pyongyang. thank you very much, will. and thanks for joining us. i'm rene marsh. >> i'm dave briggs. explosions at a chemical plant and new mandatory evacuations as the devastation from harvey expands in texas. also the latest on a water issue in beaumont, texas. "new day" has it all covered right now. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. you're watching "new day." it's thursday, august 31st. 5:00 a.m. in houston. emergency managers in houston have ordered a mandatory evacuation of several communities on the west side of houston. officials are urging people to leave their homes as soon as the sun comes up this morning, saying there's water in this nearby reservoir and has reached its peak. it's at a very dangerous level.

this order comes as the houston fire department will begin going door-to-door searching every home in the hardest hit parts of the city because they still don't know how many people weathered the storm in their home, how many are still stranded. they need to look inside those homes today. >> you're 100% right. they've been overwhelmed by the need. they always expected the water to crest later in the week. the question is can they handle that? we'll have to see. more breaking news as well. at least two explosions at a flooded chemical plant in crosby, texas, about 25 miles northeast of houston. ten sheriff's deepities rushed to the hospital after inhaling the fumes from the plant. people within a mile and a half have been told to leave their homes. the question is, can they? another emergency unfolding further east in beaumont, texas. that city's two sources for water have been cut off by this

historic flooding. the pumps have failed because of flooding they can't assess until the water level goes down. cnn has teams in place on all fronts. we begin with polo sandoval in richmond, texas. polo, what's the situation there? >> reporter: chris, this latest round of mandatory evacuation adds to the ones already in place in fort ben county texas where the bra soz river continues to right. officials in houston are preparing to do these door-to-door checks on some of these homes, some of which are still flooded at this hour. hearing from houston officials, telling cnn this will be a long and time consuming process. >> we'll be doing a block by block, door by door search of structures that we believe have had three feet of water or greater to assure there have

been no people left behind. this will be a one to two-week process to address the areas hardest and most impacted. >> back on the banks of the brazos river. this water is expected to go up at least another foot and a half, alisyn. for the most part, these communities on the banks of the brazos river are empty at this hour. many of these people have already evacuated with their family and priceless belongings. >> let's hope everybody has evacuated. joining us is alan spears at the fort bend county office of emergency management. i know it's a very busy morning. what changed last night that's causing this emergency evacuation now? >> well, what happened is we had a one night stay of good weather, so people in some of our areas that thought it was safe to go back in didn't

realize that we still have flooded streets and still have a lot of flooded homes, and we had people with families and small children trying to get back into those areas, and they're just not safe to go into yet. >> tell us about the reservoir. as we understand it, it's now at 101 feet, and that is its breaking point basically. >> yes. on monday we ordered a voluntary evacuation for the barker reservoir. at that time it was predicted to go to 104 feet which is, as far as i know, a record. i'm told now that it's steady at 101 feet, but that is one of those areas that it did get flooded and a lot of parts of that area, we have had nice weather and people are trying to go home. on the recommendation of the sheriff, he wanted to go ahead

and initiate the mandatory evacuation strengthly for the security of the area. we just don't want people and their families going back to flooded homes yet. it's just not safe. >> understood. this is exactly what officials warned about days ago with this storm. you would think the worst had passed because it would no longer be raining, and it would give people this false sense of confidence. they'd return home. with this particular storm there's all these repercussions that are going to happen. we know dams are having to be released to relieve the pressure there and now reservoirs may start to spill over. this is what officials didn't want to happen because neighborhoods could be completely flooded. we drove around yesterday with the cajun navy looking for people still trapped in their homes after the dam had been released. what are you telling people who are watching at this moment to do? >> right now, the barker reservoir is in good shape.

it is holding the water back exactly the way it was designed. the army kofrps of engineers is doing a good job regulating the waut earl going out of the reservoir. the fact of the matter is, the reservoir is getting a lot of water from up stream areas that has filled the area. and right now it's at capacity and it's got to go somewhere, so it's working its way through the street system and into streets and things like that and into some homes unfortunately. >> how many people are affected by this mandatory evacuation? >> it's hard to say because i can't really tell you how many people heeded the voluntary evacuation that we ordered on mond monday. we're hoping it's minimal, but at this time i can't really say. >> mr. spears, this is the issue. i'm here at the convention

center that is a shelter and housing all these people that have evacuated their homes. it's gone from 8,3000 people down to 2,500. people have returned to their homes. they're not comfortable in shelters and want to get back home to their belongings. how are you going to make sure these people get out this morning. >> oh, yeah. part of that is a lot of people had to evacuate because of the massive amount of rainfall that did flood the streets and homes. the flood gz we're receiving at the barker reservoir, it is from the hurricane but it is coming from up stream and it is still collecting. so streets are emptying out and people do see that and they do sometimes have the false belief that it is safe to go home, but in some areas it's just not yet. >> understood.

so we are here this morning to try to broadcast to everybody it is not safe. there is a mandatory evacuation this morning near the barker reservoir. allan spears, thank you for helping us get the word out. also breaking news this morning. there have been these two explosions we need to tell you about. they've gone off just moments ago at a flooded chemical plant in crosby, texas. this is about 25 miles northeast of where i'm standing in houston. black smoke is coming from the ar keep ma plant. the company operating the plant fears this plant could catch on fire at any time. ten sheriff's deputies are now in the hospital after inhaling fumes from this plant. so people within 1 1/2 miles of the plant have been evacuated as a precaution. we have a team on the way to the scene. so we will bring everyone all the updates we have as soon as they develop. this is exactly what was feared

with the chemical plants around this flooding area, and now it's happened. there's more breaking news. the flood-ravaged city of beaumont, texas, has lost both water supply sources after the main pump and a backup failed because of the rising floodwaters. that's where we find cnn's drew griffin live in beaumont. give us the latest there. >> reporter: to just add to the misery factor, i turn on the spigot this morning to brush my teeth and air came out. at 12:30 last night or early this morning, the city of beaumont sent out an alert to all the residents that the main pump for the water supply on the river has failed. they don't know why yet. so 118,000 people in the city of beaumont now without water on top of everything else they have to deal with. many of them did not have time to do the precautions necessary because this alert came out in the middle of the night, fill

the bathtub, make sure you have water to flush the toilets, that did not take place. so if people did not do that prior to this emergency, it could get really miserable. on the fix, they just don't know yet. they've got to wait until daylight. they're going to take a boat out to that pumping station and see what's wrong. if it is a major fix, if something needs to be physically fixed, apparently from the fire department, they need to wai wa until the water in the river goes down, water that has president even crested yet. this morning it's dark. a lot of the rescues in jefferson county have ceased overnight. the water has not gone down at all. i was there tuesday. it looks exactly the same as it was tuesday. it's now thursday morning. this water is everywhere. chris, thank you. >> drew, thank you very much. you've been doing important, important work down there as a journalist and as a concerned

human being. let's take a chelk of what is going on. harvey has weakened to a tropical depression. that's good news but it doesn't really matter. the water that's already in place, as you heard from that city manager, it has to go somewhere. it's going to create flood risks. cnn meteorologist chad myers has the latest forecast. i'm being careful because people think the storm is gone so the danger is gone. and those two things don't go together necessarily. >> not when there's stillwater uphill that has to come downhill into your neighborhood. it rained in a lot of place is, not just where you live. all that water has to come down from the northern part of the state, all the way from san antonio through the colorado and back to sanya sin toe from the northeast part of the state. there's more rain fall today right now into louisiana. there's been very heavy rainfall in beaumont and port arthur

overnight that won't shut off. the heaviest raen today is somewhere near memphis. even nashville could see six synchs. that's not 40 or 50 like they saw in houston. getting back to houston, we have 30 reservoirs, 30 rivers, 30 gauges that is above major flood stage. so let's get to this evacuation we're talking about. it's a new evacuation. here is the barker reservoir. you see all the brazos river. we ear talking about barker and addicks. i've been talking about addicks most of the week. here is addicks. it came completely full where the water came over the sides of the reservoir. this is 108 feet. the dam is about 114. they were letting it out as fast as they could. we talked about this, all these homes built here inside the reservoir, they flooded.

the same thing is happening in barker. barker coming back here. it's coming in faster than it can go out. the residents that built back here, all those developers that built below the top of the levee, all those houses are being evacuated now. they probably already were. it was voluntary. now it's mandatory. the water can't get out of the release point fast enough. if you build below the top of the leavy, some day it's going to flood. >> understood. chad, thank you very much for that update. so now we have this terrible tragedy to update you all on. perhaps you have heard about this sandivar family. six members of a family that were in a van who disappeared into the river. there were two grandparents and four great grandchildren, aged

16, 14, 8 and 6. one of the saldiva's sons was able to get out as the van disappeared. yesterday we spoke with another one of the brothers, rick, about this unimaginable loss of six members of his family just as the van was found. listen to this. >> i see your hall of photos. tell me about some of them. of course, this is mom when she was younger. she sent this picture to her mother actually. that's what's written there. >> beautiful. >> and dad, he was in the air force. >> this is during the korean war. >> yes. >> when you knew hurricane harvey was heading here, your family came up with a plan. what was that plan? >> the day before i told sammy, i said what are you planning on doing? >> he said, well, i'm going to stay. in the water starts coming up,

i'll put them in my truck and take them to your house. i said okay, that will work. >> but then something went wrong with that plan. what happened? >> fell asleep. my wife was texting with him. he said i'm a wake. he sent us a voice mail which we didn't hear because we fell asleep. it said i fell asleep, the water is in the house. >> it's me, i guess we're going to get out of here. i fell asleep and the neighbor just woke us up. the water started coming in the house. i don't know where we're going. okay. buy. >> so then when he realized he had fallen asleep, it was starting to get too late, the water was encroaching on their vows but he figured out he could still get out because the brother had left a van. >> yes, we called danny. he said go to my house, i got my van there. you can get the keys, you can

take them to rick's house. sammy got in the house and dried up mom and dad's clothes, put them in the drier, made them some breakfast and got everybody in the van. now, at the same time danny said could you go across the street, because his grandkids were across the street, go across the street and get my grandkids and take them to rick's house. sammy said yeah, i can do that. >> what did you recommend? >> i told him, if you're going to leave, you better leave now because that neighborhood in allison flooded. it's going to get bad. you better get over here now. he put them in the van. he was coming this way. after that, i don't know, i guess about 9:00, 10:00 in the morning werks lost contact with him for about two hours. nobody knew where sammy was. >> how did you find out what had happened across that bridge? >> well, my sister-in-law called

me and said -- she was hysterical. sam lost control of the van. mom and dad are gone, my kids are gone: i said what are you talking about? sammy lost control of the van and it's in the buy you. i finally got ahold of sammy. of course, he was barely able to talk. he was saying that he was going down lay road, or green river, lay road. they came up to a bridge where lay road and green river come together and the bridge was overflowed, dad said go, you can make it, i can see the guard rail, go. you listen to your dad. dad was real demanding even at 84 years old. so he went. like i told sammy, i can't see myself doing anything different. dad told me to go, i would have

tried to make it. of course, like anybody else, he panicked. he said him, mom and dad were under water, they were under wart and he got out of the van, he didn't even take off his seatbelt. the window was halfway open, he just slid out. he grabbed a branch or a twig, what he called it. he called it a twig. i don't know if it was a branch or a tree or what and the kids were screaming. he could hear them screaming or crying. of course, they wanted out of the van. he kept telling them to get out the back door. >> that's one of the most heartbreaking starts of this heartbreaking story is your brother witnessed it all happening. >> yeah, the van go down knowing his parents are in it, his great nieces and nephews are in it. it's his brothers -- our brother danny, his grandkids. >> how did you get the word today that they had actually

found the van? >> danny called me and said his son andrew found the van. >> by himself? >> he went over there by himself to find it. i don't know if he had anybody else. he just told me andrew was there and he could see the van under the water. >> he told you that they had found the bodies? >> well, basically, i knew then -- they said a diver went down and they could see two adults in the front seat. they couldn't see in the back of the van. >> you were very close with your parents? >> oh, yes, yes. all of us were. >> and to lose them so suddenly is a bigger challenge. >> yes. but at their age, you start getting ready for it. you start keeping little messages that dad puts on your phone. >> but you wanted a memento of your parents. >> yes, i wanted to hear, like he was calling me on the phone.

sorry. yeah. i just wanted to hear that. >> so many people around the country and ar round the world have heard your story. it's gripped the whole country. >> my neighbors came over and gave me a hug. whatever you need, everybody is just, whatever you need. i guess they can imagine going through something like this. like i told the sheriffs, i'm just so glad you saved my brother. i didn't want to lose my brother. >> chris, obviously unimaginable to lose this many family members at once, to have the brokter there to witness it. you heard rik say there's been beautiful things that have happened, neighbors, family, co-workers who have reached out and offered help.

there's also, and i want to let our viewers know this, sickening stories of scammers trying to cash in on the sandivar situation. because of that situation, we want to put up the real one. this is the verified account. this is the verified one and it says at the top, verified family account. you can see these pictures there. listen, the family isn't asking for anything. they're not asking for any money. they're just asking to be kept in people's prayers. so what can we say. this is one of the stories, but also one thgripped. >> there are good people and bad people. who knows what the needs are

going forward. that story is about as tough as it gets. people should take solace that we haven't heard more -- hopefully the neighborhoods covered up by this water are not hiding horror stories. thank you, alisyn, for bringing that to us. >> amid these harrowing stories of loss, there is a story of great hope, neighbors banding together to get a pregnant woman to the hospital to give birth on time. time. that new mom joins us next. and resilient for a time the more that we can strengthen and re-harden that tooth surface, the whiter their patients' teeth are going to be. dentists are going to really want to recommend pronamel strong and bright. it helps to strengthen and re-harden the enamel.

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. as you know, harvey has subme e submerged this city of houston with record breaking rainfall in a matter of hours. in one neighborhood, the fast moving water had people springing into action to help a woman in labor. this human chain is to help a woman named maria rodriguez get from her flooded home to the hospital on time. joining us is maria rodriguez and her new baby salina. how are you doing? >> hi.

i'm sorry. i can't hear you. >> how are you feeling this morning? >> i'm feeling good. i'm blessed to have my child with me. >> maria, can you pick up your phone? we want to see your face, if you can, hold your phone up a little more. i'm looking at a picture of your beautiful baby. yes, that's good. a little higher, can you do it a little higher? how is salina doing? >> she's good. she's actually right here with me right now. >> oh, my gosh, maria, having a baby is stressful enough on the day of delivery, but to have to do it in waist deep floodwaters with your neighbors helping you get to the hospital. what happened? >> to tell you the truth, i think the story got confused because that's not my story.

my story is actually -- >> what is your story? >> i had my daughter at the hospital during the hurricane. my oldest daughter got flooded in while i was having my daughter. >> is that then getting your holdest daughter to the hospital? what's the human chain you're looking at? >> i'm sorry. i think the stories got confused. my daughter had to get rescued from inside a house. >> i guess there's a lot of confusion during harvey and this storm. your story has -- is it your story that you had the first hurricane babe by in the hospital and you were going into labor while all of this was raging around you? >> harvey made landfall about 10:30. salina came at 1:00.

i was actually in the labor process and she was the first one born after he made landfall. >> okay. that's a good story, too. what was that experience like for you? >> i was trying to take it one step at a time. sadly i wasn't taking the storm as serious as we should have because we were so overconfident. there has never been flooding like this in that certain area. everything was just fine, and by the time i get back to the room, i think my husband was downplaying it. and your sister got about an ichb ch of water in the house. and come to find out it's really 2 1/2 feet and they're stuck in the neighborhood. that right there kind of took away the excitement of, oh, at least i made it to the hospital. it could have been worse.

i could have been at home. >> no kidding. >> my doula couldn't make it in. she's over the phone calling me, who was a great coach, by the way, and was coaching me through everything that we had already been through. it was an eventful weekend. as we were in the hospital, the hospital goes into shutdown. the rations are getting thin. by the way, everybody at the hospital was amazing and patient. they were doing 12 hours on, 12 hours off. i was seeing the same people, basically we got really close together. they put salina in the nicu. >> i know this was a high risk pregnancy. that is very scary to have your baby this the nicu while harvey

is raging around you. good for you. best to your family. we're so happy you made it to the hospital and that your doula was great enough to coach you over the phone. thanks so much for being with us. we'll check back with you to make sure salina is doing well. >> hey, take good news where you find it. that's all i know. the baby is healthy. the family is okay and they will be stronger and more together than ever after surviving this. alisyn, we'll take a break. there's no question that the need is great, but so is the response. the u.s. navy is now involved conducting wild chopper rescues in a flooded-out neighborhood. you will see first happened what it takes to beat these floods next. (flourish spray noise)

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welcome back to houston, texas, where these aerial rescues continue across the flood zone. people are in dire need of help here, mostly in the beaumont and port arthur areas today because the floodwaters are still rising at this hour. cnn's martin savidge teamed up with the u.s. navy to capture these dramatic images of people being lifted to safety. >> reporter: air operations are still continuing through the night, as you can probably tell by the sound behind me. primarily most of the aviation assets are being used in the beaumont, port arthur area where the floodwaters have continued to rise. i took a flight along with the u.s. navy on board what they call a seahawk, essentially a black hawk helicopter. >> reporter: they're covering over this city, rising and falling and here we see people being pulled out now and being

brought in. as the hoist rises again, two more people are brought in. it's a remarkable scene. you can understand the fear they're in. >> reporter: amazing to watch that process. they saved 25 people in the roughly 3 1/2 hours we were airborne. i can't express how dangerous that is. they're in an urban environment. on top of that, those rescuers down on the ground are in waters that they really can't tell what's down there and they don't want to get snagged on a fence or caught on a car or anything like that when you're attached to a helicopter. if air was full of helicopters down there, all different branches and all different sections, all of them continuing to work, to lift people to safety, and the flight crews say they'll work all night. they will work all day until

they feel that everyone they can rescue has been rescued. it's a remarkable thing to see. martin savidge, cnn, college station, texas. >> our thanks to martin. you have to remember what you're dealing with in a helicopter. you've got pitch, roll and yaw. they have to control all three of those, get the basket down, get the people in and bring it up gently, gently. the greatest blessing and curse of harvey came together in our next story. the most vulnerable to the floods are the elderly. many of them are unable to get themselves to safety as the waters rise, especially in convalescent centers. what we call the concerned citizen corps have been angels. you'll meet one right now. trey townsend. he saw the need from his home in arkansas. he grabbed a buddy and a broet and he came. he's been doing god's work. he joins us on the phone right

now. trey, can you hear us? >> yes, sir. >> i do not want to keep you too long because i know you're getting the job done. you saw what was going on. what did you see when you hit the water in texas and made your way into your first nursing home? >> we just unloaded the boat on the interstate. it was crazy, we were driving down the interstate and hit water. all we knew to do was put the boat in the water and start heading towards deeper water. the first thing we came to was a nursing home. we pulled up there and walk in and there's just just people everywhere inside. inside the nursing home, it was from ankle-deep water to knee-deep water. the poor residents were just sitting there. they had nothing to do. it was one of the worst things i've seen, and it turned into one of the best things you see, all the different people helping out, loading people in boats.

it's just a bunch of good old boys getting together and pulling the boats up there. we don't have a clue who any of these people were that were helping us help people. it was just organized chaos almost with people just loading people in boats and moving them out. we had one gentleman jump in the boat with us to help hold wheelchairs that we had in my boat. we don't have a clue who he is or how to get ahold of him or anything. he rode with us back to the rally point where they were loading them in the helicopters. he jumps out, gets in another boat and heads back. >> you guys are all in it together. it's the best kind of crazy that there is. it's crazy love that you're showing in action. how many people do you think you've gotten to and how long have you been doing it? >> we got down here yesterday. we started in spring, texas,

yesterday and went through an apartment, we pulled out about 16 people out of it. and then yesterday, i'm not sure -- excuse me. it was day before yesterday we were in spring. yesterday we were in port arthur. honestly, i don't even remember yesterday. we started at the nursing homes and we got people out of those. and then we moved to the neighborhood and was getting people out of the houses there. you can see a family there that -- it was kind of surreal. we were pulling one family out of a house, and it's a sad deal, all these people, all their homes are flooded, and this little girl, she gets in the boat with us and starts singing "row, row, row your boat." it's really need to see people come together to do this, but also really sad at the same time. >> well, you're one of them, brother. you're down there, all in it

together. that's how you're going to get through it. thank you for what you're doing. keep your strength up and please stay in touch. let us know if there's information that we can get out to help the work you're doing on the ground. be well and thank you. >> thank you very much. >> alisyn. >> chris, you'll see lots of different rescue stories that we bring you throughout the morning. meanwhile, vice president mike pence is heading to the disaster zone today. we'll have a live report for you on what he'll see when he gets here, next. (con artists...)

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vice president pence is heading to texas today to meet with the governor here and, of course, the tour the damage in rockport. that's where harvey first slammed ashore. he'll meet with survivors and, of course, first responders. cnn senior washington correspondent joe johns is live at the white house with what to expect. hi, joe. >> reporter: good morning, alisyn. this is a full-court press from the white house, at least so far. the vice president's trip to the region is the second visit by a

top administration official in this last week. he'll be accompanied by five cabinet secretaries. he's expected to meet with state and local officials including the governor of texas going, of course, to corpus christi as well as rockport, and he is expected to meet with some of the survivors of the storm as well as survey some of the damage. the president himself, of course, was also in the region just the day before yesterday. and the president, of course, was hit with criticism that he failed to express enough empathy for the victims. in a speech yesterday in springfield, missouri, the president at that time appearing to embrace his role as consoler in chief. listen. >> to those affected by this storm, we are praying for you and we are here with you every single step of the way.

to those americans who have lost loved ones, all of america is grieving with you and our hearts are joined with yours forever. >> reporter: nothing on the president's public schedule today, at least so far. he is expected to return to the region over the weekend. chris, back to you. >> joe, thank you very much. another big story to cover this morning. the u.s. and south korea are staging a joint show of force against north korea flying military aircraft over the korean peninsula. this comes days after north korea launched another missile over japan. cnn's will ripley is the only western broadcast journalist inside north korea. he's live in pyongyang with the latest. what was the reaction? >> reporter: still no official reaction to that bomber flyover, though certainly a dramatic show of force by the united states to have b 2b bombers from the united states and south korea.

meanwhile president trump tweeting that talking is not the answer when it comes to north korea. that message very clear. it's interesting because that's the same thing the north korean officials have told us repeatedly on the ground over this last week. north korea says they don't want to talk with the united states. they don't trust with united states. when we were speaking with people who learned about the missile launch for the first time yesterday watching it on state media, they also said they don't think north korea should be talking. they think they should be firing more missiles. listen. >> president trump says launches like this show north korea has contempt for its neighbors. what's your response? we're simply acting in self-defense he says. we shot one yesterday, we shot one today. maybe tomorrow we'll shoot ten more. we have to do it to defend our country. >> reporter: north korea promising to fire more missiles and perhaps targeting guam. if a military option is not on the table because the consequences will be

catastrophic, what is the u.s. going to do? president trump and the japanese prime minister says they've come to an agreement about the plan for north korea, not giving specifics. it seems like what they're going to try to do is accelerate the pace of sanctions, trying to make the regime economically crippled. the problem is without china's cooperation, sanctions won't have much of a bite and north korea says they've survived a famine and sanctions won't stop them from launching missiles. >> will, so helpful to have you on the ground in pyongyang for us. meanwhile, back here in houston, the head of fema says they expect to be in texas for years to come grappling with the aftermath of harvey. we'll find out why and what the we'll find out why and what the plan is next. so when i got my ancestry dnaul it was a shocker. i'm from all nations. it puts a hunger in your heart to want to know more.

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how yothat's why new downy sprotect and refresh. conditions fibers to lock out odors. so clothing odors don't do the talking for you. lock out odors with new downy protect and refresh. fema is busy this morning, approving assistance to tens of thousands of victims of harvey. fema's administrator says this will be a years' long effort. not months, but years. joining us is kevin hannis, the federal coordinator for harvey in texas. i know it's a busy day for you. thank you for being here. just this morning we know there are untold people still trapped in their homes. there are reservoirs that appear

to be on the verge of spilling over. there was a chemical fire at two chemical plants, people having to be evacuated from there. where do you start with all of these competing things? >> i think what we do is start with the highest priority. one, that's to ensure we're supporting the state of texas and the local officials in the impacted area to provide them the resources that they are requesting, not only from the state, but also through the federal government and prioritize those to ensure we're saving as many lives and protecting as much as we can during this event. >> and do you have good numbers on how many people are still in danger zones this morning. i personally don't have those numbers, i know the state is coordinating closely with the local officials through the disaster district coordinators, through the local emergency managers, where each county,

each city understands what their population is, what was able to evacuate so they can conduct search and rescue in the areas where they're going to find the most potential survivors of the storm, and they'll prioritize that at the local level to assure we account for everybody over the next period of time. >> gosh, it's just so hard to get your mind around how vast this catastrophe was. we went out yesterday with the cajun navy just to one neighborhood and found people still in their homes, the whole first floor flooded, their cars ruined. when your administrator, brock long, says you'll be here for years, what does that mean? what will that effort look like for years? >> i think what that means is fema, as well as the entire federal family will be here for texas and texans until the job is complete. in this type of an event, that's going to be years. we will have personnel that are here working in austin, but more

importantly working in the impacted areas with individuals to help them start to rebuild through this process. >> so i'm here at the houston convention center. yesterday there were something like 8,300 people who were basically homeless and relocated here today. today it's much more sparse. the last number i got was 2,550, meaning something like 6,000 people tried to go home or have been relocated. the houses i saw yesterday were uninhabitable. what's happening with these folks who have been displaced? >> so part of our plan in working in coordination with the state and local officials is first, as you see, we're evacuate people to congregate sheltering and then move them to interim sheltering so they're not in congregate sheltering.

we'll work them into some type of intermediate housing solution and work with them for a long-term housing solution. when administrator long talks about years, it's going to take years to get through that process with the magnitude of this event. >> understood. kevin hannes, thank you very much for explaining what you all are doing here today. thank you for that. chris, look, it is going to take years. the houses we've seen here of people, they want to return to their homes. they are -- their first floors are destroyed. their cars are ruined, their furniture is gone, their documents are gone. this is going to be a long, long haul in houston. >> you're 100% right. they need to know that on the ground and in washington as well. we know that harvey's survivors are going to need everything. that includes hope. that's where gloria gaynor comes in. the singer took to twitter releasing a new rendition of her '70s hit, the ultimate empowerment song, "i will

survive." listen to this. ♪ at first we were afraid, we were petrified, kept thinking texas couldn't live with floodwaters this high ♪ ♪ we know you spent plenty of time preparing for this hurricane ♪ ♪ who could have known it would come with such devastating rain ♪ ♪ you'll survive with all the love and help and prayers we will stay strongly by your side ♪ ♪ we'll do all we can for you and you'll survive, you will survive ♪ ♪ you will survive >> beautiful, beautiful. >> oh, my gosh, listen to her voice, how good her voice is. that is fantastic. i know that that song is a personal anthem of yours as you've sung it many times on the set to me. >> well, i do.

i've always thought i could give her a run for her money until i heard that rendition. now i realize she is the true talent. i have to concede that. with all the love and help and friends by your side, you will survive. that is a powerful message right now. alisyn, to you. >> we are following breaking news. there are new mandatory evacuations because there are also explosiontion at a flooded chemical plant and a texas city has lost its water supply. so all of that breaking news is next for you. e and choose what's right for you. woah. flo and jamie here to see hqx. flo and jamie request entry. slovakia. triceratops. tapioca. racquetball. staccato. me llamo jamie. pumpernickel. pudding. employee: hey, guys! home quote explorer.

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neulasta is for certain cancer patients receiving strong chemotherapy. do not take neulasta if you're allergic to neulasta or neupogen (filgrastim). ruptured spleen, sometimes fatal as well as serious lung problems, allergic reactions, kidney injuries, and capillary leak syndrome have occurred. report abdominal or shoulder tip pain, trouble breathing or allergic reactions to your doctor right away. in patients with sickle cell disorders, serious, sometimes fatal crises can occur. the most common side effect is bone and muscle ache. so why go back there? if you'd rather be home, ask your doctor about neulasta onpro. good morning everyone. welcome to your "new day." it is thursday, august 31st. i am here at the convention center in houston, and we begin with several breaking news stories for you. there is a mandatory evacuation for many