right now president trump and the first lady on the ground in texas. land add short time in corpus christi. updates on rescue and recovery efforts from the massive flooding. you should be seeing live pictures on your screen. the room in corpus christi, texas, we expect the president and governor abbott in texas to receive an update on those relief efforts. you can see in the room right there congressman farenthold is in that room. a few moments ago seeing pictures of senator ted cruz. a number of lawmakers from the texas delegation in room, on hand for this meeting with the president and the first lady. she's also on the ground as well. we saw that getting often of air force once just in the last

several minutes. this is obviously a big moment for president trump. there were some questioning whether this was the right moment for president trump to be visiting a disaster area. so soon after hurricane harvey came ashore. i can tell you that from talking to sources that the president feels this is the right thing to do. he did this during the campaign. visited louisiana after flooding down there. and the feeling is inside the white house, you heard this from sarah huckabee sanders a short while ago. talking to reporters on air force one. the feeling, they're fuf enough away from where the critical response areas are now. obviously that's the houston area and around the houston area and heading into louisiana. from what we understand talking to folks at the white house, the president may indeed visit those parts of texas and louisiana over the weekend. not set in stone yet, but we're going to watch that. you see senator john cornyn also

sitting down in the room there just a few folks away from senator ted cruz. it appears that they are getting ready for the president's visit there. first a look at the houston area. large parts of the country's fourth biggest city are underwater after being drenched with more than three feet of water with more on the way. right now an ominous order from officials in columbia lake. just southwest of houston. get out now. that is, you can see that on-screen there. get out now, what they're telling people in columbia lakes. the levees there have breached and residents are being told to leave immediately. so if you live in that area, or if you know people in that area, columbia lakes, please, make sure that those folks get out now nthat is what you're told b government officials. don't forgetting a louisiana. the 12th anniversary of hurricane katrina. parts of that state dealing with devastating floods. more than 500 people, you see video there, had to be rescued from their homes in lake

charles, louisiana. moving northeast through texas to the houston area, the city and surrounding suburbs dealing with record levels of main. as many as four feet according to one report. that's a staggering amounted. and more on the way as harvey continues to churn in the gulf. our brian todd there in houston right now. ed lavandera in galveston island and cnn meteorologist, he's at the severe weather center in atlanta. brian, as we look at these live pictures in corpus christi, texas, where the president is expected to arrive at any moment. i only preface that in case we have to jump in as you're speaking, brian. you see have seen so many rescu heroic efforts. thousands so far. it what's happening right now? brian todd, can you hear me, sir? this is jim acosta. we are in, live programming right now.

brian is down in houston trying to reach out to him. brian todd, can you hear me? what can you tell us? >> reporter: jim, we are at the bush intercontinental airport. these customs and border protection helicopters are sh shuttlining over and about to te off. >> where are they going to next? what have you jean what's taken place, in the last minutes, you can see, being blown around. might be tough to hear. what can you tell us about everything you're seeing. >> reporter: these are customs and border protection rescue helicopters getting ready to take off. they're shuttling here, ready to take off on another wave of rescue missions. >> and what have you seen so far throughout the day? how many folks of these rescuers, have they picked up so far? how complicated is it right now? >> reporter: we've seen a lot of deserve strags from tvastation .

flooding goes on as far as the eye can see. water past the windows of the houses and almost up to the roofs. >> live programming. cut you off. governor abbott, president trump, first lady melania trump, come into the room for an update on releetes leief efforts. sitting down. go ahead and listen in and see what they're going to tell us. >> welcome, the president of the united states, to the great state of texas. i want to express my gratitude for our fellow texans and especially the people of corpus christi for giving the president sump a warm welcome. on his ride over here. showing gratitude we all have for the president. i want to express my deep gratitude to the president for him and his entire cabinet and staff for what they've done over the past couple weeks. a lot of people see what happens in front of the camera. i want to reveal in just one

minute what's been going on behind the scenes, behind the camera for the past two weeks. about ten days in advance of the hurricane, even coming in to the corpus christi area, members of the president's cabinet and the president himself were in contact with me and my office pre-preparing for this catastrophe coming our way. every step of the way as the hurricane came across the shore, as the flooding began in houston, texas, the president and his cabinet remained in constant contact with me and my staff, and they all had one thing to say. texas, what do you need? how can we help? you can count on us. what i've learned is, we can count on the president of the united states and his staff for helping texas. texas has been tested, but our response to this challenge has been made much more effective, because of the very effective way the president and his staff

has helped texas respond to this challenge. so, mr. president, thank. >> thank. >> welcome to texas. >> i appreciate it. it's so nice, governor, and it's really my honor. this is a very special place and a special state, and senator cruz and senator cornyn, thank you very much. senator corn, fyn, we appreciat it. it's very hard to get here. you were trapped in various locations but we appreciate you both being here. i want to thank my staff, my cabinet. we have quite a few of our cabinet here. ben carson, obviously, from hud and tom price and linda mcmahon. small business. which is now big business, because when you add them all up, you are going to help a lot of people in texas, and doing a fantastic job. thank you very much. we have had a tremendous group of folks, our acting director, elaine, thank you very much for the job you've done, and a man

who really has become very famous on television in the last couple of days, mr. long. we appreciate it very much. you have been just outstanding, and i can tell you that my folks are telling me how great your representatives have been in working together. it's a real team, and we want to do it better than ever before. we want to be looked at in five years, in ten years from now as, this is the way to do it. this was of epic proportion. nobody's ever seen anything like this and i just want to say that working with the governor and his entire team has been an honor for us. so, governor, again, thank very much. we won't say congratulations. we don't want to do that. we don't want to congratulate. we'll congratulate each other when it's all finished, but you have been terrific. you really have. you've been my friend. and with that, maybe you can -- >> mr. president -- so, the whole community is coming

together. you know, right here, where the brunt of the category 4 hurricane winds came in just north of corpus christi, we're already starting to affect recovery. recovery is a slow process. but rest assured we're doing everything we can to unify efforts down to support. to local, first responders we've had here. yesterday put eyes on the ground in rockport. already points of distribution flowing. working in conjunction with the governor's national guard. fema is flying meals and water, and the national guard is helping to run those sdrish distribution points is how this system works. all eyes are on houston, so are mine. we've got a long way to go and are to set up expectations of the citizens and have to continue a unified effort now to help the state of texas ultimately recover. so very greatly the objectives stay the same. to the north of us, it's not over. still in a life saving, life

sustaining mission. and let me be clear. this is not the superdome. the convention center, we are sustaining food. they have food. security. i have an incident management team inside the city of houston as we speak. and more and more people are being moved to shelters to stabilize the situation. the next thing is, that we're pushing commodities. once the water goes down we'll continue to push not only commodities, also help to get people registered in the system to receive assistance from all of us. assistants that doesn't just come from fema. it comes from many organizations who are represented here today by secretary price, secretary carson, and others. the nice thing is, we're looking at power restoration. maintaining security. mobilized a home security and with that comes law enforcement making sure wean anticipating and overcoming any security you need we have and then also with

secretary price over here. we're working with not only the govern governor's disaster medical teams but sending federal disaster medical teams in not only to the convention center today, some on site and in multiple area for crisis counseling and making sure we're meeting access and functional nields. the access is a challenge to getting all the supplies in, once the roadway systems come out, we amassed quite the federal force to be able to support the local and state effort. for example, governor pulls 12,000 national guard troops in. we're pulling units out of fort hood as the federal government, federal d.o.d. forces come in as well. we pulled several hundred trucks and staff just from assets right here in the state of texas. that's how the system worksthis rvry will be frustrating. we're going to be here with you to temperature you guide you through. it's going to be tough to navigate, all of the programs, as they become available, but we're here to help.

with that, i'd like to pass it along to our friends at the coast guard. >> good afternoon, sir. this is where your coast guard, sir, is at its best. a bias for action here's in the state of texas to support of state of texas, federal emergency management agency and full coast guard men and women across the country, capabilities, helicopters, quick response and management specialists in the state of texas and getting after the task the hand. i tell you that as you look obviously the landfall here, phase one down here in the canal. seen this -- folks -- speak more about that. [ inaudible ] in houston, a challenge there. everything from -- fighting the weather the next couple days. probably see average rainfall for the year, 50 inches, before week's end. we don't know what that looks like, but i can tell you, the coast guard and home security team and d.o.d. force and national guard spent sunday and monday with the governor in

different locations. latched up with the state and getting better every day with a problem of catastrophic proportions we've haven't done before but we're all in, and i'm encouraged about how this thing will go forward. with cooperation. with that, sir, a couple moments here -- [ inaudible ] -- >> and [ inaudible ] corpus christi and also the commander for -- unified command. our unified command provides over 150 federal, state and local agencies and was partners here to make sure we cover all the bases. i want to walk through a timeline of our activities we've done over the course of hurricane harvey, just to let you know where we're at. so on tuesday the storm shifted and became a hurricane. our job, assess this. when we started doing that,

wednesday. making preparations and lockdown facilit facilities. getting our vesseling out to sea. [ inaudible ] and out of harm's way and come back in after the storm. on friday, we moved boats and aircraft away from the storm so they could immediately respond. now we're, harvey upgraded to a category 4 hurricane, our team hunkered down elsewhere and about 20 miles or so from here. and practiced and were ready to be here. [ inaudible ] moorings and mariners in distress. at that point had to wait for parameters to change, sent helicopters north and saved 19 mariners' lives that night. later on saturday morning, we had our assessment. it wasn't good to take the boats on the a water.

among the damage, we noted -- [ inaudible ] front of the corpus christi channel. a major challenge. continued search and rescue calls saturday. the weather conditions wouldn't allow us [ inaudible ] trying to -- we were working on that. sunday, the storm shifted to houston. and [ inaudible ] up to houston. and helping everyone we can with that [ inaudible ] using assets down here to run low jigistics over the state. brought boats from the south to start activities here. so monday we started to check our water operations. it's a huge emphasis on commerce and all the activities we do. and partners with the army corps of engineers and checking obstructions and the navigation and starting evaluations of the

waters. channel markings, making sure we opened the ports safe. so far 180 grounded vessels. those are major concerns, that large -- [ inaudible ] in the corpus christi channel. last night winds came from the storm that actually raised itself and drifted to the other side of the channel. [ inaudible ]. additionally, we're working with [ inaudible ] on pollution activities. so far, good news, not seen any as far as pollution [ inaudible ] so in closing, about one-third done with our channel service with the army corp. once we complete the survey and salvage the grounded ship we'll be in good position. and right now [ inaudible ] really looking to that. >> i want to tell you, i can speak for the governor because we spoke about it. we are very proud of the coast

guard. the lives they've saved. we're very, very proud of you. thank you very much. >> mr. president, a couple thousand rescues a day. everybody else in this economic issue, of course, we are in with border of protection agency, and in the facility donors, and on the waterways, the pilots, conditions now are not amenable. we recognize that as a national priority and will keep that -- [ inaudible ]. >> thank you. >> fantastic. thank you. >> mr. president, at this hour before the press pool pillpulls, the whole community. neighbor helping neighbor is needed in helping texas overcome. very quickly, if you -- if you would like to register for assistance underneath the governor's declared counties, there's 18 declared counties for individual assistants underneath the president's disaster declaration. that's disasterassistant.org.

puts in -- excuse me. disasterassistance.gov. i apologize. disasterassistance.gov, the fema individual assistant system. there's ways, looking to volunteer in nboad.org. also within the state of texas, one star foundation dot org. also -- and leave it at that, or redcross.org as well. thank you, and at this time this concludes the press briefing. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. all right. there you have it. the president briefed by federal officials on relief efforts in texas after hurricane harvey. you saw the fema administrator there and other officials, coast guard officials as well. back out to see how things are on it's ground in the houston area. ed lavandera is live in galveston. ed, yesterday we saw you traveling around with the national guard troops. so what are you seeing today? it still looks pretty bad where

you are. that road behind you, you can tell, completely flooded? >> reporter: yes. we're out here on galveston island just off of the main thoroughfa thoroughfare, broadway after nue -- avenue. so much rainfall on galveston island this morning, there are a number of neighborhoods, not all of the island by any means, but a number of neighborhoods that are looking like this. these floodwaters rising very quickly. i spoke with a couple people trying to manage their way and get through these areas here in the last couple of hours. they say in many places, the water is chest high and many homes here in this area are taking on water as well. so there has been so much rainfall since noon yesterday throughout this region that it just keeps coming and coming. that's why we're seeing these floodwaters. in fact, on the main thoroughfare that takes you through part of the eland here that connects into interstate 45 and takes you back on to the

mainland, a lot of that road has been under water and in the strand district, the entertainment district here on galveston island as well. hearing reports, haven't been able to make it there ourselves. hearing there's a great deal of water in that area as well. so this is what we're seeing. chest-high water. again, here in -- actually really the most serious flooding we've seen so far on galveston island since the storm made its way from corpus christi and rockport and started moving eastward towards where we are. hoping it's not a harbinger of things to come in the comes hours. intensity of rainfall and relentlessness of it over the past hours has been dramatic as we've seen floodwaters and a number of emergency vehicles, we've seen repeatedly making their way through it's streets of galveston island here this morning. we'll continue to monitor. >> ed lavandera, looks bad where

you are and the rain still coming. appreciate it. and focusing on 6,000 rescues, performed already, with thousands more still waiting for help. some shelters are overflowing and shortages of food and fuel. cnn's scott mclean is in houston where a fresh evacuation is underway. scot scott, also standing in water there. out with the navy rescues folks. what can you tell us? >> reporter: yes, jim. lots of folks associated with the cajun navy. a grass roots group of volunteers of people with their own boats and those who came on their own hoping to help. interesting about this neighborhood in northeast houston is that there's a bit of an island of, that's dry. on this side you see a lot of houses. they're not flooded. probably don't have water inside them and not many basements, if any, in this part of the world. the problem to get out, you got to go down here, get out.

hang a left and walk a mile, or maybe further than that. you see these folks here are on boats right now. the depth changes. deeper spots and some shallower spots. it's a bit of a challenge to get out. might have to walk part of it if your boat bottoms out. i want to introduce you to this man, trying to use his paddleboard to get people out. ever think you'd use this to get people out of here? >> not at all. it's much more fun in gulf shores, florida, out on the gulf, in the sunshine. but -- it literally called for anything that will float. so -- it floats. i can get people on here. i can get their stuff on here and -- help them get out. >> reporter: you told me earlier you were focussing on sort of elderly people that can't walk out on their own. what have you seen as you've been out getting people out of here? >> we're trying to do now, i'm literally paddling door to door, and asking people if any of their neighbors are immobile, in

need of emergency assistance. we had folks on dialysis a little earlier. one street over we managed to get out. just saw a lady in a walker getting out. right now we're focusing on anybody, medical infirmed, elderly folks or little kids that just need to get out. i provide a little adventure for them. get to ride a surfboard first time in their life. not optimal conditions but everybody's doing whatever they can do. >> reporter: quickly, you mentioned a mobile home park as well. maybe a mile or so back. what did you see there yesterday? >> yeah. i'll go up there. i'm going up there next soon as we get this neighborhood cleared. i paddled up there yesterday. people were on top of their roofs. two or three helicopter evacs going on back there. there were people we just couldn't get to yet. there's a greens bayou that runs between this neighborhood and just on the other side of that mobile home park. i'll go check that out right now

and see if there's anybody else that can get out. i can get back there into some of these locationsaliti alities shallow than the air boats or other boats. i go door to door, flag down a boat and say i need help. everybody's helping. people from louisiana, alabama, like the cajun navy or something. it's working. we're helping anybody we can. >> reporter: keep up the good work. thanks for your help. a lot of people are simply choosing not to leave. if their home is dry or even has a little water in it saying, hey, we'll sit tight. one other thing that's complicating things. i just spoke to one woman trying to arrange to get food for one family. a large family. they don't want to leave, because they're undocumented and concerned that if they do, that perhaps their immigration status might be known to the authorities. that's just one more wrinkle in an already complicated process here in houston.

>> absolutely. it has to be complicating relief efforts as well. scott mclean in houston. thank you. days after harvey made landfall, tireless rescue workers continue to pluck flood-ravaged houston frnts their homes like the gentleman we saw doing that with think paddleboard. when we come back, a live report on the scene of some of the latest rescues. patrick woke up with back pain.

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and those who just love meat. oscar mayer deli fresh. sweet! thousands of rescues happening in parts of texas under water because of tropical storm harvey. south of houston, the levee at columbia lakes breached and residents told to get out. you can see the notice on-screen right there. our meteorologist is at the severe weather center in atlanta. what did you tell us about what we're seeing right now? this is a dire situation. when you have levees breached. >> absolutely. a slow motion disaster. when you see flooding events. of course, historic rainfall has already come down. we'll see sunshine come back in

a couple bay ddays. break it down. houston, closer perspective across the region. of course, talked about the buffalo bayou. there's houston. meander with the buffio bayou back towards the reservoir, about 30 miles back. a couple -- dams. across this area. put this together. holding 130 billion gallons of water but are typically bone dry. it's a catchment. baseball parts, dog parks, you name it. scattered across the bottom of this catchment. down tofor a closer perspective. built 70 years ago. a lot of dirt holding it up. privately owned. no government regulations maintaining them. tremendous concern because this dam is filled to capacity. talked about 130 billion gallons of water. it's filled with water. work your way towards the northern fringe's this wall.

this is it. notice all the neighborhoods behind it? all flooding at this point. the north fringe, about 108 feet high. the water here is about 108.04 inches. getting directly over this by about a half inch. water is spilling over, getting down into the buffalo bayou. of course, the dam is not failing. the concern it's going to begin to take on tremendous amounts of stress from the water. officials are doing their best to remove all thestress stress, remove water. take water out of it, but it's spilling over, going into communities on the southern peripheral of this. the buffalo bayou is responsible for taking on about 500 square miles of land. there's houston. there's multiple points here across the buffalo bayou. the gauges, all that water from the reservoir is coming downstream. putting us in record territory. unfortunately by just nature of the volume of water, how it moves downstream, jim, it will take at least a couple of weeks just to get out of the major

flood stage essentially into the modern flood stage. even if the sun comes out in the next couple of days, which we hope it will. this is the water doing its thing. slow motion disaster. >> thanks for the update. appreciate it. congressman randy weber is on the line representing the 14th district, south and east of houston. it has been a very hard-hit area. congressman, just talking about this area in columbia lakes. the levee there has been breached. what more can you tell us? >> well, jim, our emergency response team had gone out two days ago asking everybody to leave that area, because we knew the floodwater is coming at urr. and now those who didn't leave, first responders making sure absolutely they know what's happened and are getting out. they're very, very pro active at this point. >> why is it that you think some

folks decided to hold on? just a few moments ago talking to a reporter who said there is some undocumented people worried about being picked up because of their immigration status, if they seek relief. i'm told by dhs that's not going to happen. i suppose there's a variety of reasons why people don't want to get -- don't want to leave their homes at this point? >> well, absolutely. texans of resilient, we're used to hurricane and some flooding's this is being called the worst flooding event in american history now, but people want to stay close to home. they think they can ride it out. texans are very, very resilient but i don't think they anticipated the absolute magnitude of the rainfall. harvey is now, now it's out done tropical storm alisyn. i don't think people anticipated that. >> congressman, we have to ask you this, four years ago you were opposed to federal funding

for relief for victims of super storm sandy. why did you oppose that at that time? and do you think it's hypocritical, some of saying now, for to you be seeking federal assistance for your area? obviously, the people there need it. nobody's disputing that, but in hindsight, do you regret opposing that funding for sandy victims? >> jim, i was very clear at the time that there was additional measures thrown in to that bill. the smithsonian institute. a couple parks. $1 million for upgrades, different parks and whatnot. there was what i would call pork attached to that bill which i did not believe belonged on that bill. i had a position of leadership at the time. i told them, take that off the bill, i'm good to go. >> what we understand from looking into this this morning, there really wasn't very much pork at all in that bill.

there had been a couple of fact-check reports to come out just today saying there wasn't really much of any pork in that legislation. there was some additional spending on other items, but it was very small, with respect to and compared to the vast majority of that funding, which did go to disaster relief. are you hopeful this time that people don't play politics with this sort of thing? >> absolutely. look, i've been a proponent from day one, if you looked at my voting record, on omnibuses and continued resolutions buy were you exception. looked to all the embargo in place from '73. i voted against all of those, because i think bills should be stand-alone, appropriations should be passed on their merit and not simply joined with something else to make it palatable. >> right. in a perfect world, obviously, things are thrown into bills you don't like. in hindsight, though, do you think you should have voted for

that sandy legislation, and do you maybe have convincing to do with some colleagues have to look some colleagues in the face from up in the northeast and say, look, i know i voted against this back then but i need your help now? >> well, we'll have that discussion. i think most of them understand that when you've got someone who votes against something that, for a particular reason, may not agree with the reason, but i'm pretty easy to get along with. i have good relationships. joe kennedy calmed me yesterday. we had a lot of discussions, with our friends across the aisle and even with republicans we have a difference with. you got a good reason, explain it, you're nice about it. let's work on this together. i think, as you know, tweeted out, he intends to support the bill. i think you'll see us come together. as long as someone has a good reason, a logical reason, talking about it, gloating about it, we'll all get together and

work on it but i think you'll see us come together on it. >> congressman randy weber, we hope that's the case and that people put politics aside to help the people in your part of the country there, and all the best to your efforts and those residents down there that you're looking after at this point. congressman weber, appreciate it. thank you for your time. and in our special coverage of the flooding in the aftermath of harvey continues right after a quick break. like samsung galaxy for zero down. plus, get 4 unlimited lines for 40 bucks a month, taxes and fees included. more reasons why t-mobile is america's best unlimited network. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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here's one behind me that stopped briefly for refuels. these missions, jim, rapid fire. the black hawk we rode in recently, rescued three different people in the space of an hour. they are really hustling. video shot from the air. the flooding seems to go on forever. we saw some of the worst flooded areas in the entire region. water was past the windows in many houses up to the roof on many other houses. we rescued several elderly people in one mission. i talked to an 80-year-old woman naked laura cox about her rescue. take a listen. >> -- i lost everything. i've lost both cars and everything in my house. we've got waist-high water in my hours. >> reporter: what happened when these guys came? >> rescued me in a boat first and then brought me by helicopter to here. and sent to the community center

and that was going to flood. so they evacuated us by helicopter. so -- >> reporter: what would you have done if these guys wouldn't have shown um? >> oh, well we would have had to go to the attic and i don't know what would have happened. they're life-savers. >> reporter: and rescued hundreds of people over the past couple days. conditions for these chopper pilots are really, really difficult. visibility is horrible most of the time. on see maybe a quarter mile in each direction. driving rain is a problem for them also. texas is known for a lot of radio and tv towers, and, again, with that low-hanging cloud cover and the visibility so difficult, you don't see those towers until you're almost right up on them. got to keep a really close eye in all directions. that's part of the danger they're facing, but they are still flying out. there's a coast guard chopper about to take off behind me, but they're still flying out. rapid fire, one after the other. jim? >> very dangerous conditions,

but very brave work. brian todd and what a remarkable story with that lady you just spoke to a few moments ago. if that's your mom or grandma, please, give her a call. she looks worried after that rescue there. and thank you so much. and when we come back, a look at the hur c-- hurculian e. when we come back.

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all right, back to the worst humanitarian crisis in texas. forcing tens of thousands out of homes many lives in shelters. red cross alone says they have 17,000 from across the area in

shelters now. the mayor of houston is seeking frost aid so more shelters can be opened up and 245 mime mim h in dallas, shelters are opened up. and rosa flores, what are the biggest challenges for people there? i see you standing with folks there including a little girl who has to deal with all of this as well. >> reporter: let me introduces to danielle here. you just arrived. share with us how you were rescued. >> some guys had caught up and asked where we were. we was waiting for police for, like, 36 hours and they never came. waiting at the home. did the white flag and everything. nobody came. somebody called upon us. decided to leave the house, walked to the gas station weekend the kids and they picked up us. we had been there five days with no food, no lights, and nobody

came. like, nobody came. >> reporter: you're with your children. we heard of stories of mothers trying to save their children from the rushing waters. can you -- can you tell us how that was for you? >> four feet of water to get them food on the first day. yeah. that's a lot of [ bleep ] also here, like that's not the smartest thing to do. like people are really breaking down and jaul sitting here with cameras and microphones trying to ask us what the [ bleep ] is wrong with us. and you really trying to understand with the microphone still in my face when he's shivering cold, and you still putting the microphone in my face. >> sorry, sorry. >> it sounds like you've got a very upset family there. we're going to take a break from that and we'll get back to you later on. rose flores in houston for us, thank you. along the texas/louisiana border, scenes like this as hundreds of residents are rescued. a live report when we come back. patrick woke up with back pain.

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use the chase mobile app to send money in just a tap to friends at more banks than ever before. you got next? chase. make more of what's yours. i want to go back to rosa flores at that shelter in houston. rosa, that situation you were taking us to a few moments ago where that woman and her daughter were talking to you and the woman there really, you could tell, she was at the breaking point. i think it just -- it symbolizes what we see so many times from people who are hard hit. i was in katrina 12 years ago and we see people at their breaking points. tell us about that. >> reporter: you know, we've seen a lot of pain, a lot of

trauma, a lot of shock here, and that's exactly what that woman is going through. it's a very painful time. i mean, i've talked to other people here who have described being on a boat, getting rescued, but seeing other people hanging on to branches, trying to swim and take care of their children and seeing people perish in the waters and people screaming, asking for help, and because their boat is full, they can't help them. so, there's a lot of trauma, and i know that we talk about this whenever we cover disasters is, you know, saving lives involves a lot of trauma, first of all, for first responders. the people that are getting saved experience a lot of trauma as well, and so you know, that's exactly what that woman is going through. and as she mentioned, she went through all of that with her children. so just imagine, any parent can

relate to that. imagine having to jump on a boat with your children, not knowing if you're going to make it alive. so, yeah, i mean, it's -- it's really, really tough for all of these people, and they're going through a lot of trauma, and like you mentioned, a lot of them at their breaking point. >> rosa flores with a very human moment. if you see that nice lady again, please give her our best and tell her that we're thinking about her and thanks for sharing that with us. we appreciate it, thank you. communities in southeastern texas are dealing with the effects of tropical storm harvey. wind damage and heavy flooding have forced people out of their homes. drew griffin is in beaumont, texas, right now with our first look at that city and drew, it seems no matter how far you're going outside of houston into the houston metropolitan area, other even nearby cities, you are seeing a lot of devastation.

>> reporter: yeah, and this is real life, jim. this is happening right now. a family that has just been brought in. this is 60 miles east of houston, and this is a family that has just come in. they've obviously got a small child getting off of this rescue boat, and this has been going on here for two days now, just boats going into these neighborhoods which are getting higher and higher as the storm keeps progressing, and you see behind me, just a flotilla of volunteer boaters who are trying to penetrate some of these areas and the biggest problem they're having, jim, is that not everywhere is water, so they will run down trying to get to a neighborhood and suddenly their boats will be dry so it's been a seerd series of trying to get these boats in the right spots at the right time. no shortage of volunteer boaters here. the problem is navigating in a county that is becoming really a sea of islands. there's no information, jim, as

to actually how many rescues are going on because so many of them are just volunteers, neighbors helping neighbors. we've seen people coming in from other states with their boats just trying to help. >> drew, we have just a little bit of time left but it almost looks like behind you that is another road that is becoming a river. more boats than cars almost, and is there anything you can tell us about that family that was coming in or just that this is one of many families we're seeing being rescued at this moment. >> reporter: you know, we've been watching them all morning long. these are basically people who thought yesterday they could hunker down in place and today they called back and wanted to get out. the sheriff has said that's been the biggest problem. they tried to get all these people out yesterday but the water didn't rise that much. now the water continues to rise and now people realize they've got to get out. several of them have gone back, trying to get their pets. so you have all kinds of situations going on where you need to have rescues. and the boaters are here, but as

i said, jim, it's a hopscotch of islands that these boaters can't -- you can't just drive to one part of the county and suddenly navigate your boat all over the place. it doesn't work that way. you have, you know, isolated pockets, and then just water after water after water. it's very tough right now. >> all right, drew griffin, thank you very much. that's it for me. our coverage of the aftermath of hurricane harvey continues with all of our brave teams on the ground. ground. stay with us. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com all right, jim, thank you. we'll take it from here. i'm brooke baldwin. thank you so much for being with me. you're watching cnn's special live coverage of the catastrophic aftermath that is hurricane harvey, and the new threat facing the flood-ravaged state of texas. get out now. that is the stark warning to folks who live just south of houston as the river levees