they were battling a major house fire. those were their words over there. obviously, the chief was concerned about having to dispatch firefighters to fight that fire in the middle of a hurricane. now, that has been a concern about how first responders would handle some of these dangerous winds and the potential for flash flooding here as well. again we are told that firefighters have been over there trying to dell with that fire and keep it from spreading to any other homes, because, of course, those are barrier islands. who ill this area here was under a voluntary evacuation, barrier islands, generally speaking, people know to get out. because tray so susceptible to major hurricanes and even tropical storms, frankly. we also have a situation here, where we are under a precautionary boil water oil. >> that is coming from the city of corpus christi. they are asking people here to not cook, not drink, not wash their face, brush their teeth with the water. because they are not sure how hurricane harvey has affected

the water system here, obviously, there will ned to be testing done on the water to make sure it's safe. because that is not available at the moment as a precaution, they want people to make sure they boil their water, that is indefinite. it could last possibly for days. again, we are here await tag rain that's been forecast. we have had winds that have been dying down steadily over the last few hours, but again, that danger of flooding is expected to be coming to this area with those torrential rains, once those start. richard. >> the latest advisory that came in moments ago, maya, saying we can expect storms surging up to 12 feet. we will get more detail on that shortly. adding insult to injury there in the corpus christi area. there have been some reports of crime. start? >> reporter: that's right. you know, around 11:00 p.m. last night. just as the storm was making landfall, corpus christi police got a call from a home owner

that had shot an intruder. >> that intruder breaking into the home. police had to response in the middle of the category 4 hurricane. we are told the intruder was able to speak to police as he was taken away to be treated at a local hospital. again these are situations first responders 1 run into within have you events like that un-- when you have events unfold in the middle of a disaster that's happening as they are. >> all right. maya rodriguez all night, thank you for the latest on what is happening in the corpus christi area and up and down the gulf coast. i want to bring in a copy desk editor in the city of victoria. between houston and corpus christi. again that area that saw the brunt of harvey so far. thanks for joining us at this time, at this hour. what are you seeing right now in terms of the storm and what are you hearing? >> thank you, richard. honestly the storm really picked up here sometime around i'd say

11:00 p.m.. it made landfall at about 10:00 p.m. just right at rock point. it wasn't until a couple hours ago the winds really started here. we have several reporters here, just, you know, staying here, at the office and, you know, we're trying to get some sleep. it's difficult. we're hearing a lot of, you know, just a lot of wind. we're hearing a lot of power surges. lights are flickering. fortunately, we still have power. so that's been fortunate. >> j.r., what are some of the stories that you will be filing your paper will be filing come tomorrow on power outages, on safe water drinking, and you we heard there from maya issues of crime? >> yeah, well, for instance, we have been hearing a lot about the state boarders. we the fought have a boil water foy. not like corpus christi.

at least not now. >> that could change in the morning when we get an update from our emergency management cooperate nator. they have been mentioning that throughout the entire day. in our area, back in 1998, we had a huge flood. it actually did not raise it in central texas and about 30 inches of rain came you know through one of our biggest rivers, it flooded out a lot of people, displaced a lot of people. there was a lot of rebuilding over the past two, three decades, you know, for that. and that's a big concern. you know, they went earlier today, but anybody along those rivers, it's too late to get out now, but it's a pretty dire situation. i don't want to use the word hopeless but almost hopeless for those people who decided to stay. we did learn from the emergency management coordinator that

about half of the people on victoria decided to stay. so we are seeing a lot of that. we will be following, you know, people who did decide to stay, much, you know, that's a big concern. you usually get a lot of you know talk about hurricanes every year. so you know, something that the season comes around every year, people always think there will be duds and it's finally here. you know, the first time about 47 years that something like this has happened and a lot of people, we do have a lot of older residents in our area. that was back in you know 1961 and a lot of them are competitive to that, if not worse. so. >> jr, as now potentially, you have a little bit of respite here from harvey. within you do have daybreak, if you do have some clearing of weather, what is some of the efforts that are going to be made to double up on defenses

for flooding? right? now you will be able to see what's happened, maybe more sand bags, maybe more plywood on windows. what's the next step after harvey moves past but then potentially comes back again? >> well, it's honestly, from what we are hearing from the emergency management, it's not tech physically moving past right mou t. eye is about 20 miles south of victoria. it's about to enter golia county, really it's a 25-minute drive away. what we last we heard at like 2:00 this morning central standard time was that lit stall somewhere in that area overnight for a couple hours. then it will start coming back around, so, i really do not think right now that it has a chance for people to have that respite. we would hope.

so it would calm down. right now i would say it's safe to assume until about noon, we will not see any sort of you know respite from this. the winds are very strong right now. like i said, we are seeing -- we are seeing and hearing just from downtown alone, it's a less populated area of victoria. we are seeing and hearing a lot of you know transformers proceeding. right now it's pretty much plaque outside. there is a lot of downed trees that we can see. so i hope for respite, obviously, we're very concerned about a lot of the people that live along the river. >> yeah. >> it's one of the oldest cities if texas. you know we got a lot of people that need the try to get out. for sure, we'll be balk u talking with our coordinator the first thing tomorrow morning t. hopes are from their standpoint, we could get water out there. that's the first priority.

>> they've already mentioned we should not have people evacuate on their own. some are trying, we keep telling them not to do it. but people that decided not to leave are very terrified and basically have to choose between you know a rock and a hard place. so. >> what are residence both old and young telling your reporters? what's their mood? >> a lot of them are saying they did not expect this. they're scared, you know r, you know we live along the coast. every year it kind of a mappedtory thing, it's hurricane preparation time, though you havure plans ready. people do that, they den think it's going to happen t. fact that it's been about 47 years, i think there was claudia back if 2003. however, that wasn't much of a storm. so i think we've had these duds, these category 1s that have been

kind of in our area but have left a little rain in its wake and people just kind of think it's not going to happen, so, we get a lot of people worried they are losing their home. there are a lot of people that move out in port o'connor, which fortunately, this did further south. but there is a lot of people afraid they will go back to nothing. how do we grow from that? you know, having not deal with something like this in many years, i think our emergency management people are struggling finding solution on what to do to begin that rebuilding process. so it's definitely the worst isn't over, there is still, we are hearing it will be until tuesday that we really get any sort of real respite. so i think at that point which still have another concern about rivers, central texas is flooding as well. so. you know, 20, 30 inches of rains

here in this area butts a good ten, 20 inches there. we think that river will completely overflow, possibly wash out houses, bridges. it will be a very long week or two and then there is the recovery. you probably obviously know, disgoing to be definitely months and months of recovery from this. >> an expense, no doubt. >> an expense. there is unfortunately a lot we have to consider and there is a lot our residents want to know. they keep asking questions. we have been trying to go on facebook live. we are a smaller newspaper. a lot of people do read the newspaper. they lock for us on facebook and look for live updays. we try to keep them informed. so 'are scared say that will be flooded out by sometime tomorrow, they'll be not in their homes but out in the middle of the streets trying to

swim for safety. it's a scary situation. we don't have really any answers, right now we are waiting for daybreak. we have another two-and-a-half hours for. that so we keep telling people, it's a wait and see kind of thing. that's about all we can do and hope for the best. >> a paper there in the town of victoria, about an hour-and-a-half north of corpus christi. it's these situation, jr, where residents are looking for reporters leak you to get the right information out. thank you for being there i know in the middle of this big storm. j.r. ortega. you bet, thank you so much, j.r.. let's go over to our ms nbc meteorologist steve soza. you can hear the information he was giving us, hey, richard, some parts may be quiet like we see. he is not too far away saying we still have a lot of weather

outside. >> j.r., if you look up in the radar is in that orange part there. you see the yellows, the oranges, that's the intense rainfall rate and i checked out some of the gauges there in southeastern texas. already at this early juncture in the game, they're picturing major flooding in these spots. again the storm is ramping umm. so let's get the latest on harvey here. harvey is still a menace, but the game is changing with harvey a bit. the storm surge still on the table the next several hours. we still have a 100-mile-an-hour hurricane. 100-mile-an-hour winds can do damage, now that the soil is saturated over a huge area, over 300 miles here is saturated by heavy rainfall. so a whipped gust of 40 or 50 miles per hour can top him off a tree. so we have two pain areas of heavy rainfall right now. one in the victoria area.

as you head to the north an east, just to the west of town, newly issued tornado warning. this will be another problem with the storm. there are so many aspects it's important to prioritize this first leg of the storm the tornadic threat is definitely concerned. the heavy rain and the surge, it's on the table here through this evening. this is to the south and west of the houston area. we'll have more popping up. the tomorrow is a 100-mile-per-hour storm. this is the path. this is the newest update and of course my graphic is going to happening up on me. maybe we'll show that to you on the next half hour. the new track is out. you will want to see that. it could be seen raining for days coming up next week. >> that's what happens. hurricane harvey, obviously, so big it's affecting our graphics s. at this moment. again we had that latest update.

it came in 13 minutes ago. steve will get that to us in terms of what came up. of course, will you hear all hour and all morning. i'd like to bring in mark rylander, there is some concern here, because this is highly court made theed, right? law enforcement, first responders on the ground up and down the gulf of mexico, you are saying there might be complications right pow? >> well the law enforcement officers are ready. the officials are here from the federal, state, local law entities. here's where we will have complications. when day breaks, if people who did not heed warning and they decided they were going to stay around and wait out the storm, as soon as daybreaks, they been to get out, drive around, ma fufr through what's going to be

on the ground. which is unknown, all off our txdot cameras are down. we can't see what the roads are like. if they start to get out. maneuver around, while at the same time, our officers and rescue teams are trying to get out, ma fufr around, we will have major, major issues. >> in addition to all of this, and you've we heard some of the reporting coming out of corpus christi. >> that is issues of crime. how is law enforcement ready handle this while they are trying to do the most important thing. that is to save folks? >> yeah i was talking long ago, these law enforcement officers are walking through scenario after scenario, preparing for moments just like this. and so whether it's from a crime, whether a search and rescue in, land, boat, air, whatever message will be used. these men and women who are heroes have been planning and preparing for this all

throughout their careers and they're ready. these guys and ladies are pent up right now like a horse in a gate. they are so ready to get out. there is what they do. and yet they are not going to be able to do that, just because so many places are so dark, places that don't have electricity. it's not safe for them to get out until daylight breaks. and when you couple their inability to get out and assess situations right now, with our inability to communicate with other departments and areas and reach around this region, you realize, really, we are stuck in the get until daylight breaks. that is why it's so important once daylight happens, people stay off the streets. so that those who need to be on the roads and whatever condition they're in can get to the places they need to get. >> this is where our public servants around the country in texas and louisiana and areas affected by the storm are so needed and appreciated. right, mark?

>> the worry we have here and then please go, mark, that they stay rested. because this could be 72 hours or more straight work for them. >> yes. and here's what you were saying, i was about to say, pardon me for interrupting it. richard, this is where we see the best of americans, everybody wants to focus on this unity. over the next few days, weeks, perhaps months, we will see hearts and communities come together, work towing, all differences aside because they have one goal, let's rebuild texas. and so it's going to be a great thing. you know, i would warn people. the attorney general was out on several interviews over the night with issued press releases reminding people in the wake of the storm, just as good comes out, some bad actors also come out. i know the attorney general's office, other agencies probably do as well. we've set up a hot line. we have e-mail addresses, if by any means you see examples of price ground zeroing, people are coming by, wanting to cut you a

great deal, start rebuilding. they don't have credentials. there are bad actors out there. we would ask anyone that might try to take advantage of people, they report them to the attorney general's office, aassure you, we will go after that. >> we appreciate what are you doing as we watch it unfold in front of us in the coming days. >> it's actually a good sign, out a window, i saw two ambulances go by. we haven't seen that yet. so i don't know, they went by fast. i couldn't see which department they are with. et cetera. but that is good that we are now at least beginning to these type of assets moving around in this area. >> and mobilized. thank you so much, a spokesperson for the attorney general's office in texas, my friend, get a little bit of shut eye if you can. more live coverage of this historic storm. we have the latest update from

the hurricane center coming out of noaa after this.

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>> you can see it for yourself. we are being hit by a pretty significant ban from harvey as it is making landfall 50 miles as you mentioned south of where we are, port lavaca. >> that storm surge from harvey is pushing water from the bay this way. >> really close he was, kprc reporter brandon walker as again hurricane harvey took landfall. you can see the amount of wind and rain he was facing there. we continue to follow the

hurricane as it pull els the state t. weather channel's reynold is in one of the hardest hit areas not far from lavaca in victoria. tell us what you are seeing. i know it is quite windy. >> we are roughly 55 piles from where the albatross flies. the storm, harvey, major hurricane, hurricane 4. brigg hell with it. we had wide power outages, the last was 200,000. >> that number is fluid. we are having more power out annuals. we actually lost power in our location about 90 minutes ago, flashes of transformers blasting off in the horizon happening all night long t. wind has been screeching at times, a dog roar at others.

here we hear a creek, a crack and pieces fall. we got shenles coming down, down spouts, a hot mess, no question about it. we also had a transformer that flew directly behind us right around the time the power went out. we had power lines down the street. they have been pull emed. i get the sense that will be what we will deal with. this mass iive system, this ones coming to a streeching halt a. direct hit on the texas coastline, moving a few miles inland. then we anticipate it will stay in a huge spot. that a big problem. it will continue to draw that moisture from the gulf of mexico and bring it into spots like victoria. hard to believe. this has happened before. richard, let's see, we constructed this area back in

2003, carla came through before that flooding is going to be a certainty for a lot of people. within it comes to topography, south texas is black. you have rivers almost like the lines on your palm. all those rivers, those creeks will be filling up in a very big way over the next several days, which means, first responders try to get from one point on the map to another. it will be a nightmare scenario, tonight we spoke with a sheriff, actually, a fire department in texas. steve sims was his name. he we heard reports of damage, possibly people trapped in some buildings. they can't get out and do their job. they can't t. reason is what you see here the wind and rain. our present location is better than out in the street on the

other side of the structure we are actually in a very good spot to provide the spert to you. if we were to step out another 20, 30 feet, it's intensive. very, very different. what will happen, richard, the wind will subside. we seen a cat-4 to a cat 2. wind still over 100 miles an hour, conditions here will get worse. again the winds will eventually drop. unfortunately, so will the rain, a lot of it. it will possibly for the next several day, maybe weeks. >> reynolds. the radar indicates it's due west to where you are exactly at. you talk about the river and the debris and you've done the many a timepy friend. what have you seen if terms of what has become airborne, what are you seeing in terms of where you are at?

>> well. we see small things, every now and then you will see a branch, leaves, that type of thing. what we we heard is visibility limited. we we heard what sounds like tile on parts of the pavement on the roadway. richard you and i worked together. you know it's part and parcel we have the wind that continues to hit these structures, hour after hour after hour. something eventually is financial to give. it's going to be those things the tiles on the roof. it will be the that saids here and there, lifting up like kite, winds so to speak. every projectile is deadly. they can see shelter and avoid the rising water it's funny, small things the lava rocks or accordance off the tree can

become projectil ze, dangerous times, pieces of metal also, scary times, no question about it. >> no doubt and for many of those that are in that town there, reynolds, i was just speaking with their paper and he was telling me, j.r. or tech dpa from the advocate, folks are fought necessarily, they did not evacuate, they're concerned is when thai daybreak does happen, they will have some issues of people being standed. have we seen any of that? >> oh, absolutely. richard, are you on it. absolutely, that's a huge concern for so many people. think about victoria, founded in 1824, roughly 300 people. now we have in excess of stae,000. the tally the texas coastline. they made the choice to stay,

fought evacuate. i don't want to sound cam lus like this. i understand they will put their lives in danger and the lives of first responders that will get them to safe territory. it's a nightmare scenario, no doubt about i. one thing to consider is that you got a lot of people in this area that have lived here a long time, very similar to florida. similar to the gulf coast of alabama, mississippi, louisiana and now texas. there are a lot of newby s so to speak within it comes to tropical weather. it's been a while sentence we had it on the gulf coast. they know what to do. they know what to get out. people may not be familiar with what nature can deal out is terrifying, think about i. we've gone from this total eclipse to the tears of pass the nation, tears of terror, now finishing up the week with this massive

tropical system. man, what a story we and we will see for days to come. >> it's so great to have you around, reynolds wolf, old friend. you out there in victoria for us, give us context of what we are seeing if one of the hardest hit areas in texas. thank you, my friend, we also have steve so interest za who is with us, there has been some changes in the latest advisories coming from noaa. i know you have been watching that, and can kind of pick through what we can see. >> yes. subtle changes the first part was obviously the damaging winds, the storm surge which is ongoing across parts of texas right now, especially north and east of corpus christi. let's head on over to the storm. i'm show you where the areas in texas that are getting he it the hardest. there is kind of two sectors of this storm right now. there is the sector to the north and east of the eye. that's where you get the heavy

rain bands, these brief spin-ups. these are current tornado warnings. this is where the weather is changing rapidly. meaning you will get into a rain squall. it's pouring, it's windy, which cannot out the power here in these yeah, even though you are not mere the main center. already our rainfall legend picking up seven, ache, nine, ten inches of rain here, this is early on in the game. we're not 24 hours into this storm system. this is the projected path that i wanted to show you. it's the latest update from 5:00 a.m. from the hurricane center. you see the storm system, by 11:00 tomorrow, heads up to the north and west. we saw reynolds gel getting rained on. >> that storm portfolio outs up east of san antonio. you don't get the rest of this storm. this is the challenging part of this storm. it curls back. it may even get back over water for a time, port lavaca, you are

not out of the woods, by 12:00 p.m. on monday, the storm system cavsen nieto you and picks back up to the -- system cavs undrvs underneath you. you get the idea it's not a point. it's widespread. everything needs to prepare for unfortunately tv stating flooding. >> when you look at this new loop. the old loop used to be farther down here? right. >> does this mean we will get closer to houston, that six-and-a-half people, that metropolitan area we are worried about. >> they will be on the strongest part of the storm but you have most of the moisture over in that direction. there is not a lot of steering, it is possibleing. the track will continue to change.

it's the best idea we have at this point. it's 100 miles wide. >> quickly the storm surge sank six-to-12 feet, right? that's twice your height. >> yeah. >> mainly in these areas down here, right? >> the barrier islands are by far the areas that will get hit the worst overnight. as the storm system gets through the stage of monday and tuesday, it won't have as much of a wind. it's more of the wind coming in, keep tack water locked here as the rain tries to drain down all the flood waters try to drain down. they're not going to be able to to it's basically a traffic jam if you will? that's why we have a water issue. great to have you around. thank you for that. steve sosa, appreciate that. more live coverage of this historic storm harvey after this. reminds me of how geico has been saving people money for over 75 years. hey, big guy! come on in! let me guess your weight! win a prize!

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>> hurricane harvey, staying on top of the breaking news, so big, how big? 285 miles wide. 165 miles high. could be growing. could be getting smaller. but it will not lessen its effect. more on this story, plus political news out of washington, d.c., stick with us.

>> we continue to follow the news story of hurricane harvey. the white house was busy

creating major news on multiple fronts the overnight news dump began friday announcing a presidential pardon for president sheriff joe arpaio, the toughest sheriff in america was a long-time law official in arizona. last month. he was convicted of criminal contempt of court for ignoring a judge's order for ruopping up people he suspected of being undocumented immigrants. in a statement the white house said, in part, quote, sheriff joe arpaio is 85-years-old, after 50 years of admirable service to our nation, she a worthy candidate for presidential pardp. here was joe arpaio reacting to the news when he was speaking. stake i take a listen. >> i am very appreciative what the president has done, right now i have to thank the president and for standing by me and standing by law enforcement.

>> dual you have been vindicated be i the president? >> yeah, i think he understands my situation. >> both senators slammed the president for that move, calling for the judicial process to work its way, while the senate's highest ranking democrat new york's chuck schumer unleashed a tweet storm alleging mr. trump used the hurricane as political cover to pardon arpaio on friday. also the president made the ban on transgender troops official. signing an order that direct directs the pentagon to move forward on that ban, though it remains unclear what will happen to transgender personnel that are currently serving in the military. >> that order also bans the department of defense from providing medical treatment to transgender service members, adding more to that, there is the ousting of sebastian

gashinga, a deputy adviser to the president who had ties to far political groups and called i slam an inherently violent religion him they say gorka's resignation is is not a resignation per se, they report john kelly allegedly revoked gorka's security clearance, almost forcing him to resign, even doing so while he was on evacuation. they were set to be back at the white house on monday. nbc news also learning that special counsel robert mueller has now issued going subpoenas to public relations executives that work with paul manafor. six firms in all, receive subpoenas. one executive says mueller's team is focusing on an international lobbying campaign which ran between 2012 and 2015. these subpoenas are the first public indication that the

investigation into russian interference is beginning to compel witnesses to testify before a going. that all is happening on a friday. stay with us for more of our continuing coverage as hurricane harvey becomes the fiercest hurricane to hit the united states in 12 years.

you

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ground in corpus christi, maya rodriguez. as you may have seen, steve sosa now re-adjusting where the track will be. it looks like corpus chris my not necessarily right in the heart of that double whammy we have been talking about up to this last half hour. >> reporter: still a lot of issues going on here, richard. right now, we are hearing from the city of corpus christi saying there are a number of active power lines down across the city. they are asking people, if they do choose to venture outside to please be careful. we still have very strong winds, probably category 2 and category 1 wind gusts that we're feeling personally right here at the moment. of course, again, we are expecting some rains here, maybe not the torrential and flash flooding that we were expecting, maybe a few hours ago, but again, there are still some outlying dangers here. one of those we saw on south padre island.

we had corpus christi firefighters over there earlier this morning battling a massive house fire, trying to make sure that that fire would not spread to other homes there, obviously, a lot of people chose to leave those parrier islands. those homes were unoccupied at the time. fire fighters doing tear best to make sure that fire would not go further than that one house. what exactly caused that fire is still not clear at this point. again, these were first responders that had to head out to a fairer island in the middle of a category 4 hurricane. in the meantime. we do have -- 211,000 people on the texas gulf coast communities at this point, 162,000 here in the corpus christi area alone without power. corpus christi not out of the woods yesterday despite those adjustments and rain and flooding levels we might be seeing here. again we have been keeping an eye on the possibility of a strong six-to-12 foot storm surge here in corpus christi.

we have fought seen that at this point. >> that is food news, of course, again, we are expecting to see hurricane force winds at least in the sect several hours here as harvey continues to move further to the west of us. richard. >> further to the it's going t lingering and dumping a lot of rain there in corpus christi, causing a lot of trouble for folks in that part of texas. thank you, mia. joining us now craig, a reporter with the houston chronicle. he is also in the houston area of texas. can you tell me what you're seeing and what you are hearing in terms of weather in the location that you're out close to houston? >> hello, richard. good morning. southwest of houston, we did have a tornado that we did know about. as the sun comes up or more daylight comes, we will be seeing more damage from that.

right now i'm located in downtown houston. we are looking at a band of rain that we've been hearing about over the past, you know, few days that we would be seeing. that's what we're going to be expecting now for the foreseeable future. possibly four or five days of this. everybody here used to know pretty much not a lot of people have evacuated. a lot of us were used to rain like this. we've had a few pretty crazy rain events over the past few years. we sort of know the drill here. we're definitely being precautious, and we are -- a lot of people are prepared. we're ready for whatever comes, i think. >> what did the mayor ask citizens and residents of the metropolitan area to do? >> they definitely want everybody to be safe. first off, don't venture out unless you definitely have to. don't put any first responders and any sort of harm's way. there's enough going on right now for people not to have to worry about extra dangers. like i said, i said it last

hour, we have this phrase here, sort of a -- it's called hunker down. you hunker down. that's what we're doing here in houston, and we are just waiting to see, you know, what harvey is going to bring us. >> as we get daylight in the next hour or so here, craig, are there plans to redistribute resources potentially coming from houston or even farther east down to the areas that are affected farther to the west? >> i do know, you know, a lot of the first responders here, they will go where they are needed. as it is right now, you're in houston. there is not a special need for anything like that. pretty much everybody is on standby for the next few days for what could happen. i definitely know places like corbin county where they have had a tornado event, people from houston will definitely go over there as needed. for now i sort of see everybody in sort of a holding pattern.

everybody is being kept abreast of everything. i have to say here in houston there's a web sooirt called space city weather.com, which has done an amazing job over the past few days of keeping everybody calm, cool, and collected, but also cautious as they need to be. we have to give a shout-out to them. they've been great at that. here in houston we are resilient to the weather. we are prepared. we look out for each other. >> and not only space city, but also the houston chronicle. that great paper that so many people depend on in that region. as we look at that box where there's concerns of tornadoes, it is now smack dab on top of houston metropolitan area. >> it is. >> what a suggestion that is given to prepare for not only hurricanes, but a tornado on top of that and how might they differ, if at all? >> we always say, you know -- we always hear just stay put. you know, don't go out into it.

you know, there's this -- i guess there's this human compulgs to go out and experience the weather firsthand. don't do anything that's going to put anybody else in danger. don't make anybody else have to go and save you. stay put. that's why we're here for these sorts of things. we stay inside. let the professionals worry about that sort of thing. there's definitely we're taking every precaution we can here. >> what about power outages? we've heard over 200,000 folks without power. >> as of right now here in the houston area, we're not having too much of that. like i said, corpus, houston, you know, there's a few hundred miles away -- there's a few hundred miles difference. as of right now as i'm talking right now, you know, almost 5:00 our time here in town here in houston, there is no widespread electrical outages, but we are definitely, you know, rabracing

for that to happen possibly. right now we are lucky. most of us have power. everybody is -- there's no widespread panic, i guess. >> craig, thank you so much there from the houston chronicle keeping us up-to-date with what's happening right there in that marnl metropolitan area in texas. thank you, sir. that's it for me this hour. do stick around with us here on msnbc. we continue to have coverage on hurricane harvey. that storm that is the size of the moment of ohio or pennsylvania, this thing is a bohemath, and it threatens to dump three to five inches of rain every hour potentially for days. stay with us right here on msnbc.

we thank you for joining our msnbc breaking news coverage this morning. i'm francis riviera. the first category four hurricane to hit the country in had over a decade makes landfall in texas. the eye of the storm hitting the southeastern tip of texas just before midnight east coast time as it continues to strengthen. it has since been downgraded a category two. it is a powerful hurricane the likes of which we haven't seen in 12 years, and the slamming texas right now with wind gusts of up to 1 60 miles per hour.

a massive storm surge there pummelli inling large swaths le thousands without power. entire beings reportuildings re collapsed. president trump declared hurricane harvey a federal disaster late into the evening. he is tweeting from camp david with his national security team and the veep. leaders in texas, meanwhile, urge residents to evacuate. warning those who remain roob subjected to the storm's wrath for days. here's governor greg abbott. >> we are concerned that not enough people have evacuated, and we are still urging people if at all possible if you are in low-lying areas, if you are in zones where evacuation orders have been in place, there may still be time for you to get out.