deadly flooding slams the southwest overnight. parts of houston remain underwater and the search continues for those believed swept away in the storm. good afternoon, i'm tori campbell. emergency management officials now say flash flooding impacted virtually every part of houston and the floodwaters continue to rise. fox news reporter hillary wittier joins us live from houston. good afternoon. >> reporter: good afternoon. we really could tell you this

is historic flooding in houston. the waters, they are not getting much better. in fact look behind me, the bayou where there's water normally. not to this magnitude. emergency management tell us that we saw about 8 inches in the past 24 hours and more than 80,000 people have been without power. you can see video that we've taken overnight and early this morning, things are not looking that great. so bad in fact governor greg abbott declared a state of disaster monday, 24 counties. the fire department also counted at least two water- related deaths because of this flooding. that number can jump to even five and six later today as they are assessing several deaths in the area. of course the biggest thing we've seen visually around here, the thousands of cars that are unusable essentially. they are ruined. people stranded. the situation doesn't look to be much better right now.

skies have given us a little break right now but clouds are starting to come back this way. we're expecting more water. i want to show you too this park area normally used for runners, now it's pretty much just a pool. a pool of water, people are trying to drive through here off of highway 610. not going so well. we advise everyone in the houston area obviously stay off the roads. we continue to follow this flooding situation all day and all evening. for now live in houston. back to you in the studio. [no audio]

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welcome back. our storm tracker 2 and doppler is running but notice you can't

see a lot of rain there. it's because the low clouds providing the drizzle falling below the radar. in areas like san francisco, 2/100th reported there of accumulation. had a little accumulation reported in and around the santa cruz mountains, 1/100 and to the east bay around mount diablo reporting 1/100th as well. the second half of the day and the clouds are going to again continue to erode. partly sunny to mostly sunny skies and temperatures will remain on the cool side. i'll look at the numbers for today and i have a warm-up to detail in the extended forecast in a bit. new at noon -- police arrested two teens accused of a string of armed robberies this morning. in the fruitvale neighborhood. they were wanted for at least six robberies. oakland school police officer first spotted the suspects around 9:00 a.m. allegedly driving a stolen car. they sped away and later ditched the car and took off running. police say one was armed with a handgun, officers alerted neighbors and tracked the

suspects to an unoccupied house on mitchell street where they were hiding. >> you have two armed males that are using a firearm to take property from citizens, that is extremely dangerous. once they were stopped instead of giving up they fled from the vehicle with the firearm in their hand. i would say they are extremely dangerous. >> police are not saying how old the suspects are but say they are juveniles, no one was hurt in the robberies. some of the stolen items were located inside that house. human remains found in fremont have been listened to the case of a missing exchange student who disappeared more than 30 years ago. authorities say dental records determined the bones found in 2010 are those of elizabeth martinsson. the 20-year-old swedish exchange student was working as a nanny in greenbrey when she disappeared in 1992. a convicted rapest found driving her car was convicted

of auto theft but never tied to her disappearance. a suspicious fire in a home in vallejo around 3:00 this morning. firefighters say the house was fully engulfed in flames. it had been vacant for 25 years but recently bought by new owners. it was under construction when it caught fire. no one was hurt. san jose fire investigators and p.g. crews are still investigating a cause of a -- pg&e crews are still investigating the cause of a house fire and explosion last night, on woodview place around 5:30. flames shot through the roof of the home and damaged an rv parked next door. a mother and her son escaped unharmed from the burning house. neighbors say they heard at least one very loud explosion and then saw flames. >> it was just a huge explosion, our whole house rattled. then i was looking around for what had happened and there was a second one. i looked out front and saw just huge black smoke billowing down the street. >> pg&e was called to shut off

the gas at that house and the one next door. now they want to know if a gas leak caused the fire. three firefighters were treated for injuries. a journalist from marin county jailed in iran for 10 months went on trial today in tehran. 39-year-old jason resaian is a "washington post" reporter accused of spying and other crimes. at the last minute iran announced his trial is closed to the public. his brother says he believes the trial is being held in secret because of a lack of evidence. >> they have gone along with this sham for the last 10 months. and now they are going to have a trial and they want to keep it as closed as possible so there's less information for people to say why have you held this person? he's totally innocent. >> even his mother who went to tehran hoping to witness the trial is not allowed in the courtroom. he was born in san francisco and grew up in marin.

he holds dual u.s. and iranian citizenship. amtrak says it will install video cameras inside train cabs to record actions of its engineers. the move comes after the deadly derailment of an amtrak train in philadelphia earlier this month. the engineer suffered a head injury in the crash and says he can't remember what happened. for the last five years the national transportation safety board has been recommending train engines have video cameras but also record sound in passenger and freight train cabs. eight people died and about 200 others were hurt in this month's amtrak crash. more trouble for former 49er ray mcdonald. the new criminal charges against him and the consequences he's already facing even though he hasn't yet gone before a judge. >> this brand new facility here at the berkeley national laboratory could change the way power is used in the future.

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former 49er ray mcdonald's has been let go by the chicago bears after he was arrested in the bay area for domestic violence. >> no comment. >> he didn't have much to say about the new accusations when he was released on bail yesterday. police say they were called to a domestic disturbance at 3:45 yesterday morning in santa clara. attorneys say this incident involves a mother of his 2- month-old child and there was no physical contact. but the latest incident comes after his pregnant fiancee accused mcdonald of hitting her in san jose last august. no charges were filed in that incident. >> i think the bears are now looking at ray mcdonald the same way the 49ers did that, even if he's not guilty of these charges his judgment has to be questioned and do they want that type of distraction moving forward. >> the bears say mcdonald was

fired after not meeting team standards. they released this statement. contra costa firefighters battled a small grass fire that came within a few feet from a family's home. officials say the fire started just before 6:00 this morning in the 900 block of bobridge circle in the emerald cove mobile home park. firefighters responded in minutes to get the half acre fire under control. the battalion chief says it looked like it started in a nearby homeless encampment. investigators are looking into whether people there were cooking or keeping themselves warm when the fire got out of control. >> it's dry grass and of course this time of year even though the temperatures have not gone up and humidities haven't gone down, with the fact we're still in the drought it's a significant problem for us because we obviously have dry fuels from the last year that

have seared earlier in the season. >> crews got the fire under control in 20 minutes. the only damage was to a small shed. there was no injuries or damage to other homes. as for the people in the encampment officials say they fled the scene. it's been one week since a broken pipeline spilled thousands of gallons of oil oil along the santa barbara coast and still no word on when it will all be cleaned up. an estimated 100,000 gallons of crude oil leaked from the ruptured pipe, 2,600 cubic yards of oily soil has been removed from the spill area. thousands of feet of boom has been deployed to contain the spill but the coast guard says a thin layer of oil is now spread out along 10 miles of coastline. the company that operates the pipeline says it does not know how long the clean-up will take. >> it's going to take as long as necessary to clean everything up and return it back to the way it was. as far as the expenses, place

all american -- plains all american pipeline is responsible for all expenses. >> according to state fish and game 30 oiled animals have been captured and are being cleaned. at least 13 have been found dead though along the shoreline. it's a multimillion-dollar research facility at one of the bay area's top laboratories. ktvu's sal castaneda got a look in the new solar center. sounds cool. >> reporter: sure does. this building here is a three- story, 40,000 square foot facility where they are going to try to replicate mother nature by turning some light water and carbon dioxide into fuel. the new building is a $59 million facility with funding from uc berkeley, california public utilities commission, state and private support. >> what this building

represents is really our hopes for the future and also our plans for the future. it's not really the building that we're here to celebrate, it's our hopes about the power of the ideas that will come from it. >> reporter: a number of dignitaries on hand for the dedication including steuive chu who the building is named after and also served as u.s. secretary of energy. steven chu. >> what they are trying to do first is to use sunlight and make hydrogen, splitting water. we also need to capture carbon dioxide from fossil fuel plants, from a lot of things. >> reporter: the new building will house 100 researchers who will work in what is called the joint center for artificial photo synthesis and a lot of people here were on hand for the dedication including berkeley mayor tom bates. as you can see this building is brand new and it does look like

some people are indeed already working inside. live in berkeley, tori, back to you. >> thank you. gray skies out there. we're talking to sal, and saw it, a little warm-up heading our way? >> yes, if you've been looking forward to the warm-up it starts tomorrow. today more of the same. we remain in this pattern one more day. a live look at the oakland estuary, we have partly sunny skies, mostly cloudy, san francisco there in the backdrop. we started out with a damp one in many areas. san francisco showed accumulation of 2/100 or so. notice spin here, that helps to erode the clouds so we're looking at a bit of a better clearing in areas for today. let's look at where we still have the cloud cover. santa rosa, petaluma, novato, highway 101, it will be here. american canyon beginning to clear out some. to the east bay, shoreline remains mostly cloudy there. across and over the east bay

hills and inland communities, enjoying some hazy sunshine. and the southern half of the peninsula into the south bay we have partly cloudy and mostly for today. the winds remain on shore, quite strong through fairfield all morning long and into the afternoon. so strong some of the low clouds are pushed all the way to the sacramento valley. they have since dissipated but goes to show the pattern that remains in place. we will continue to see the system that moves over washington, push out of the way for today. that patchy drizzle is gone, the partly sunny skies will be with us for the afternoon and as we get into tomorrow the ridge of high pressure over the pacific will begin to nudge our way just a little bit. we'll be slightly warmer for tomorrow and then the warmer days look to come friday into saturday. especially for inland communities. 80s once again in the forecast. outside now, under cloudy skies we have 59 oakland, 58 san francisco. upper 50s in novato, 64 concord. 67 in liver more we have we have partly cloudy to mostly sunny skies. in fact if you look at the numbers you can almost see where the clouds are, still

hanging back in the upper 50s and low 60s. and where we have the sunshine, 66 livermore, 66 fairfield. 69 in san rafael. sausalito, cool 63. 63 almeida. and 73 "the wall -- walnut creek. and areas around san jose, 73. along the peninsula for the afternoon, 56 san mateo. 61 san francisco. the extended forecast here, temperatures begin to climb as early as tomorrow but the warmer weather really moves in thursday, friday into saturday. friday, saturday look to be the warmer days. mid-80s in the forecast for inland communities but notice around the bay not too hot, upper 60s and low 70s. very comfortable. remaining cool at the coast. we're not going to see that warm-up all the way to the coastline. >> thank you. u.s. stocks recorded their steepest fall in three weeks. as positive economic data added to the gains in the dollar and senate soaring to a one-month high but a analyst says a

strong dollar will hurt exports and the revenue line of companies which wasn't strong to begin with. right now the dow is currently down 209 points. nasdaq is down 64. and the s&p 500 is down 23. you may notice google paying tribute to the first american woman to fly into space. there are five different doodles to celebrate the achievements of sally ride born on this day in 1951. she was a southern california native and graduated from stanford university. ride flew aboard the space shuttle challenger in 1983 and 1984. after leaving nasa she taught physics at the university of california at san diego. she also created a program to get more young people, especially girls involved in math and science. ride died of pancreatic cancer in 2012 at the age of 61. people living in the mid- peninsula are growing

increasingly frustrated out of noise from planes heading out of sfo. the federal aviation administration recently upgraded its system to help keep flights on time but the shift in flight paths has people in east palo alto and various neighborhoods there saying they've noticed a dramatic increase in noise and planes flying lower. a group called sky posay collected more than 1,200 signatures. sky posse, urging congress to work with them. >> we've noticed a huge increase in the flight pattern. they are very low. so they are very loud. and there are just more of them. so when it's so loud you actually have to take a break if you're talking to someone in order to have them hear you. they are giant jets. >> washington really needs to hear from the local community to see how their decisions to increase the flights over our community have impacted us. >> sky posse also filed complaints with sfo and hopes

their concerns are reviewed and taken seriously. and the congresswoman who represents part of the effected area met recently with the faa to discuss how to mitigate the noise problem. people at a church in the east bay are hoping whoever stole their bronze statue of jesus will have a change of heart and return it. the 100-pound bronze statue was stolen from the church of the transfiguration in cavitytro valley sometime between tuesday night and wednesday morning last week. it's believed the thieves may be trying to take it for scrap metal. >> our hope and prayer is that somebody will see all this and realize how upset people are and how distressed many people are. we will be very grateful if you would return it. >> father o'malley says the bronze statue was a work of art and had been there for nine years. he says the church is more interested in recovering the figure than prosecuting the person who stole it. an idea that makes most people squirm a bit but in the

middle of the persistent drought could be key to saving water. tonight how some california cities are turning toilet water into tap water. and the idea is catching on. thank you for making ktvu your choice for news. we're always here on ktvu.com and follow us on twitter and facebook. have a great day. this is not ice cream. this is not ice cream in an ice cream cone. this is not ice cream in an ice cream cone in the hand of a tall man. this is not ice cream in an ice cream cone in the hand of a tall man in san fran. this is not san fran. this is not a tall man it's pam and dan. this is not an ice cream cone it's

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(fast paced electronic music) - [joe penna] is space truly the final frontier? or is there a place far closer that we know even less about? the oceans of the earth are vast and deep, and what lies beneath the surface remains largely uncharted territory. - [david brin] we know more about the moon, we know more about some of jupiter's moons than we know about the bottom of the sea. - [voiceover] we'll take an in-depth look at the oceans and get a sense of how they will keep our future world afloat, on xploration earth 2050. - hi, i'm joe penna and welcome to xploration earth 2050. this week we're gonna take a look at the ocean and how new developments on and in the water will affect the way we live in the future.