >> i'm sorry? well, i don't know. chelsea manning didn't seem very contrite to me when he betrayed our nation and put our allies at risk, but that didn't stop barack obama from pardoning him. here's the difference. most do their pardons and commutation at the tail end maybe even on the last day in the case of bill clinton and mark rich pardon. if you're mad about this, there's a clear remedy. you can vote against him in the next election or elect a united states congress that can impeach

him. they've given you a remedy to this. most presidents do this on the way out the door. i kind of respect him that he did it right up front and said here's who i am and what i'm going to do. >> other presidents have done it within the first month. this hasn't never been done before. but you know, alice, there are those who obviously disagree with this pardon who are already saying this is essentially a wink and a nod from the president to anyone close to him who could maybe get caught up eventually in the bob mueller special investigation. what would you say to them? >> well, clearly, it is. look, the pardon of sheriff arpaio was not a matter of if it was going to happen but when it was going to happen. he made that clear quite some time ago because the sheriff had been loyal to the president not just since he started running for office. they were both in the birther movement together against president obama. so this has been a payback for the sheriff's loyalty. and clearly this is also the president's way of saying, look,

anyone and everyone who has been associated with my campaign or in the white house that may have some ties to russia and, as he called it, the witchhunt of the russian conspiracy theory, that he has the ability to use his pen and issue an executive pardon. and -- >> so you do see it as a signal to potentially the general kellys or the paul manaforts? >> and also the muellers who are doing the investigation of this who may go after someone like manafort and others who are part of, as he called it, the russian witch hunt, that the president has the ability to issue an executive pardon and exonerate people even before it even becomes a problem. look, this is absolutely, completely within his wheelhouse to do this, granted. yes, it is raising a lot of ire. but with regard to the sheriff, this is absolutely, completely playing to the president's base. these are people that support what the sheriff has done and

his tough stance on immigration. it's clearly going to cause people to be frustrated with this, but president trump right now is doing anything and everything he can to really appeal to the 35% that are his base, and this is the latest example of that. >> alice, you got the last word, thank you both so much. >> thanks, brooke. >> let's talk about this storm. live pictures the outside of houston. a constant lightning there as the city is bracing for severe flooding from tropical storm harvey. we have much more of our special coverage for you on a saturday night there. also, we'll take you live to north korea because north korea has launched another multiple missiles. this is a week after the u.s. praised kim jong-un for showing, quote, restraint. cnn has the only western journalist in the country. we'll give you a live report from pyongyang coming up. had tie care of my portfolio, but.. well, what are you doing tomorrow -10am? staff meeting. noon? eating. 3:45? uh, compliance training.

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back to our breaking news tonight here, disaster in texas and dire warnings of potentially catastrophic flooding for folks in houston. tropical storm harvey is churning inland and dumping torrential rainfall. cnn's rosa flores is there and rosa, how bad it is where you're standing? >> well, brooke, the biggest

concern here in houston is the flooding. this is the bayou city. there are bayous that meander throughout this town not only through downtown but through neighborhoods where people live, and the ground is already saturated because we've had rain for a few days. and so first responders, city officials, what they're worried about is what you're seeing behind me, this rain. you see the lightning, you hear the thunder. all of this rain has to go somewhere. and because the bayous which act as a drainage system, in essence, that flow into the gulf of mexico, because they're already full and because the ground is saturated, there's a lot of worry that waters can rise very quickly and create life-threatening situations. so this city is prepared, and they have been telling people to have food and water for five days, four or five days to make sure that they can survive without leaving their home

because that's one of the other huge dangers in the city of houston. because a lot of the interstate -- i wish i could show you, but it's so dark right now, brooke, yes, but these interstates dip and valley and it becomes extremely dangerous because, as you know, in the dark you just can't tell when waters rise very quickly. you might be driving through a road that you've driven many, many times, but if that water has risen to a level, it's not passable, it becomes extremely dangerous. so the city has different points around the city, they have strategic points where they have resources ready to go just in case people need to be rescued. now, there's no evacuation order here. and in the past five minutes, the latest guidance from the regional joint information center here in harris county upped the amount of rain they're expecting by about five inches. we had heard 15 to 25 inches, brooke, is what we are expecting, now it's 15 to 30

with isolated areas up to 35 inches of rain. not good news. officials here asking people to be vigilant. if that water starts rising, call and ask for help. brooke. >> that's the thing, it is so dark and that's the tricky -- just like the extra whammy of this sort of storm and sort of rain. just talking to a mayor in a different town. just stay put where you are tonight. if you're in houston or any of these city, stay put and let it rain. rosa flores, we'll check back with you and your crew in houston, thanks so much for that. let's bring in another voice. chantal cleveland is on the phone with me. her home was just totally destroyed in rockport. chantal, we've got pictures the of your home. how are you holding up? >> i don't think it has hit just quite yet. i can tell you that we really didn't know what to expect. friday morning we woke up -- i'm sorry, thursday morning we woke

up and it was just like any other day. we went off the work. we expected it to be a tropical storm. and it quickly turned into a category 3. so i definitely have some stubborn parents, but i finally talked them into evacuating inland. so we went to corpus christi, rode it out, prayed as much as we could. then this morning we got up at the crack of dawn, we started making our way to rockport, just driving through portland, it was just crazy. all of the structures that had demolished and, you know, going more and more into rockport, it just got worse. and i think at a certain point we just all started crying in the car just knowing that several families that had evacuated and a large percentage had stayed, but a lot of people

won't have homes to go to. it's sad. uninsured homes. so right now we're just hoping that our elected officials or state agencies come in for us. we have a strong community. we have a lot of tourists that come to rockport. everyone knows rockport, texas is a beautiful town. everyone knows corpus christi is. our coast is very popular. i think our main focus is just building that community and being there for each other right now because it's going to take a lot of rebuilding, but times are crazy right now. we just want to be there for one another. >> we are looking at these pictures, chantal. it looks like a lake where i'm assuming road would be and these homes are just gutted. you mention pd your stubborn parents, but is their home okay? >> no. >> no? oh. >> as i was driving into the highway, it seems like the houses were getting worse as i

was getting closer to rockport. and, you know, i started seeing the neighbors' houses just demolished. and so as we were coming in, we live in front of the highway. i told my -- he has a truck. i don't. just stop the truck, please. just crying. i ran through brown two-foot water. first, we have three homes, but we let them out to tenants. i just imagined the children having to come back. i was crying and screaming. then finally i waked all the way to the dock to my home, saw the windows shut in. i got and there two or three feet of debris. i just walked into my room and it looked so sad. all my stuff was there just under debris. it's not going to be salvageable. i wasn't prepared for the storm the get this big. i only packed two or three

changes of clothes. like i said, it's good to take a while for to us rebuild, but i can tell you one thing that we're feeling here in corpus christi and rockport and portland is that sense of community. everyone is extending their support and their help. >> yeah. >> so i think that -- >> that is when it is incredible, but the resilience of communities shines through in times like these. i've covered devastating storms like this. >> i can tell you in the morning i was screaming. i was on my knees just crying and screaming. years of memories just covered in debris. but when i got back, i just overwhelmed with how supportive everybody is being here. and i know that we have elected officials that will come through for us. we have agencies, our community members will come through for us. and i think we can definitely rebuild after this. >> bless your heart. chantal cleveland, thank you so much for taking a minute and calling cnn and letting us know

how you are. it is stuff. at least you have yourself and your parents. our best to you and your great community. and i know a lot of you are watching, and you're gripped by chantal's story. she's one of so many. and you want to help. and you can. go to our cnn impact your world site. go to cnn.com/impact, and there's a link of vetted organizations where you can help people like chantal. coming up here on cnn, so much for restraint. north korea defies demands and fires off three ballistic missiles. we'll take you live to pyongyang coming up. let's see, there are the wildcats 'til we die weekenders. the watch me let if fly. this i gotta try weekenders. then we've got the bendy... ... spendy weekenders. the tranquility awaits. hanging with our mates weekenders and the it's been quite a day... ...so glad we got away weekenders.

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these make cleaning between myi love easy.sy. gum brand for healthy gums. soft picks, proxabrush cleaners, flossers. gum brand. state of texas reeling from harvey and now a cattic flood threat. widespread devastation. at least one person has been killed. the rain has been relentless. water rising over the streets? the city of sea drift. the coast guard making 20 air rescues so far. two to three feet of rain is still expected to fall. wind, rain and tornadoes now a

major risk overnight as the sun sets. chad meyers is in the weather center with more tornadoes. >> absolutely. not f-4 tornadoes like in oklahoma and texas like in the movie "twister." these are ef-1s, and 2s and they're not that wide. but they are significant enough that you need to pay attention. a couple of them on the ground already today. that's the flare-up over houston i'm most concerned about. that's the flood that's going to happen tonight. you need to wake up early tomorrow morning and look outside. before you push the button for coffee, look outside and see what happened overnight. there may be 10 to 15 inches of rain in the city of houston somewhere. it's now on the west side of the city. as the feeder band copies to come on shore, this rain will be relentless. the lightning will be, too. it may be right over your house for hours. it appears that rain is coming in at about 2.5 inches per hour. if it rains at your house for

four hours, that's ten inches. you're going to get a flood. even if it doesn't rain in your neighborhood, it's going to rain just north of you. you're going to get a flood. this is as serious as it gets for houston proper. houston floods with three to four inches of rain. ten inches will be a mess. rain 4:00 a.m., already raining. still raining at 10:00 a.m., even 5:00 p.m. tomorrow night, it still may be severe. we'll keep watching it for you. i do expect a significant flood in houston. if you live there or no someone, make sure you know or they know and you can make the phone call. >> chad, we'll be back in touch. thank you very much. watching texas. bracing for the worst of harvey. you just saw some of the devastation, now the impacts of harvey serious flooding are starting to be felt. the areas that could wake up under a foot of water. feet of water coming up. also ahead, north korea launching not one or two but three miffs overnight.

and our correspondent will ripley is the only western tv journalist inside of north korea amid all these tensions. his exclusive reporting coming up next.

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. well, restraint appears to be over. north korea has again defied the world's demands with three missile launches. the u.s. military says two of the missiles flew about 155

miles before falling into the sea. the other exploded right after launch. the latest barrage comes less than a week after secretary of state wretch tillerson praised north korea for showing restraint in its weapons program. it is likely no coincidence this comes at a time when american troops are holding joint drills with the south korean military. cnn hasn't been allowed inside north korea during these joint drills until now. will ripley is back in pyongyang. the only western journalist who is there amid all of these tensions. will ripley, 10:30 in the morning your time there in north korea, you've been talking to officials there. what are they telling you? >> reporter: it's an incredibly tense time here. it was basically described to me while things are relatively calm on the surface, just neath, things are near the boiling point here in north korea. they're still thinking about president trump's several weeks ago of fire and fury which north korea responded detailing a plan

to launch missiles and put them down less than 20 miles from guam. the news cycle here doesn't move quickly like the united states. they're still very focused on those threats from the united states president. and perhaps what we're seeing this show of force in terms of these three ballistic missile launches was an attempt by the north koreans to project power as we're about to interweek two of those military exercises, brook. >> you mention the bellicose language from the president of the united states, right? which was returned by the same sort of thing where you are in north korea. are you surprised that so far though, we haven't seen more of a strong response from the u.s. to these launches? >> reporter: i don't think that these launches cross that red line that president trump was talking about. this is a pretty traditional trajectory for north korean missiles. they go down in the waters off north of japan. they flew over 150 miles, putting them within striking range u.s. military bases in

south korea and all of metropolitan seoul. this wasn't the type of provocative flight path that would put them down so close to all of those military assets down in guam wit united states has indicateded would have crossed the line and been a very severe provocation. we've seen dozens of north korean missile launches and saw kim jong-un overseeing' special forces training exercise. that video just released within the past 12 hours or so showing commandos simulate agattack on south korean islands. north korea are still going to find ways to show their own military strength but they haven't taken it to the point yet that could really push the situation to an escalation. again, brook, on the ground here, officials say it really would just take one misstep for things to blow up. and for the situation to become far more dangerous. >> will, thank you so much. will ripley, back in pyongyang at north korea. live for us here on cnn. back here at home.

cattic flooding expected from tropical storm harvey over the next couple days. the storm is at the stand still, lingering over the state of texas, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. our next hour of special coverage here on cn n starts right now. >> this is cnn breaking news. you are watching cnn here, special coverage tonight. texas is about to find out if it is seeing the worst of tropical storm harvey. that state right now bracing for catastrophic flooding after being battered by what was a category 4 hurricane at the time when it barreled ashore just last night. we're on the ground. our cnn crews covering the storm from every angle for you. also breaking developments tonight on the pardoning of former maricopa county sheriff joe arpaio. tonight a new report from the "washington post" that indicates the president of the united states wanted the case closed and