(woman vo) great adventures are still out there. we'll find them in our subaru outback. (avo) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. get 0% apr financing for 63 months on all new 2017 subaru outback models. now through august 31. i'm ali velshi. we're covering breaking news tonight. the first category 4, largest hurricane to hit the united states in 12 years has made landfall in texas. while that was happening, the president was making news. a lot of it. just as the storm made landfall, news that the president has pardoned controversial maricopa county sheriff joe arpaio, sparing him a possible jail sentence over a federal conviction tied to his illegal

immigration patrols. some say this was a political pardon and there has been another exit from the wiet house. controversial presidential adviser sebastian gorka annou e announced he was leaving. he said he was pushed out. tonight the president issued orders to the pentagon instructing the military to carry out the president's ban on transgender service members. let's get started with the storm though. kerry sanders is live in victoria, texas, for us. kerry, let's talk about what things are like where you are. it looks like things have calmed a little bit. >> reporter: they have calmed down. we got some tropical force winds in here. we know by looking at the radar loop that we're going to be getting the hurricane-force winds in a bit here. you know, the hearty -- harvey is slow moving but making landfall close to port arthur. making its way this direction.

the real concern is once harvey gets here, the steering current, according to the forecasters, looks like it's going to sit here for a while. that is why we have the most unusual prediction of 37.6 inches of rain expected from harvey in town here. that means the guadalupe river, as they say it here locally, is expected by wednesday to crest at 32 feet. that would be two feet shy of the record. that would be a tremendous amount of localized flooding as a result of the amount of rain that's going to be dropped here. the concern, because we're so far inland beyond the rain, of course, is going to be the wind, the wind when it arrives here is going to cause no doubt, some damage. this is a beautiful town that has oak trees that are upwards of 250 years old. unlikely that those trees will be able to withstand the sort of winds heading this direction. behind me right now, the lights

are on. the electricity is still here. but ali, one piece of unfortunate news tonight. one of the apartment complexes in town here which had been evacuated. everybody was at the shelter or at friends' homes outside of this area, apparently a fire started. >> oh, no. >> reporter: the fire department got to the apartment complex but they were not able to put it out in the midst of all of the weather here before it mostly burned to the ground. we'll get over there probably tomorrow morning where we'll get a view of it. really unfortunate news. the fire department has been very busy tonight responding to calls and as you know, the governor here requested a federal declaration of emergency which means when the president actually signed that order, money begins to flow. >> uh-huh. >> reporter: just talking to some of the officers out here tonight, it gives the entire city a little bit of breathing room. two officers that i met here had

been on since 6:00 this morning. they're going to be working around the clock. overtime, overtime, overtime. if this storm is going to sit the way we believe it will sit, the officers are not only going to be exhausted. but working around the clock. that means between the fire department and the police officers and the first responders, a storm like this could break the budget. now the federal money will be able to backfill the paychecks and basically keep the budget going. when it's all said and done, taxpayers aren't left wondering what they'll do to have a police force. >> kerry, you are about 30 miles north, northwest of where this made landfall. now, typically, when we've been covering the hurricane, you get the initial first wave, you get the eye where things are calmer for a while and then you get the second side, the other wall of the hurricane. but in this particular case, in the case of the storm, because of the looping that it's going to do, once it's past, it doesn't mean it's over.

>> reporter: you know, this is a really crazy -- not that there's a normal for any hurricane. but this looks like it's going to be a really crazy, almost like boomerang here. that's going to make life really miserable for people who live here. i mean, anybody who has been through a hurricane knows that there's a period of time and then it passes. then it sort of is over and everybody can exhale. that's not likely to happen here, at least not immediately. that's going to make this so confounding. people will start getting stir crazy and be inside their homes and cooped up and want to get out. they don't need to be fooled by the fact they think the storm is gone. harvey looks like it's knot going to be really gone when it passes through. that's the biggest problem. especially for victoria, population of 67,000 people. >> a remarkably beautiful, old, old, place in texas. we'll be back to you. actually, kerry stand by. i want to bring in bill karins.

our meteorologist. he wants to ask you something. >> can you pronounce the river that goes through downtown victoria? >> reporter: you know i had to call myself. it looks like guadalupe. here they say guadalupe. the e up high. that's the way the locals pronounce it. as you know, i heard you say earlier, that the records go back to the 1930s have this at 34 feet the highest ever. it's going to be an estimated 32. if this thing does do that loop, it could be even more. we've seen rain nonstop since harvey started with the outer bands here. we know it's going to be like that. you can see the wind is gusting a little bit too. >> they said that crest will be about three days from now and it said a 1 in 100-year flood. that's the estimates. it could be more than that or less than that. we'll find out in the next two to three days. if they do get close to that record, i was looking at all the auburn divisions that will get

flooded, the new evacuations to get the people out of there, kerry. you could be in that town for five to six days and they could have tropical storm force winds almost the entire time, bands of heavy rain on and off and this epic flood on the river through the downtown. when is the last time you covered a storm that did that for one location for five days? >> reporter: yeah. absolutely. the thing that people probably don't realize, especially since we're so far inland here, is that flood insurance is a separate federal program. people tend to believe if you have a mortgage, you know you're a -- the mortgage company requires it. i haven't looked. this is not a typical place where there's a requirement for flood insurance. if there is this flood coming, once the flood hits, once it's over and homeowners turn to their insurance and say, hey, look i got all this damage, the insurance companies say, look, that is not homeowners

insurance, that is flood insurance. do you have flood insurance. very often people do not have it because their mortgage companies didn't require it. it's the kind of cost where people say i don't live in a flood zone. as you point out, the 1 in 100-year flood. it could be a mess. >> stay safe out there in victoria, texas. obviously the storm has settled a little bit where kerry is. it's not that way in other parts of texas. bill is with me. bill, what's it looking like elsewhere? >> we're waiting for it to weaken. we need to get rid of the wind kpoen ept of this mess. it's doing a lot of wind damage and structural damage. then some of the smaller towns that we've been talking about, they're especially the rockport area, there's been major structural damage in some of the other small towns. first of all, start here. the radar image where the storm is. it's clearly now over land. almost the entire eye is over land. that rockport we keep mentioning is in the eye itself.

they're going to have four or five hours of relative calm. before then the winds pick up dramatically, late tonight early tomorrow morning. >> when you say relative calm, it can be very calm in the eye. >> the very middle of it. usually 10 to 20 miles per hour. after you're experiencing 120, you're happy to be in the 10 miles per hour winds. that's the base of the radar. we've had tornado warnings further to the north around galveston towards houston. we'll continue to watch that throughout the overnight. the rest of the forecast concerns the heavy rain. satellite imagery if we move it back here. the eye, you can see it clearly here and continuing to progress inland. that's good. we want the storm to keep moving inland. it will be weaker. the further from the water the better. that's one of the other stories we'll be watching with the storm. after we get past tonight, because the storm surge continues all night long. we'll be watching as long as the storm is near the coast, the on shore component will continue to pile the water up. it's mostly in unpopulated

areas. some small ports, no big cities in the way. the storm surge of 12 feet has happened or is happening. but we haven't heard a lot of ports about it. because it hasn't been populated areas. we'll find that out tomorrow. then the wind component of it will slowly weaken to tomorrow. by the time we get to saturday night, it's all about the rainfall. there's the rainfall map behind us here. this is the one that the people from our federal government that do our forecasting say they've never made a forecast like this before. they've never made a forecast calling for upward isolated totals of 40 inches of rain. >> right. >> add an extra color there, think. >> they did. on their color table. we'll find out. not everybody in that pink color will get 20 inches of rain, but somebody will get 30 to 40. >> you said to draw a triangle. >> maybe as far west as

beaumont, port arthur. >> the refining capacity, there's shipping and ports and drainage issues. at some point when you have that much rain, nobody is built for that kind of rain in a couple of days. >> it's the duration that. it's one thing to shelter in your house with your family if you're not in an evacuation area for maybe two days. then you're with your family in your house for three, four, five days? six days? when is houston going to let the kids go back to school? they canceled school on monday. it's going to be pouring rain. they had a chance for getting 20 independence of rain through monday, tuesday, maybe wednesday. all those kids are home. parents have to stay home. the problems continue to multiply the longer this goes. >> restocking shops, things like that. whether the power is up. we will know, it will take us a few hours to know how bad the power situation is. without the power, people can't get the gasoline, they can't pump water out.

things like that. >> won't be able to refill generators. >> a lot of things we're watching. we're covering a few stories tonight. it's a very, very busy night as brian was saying. as hurricane harvey hammers texas, the white house has a major storm going on. it gave them a strange opportunity for a friday night news dm p. the white house announced a presidential pardon for sheriff joe arpaio. he was the long time top law official for maricopa county, arizona. he was convicted of criminal contempt of court for ignoring a judge's order to stop rounding up people he suspected of being illegal immigrants. in a statement tonight. the white house said that arpaio is 85 years old. after more than 50 years of admirable service to our nation, he's a worthy candidate for a presidential pardon. the president made the ban on transgender troops official. signing an order that directs the pentagon to move forward on

the ban. though it remains unclear what will happen to transgender personnel currently serving. the order bans the department of defense from providing medical treatment to transgender service members. to top it off, the ousting of sebastian gorkgorka. he had ties to far right political groups and called islam an inherently violent religion. all of this on a night when a category storm, the biggest in more than a decade is hitting the united states and many of us journalists are covering that. but you know what, we have a great deal of capacity. we can cover the storm and all of the other stuff that's happening as we will do right now. joining us now are curtis lee, political reporter for the l.a. times. and national political reporter for "the new york times" and an msnbc contributor.

>> nicolle wallace chimed in a couple of hours ago when we first started covering this and said that the president has an unlimited capacity or addiction to chaos. is this chaos or well-orchestrated. do a bunch of things that the media will be distracted by something else on a night like this this. >> i never subscribed to the fact that he was a buffoon who completely had no strategy whatsoever and was going around the presidency in his haphazard way. i think he understands media and messaging. democrats who are the main opposition of the president are going to have to be scrambling to figure out what they want to prioritize. i think dropping all this stuff, the sheriff ar poe owe and ousting a high level aide. in terms of who is ryne running

the white house. all this means the president is trying to get news out there without being scrutinized and possibly not have to face the criticism that he might face if there wasn't a hurricane barreling down on texas. >> but it doesn't work. curtis, it doesn't work. the fact is we're all on overdrive. we've been on overdrive since election day. this friday night stuff is old-fashioned. >> this is like that friday night news dump. i mean, we heard earlier this week, the president hinted that he was going to pardon sheriff arpaio. we didn't know when. some thought it would be the day after his speech there in phoenix. or right before the sentencing. and it came this friday night it so happened. earlier in the waik week, the white house was drafting language about this pardon for the sheriff. it is an interesting time to see all of this information dropped. we saw that tweet that the

president september out a couple weeks ago talking about banning transgender folks from the military and even military leaders were like, what's going on? they didn't have any understanding or direction and how this would go. the white house was mum on how this would be implemented. now here we are a couple weeks later, friday night. here's some more guidance on it. it really is -- this fits into what the white house has done for months since president trump entered office in january. this kind of has flowed over from the campaign. you're bombarded with a bunch of news and storylines where you don't remember that a week ago steve bannon was essentially ousted from his position. >> it's like dog years for us. curtis and yammish, the bottom line, this is a 24-hour job. we can tweet it as such. he tweeted about the sheriff, i'm pleased to inform you i've granted a pardon to sheriff joe

arpaio. he kept arizona safe. in one tweet, he points out he's 85 years old. i assume to create sympathy for the idea that he's 85 years old, shouldn't go to jail. patriot sheriff he calls him. he kept arizona safe. there's something interesting about this. there is lots of articles about joe arpaio. he came from pennsylvania. spent more time dealing with immigration and humiliating prisoners, many of whom were not convicted. they were awaiting trial. than he did in terms of law enforcement. to many people, joe arpaio is the symbol of racism. he is the symbol of anti-immigrant sentiment. he was the recipient of crisco back's experiment in having local police enforce federal immigration laws. he's the opposite of a sanctuary city. there are a lot of americans for

whom they think this is disgusting. >> you know what i would add to the list of things. he's a symbol of progressives feeling like that they finally a accomplished something. there were so many people in his county and state who mobilized, spent months and years getting the campaign ready together. for him to be oust frd that position that he had. the fact that progressives felt they were turning this chapter and felt like, okay, we got this big win, people feel as though immigration reform, they'll have to treat people in a human way and not discriminate against people because you think that they're undocumented people in this country. ach years of work, you realize that president trump has done away with that work by signing a piece of paper essentially saying that you know what, you can get a free pass. you're going to be absolved of all the things that a court system says that you are guilty of. i think this is kind of president trump telling

progressives and democrats, you think i have the power but i'm in charge, i was elected. >> curtis, i'm just wondering whether this was a quid pro quo here. donald trump had signaled, as you said clearly that he was going to pardon joe arpaio. we thought it might happen in phoenix. it didn't happen. then most people sort of thought that sebastian gorka was on his way out of the white house. steve bannon was leaving. a lot of people thought miller would leave also. that's going to be upsetting to some of donald trump's base. i'm going to get it in the neck for gorka leaving, so i'm going to throw everybody a bone with pardoning joe arpaio and it comes out in the wash and maybe the busy journalists deal with the storm won't give it much light. >> sheriff joe, with this

pardon, you know, he might be doing something to help the far right base. but it is one of those things, like i said, we saw steve bannon leave last week. now we see a week later, sebastian gorka on his way out the door. this is just where the president is continuing to -- you're starting to see the chief of staff's new efforts there in the white house and kind of general kelly doing different things and kind of being the adult in the room and saying some of you guys need to leave. we saw that last week with steve bannon. now is he bastion gorka. is general kelly asserting himself remains to be seen. this is something interesting to see come down a week after bannon left the white house as well. >> the story will be whether john kelly sticks around in white house to bring order or one day the president goes too far for him. thanks to both of you. curtis lee from the los angeles

time and also from "the new york time times". we're going to have more live coverage after the break. we had a picture of victoria, texas. that's where kerry sanders is. the wind had died down. take a look. things are whipping up again. things are getting busy in victoria. we'll keep an eye on texas when we come back. you're watching msnbc. >> if they're going to call for help, no way officers can be out in the middle of this. if anybody is in their home and they need help, they're going to have to wait until the storm passes. as a matter of fact, we have been here for quite a while now. we could get some kind of a breakthrough here with these absolutely unrelenting winds. steve was born to move. over the course of 9 days he walks 26.2 miles, that's a marathon. because he chooses to walk whenever he can. and he does it with support from dr. scholl's. only dr. scholl's has massaging gel insoles

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about 50 miles north of where harvey made landfall. as you can see that storm surge is alive and well here. we're on what's considered the dirty side of the storm. you get surge and the wind and the rainme the. rain. that's what we're seeing right now. >> that was from port lavaca. there is a lot of serious weather going on. mike seidel is in port lavaca, texas. here's what he experienced a few moments ago as well. >> reporter: we're out of the strongest of the winds. i don't know if you can see in the distance, it's still whipping up here really good. look at the surge and the water rise across the parking lot now. this is about 18 inches, not quite 2 feet deep t continues to come in right back there.

lavaca bay is back there. why don't we take a walk down there. i think we can do that. we've got plenty of light. we have to watch out. we noticed that some of the guttering came down when we were walking through the water. in fact, i found it. this is what you have to worry about. this came off the building. this is the only thing i've seen that has come down. this stuff, this could do some damage to you if it goes flying. we'll put it right back down in the water and let it go. we'll walk through here again. this is the hotel that's up about 16, 17 feet to the first floor. we'll look ahead and walk down here. we'll be looking out into lavaca bay. that's where all the water is coming from. the entire hotel is surrounded on the lower level. there's nothing on the lower level except like this, storage rooms here. concrete and steel. this is hearty plank. what is that fiberglass and concrete. good stuff on your home if you

don't go brick. then we come up here through the access. as i mentioned before the power went off for a few second, maybe half a minute and then it came back on. they turned off the elevator for safety reasons. that's the way to the elevator. this out here, my friends, is where all the water is coming from. the surge. this is lavaca bay in the distance. and now we're under our balcony upstairs where the kitchen is and the breakfast and dining areas. this water has come up about 2 feet since dinnertime and the waves crashing in here. this is only a few miles to the other side. we're not getting a long fetch like they're getting on the barrier islands and beaches. but the wind is still whipping through here and we've got a long way to go because of the water staying up all night into

part of sunday and the battering waves on the beaches, not so much here. let walk back through here. give you an idea of what's going on again. remember, the big difference with harvey versus any other hurricane we've seen maybe in memory, it could make two landfalls in texas. it's got no steering flow. it's going to slow down tonight and throw on its brakes. so for the next several days, at least, it's going to meander in texas, maybe near the coast. maybe inland. that will impact the rain totals in the far northwest quadrant. still, very confident right now. dallas-ft. worth you'll miss certainly the direct impacts by favre harvey. with the underlining rainfall, you won't need surge to have your streets and neighborhoods look like this in the days to come. victoria, austin, san antonio, houston. a very flood-prone area. we've seen that many, many times

before. the whole hotel is surrounded by water. we're upstairs. the floors are well above. the power is still on. which is something we've noticed that is good. we hope your power stays on too. this is where we were earlier. we were down there getting whipped. you can see how the wind is whipping the water. you can hear the roar of the wind through the building. >> that was mike seidel in port lavaca, texas. there are a lot of reports from various parts of texas still experiencing punishing winds and a lot of rain. we'll be continuing to cover that. joining us now is lieutenant -- the former -- that organized and led the relief efforts after katrina and rita. he also supported the department of defense to hurricanes floyd, lily, is adore, charlie francis, ivan and gene. the general speaks and consults on emergency preparedness.

always helps me get up to speed on what's going on. general, good to see you. i very rarely see you when we're not talking about something like this. given all your experience, looking at what you're seeing in texas right now, what worries you the most about hurricane harvey? >> well, the coming ashore and it came in at a 4, which is devastating. because of the amount of destruction that can come from a category 4 storm, it can take roofs off, it can take tarps and literally obliterate a house that is not in very good sturdy shape. the destructive winds from the eye of the storm coming ashore is very concerning. the other part is the eye coming ashore is like the first half of the game here when you look at the duration of this event. the worst is yet to come because more people will be affected by the rainfall that's going to occur as well as the coastal

flood thag will being that will of the surge waters hitting the coast in the rural communities all along the coast of texas between corpus christi and houston. i'm concerned about the elderly and the disabled and the poor who didn't have the means to evacuate. i made the statement earlier today that i thought we should issue a more mandatory evacuation. i pray for the best but expect the worst. this water event that's going to happen out there the storm dies down will have the potential to leave a lot of people separated and as it was in case katrina, most of the people we lost died at home alone from the surge water that captured them in their homes and we couldn't get to them. >> the isolation is the big issue with the water. while we think of hurricanes as

wind events or a storm surge events, the bottom line is the amount of rain that we're going to get, not just today but the next several days is going to lead to beyond saturation in some of these places. it is 12 years to the day, general, unfortunately, they didn't have the sense to call you up at the beginning of katrina. they waited a couple days to activate you. it was 12 days to the day that this settled in, in new orleans. we do know that the president has signed a declaration of emergency for texas and the texas governors called up 700 members of the national guard. tell me how that helps. >> well, it helps because they're pre-positioned. but he's going to have to dig deeper than that into -- he's got about over -- about 14,000 troops in texas national guard. i would suspect in the coming days and hours, you see more of that national guard will be

mobilized to come in and assist with search and rescue and high clearance vehicles. so expect more of them to be mobilized as well as the restraint we're going to have, ali. this hurricane is going to stay around and prevent our helicopters. you know, within three hours after the eye of hurricane katrina getting in, they were in with the helicopters rescuing people. this will not happen for several days because helicopters will not be able to do search and rescue with these high winds because this hurricane is staying around. you've got to use your high clearance vehicles and boats. that is going to make this a big challenge. i suspect you'll be mobilizing more national guard as we come. >> there will be more than 140 miles an hour winds. compared to hurricane katrina, we several issues, crime issues, issues where the areas in

southern louisiana were much lower than the areas that we're dealing with in texas, the flooding was that much more severe. but really we had transportation infrastructure problems. people couldn't get in or out. supplies couldn't get in or out. are we better at staging supplies so if people are stuck in their communities, if not their homes for a few days, we're not going to have shortages of water and food? >> the problem will be similar but different because of scale and the size of the event. the city of new orleans relatively a small area where 80% of the people did having wait and 20% didn't evacuate. because of the scale and size of this rural coastal plain, that this is affecting from corpus christi all the way to houston and as far north as san antonio, with floodwaters that are to keep low-lying areas underwater

for days, this is much more complex and broad a problem where in katrina we had a concentration of 60,000 people inside the downtown and surrounding area of new orleans. this is dozens and maybe 40, 50, 80 miles wide up to 100 miles in diameter. this is a much bigger problem and people are going to be much more isolated than we had the issues in the new orleans because we had about 20,000 people at the superdome and about another 20,000 at the convention center with the remainder of them on the high-rise roads and stuff. this is going to be a much more complex search and rescue operation and will require a lot more assets. anybody going out will need high clearance vehicles or boats to get to the people left behind. >> in katrina, what we learned when we got there, particularly when you showed up and brought

order to the situation that was playing out on people's tvs as mayhem, what we learned is that the level of coordination at the time was not as good as it should have been between fema and the military and the various organizations that were providing aid. do you think we've worked those types of things out now? >> this will be a lot better, but the challenge is going to be bigger. the national guard is large and in charge in support of the civil authorities there on the ground. they've practiced this before, worked with the counties. but the size and scope of the land that's got to be conduct search and rescue is so much larger and much of it is rural areas. that is going to make it a lot harder, ali. and the challenge is going to be harder than it was in my judgment, than it was for katrina. >> general, as always, good to talk to you and get your perspective on these things. we feel safer at least knowing that you know what is supposed to happen here.

general, i think i'll be speaking to you a lot over the course of the next few days. thank you very much. we'll have more on all of this breaking fuss after a quick break. you're watching hurricane harvey on ms. nx. nbc. there's nothing more important to me than my vacation. so when i need to book a hotel room, i want someone that makes it easy to find what i want. booking.com gets it. and with their price match, i know i'm getting the best price every time. now i can start relaxing even before the vacation begins. your vacation is very important. that's why booking.com makes finding the right hotel for the right price easy. visit booking.com now to find out why we're booking.yeah! you give us comfort. and we give you bare feet, backsweat,

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ali velshi watching msnbc coverage of hurricane harvey. let's go to yea grjay gray in victoria, texas. i see a lot of wind blowing around you. are you in the eye right now? >> reporter: no, not quite yet, ali. i can tell you that the wind and rain picked up dramatically. we're getting a bit of a break from the rain right now. though it's been constant throughout the day. the gusts have been more dramatic the last 30 to 45 minutes. this is something we'll continue to see for the next hour or so. we'll get a bit of a break. then as the wind dies down tomorrow morning, it's that rain that we've all been talking about the last day or so that's really going to affect the victoria area. we're on the dirty side of this storm. we're going to see a lot of that rain as it starts to pick up while i'm talking about it here right now. this rain is going to fall for two, maybe three days.

the national weather service forecast, 32 inches of rain the next couple of days. a lot of people moved to higher ground. i can tell you the shelters in victoria, completely filled to capacity at this point. now we're at the stage where if you wanted to leave, you cannot anymore. officials saying stay where you are, we'll get to you at some point. we're not putting our guys in harm's way at the height of the storm. but as soon as we can, we'll move. ali, we know that the texas national guard is on stand by with some federal deployments to come in and help as well as soon as conditions allow that as the wind is starting to pick up again here. >> jay, you've got -- victoria is a beautiful, beautiful, very old town. one of tex's oldest. you have beautiful oaks there. i notice the power is on. power has not been lost? >> reporter: not at this point. ali, i keep looking across the street because the hotel we hope to stay in this evening is still

lit as well. so selfishly, that's great news. i don't expect that to last. this wind is going to be rugged. we're going to see more rain continue to fall so the ground will get saturated. it's going to be an issue. there are power trucks just a few blocks away behind me. we've got power trucks ready to move in. again, the issue will be when they can do that. if the rain continues to fall and then you've got the flooding in some of the low-lying areas. they've got to wait until the water recedes before they can do the work. a lot of people here think it could be not a week but weeks before some of the power is restored. >> by the way, if you were in your position, i too would have set up near an olive garden. i take it the lights are on but they're not serving? >> reporter: no, no free breadsticks right now. we'll keep watching and waiting. >> one can only hope. all right. good to see you. we'll check in with you any a little while in victoria.

once again. let's have a conversation about this disaster and what happens next. dr. irwin red liner is here. he's an expert on disaster preparedness and planning. you heard my conversation with russell honore. this is a different type of sto storm. you're hearing and you saw jay, it's endless rain and days of rain. it's a number of people who didn't evacuate. there weren't mandatory evacuations in says some cases. what happens now? >> this is a difficult and critical time. one of the things said, every storm has a personality. its own characteristics. therefore, it's own challenges. what we're going to be watching for now is how are they going to handle certain special situation that is are the test of whether this is going well or not. that has to do for example with what do they do with vulnerable populations. people in hospitals, people in nursing homes. people at homes they have dependency on medical equipment

that requires electricity. all of these things amount to a large range of special issues that need to be taken care of. >> there's a tendency in the united states to feel the media can overplay the events and it's disruptive, particularly if you're in a special situation, you're poor to make the decision to leave because it's costly and inconvenient. so some people don't. >> right. it could be deadly for some people. if you evacuate and you don't need to evacuate, you could hurt people just in moving them out of the hospital in critical care unit. it poses a danger. that decision to pull the trigger and say we're going to move people now and it's mandatory. which is the other thing to talk about it. if it's mandatory, everybody has to leave and they have to be careful they know where people are going and transporting them safely. that's where the test is played ou. i do the decision about whether

it's mandatory or voluntary, it's complicated in texas. it can't be the governor saying everybody out now. >> that's right. i spoke to the governor earlier today. he under scored this, this is up to the mayors an the local communities and the local communities are still apt sometimes not to do things like in other parts of the country because texans enjoy the idea they're not told what to do. >> they do. i think that's going to be something to watch. as a matter of fact, the other thing we're keeping an eye on, ali, the relationship between the responders who are local, state and federal. in katrina, we had a complete chaotic mess on the federal level. this time, we have actually very, very good people in the key positions. in the homeland security and fema. >> right. >> and the department of health and human services. what's more concerning is the federal thing will be fine. let see how the state and locals do. it might be independence.

>> in the world -- we had collapses at every level of government. here we won't quite see that. but we will see the coordination and cooperation among the agencies for the most efficient, and safe management of this horrible storm. >> we won't know what the damage estimates are nor a few days. this could be a 30, 40, $50 billion event. >> correct. >> we have had in the current budget proposal cuts to fema. >> there's been cuts to fema and health and human social securer >> there's been specifically cuts in hospital programs for major disasters. that's have been 50% the last 12 or 13 years. we have systems that are actually not prepared to manage big-time events like this. we'll see what goes. at least we could see the feds look in pretty good shape. we'll see what happens with the states and local resources. it's going to be a long haul.

the recovery will be a long, long recovery. >> there are waterborne illnesses, people get mold in their houses. in addition to the physical damages, what kind of things from a public health perspective here? >> there are a number of things to look for. what happens to people with chronic illnesses. do they have their medications and access to the doctors and nurses. a lot of consequences for people lost access to medical care pro identifiers. where are their medical records? there are consequence that is will be of an infectious nature. standing water around for a long time afterwards. can breed all sorts of infections. we'll have to watch for it today. the mental health consequences. that's going to be enormouenorm. many people won't be able to return to home for a long time. they'll be in a recovery state for months, maybe years after the storm. a lot of things to look for in

the public health domain. we'll see how that goes. >> when you look at it, are there some things that are good about this? it's not during the school year. we're better prepared than we were as general honore was saying since katrina. better coordination with the federal government. we're no the world's busiest area. >> correct. there's a lot of places getting hit by the storm that are sparsely populated. >> there are people that we can't find them who knows where. that will take a while to find everybody. i think there are many things that are better. the things not so much better and things we have to look out for. >> doctor, thank you soefrp. you're an expert on disaster planning and preparedness. we'll take a quick break but our coverage of hurricane harvey continues here on msnbc. please stay with us. ♪ cameras.

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joining me now is nbc new york meteorologist steve sos. >> what's it looking like? >> this is the wind and the intense storm surge. we'll be transitioning into the floodingment we'll take you to the wall. you'll be able to see the storm is putting on the brakes now. the storm system was moving 12 miles per hour earlier today. now down to 7 miles per hour. you're going to see this continue to put on the brakes. that's why the flood threat is really going up here tonight. in fact, we have flash flood warnings. i'll show you that in a second. it made landfall noor rockport around 10:00 local time. look at that eye structure. still well intact. even though it's over land, this system isn't weakening right away. that's the problem with this storm system. the duration of it. it's going to keep going and going and going. we'll show you the latest stats here. it's impressive. at this hour, winds are still

130. with the next advisory, you'll see the winds come down just a bit. 130. the eye moved over rockport. the winds were gusting over 100 miles per hour and within a half hour, the winds went calm. so they are in the eye right now. but the storm surge will continue until we can bring the winds down with this storm system. that really is the concern. it's the heavy rainfall that we'll be seeing. it's that water that continues to pile on up here and then it's just a multiple day event. kind of unprecedented ali. to see a storm system like this over land and continue to be a tropical storm. >> right. we're just used to them, may take hundreds of miles to do it, but peter off, keep on weakening. >> it's writhing its own history. >> this business that it's slowing down to 7 miles per hour. is that good or bad? >> that's bad. that is the fear with it. it did strengthen, we were

concerned about the winds but the rain is the threat. the fact that it's not moving and holding its intensity means that you're going to have these heavy rain bands for days on end. moving towards more populated areas as well. >> right. >> it's about drainage and flooding and a lot of damage. we'll think about it -- >> with katrina, the real damage didn't happen right away. there was a latency with this it. that's the same situation with this. mold problems, drinking water problems. people got to think about what's going to be happening, not only tonight but a week down the road from now. >> absolutely. steve, thanks for your reporting on this. we continue to follow the string of breaking political news from the trump white house that came as the category 4 hurricane was bearing down on texas. an interesting timing choice by the president. tonight donald trump announced he's pardoned joe arpaio who had been convicted last month of disobeying a court order that he stop racially profiling latinos. joe arpaio said this tonight in

an interview with fox news. >> i love that president. he supports law enforcement. two years ago, i supported him and i said publicly recently, pardon or no pardon, i will be with him to the end. and i'm going to have a news conference early next week and get to the bottom of this and show the abuse of the judicial system and politics. i'm not going down without trying to defend myself to all the people that don't like what i've done. after all these years, 55 years in law enforcement around the world, and here i am on the defense table because they wanted to do everything to get rid of me. >> joining us now is mary elena ink paea, the executive director of the national immigration law center. good to speak to you. interesting to hear this refrain from sheriff arpaio about loving

law enforcement and how donald trump loves law enforcement. donald trump in his tweets, said i'm pleased to inform you i've granted a pardon to joe arpaio. he kept arizona safe. a lot of critics of joe arpaio say that keeping things safe in law enforcement was actually a side hustle for him. most of what he did was round up immigrants. >> that's right. i mean, i think what this is a really troubling decision by the president to pardon, to use his first authority as the president to pardon someone who has been found to not only violate racial profiling laws but to be in contempt of the court for racially profiling and discriminating against latinos and immigrants in maricopa county where he led as sheriff and he's no longer sheriff and he's voted out by the voters of arizona. he was known to terrorize communities. it's really troubling that the

president has chosen sheriff arpaio and especially after the charlottesville tragedy. the president is choosing to stand shoulder to shoulder with sheriff arpaio, someone seen as the bull connor for -- against immigrant communities. >> that said bs he's been voted out. he's not the sheriff. he's 85 years old. does former sheriff joe arpaio matter to anyone? >> well, you know, sheriff joe arpaio matters to latinos, to immigrant. it sends a really strong message that after charlottesville, the fact that the president has decided to use his pardon power to pardon someone who has actually been found to racially profile by our federal courts, to be in contempt of the court says that the president believes that ex-sheriff joe arpaio is above the law, just the same way

that the president himself seems to be above the law. we are a nation of laws. we are a nation of the rule of law and this completely . >> is this an attack on that idea. is this going to weaken or affect the cities that thumb their nose at the federal government. we're not here for immigration enforcement. >> not at all. many of those cities across the country including in arizona, but texas, florida, california, et cetera, basically what they're trying to do is exercise

their role as law enforcement agencies, which is simply about making sure that their residents, regardless of what the immigration status, regardless of the race, regardless of how much money they make, every person who lives in that locality or that particular state trusts the police and can come forward as a victim of a crime, as a witness of a crime to report that crime. it's important for our public safety as a whole. so what ex-sheriff arpaio was doing is terrorizing communities based solely on their immigration status or latino status or their supposed alleged status of being perceived to be immigrants. tell me, just explain that a little more for people who don't really get the sanctuary city idea. these mayors and police chiefs in those cities are saying that it imperils public safety if the police are seen to be enforcers of federal immigration