nts 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 communities right now

near the barker reservoir. that's on the west side of houston, a couple miles from where i am. officials are urging people to leave their homes as soon as they can this morning because the water levels at this reservoir are now in imminent danger of tipping over and flooding these neighborhoods and homes. the order comes as the houston fire department begins door-to-door searches of every single home in the hardest hit parts of this city, looking for people who may have stayed behind or have been lost. >> we're also tracking two other breaking stories. there are reports of explosions at a flooded chemical plant in crosby, texas. it's about 25 miles northeast of houston. ten sheriff's deputies had to be rushed to the hospital after inhaling some of those chemicals. this as another emergency unfolds in beaumont. there the city's two sources of water have been cut off because of the historic flooding. cnn has crews in all the relevant locations.

let's begin with cnn's polo sandoval in richmond, texas. >> reporter: good morning. these mandatory evacuations are adding to the ones already in place in fort ben county texas, not far from the city of houston where the river levels continue to rise. residents in these communities are being asked to pack up and move out as soon as the sun rises. in houston authorities there are also very busy right now, expected to begin going door to door making sure they didn't leave anybody be lined and everybody who needed rescues was rescued. this is going to be a time consuming process according to the houston fire department. >> we'll be doing basically a block-by-block, door-to-door search for of structures that have had greater than three feet of water in them to make sure no people have been left behind.

this will be a one to two-week process to make sure we address all the areas that have been the hardest and most impacted. >> reporter: as that continues in houston, here in richmond, texas, a short drive from houston, that water level continues to rise already reaching record levels, alisyn. people here were just recovering from a massive flood in 2016. a couple days ago i spoke to a gentleman down river. he had just finished painting the interior of his home. this morning it is flooded again. >> they just can't get a break. polo, thank you very much for that. we need to get to other breaking news. there's been two explosions at a flooded chemical plant in crosby, texas. that's about 25 miles northeast of houston. there's black smoke coming from the arkema plant. the company operating the plant fears it could catch fire at any time. ten sheriff's deputies are in the hospital after inhaling

fumes from that plant. people within 1.5 miles now have been evacuated from this area as a precaution. so we have a team on the way to the scene, and we'll bring you any updates as soon as they develop from there. meanwhile, more breaking news. the flood ravaged city of beaumont, texas, has lost both of its water supply sources after the main pump and a backup failed. that's where we find cnn's drew griffin. he's live in beaumont, and the city is home to about 118,000 people. drew, what's the latest? >> reporter: and all of them without water this morning. the faucets just blow air. this happened last night, early this morning, 12:30 a.m. most of the water comes from the natchez river. the pumping station there, something is wrong. they don't know what's wrong with that pumping station other than it's just not working. they're going to get out there on a boat this morning, try to see what it is. the city councilman says it could be several days before that water supply can even be addressed. if it's a major problem, alisyn,

they're going to have to wait for the water in the river to go down. that water isn't expected to crest i believe until saturday. so that is a big emerging problem for the city of beaumont and its residents who have been through an awful lot already, and on top of that, this. jefferson county, beaumont's county, they'll continue to do these water rescues one day late stars. this is an area we were at tuesday, right where we are. the water doesn't seem to have gone downey. they'll get the calls from overnight and send out the navy boats in the morning when the lights come up, trying to see if there's anybody left to rescue here in jefferson county in southeast texas. >> drew, as you've been reporting, they didn't expect the water to crest until later in the week. the question is will they be able to handle it now that they're dealing with the worst of it. thank you for the reporting.

stay safe. we'll check back with you. the good news is harvey as a storm has weakened to a tropical depression. that does not mean it is less of a problem where it's already flooded in several different states. cnn meteorologist chad myers has the latest forecast. we're seeing it there withdrew griffin. the water that's already on the ground that has to make its way south and down from higher elevation into the bayou, that's going to be a problem no matter what kind of storm and whether there's a storm at all. >> sure. you say to yourself, wait a minute, that's only 40 miles from the gulf of mexico. why doesn't it just run off? because it's so flat. the elevation even in port arthur is like two feet. how quickly -- it's not like west virginia where your elevation is 2,000 and a flash flood is over in four minutes. it's just going to be a long, drawn-out, slow process of this lumbering water getting out of there. memphis, nashville, you get rainfall today. some could be heavy. there could be spots in the next 48 hours that will pick up four

to six inches of rain, not the 50 inches they saw down here where all these flood gauges are completely out of control. there's barker right there. i'll talk about barker right now. we'll talk about what's happened at barker. all week we've been talking about addicks right there. doing okay. water coming out of the bottom. they're spilling it out as fast as they can. water is spilling out this side flooding areas here that have never flooded and they thought they were okay. here is barker. barker is slightly older, but the water comes in here, and it comes out right here, the same spot, right into buffalo buy you. the water here is going up and there are houses on the back side of barker that have been built -- when you talk about building, here is barker on google earth. here is where they built homes higher than where the water is going to be right there. here is 103.

good, good, good, levee, levee, levee. bad back here. the first row of homes does have a levee on the back side of this. they never thought this was going to flood. they would have never built houses i think at 107 feet if they knew it was going to get higher than that, or even 97 feet. let's zoom in right here. you can see how many homes are going to be affected here. the levee, a back side levee, at 101 in most spots. the water will pour over and some of these houses are at 97 feet. you can do the math. some of these houses will be under six feet of water. they thought they were protected by this, but they're not. now it's a mandatory evacuation, alisyn. >> it sure is, chad. thank you very much for the update on all of that. sometimes you have to do whatever it takes. that's what dr. stephen kimmel said as he canoed through

treacherous floodwaters with a little help to get to his hospital to perform a lifesaving surgery on a teenager who was suffering. dr. kimmel joins us now. doctor, wow, that is going above and beyond. you were canoeing to the hospital. tell us what happened when you decided to take matters into your own hands there. >> well, i actually had quite a bit of help. i had to get into the hospital. i drove my car, and not far down the road it was pretty deep water, so i thought i was going to get stuck. i came back home and with the help of the chief medical officer, we ended up getting volunteer firemen to come to the house. william and kevin and i, we ran about a half mile to the fire station where they had stashed a canoe. we canoed down 517 in dickinson to 45. we put the canoe in william's

f-250 and drove up to 45. when we got to the exit for the hospital, the feeder was really deep. we took the canoe back off and canoed a little ways up the river -- up the river. it was a river then. once we get around the corner we were able to get out and run the rest of the way. >> oh, my gosh. how long did all of that take you, and why were you going to such extraordinary means. it took about an hour. i live about nine miles from the hospital. it's just a 12, 15-minute commute, so i thought we made pretty good time. the patient we were taking care of had a very time sensitive condition. we had about six hours to take care of it. otherwise, there would have been some permanent injury, and it actually took him almost that time to get to the hospital as

well. he was from further away in the city. he needed i think three vehicles in the end to try to get to the hospital. he only arrived to the hospital about five minutes before i did. >> oh, my gosh. we know his name is jacob. he's 16 years old. we see him there, how happy he and his family are that you made it and that they made it. you've changed his life. they say they're so grateful to you, doctor. >> well, i was just happy i could get in and take care of him. >> what's the situation, doctor, at the hospital? are all doctors doing this? is everyone canoeing to their workplace today? what's happening at the hospitals with so much need right now? >> i think the hospital here has been very well prepared. it's a very small community, but we get patients from all over the city.

a lot of people are real close by. i think i'm so far the only one that's had to canoe to get here. things are dried out a lot around webster. so things are going a little better now. >> besides acute conditions like jacob's, what are you seeing? what are the medical needs of the community during this? >> well, a lot of the staff has stayed here five or six days so they would make sure they were prepared for anything. so far we haven't seen, as far as i know, too many real acute situations. but we're prepared for any of that as the waters recede. >> well, you sure seem prepared, dr. stephen kimmel. that was a herculean effort to get to the hospital and the family again is grateful for it. thank you very much for taking

time to be with us today. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> those are just some of the stories. every single person has a story, chris of how they're surviving this and some of the treacherous moments they've experienced during this past week of harvey. >> so many are going above and beyond. we keep hearing this theme from the first responders including the clinicians like the doctor, the unknown. what will happen when the waters recede and they can see the neighborhoods underneath? that's something everybody has to be prepared for. alisyn, in just minutes, we got word that there is going to be a press availability. you're looking at it right now. obviously it's going to have fema. there's going to be the acting head of homeland security. they're going to address the state of reality in texas, what's being done, what they're worried about. we'll deal with that. also coming up, we have a republican congress member from down there, michael burgess, republican, texas, about what

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the american red cross says there are now more than 32,000 survivors in shelters in texas, double the number they had this time yesterday. there are also new evacuation orders, rescues going on, both will add to that total. joining us is texas congressman michael burgess, he visited the shelter in dallas this week. thank you for joining us. what's your take on the situation on the ground? >> thanks, chris, for having me on. this is clearly an all-hands-on-deck situation. the congressional district i represent, my home is what smorgt of where all this activity is. we are watching our citizens respond, take things down, go to help and a lot of people are writing checks to some of the

various non-governmental groups gathering money for this. that's obviously one of the things needed right now. red cross, salvation army, samaritans first. these are worthwhile groups people need to consider supporting. >> no question. we're putting the information on cnn.com/impact. you can go there and figure out how to help. those organizations are among the options. congressman, what are you hearing from the people in charge on the ground about their concerns about further catastrophe, whether or not the worst is over. i know governor abbott said, look, the worst isn't over yet. the water is going to crest. what are you hearing from others on the ground? >> well, i did spend part of my day earlier in the week, the fema region six headquarters is in the congressional district i represent. i spent time at their emergency operations center. i will tell you, chris, having been through situations like this before, i was impressed at

the amount of coordination that was occurring there in that little office in denton, texas, with the coordination between the state agencies and the federal agencies. that was much earlier in the sequence. but they were doing a great job understanding what each other were doing and so that there was a minimal of duplication and people weren't getting in each other's way. but the critical need was getting to the people that needed the help. but this is going to -- make no mistake, this is going to go on. this is not a days or weeks phenomenon. as we saw with sandy, katrina, ike, this is going to be a years in recovery process. clearly, as you've reported this morning, unfortunately some people will never recover and that is a tragedy. >> look, we'll have to do a little bit of a wait-and-see as agonizing as it is, see what's happening when the waters recede, see what the state of play and reality is. at some point you're going to

have to put on the hard hat, get back into washington, d.c. and make it happen, not just in this first wave of need. the concern becomes the politics that comes into play when the money is needed. you didn't vote for one of those big bills. politics at play. you had senator cruz misstating the facts, saying two-thirds of the bill was pork. you know it's not true. how do we avoid it this time? >> number one, i think the approach to the storm is different. the approach this time is going to be for immediate help. that won't be the entire tally. you can't even know where the price tag is going to end up. but there will be immediate help. we are at -- sort of at the end of the fiscal year. so the accounts for the various agencies are spent down as they should be at the end of the fiscal year. so there will be immediate help

that will likely come as early as early next week. i really don't think -- i don't think that will be a necessarily hard discussion or a hard vote. >> that's just the first wave. i'm saying what can you say to your fellow republicans who didn't vote for it? a lot of them are in the administration now. >> you're going to see -- after that first wave, clearly there will be data collected. as far as the cost of recovery, i think that will be better known in 2 1/2, three months' time. i don't know what the time sequence will be. but there will be a secondary wave of federal dollars that are appropriated and likely as not, there will be a third wave. >> sure. >> it's tough. because with katrina we came in and did a big bill, then another big bill and years later unfortunately found they couldn't spend all the dollars

that were spent. that has been a concern of mine as well. i want to be certain that the help gets where it's needed, when it's needed, but, yeah, we do have a responsibility to be stewards of the taxpayer dollar. that's a concurrent responsibility. >> is that why you didn't vote for the sandy financing? >> i thought sandy should have been broken into at least two trun chs, it wasn't. i didn't win that argument. as we learned with katrina, there were funds that were available but then never spent. there was, in fact, i think dhs ended up taking back several billion dollars from fema that were unable to be spent with sandy. it was a different situation, but i think to anyone's read of the facts currently, there is still a significant amount of money that's either unobligated or unspent. >> it's always that way. it's always that way.

every one of these disasters, it takes time to spend the money and the needs change. >> but, chris, it has been five years. as you know, there are people who i think probably legitimately feel that they were owed some reimbursement, who have had difficulty getting it. not now, but years after, years after katrina, trying to help people who felt they had a legitimate claim that was not being paid. it is -- these things are difficult. i think my opinion has always been, number one, i'd like to see us budget for disasters rather than come and do supplementals after the fact. in fact, when i was just a regular guy and they had big flooding in the upper mississippi back in the early part of the clinton administration, why isn't there a fund there that is appropriated just for that and then used as sort of that first response? they didn't do it then. we don't do it now. i don't quite understand why, but given the fact that we have

to do supplementals and everyone is different, but my preference is always, can we put this into more manageable portions. look, we're tasking our federal agencies right now at the max. so to ask them to do everything they need to do with all of the book keeping and reimbursement, that's a tall order, too. i think it's more manageable if the money goes up, perhaps lessen that lump sum variety. >> you have to err on the side of giving them more right now. the need is so great. with sandy you've got awareness. >> you will see that. >> you've got awareness from the gop colleagues. we'll see what happens. i don't want to get ahead of the conversation. we'll see what happens and hopefully everybody does the right thing. >> i think you will see significant activity on this front really within a very few

days' time. >> i hope so. kant believe you didn't come back early. congressman, thank you very much. be well and stay safe. alisyn, to you. chris we are just moments away from federal officials briefing us on what they're doing today to help all the people in the path of harvey. we'll bring that to you live as soon as it begins. (boy) and these are the lungs. (class) ewwww! (boy) sorry. (dad) don't worry about it. (mom) honey, honey, honey, honey! (vo) at our house, we need things that are built to last. that's why we got a subaru. (avo) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. get 0% apr financing for 63 months on all new 2017 legacys. ends august 31st.

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all right. so we are standing by. in just moments federal officials are set to brief us on their response to harvey, how it's going. we'll get new numbers and bring it to you live as soon as it happens. meanwhile, we want to bring in general russel honore. he was on the ground obviously throughout katrina and made all that happen. general, great to be with you. >> good morning. >> so you have -- this morning the developments are very concerning to you. the idea that beaumont, texas, is somehow off the

infrastructure grid, their water supply is not working. what does that tell you? >> that the grid is fragile. when you have a combination of hurricane, wind, flooding now for what, five days, and you start losing the grid. the water and the electric grid. this is a game-changer. >> let's hear what fema administrator brock long has to say about this. >> it's a dynamic situation. we continue to track everything that's going on, not only in beaumont where we have serious operations taking place for search and rescue and life sustainment. we've had a number of evacuations around the arkema chemical plant. last night we were able to evacuate about a mile and a half radius around the plant to make sure people were safe in anticipation of any problems. we continue to push the lifesaving operations. we're continuing to evacuate people out of the areas where the rivers have not receded yet.

in some cases today and tomorrow they a may be cresting. the shelter mission is the biggest battle we have right now as well. obviously we've rolled a tremendous number of as selgts to support the life sustaining mission and shelters. shelters are never -- we're throwing everything we can at them. it's neighbor helping neighbor. we had a tremendous amount of people stepping up and volunteers. we've had generous offers of people coming in and providing feeding kitchens and meals. let me be clear, this mission is going to continue for multiple weeks. understanding it takes time to mobilize people to the shelter assistance program to hotels. we're going to be asking for volunteers to specifically look at the shelter mission. particularly if you've -- particularly volunteers with

shelter management experience, we would ask you to concentrate there. we're also pushing forward commodity distribution. we're looking to burn over 3 million meals a day, over 2 million bottles of water per day. that's only going to grow in some cases, particularly in beaumont. we're very clear that the water system is down in beaumont. we're tracking that. we're working with our partners in dod as well as the state looking to open, and opening points of distribution to be able to service the citizens there in that dire situation. power restoration, right now it's under 300,000. in some cases you may lose power as private power companies are working to take grids down and fix lines. it could be intermittent in the areas where the water is receding and the sun is out. we need you to set your expectations. power could be out for multiple days in some of these areas due

to the damage. security does not seem to be an issue right now. we have overwhelming presence, not only from the federal government but the first responders down on the ground and the state of texas are doing a venphenomenal job of making s that the area is safe and secure, but we're continuing to track any security issues that we have. medical support is huge right n now. america is seeing a lot of hospitals and nursing homes being evacuated. rest assured secretary price is working with his counterparts in the state of texas along with fema. we've sent large scale amounts of disaster medical teams into texas to make sure we understand the situation, handle the situation and then manage the expectations going forward on how we need to bring these systems back up and online. survivor registrations and recovery, i'm going to go over to alex shortly, but in regards to the shelters, i don't have accurate numbers right now. that number is going to grow

from what it was yesterday. we'll have more accurate information a little later. four mega shelters are operating. three in houston, one in dallas. those are the showers with the most capability that we're pushing. search and rescue, well over 10,000 people by federal forces alone have been rescued. that number is going to climb with beaumont. what's most impressive are the neighbors helping neighbor numbers. countless numbers of rescues taking place as neighbors are responding and descending upon texas. regarding the national flood insurance program, unfortunately there are rumors out there that we're trying to control. so i'm going to flip it over to our flood insurance program director, roy wright to deconflict any rumors out there and set a clear expectation for nifp policyholders. roy.

>> good morning. roy wright -- >> okay. you have been listening there to brock long, the fema administrator, giving us updates on what their effort has been like today, giving us a lot of new numbers. millions of meals delivered to people who are displaced, millions of bottles of water. he's talked about millions of people displaced needing to move into transitional housing, all the compounding problems with beaumont, texas and their infrastructure grid going off-line, not having access to water. the chemical plant that has hat explosions, he talked about that. let's bring in general russell honore. what did you think is must pressing. >> things are going to get worse, by shipping in more supplies, increasing the amount of federal troops coming in. it's going to get work. the longer this water stay on the grid, alisyn, losing

electricity itself is a disaster for over a 24-hour period in america, to any person. we lose access to water, to sewer, lose our ability to communicate. if the grid goes down -- i was in dallas last night, up until 11:00 doing interviews. all the lights were on. i said what a difference, because they have a good grid and the grid didn't go down. if you lose the grid. that's a disaster. >> do you think the fact that people don't have access to water and the grid is going down means that things could get very dicy there. >> in dallas, if you lose this fight with the water here, and that's expansive water come out, they cut the grid. when they cut the grid in a town this size with this many people

still here, it's going to be a problem. >> if they cut the grid in houston, you're saying, in houston, if they cut the grid because there's so much still overflowing and so much still flooded, what would happen? >> have to evac people to other cities. you can't stay here if the grid is out. >> look, you've been i think pretty blunt in your assessment of how the coordination has been thus far. you think they should have been out ahead of it. >> i think they should have scaled up a lot earlier. >> what would that look like? meaning they would have gotten federal troops in here? >> yes, probably 50,000 national guard troops here already, because the hard work is after you finish search and rescue. you've got to go into all the homes, open all the streets. you've got to get it so communities can go back to work, put generators in, you have to secure the water system so they can go back to work. >> how far away are we from that phase of the operation. >> about this far. >> that's when you think it's going to get tough.

>> right. once the water recedes. right now we're at the mercy of mother nature, because the water hasn't receded out of houston yet. as long as the water is here, it's going to continue to take down the grid. the longer it stays with people trying to hang out in their homes, shelter in place, it's going to get worse. >> very, very quickly. i heard you last night saying you felt so far officials were being too congratulatory when there's looming disaster? >> yeah -- the idea of getting past katrina when people are yelling at each other, we've overplayed that. we've got to bring everybody together, challenge each other and try to be one step ahead of what the next potential disaster is. we've got the potential to do that. that's what we do as americans. >> absolutely. we heard brock long talk about that, too. the neighbor-to-neighbor help has been great so far. general, thank you. the houston fire department, as well, is set to begin the door-to-door searches now in the

hardest hit area. no word on what they'll find. there's no way of knowing what they'll find when they go door-to-door. we'll hear about those rescue efforts from the houston police chief next. we asked people to write down the things they love to do most on these balloons. travel with my daughter. roller derby. ♪ now give up half of 'em. do i have to? this is a tough financial choice we could face when we retire. but, if we start saving even just 1% more

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something that's rough to hear but true.

the saying what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, that's not the case when it comes to surviving severe flooding that we're seeing in harvey right now. that water, those conditions create major health concerns. joining us is dr. anthony fauci, director of national center for allergy and infectious diseases. always great to have you in a situation like this. before we get to the main part of your expertise, you've had experience with these situations. we're hearing people say, well, we've got to anticipate this and wait until that -- you can't control something like this. you have to wait for those waters to come down. isn't that the reality, that until that happens, all the best efforts are on hold. isn't that true? >> that's true. there are things you can't do until the water comes down. but there are things right now with the water the way it is that are immediate problems and

effects with regard to health. we've seen them last night on cnn, a whole host of things. things like drowning, electrocutions, chemical plants, those kind of things. those things take too long. when the waters go down, you have a whole bunch of other problems of getting people who are ill requiring medications, getting access to them, people with chronic conditions who might be exacerbated -- >> tony, on that point about medications -- the thing is, for example, whenever you have natural disasters like this, people may not have access to the continual flow. for example, if a person has heart disease and requires certain medications or diabetes, and they're cut off and stranded there, unless they get access to them, you can have people whose conditions would otherwise be well controlled and you cut off access to their medications not

to mention the extraordinary stress. >> we're hearing that from physicians on the ground volunteering. they're saying one of the bigger and more unanticipated needs is people had to leave without their meds or can't refill their meds. is that big pharma that has to step up? how do you ameliorate that condition? >> i don't think it's big pharma. it's what you were saying, you've got to get access from the individuals. from what i'm seeing on tv, it looks like they're doing an incredible job of getting people to the shelters and when they get there, to try to get them the medication. i know the department of health and human services is very much involved in trying to get as much help as they possibly can as is fema and other organizations. >> that water, we know with the elderly one of the problems is hypothermia. you're at 98 degrees, sitting in even 80 degree water, eventually you'll get the chill. we've seen that with the

elderly. >> right, that's true. the issue is that when people, elderly people, people who are infi infirm, with chronic diseases. whenever you give them that kind of stress, even as you said in water, hypothermia exacerbates underlying medical conditions, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes and chronic conditions. >> just having that on your skin, having it saturate the walls of your house creates a pressing medical need and also a remediation challenge. you iep not going to go in there and paint and spackle and have a house back. once the chemicals get into the walls, it's going to be a situation where everything has to come down to be safe from a health perspective. >> that's a good point. that's what i meant by an intermediate problem. once the water starts coming down, you have the issue of mold, people with allergic reactions to mold. when the water comes down, you

may think you're out of it, but actually in a house, it may have mold, creating conditions for people who have underlying lung disease or even, as you said, toxicities against the skin or wounds or what have you. >> is it true the first wave of medical concern, other than exacerbated conditions from stress is going to be the water-borne illnesses. we haven't heard it yet, but people start getting sick from that water and it creates dehydration issues and needs for palliative care that aren't easy to meet. >> there are a couple of issues there and i think you put your finger on it. when you have, as we've seen there, inevitable sewage contamination of water. you're going to get people who have exposure to that, and there are a whole host of particularly bacterial but e. coli diseases, causing diarrheal diseases. most are self-limited, but particularly people who are

elderly and people with chronic conditions, they can wind up being very serious. then you have things like wound infection and wound contamination when you're sloshing around in sewage-contaminated water. people who have what looks like an inconsequential wound can wind up getting wound infections. >> going from brg just a regular laceration or cut to something that can be septic. tony, it's great to have you on this. i know how frustrating it is for you. you see these problems coming. there's nothing we can do to avoid them. hopefully we'll manage them the best we can in this situation, as you always do. anthony fauci, thank you very much for being with us. >> good to be with you, chris. so one of the stories that's important for you to hear about is a woman, she was pleading on cnn to be rescued from her home, a grandmother. now she's talking about how the coast guard saved, not only her life, but her family as well. this is a big part of the reality on the ground you do not

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. when's the last time you ate anything? >> about 4:00 yesterday. >> so you're out of food? >> yes. >> what about water? >> no. we don't have any water either. we haven't had water since probably about 3:00 or 4:00 this morning. because we grabbed like three pitchers we had in the ice box, and some lunch meet and bread but we ate it. >> no water and no hope. that was the situation for cynthia harman. she called into cnn yesterday begging for assistance. an hour later she got a coast guard rescue. of t . they had to tear a hole in the

roof. they are now at a shelter. she joins us with her grandson christian and uncle brandon. it is good to see you all dry and well. what's the situation? how's everybody doing? >> we've doing good. we're still kind of tired, waited too long. ate. but we're all tine. glad to be out of the house. >> you haven't gotten any food yet? >> i'm sorry. no. we ate yesterday. >> good. good. >> it's still -- they're bringing in breakfast now. >> what was that like to deal with the coast guard getting there? that's great news but then putting a hole in the roof and being hoisted into the helicopter? how was all that? >> kind of happy and scared at the same time. i've never been in a helicopter and i was scared. the young gentlemen, they were

really good. i had my eyes closed and they got them to get in the basket as we got up and i got in the cl t helicopter they had me get out with my eyes closed. >> were you worried it wasn't going to happen? yeah. in a way i was. because of the fact we had been calling and even my son and grandson was calling different hot lines, every time somebody sent us a number. so it's like 12:00 a.m. that morning when the water first started rushing in, and the lines was just busy or kept ringing but we never gave up. and then i had family and other one that is kind of put me out there in the media, facebook, and which allowed a lot of them to call in for me, because we had cell phones and the kids haed used their first and theirs

died so i mainly just had mine and we tried to safe as much as we could, because the light upstairs was on, but we turned them off, scared to use them because the water rushed in so fast we didn't get a chance for any electricity or anything. that's why we didn't go downstairs in the water. it was just horrifying. we all had to use the rest room. we all were getting hungry and frustrated, and the kids kept me calm because i was freaking out and crying. >> how did they keep you calm? >> talking to me. telling me don't cry, it's going to be okay. i suffer with anxiety. that's really what it was. but they're -- know what to do. they know how to calm me and talk to me. and it worked. it really did.

i don't think i wro know what to do if i didn't have these kids with me. my grand be daughter and my 12-year-old son. both still sleeping. >> it's good they're getting their rest. it's tough to have kids around. i know it only heightens your anxiety because you have to take care of them but the young men by your side, they look confident and i'm sure you now know that you raised good, strong young men. the and what does it mean to you that in your hour of need, they were there for you? and they were keeping you calm? >> it was horrific. it was. but they're my heart. they really took good care of me. sorry. >> thank god they came and you're all together. something you can use as you go forward in life. just makes it a bond with each of you stronger because you got out of there.

are you zartistarting to think l about what comes next? how you get out of the shelter and the plan and insurance and stuff? are people helping you? >> yeah. t they're already starting to help us. once things settle, it's just going to have to be something me and my husband have to get together and just plan out. i haven't been thinking about it right now. just trying to settle in and trying to digest what's going on because i was scared. and still even scared up until last night because i was worried about everybody. but the boys, they're good. just kept saying don't worry about it right now grandma. just settle down and we're here. just get something to eat and rest. that's what i did. >> well, they were right. >> i guess -- >> and now you're in a better place and can figure out what comes next together.

that's the blessings in it that you're all still together and well. you can tell those two young men the poise, confidence, calm that they used in that terrible situation, it will serve them well the rest of their lives. so i wish you the best. let us know how we can help you going forward. we'll stay in touch. okay? >> all right. thank you so much. >> be well. gentlemen, thank you for your calm. there is a lot of news. there's some breaking developments. let's get after it. good morning everyone. you are watching new day. i'm alisyn camerota coming to you live in houston this morning in the after math. first there is a mandatory evacuation of the communities around the backer reservoir here in houston. just west of where i am. and that's because the reservoir is right at i