and when youod sugar is a replace one meal... choices. ...or snack a day with glucerna... ...made with carbsteady... ...to help minimize blood sugar spikes... ...you can really feel it. now with 30% less carbs and sugars. glucerna. good morning everyone. i'm ali velshi. our breaking news coverage of hurricane harvey continues. let's get started. >> reporter: we have been waiting for a while now, for the eye to get some kind of break through here with these absolutely unrelenting winds.

>> reporter: we're being hit by a pretty significant band from harvey. >> reporter: my gosh what a fix we'll be in here in parts of texas for days to come. almost like getting blasted back to the stone ages. >> reporter: it's going to rain and rain and rain. it's not going to stop and it may be days before it ends up finally stopping. >> reporter: the wind is still blowing, as you can see. the gusts sometimes upwards of 100 miles an hour. >> today is just the first of many difficult days ahead. >> hurricane harvey made landfall almost 12 hours ago. it is still a hurricane, after dumping heavy rain in texas, as a powerful category 4 storm. now, as day breaks this morning, first responders are getting their look at the damage but the storm threat isn't over. live look at corpus crist ear, the city along with million people in southeast texas are

under flash flood watches, a warning expected to be in place for days. some areas could see an entire year's worth of rain. the national hurricane center issued its first ever storm surge warning, more than 8 million people are under a hurricane warning, about 735,000 are under a tropical storm warning. this morning, president trump issued a disaster declaration for texas, more than 290,000 people in houston, dallas, corpus christi and surrounding cities are without power. we've got a team of reporters and meteorologists stationed in the storm zone, and around to bring you the latest live coverage from the ground. let's start right here with me nbc meteorologist bill karins. >> good morning. for the people that are waking up with us, corpus christi did better than we had thought. fantastic news for everyone that evacuated corpus christi area, they don't have power, so it will take a while to get things back up and running but the heaviest rains are mostly north of them, that's our projections but the forecast, this say

marathon. we are at mile five or mile six. we have 20 more miles to go on this storm and the historic part of this, the life-threatening portion of this storm, the part that's going to devastate people's lives flooding out their homes and life-threatening flash flooding has yet to occur. because we're not seeing reporters blowing around and you're not going to see that the next five days, the threat is from water on the ground and the threat from rising water. . is what you expect of a category 4 hurricane making landfall. lot of pictures of trees down >> this is kerry in victoria, texas. >> they weren't in the eye of it. kerry was in gusts up to 100 miles per hour. >> to that picture, all of that rain, so that's a nice big oak. that would normally take a certain velocity of wind to take down, but with the ground saturated and saturated, it can probably come out at a lower wind. >> and that still will be an issue throughout the next two days, the soil gets loosened up, even though it's a tropical

storm. we will get more trees downed. as far as the damage done if you put a monetary value on it, maybe a tenth of the way there. >> these are tens of billions of dollars in damage these storms tend to be. >> this is guaranteed to be a billion-dollar weather disaster. if houston sees it a lot worse then it goes way up, so it depends on populations who it impacts. let me give you the new update. over to the maps quickly, 75-mile-per-hour winds. we're done talking about the winds. the wind damage not an issue anymore. it's going down to a tropical storm as we go throughout the next couple hours so if you hear that it doesn't make a difference. tropical storms can produce the same amount of rain as category 5 hurricanes can. it doesn't matter what the wind intensity is. i don't care about that anymore. i'm happy we're not getting any more wind damage out of the storms. as far as what we're dealing with next, the path of this is what's going to cause the problems. usually we show you a five-day path and the five-day path the storm can travel hundreds if not 1,000 miles. this storm is going to travel about 100 miles in five days which is ridiculous and why we have the

totals. it's close enough to keep heavy rain bands over the region. the expected rainfall the official forecast from our government is calling for 20 inches of rain in the huge area with isolated totals up to 40 inches of rain. that's up to three and a half feet of rain, somewhere in this general vicinity. it's still too early to pinpoint exactly where that is going to be but centered close to victoria area, under a flash flood warning in houston, heavy bands of rain that are over the city, already seeing reports of low-lying highways around the city with water in them, that you can't drive there anymore and then we'll deal with river flooding. these are the big rivers in this iria, you can see them snaking the lines of blue, all the red boxes are already flood warnings on those rivers and we'll start having evacuations on these rivers shortly if they're not already beginning. pay attention to your local emergency manager. these are going to major if not record-breaking category. we'll have water in places

people who lived here their whole lives have never seen before. you can't think i made it through other floods and you'll be okay with this one. that's a wrap. the one big crazy thing that i saw this morning as a meteorologist, the forecast guidance for the rainfall has not come down f anything it went up a little bit. >> right. >> for victoria specifically, the weather service is saying about 35 inches of rain is how much they expect. one computer model the european long range model has it about 58 inches of rain. >> wow. >> and that just sets an alarm enough. it doesn't mean it will happen. >> it's a lot of rain. >> there's potential. >> and the drainage of that rain is the issue. if it has nowhere to go it sinks in, floods rivers, flash floods, loosens soil so there are a lot of issues. we always think of the destructive nature of hurricanes because of the wind. this is a different story all together. >> because it takes five, six days for this to leave these people's lives will not be returning to normal. they're in school, the schools in session, how long will it be

until cool is back in session in southeast texas. >> we know it's off for monday. we're waiting to hear about tuesday, wednesday. meteorologist bill karins has been with us throughout. maya rodriguez is live in corpus christi with the latest. maya, as you and i spoke about last night and bill has said, corpus christi dodged a bullet but it's still pretty bad. >> reporter: why, just when you think things are letting up a little bit, ali, suddenly the skies open up, you start getting rain like this and the wind picks up all over again. this isment so of the damage we've been seeing around town. might have spared much of corpus christi but this is one of the things that we've been seeing. we have trees down, branches down, like this one. it is massive. we've also had things sort of projectiles that we found all over the place. look at this. imagine if you were hit in the head at 100 miles an hour with something like this. this is why you don't want to be outside during a hurricane. joining us right now is texas

state representative todd hunter. first of all thank you for joining us out here under these conditions. >> certainly. >> reporter: it looks like corpus christi has been spared the brunt of this. what have you been seeing since you drove around? >> all stoplights are out, people are just waking up. there's debris, trees just like this. there's a gigantic palm tree about 100 yards from here, people are finding fences down, powers are out. most people have not been able to see what's happened since 5:00 p.m. yesterday. most people are very hot. most people don't have any water right now. so what they're looking up is all the destruction and now we're getting calls from the surrounding areas of port aransas and rockport that maybe buildings have been lost so the severity of this storm is just being seen at this time. >> reporter: this is obviously a storm that's going to last for days in the sense of the rainfall that we're expecting. how are constituents supposed to be dealing with this and what are you all doing to help them

in. >> the first thing is be extremely safe the next couple of days. watch water conditions and watch downed power lines. just coming over here we went by two downed power lines. remember, you can still get electrocuted. you can still be harmed. the state will be bringing in assistance. i have already been on the telephone with the department of public safety that will be setting up things, there will be shelters being set up but the key thing for the next two days is be safe, be smart, be very careful about the debris on the roadways. >> reporter: what about the flooding concerns? >> flooding concerns as always we live by the ocean and as the rain comes in, you can have surges. you can have flash floods, and i tell everybody, watch, watch the weather. make sure if there is any sort of gust, any sort of quick storm, be very, very careful, because you don't want to be swept away. we've been hit by the wind, now it's the water's turn.

>> reporter: is there anything you're asking the federal government to do to help your constituents and the too emin this area? >> the federal government and state government are working together, we're asking for federal and state assistance. this is an emergency. this is a condition that fits under federal and state law, so you're going to see the governor, us and the state working alongside federal government, but now it's time to help corpus christi. >> reporter: state representative todd hunter, thank you for joining us out here. as you can see, ali, things are far from over really. we're still feeling the effects of hurricane harvey out here, but again, the big concern now, where is all that rain water going to go and end up. ali? >> and we're seeing the tree behind you. the issues are downed trees and downed power wires. have you had a chance to see how much of that is going on around you? >> reporter: yes, we actually took a drive a couple miles south of here, there's a residential neighborhood. there are downed power lines. we had to be very, very careful as we made our way through these

residential streets, because again, they're blocking some of the roadways, they're blocking certain lines. sometimes we had to cross over into the opposite lane of traffic. thankfully no traffic on road it's been very light for obvious reasons but there are plenty of downed power lines out there and officials in corpus christi are asking people to please be careful if they go outside of their home today. >> maya, we'll check in with you later. maya rodriguez in corpus christi. i bring in kerry sanders who is in victoria, texas. we were looking at pictures of kerry blowing around, i think he's seeking very weller it on the other side of a van or a suburban there. what's going on in victoria? there's a lot of rain. we saw you nexted to a downed oak tree. >> reporter: yes, you can see how strong the wind is, just by the fact that the car here the suburban is shaking. i'm going to stand up. i think we might have a lull here for a moment but a lull in a category 1 hurricane. i'm going to show you the power of these winds.

this is probably at least 100-year-old oak tree that has come down and fallen on this house here, i'm 5'5" and the root structure is over my head. that feels like a sandblaster right now, and those are the droplets of rain that are being driven by what i know is a category 1 hurricane, but feels like it's a little bit stronger, because it hurts, and as i look over this direction here, you can see the other trees that have come down, toppling onto the homes. now, we believe that these homes have actually been evacuated, that the people here did leave the area, and made their way to one of the evacuation centers. there were two evacuation centers here. wow, that wind is really picking up. let me come back around here. woo. you know, ali, one of the biggest concerns is and this is why the authorities say don't go out and we try to limit our time out here is, wind like that, can

pick up debris, and debris like that becomes a missile and there's nothing you can do. you can't duck. you don't see it coming and so we're limiting our time out here but i also want to demonstrate to people the power of what this hurricane has. harvey may be a 1, but don't be fooled by the category. this is a very strong hurricane and on top of that, we have the rain, and the rain here that's going to last for days, so consider as i step back up here, consider that we've had about 16 or so inches here. in a year we have about 32 inches in this part of texas, so we've already had half the year's rain in what essentially is 12, 14 hours with harvey, and that means if this harvey hurricane sits where the prediction is for days, we're going to see somethat's going t historic probably in th the 100-year flood plane of the

worst they've seen. the two rivers the san antonio and the guadalupe the rivers are expected to be well over flood stage, by wednesday the guadalupe might be 32 feet above where it normally would be. anybody who lives in that area has to deal with the problems of that. >> ali? >> i'm sure the locals appreciate you calling it the guadalupe because we've been calling it the guadalupe. the tree is out from the roots. in hurricanes trees uprooted, sometimes snapped and broken. as the rain continues and the soil gets softer i'm worried we'll see more solid trees that aren't broken by the wind but coming right out of the ground. >> reporter: it's such a good yes because i'm going to tell you that's part of the problem here. let me rescue my hat. see how completely soggy the soil is here and that's part of the problem. we're going to have days of this

here and so this so longiness becomes an additional problem. these trees may be old, the root structure may go way down in there but when the ground is saturated, it loosens it up, when the trees really become susceptible to the heavy winds. >> people who get this up morning and say hey my tree didn't fall onto my garage they may have a few more days of worrying about that. we'll stay with you. i want to get on the phone with richard flores a resident of victoria, texas, who did not evacuate. how are you and your family, how are you doing? >> we're holding on. no electricity, it's really windy. >> why did you choose not to evacuate, richard? >> well the evacuation routes are not too good around here and when everybody evacuates all at once it get congested bad and you have tornado threats and i didn't want to be stuck on the road in a tornado and you have flash flooding because we have

to cross the river to get north anywhere i didn't want to get stuck in a flash flood either. >> have you ever been around something like this? >> i've been claudette and hurricane ike. >> how does this compare? >> this one is a lot worse. it's a lot more windy. i saw trees split in half, my neighbors their fence was braced with a 2x4, it broke the 2x4 in half. it's windy. >> who are you with? >> my wife and two children. >> how are they doing? >> they're doing good. the kids are pretty young so they really don't understand what's going on right now. >> it's a bit of an adventure. you got food and water to get you through? >> yes, sir, yes, yes. we got some food and we got a bunch of water. >> what tea like around you?

trees? flooding? what have you got? >> i got some trees but none of my trees have broken. lost a couple of limbs. there's no flooding though. >> but it continues to rain where you are. >> yes. >> so you got the issue where we are now we're 12 hours after the top of that hurricane came over you for the first time, and the rain continues and i just talked to kerry sanders. the wind's still pretty strong there. >> yes, it is. i'm hoping in the next hour or two it's going to start dying down, as it moves further inland. but it's really loud and making scary noises, but other than that, we're holding on good. >> richard, we're going to keep an eye out and stay in touch with you. i hope you and your family stay safe. be safe, be as safe as you can, all right? >> yes, sir, thank you very much. >> richard flores is in victoria, texas.

hurricane harvey smashed into these coastal communities. victoria is 30 miles inland but smashed into these coastal communities in texas. we'll talk live to some of the mayors along the coast next. our special coverage on hurricane harvey continues after this quick break. (vo) more "doing chores for mom" per roll more "doing chores for dad" per roll more "earning something you love" per roll bounty is more absorbent, so the roll can last 50% longer than the leading ordinary brand. so you get more "life" per roll. bounty the quicker picker upper. beggin' skinny strips or beggin' black label? there's two?! what a delicious dilemma! beggin' strips premium edition. twwwoooooo?!?! with real meat as ingredient one. everything to your liking? mmm mmmmm... beggin' strips premium.

becaussssseeee beggin'! this is a story about mail and packages. and it's also a story about people. people who rely on us every day to deliver their dreams

they're handing us more than mail they're handing us their business and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you ♪

this is unbelievable. nothing has changed since we left you in the middle of the night. winds are still gusting up to and over hurricane force and we're still getting beat up by heavy rainfall. i've never seen something like this last this long. that's all because harvey has slowed down. we are limited to what we can show you because we've got to keep our camera dry otherwise we can't broadcast so we're at the

front or where you check in and we're well off about 16 feet above ground level but what i'm seeing the entire parking lot the entire hotel is an island now. looking out towards lavaca bay, high veigh 35 that's the route that takes you back towards palacios and houston. 52 miles to rockport, they got hit hard with significant damage and potentially injuries. nobody can really get out of this hotel right now but we're safe because we have all of our vehicles up here. i'll take a moment and see how deep the water s probably running about three feet here, three to four feet in the parking lot. as we talked about the rain is going to add up. we've already had, what happened here is the reporting station at port lavaca quit reporting last night just before 9:00 central. so we're going to add up the

numbers from palacios north of here gusting over 70 and we're still getting these bands around the southeast side of hurricane harvey. no letup in side the wind is still onshore and as long as it blows like this, the water is not going to back off very much. it's going to stay up and keep this hotel surrounded so we're hunkered down here. power is out. we're doing the best we can charminging on the car battery. it continues on and on. >> inkrable that hurricane made landfall about 12 hours ago and we still have those kinds of winds in the area, and the winds aren't even going to be the biggest problem. it's going to be the endless, historic rain according to the national weather service that is going to not be able to drain

properly. it's going to flood rivers. it's going to create flash floods. it's going to loosen the soil and more trees are going to come down at lower wind speeds than they typically would. on the phone with me live is the mayor of port lavaca, jack whitlow. how is your city holding up? >> ali, the city is holding up as good as can be expected. we took a tour of the town in one of our big trucks. extensive damage to trees of course, some flooding here and there and town. south side of town and the east side of town took some heavier roof damage in residential areas. we have our bayou here in town is flooding a little bit. it blocked some of the roadways going into some of the neighborhoods. we have a few metal buildings that have just collapsed,

commercial buildings that have fallen. lot of the awnings and marquees are pretty much gone on the buildings. it's pretty extensive damage. it's very dangerous out there at the moment. the winds are high, the rain is coming down hard. it's not safe to be out there. i would recommend those who stayed do not venture about and those who left do not come back at this time. >> have you got a situation where you told about the damage. have you got injuries and rescues under way? >> we, i haven't heard of any injuries. it's difficult to get under way any rescues. emergency medical services cannot get their trucks out, the winds are over 45 miles an hour, they're on standby at the emergency command center but at this point, the winds are still

quite high, and the rain is still quite heavy, and so people are here, and injured. it's going to be difficult to get the help to them. >> it is kind of incredible 12 hours after landfall that you have 45-mile-per-hour winds and you've got these heavy rains, but this storm is moving very, very, very slowly. we were looking at pictures of trees down, electrical poles down, wires down. you're not able -- do you have some estimate of time as to when you're going to be able to start to at least repair some of that damage so at the earliest people can get their power back? >> it's not looking real good at this point. we are, it's not just 45-mile-an-hour winds. we have winds up to hurricane strength and gusts coming at this point, and it's just not safe for people to get out and do repairs. we're going into another conference with the weather service soon but it looks like the storm is going to stall and

turn around towards our direction which could still keep us in heavy winds, so the storm is still quite strong and if it turns around and comes back towards the coast, which would be our area, it's going to keep up for at least another day. >> that is remarkable and so trees that otherwise held up in the first round could be loosened by the loose soil and could you have more damage there. mayor we'll stay on top of things with you. we wish you the best and the people of port lavaca, mayor whitlow joining us from texas. stand by, everyone. we are keeping an eye on this monster storm. it really is a monster storm, along the coast of texas and louisiana. we're also keeping an eye on the white house. bit of a storm there last night. let's just tick through what happened in the last 24 hours. president trump pardons convicted racial profiler joe arpaio. donald trump's national security adviser sebastian gorka is out of the white house, plus dealings with more missiles launched by north korea and they just banned transgender people

from being uprooted to join the military. the memo describing how to do it went out last night as a category 4 storm was hitting the united states, all of this happened on a friday summer night, when a national disaster was hitting the united states. you stye whdecide what you thin that. we're going live to the white house next. stay with us. don't let dust and allergens get between you and life's beautiful moments. switch to flonase allergy relief. flonase outperforms the #1 non-drowsy allergy pill. when we breathe in allergens, our bodies react by overproducing

6 key inflammatory substances that cause our symptoms. flonase helps block 6. most allergy pills only block one and 6 is greater than 1. with more complete relief you can enjoy every beautiful moment to the fullest. flonase. 6 is greater than 1 changes everything.

lets's talk about this storm. it has slowed down. it hit land as a category 4 hurricane, but it was worse than that. it was slow. it was churning. it was getting all of that heat off of the gulf of mexico, and it went in and stayed a category 4 for a while. 12 hours later, it is still a hurricane. it has not dissipated into becoming a tropical storm. this is a category 1 hurricane still. look at this. look at how many place this is is hitting. san antonio, austin. these are places that are way inland and that's not the full

story. this thing is going to loop around and come back and get to houston. houston is expecting rain that it hasn't seen in 100 years. it's a great city and it can manage a lot of things, but nobody can manage that kind of water if you're not built for drainage so this is going to be a major problem for texas, not today, not tomorrow, but for a few days yet. school is in session in texas. we know that school is not going to be on on monday. it may be many, many more days. we're going to watch this very, very closely with you, but this is the most serious thing, the most serious natural disaster to hit america in a long time, and even, even with a major hurricane hitting texas, there are headlines coming out this morning from the white house, as yet another member of the west wing staff has departed. kelly o'donnell joins me now. i truly thought my twitter was broken last night, when in the midst of the only reporting that should have been happening last night about this natural

disaster there are tweets about sheriff joe arpaio, tweets about sebastian gorka, there was politics going on last night. there was a white house donald trump news dump on a summer friday night where there was a disaster in america. >> reporter: absolutely. this was a case there was a big pipeline of news coming out of the white house separate from the hurricane planning that was going on. you talk about a couple of things happening simultaneously, some expected to clear the decks on a summer friday but also a time when quep the white houses many people are paying attention to the storm and the aftermath coming over the next many days as you just explained so in a political argument you can say it's a time do a lot of these things. sebastian gorka an aide who frequently appeared on television an ally of steve bannon, a far right nationalist, he was let go by the white house. he claims he resigned. white house official tells us he

did not resign, and is no longer working at the white house. so that's part of what appears to have been a chief john kelly purge of people that he didn't feel were in line with his direction and leadership of managing the staff at the white house. that's piece one. we also saw the president make the formal policy move to the pentagon about the transgender military ban so he's giving the secretary of defense six months to review what happens to those transgender members of different branches who are openly serving right now. what happens to their careers, and all new recruitment and payments for medically related sex, gender assignment surgery and so forth, all of that will stop. so that is a very controversial move and has drawn a lot of criticism. so that went over to the pentagon. and of course, we've got the arpaio pardon. now the president had been hinting at this when he was out in the field on tuesday. 'period in phoenix. he sort of rallied up the crowd,

talking about sheriff joe arpaio, who had served there for a quarter century in law enforcement and for most of that time has been a figure drawing a lot of criticism for racial profiling in the patrols used to try to combat illegal immigration but many say he was simply using discrimination and racial profiling to round up potential undocumented immigrants and then once those who were detained, they were put in harsh tent camps, so he's attracted lots of criticism. at the same time, there are those on the far right who believe he's been a tough law enforcement person, and they stood by him. of course immigration huge issue for president trump, and so he had signaled he would do this. one of the things that makes it so interesting, ali, is that typically pardons go through a department of justice process. the president's power on this is clear, but normally there are lots of channels where people review a potential pardon. it takes time. this conviction of federal

contempt of court conviction against arpaio happened just this summer and it is wiped out by the president's pardon. he called arpaio a person worthy of a presidential pardon. that is going to continue to have ramifications. you had both republican senators of arizona who often draw fire from the president saying this was improper and that the legal process should play out, and many democrats saying this is sanctioning and signaling that the president is supporting racial discrimination. >> kelly, let me just ask to you take the white house reporter off for a second and put your analyst hat on. i've been here a long time and know the story well. was the white house's thinking possibly if you do this not just on a summer friday night, when people are heading out to wherever they head out to on vacation, the news cycle tends to be slower which isn't true these days and in the middle of a natural disaster we'll cover it less, is that the point? >> reporter: well, we don't know exactly their thinking but you can make that argument that when

you have the absolute demand of coverage needing to focus on a disaster of this type, there's now a conversation sort of boxes and boxes on cable television about this presidential decision to pardon. it's also at a time where president trump doesn't have any managerial experience with natural disasters, so it draws our attention off that issue. he's tweeting about monitoring the storm and so forth, but you can certainly make an argument that this is a way to try to turn down attention on the arpaio pardon. ali? >> i think it's fair to say that isn't going to work. nbc's kelly o'donnell for us at the white house, because that's what we do. we cover these stories all the time. thanks, kelly. >> reporter: good to see you. ron nuremburg the mayor of san antonio. we spoke yesterday. mayor, you said yesterday you want to be a good neighbor to the rest of texas. you're getting some of this stuff yourself. you may be getting up to 20 inches of rain in total. what are the conditions in san antonio? >> well exactly and thank you

for having me. we have two events here in san antonio. one is we are a staging area for resources from other states and from the rest of the state of texas to help our neighbors in need. we're receiving evacuees. we have 1,000-plus people in shelters right now. we have many more than that, that made their way to san antonio. we're asking our own residents though to keep clear off the streets, so that we can make sure we get the evacuees in and our first responders have a clear path to do the work they need to do, but the conditions are deteriorating, which is more of a reason for residents if they don't need to travel to stay away from the roads, avoid low water crossings and so forth. we're equipped though. we're ready. we can handle this, and no one who is seeking shelter in the city of san antonio will be turned away. our first response is how can we help and as people begin to get in from the storm and seek shelter from the storm we are going to help them, whether

they're our own residents or whether they're hundreds of miles away, and we're going to help them restore their lives. >> that is excellent. i have always thought of san antonio as one of the most welcoming and beautiful cities in america, and the fact that you can play that role for your neighbors in texas is great. what are you suffering from there? what are the biggest problems? yesterday you and i talked about the riverwalk, we talked about drainage. what's happening in san antonio? >> well, again, these are challenges we anticipate. we've spun. our emergency operations center about a week ago almost, and the rains have begun. they're getting heavier. the winds are getting stronger, so it's very important that people if they don't need to travel to get off the road, stay at home here at the staging area, we've got 1,000-plus first responders and air and search and rescue teams from eight different states ready to be deployed as soon as conditions allow them to do their work but

we're ready to go. we've been through this before. we're a compassionate city. we know how to help our neighbors in need and we'll be ready with whatever mother nature brings. >> mayor, you in texas are known to be home rule places, mayors are the bosses, you had the governor declare a state of emergency, he called the president, the president declared, had a disaster declaration, i think the governor activated 700 national guard troops that may have increased in the last little while. are you getting contact from fema, the federal government? >> we are and they rely on us frankly to do the work that needs to get done. we know how to handle ourselves here locally. we are well coordinated. our big cities here in texas, and i got off the phone earlier yesterday from with the mayor of corpus christi, got a very nice phone call from our mayor in new orleans, miss landrieu, also showing solidarity.

of course the city of san antonio and new orleans our sister cities as it relates to our hurricane experience. so we're coordinated. we've got the experts here. we've got the compassion to care, no matter who you are. you will not be turned away. we will help our neighbors in need whoever they are. >> the compassion, the caring, the coordination, you are what makes america great in the face of these disasters. mayor ron nirenberg of san antonio, we will stay in close touch. we have heard the governor, governor abbott will be holding press conferences at 11:00 a.m. eastern, 12:45 is when that press conference is going to be. we'll of course stay on top of that for you. stand by, everyone. victoria, texas, may get nearly five feet of rain. i'm talking about five feet of rain. if i told you somewhere was getting five inches of rain that seems like a lot. we'll go live on the ground to victoria when we come back. thank you.

my name is valerie decker and i'm a troubleman for pg&e. i am a first responder to emergencies 24 hours a day, everyday of the year.

my children and my family are on my mind when i'm working all the time. my neighbors are here, my friends and family live here, so it's important for me to respond as quickly as possible and get the power back on. it's an amazing feeling turning those lights back on. be informed about outages in your area. sign up for outage alerts at pge.com/outagealerts. together, we're building a better california.

welcome back. i'm ali velshi. hurricane harvey is now a category 1 storm. it's still a hurricane, though. continues to batter east texas this morning. >> reporter: if they got a call for help, there is no way their officers can be out in the middle of this. >> reporter: oh my goodness, oh my goodness. we just got word it's a category 4 hurricane. i hope and pray that people evacuated. because if they did not, they are going to go through the worst night of that irlife. >> a hurricane here and it is imminent. >> hurricane force winds are going to penetrate well inland. >> reporter: this storm could kit a new path along the texas coast. >> reporter: right now we're getting hammered with the thunderstorm. we are really getting battered down here with this wind right now. >> reporter: some buildings have been obliterated. >> reporter: all eyes on the

skies to see how much water falls. >> reporter: there's little they could do to respond to the fires when they're also dealing with a hurricane. >> that's almost half a year's worth of rain for some of these areas in just about half a day. >> let's bring in nbc meteorologist bill karins right now for an update on what this looks like. bill? >> the rockport area is the area we don't know exactly how bad it is. it's daylight. we've had some pictures from the region. there were a bunch of storm chaser, hurricane chasers in the building that partially collapsed. they're going around and one of them 12 minutes ago said the emergency broadcast, this is jeff pietrowsky, well-known storm chaser holiday park beach, fulton, rockport, apartment buildings have collapsed. help is needed asap and he sent that to the national weather service in corpus christi, saying there are people there in collapsed structures, haven't gotten rescued yet. lot of people evacuated.

fire department in rockport, they have 10 to 12 volunteers that stayed behind and yet 10 to 12 people that are possibly going into apartment buildings trying to rescue people. that's not a lot of people and they have to be safe, too. can't have debris and stuff falling on them. the rockport area which is the town of about 10,000 people was under a mandatory evacuation. we just haven't heard yet how many did evacuate or how many stayed behind. if lives have been lost this could be the area. >> let's go right to the mayor of rockport right now. he's on the line. c.j. wax. mayor wax, have you heard these reports? >> yes, i have. >> what can you tell us about them? >> about what you'd expect from a category 4 hurricane arriving at your front door with 130 knot winds. there's widespread devastation. we had businesses and homes that are completely destroyed, and certainly a number of lives that have been disrupted

significantly. my team that was in the public works center was hunkered down. i heard some of your coverage prior to this. we had about 26, 20 people in there, in a hurricane resistant building that had just left that structure for the first time, about 30 minutes ago. we still have significant wind and rain events going on. we have cross-functional teams that are out trying to assess the damage and determine what is needed to begin the recovery process, but it is still tropical storm-force winds and blinding rain, and now the bad part is, this storm is stalling, and it is then going to return back toward the north and east, which will put rockport on the right-hand side again as it exits and goes back out to the gulf, if it stays on that long. we're anticipating high winds for the remainder of today, and

flooding rains possibly as long as tuesday. we are a community of 10,000 people, when this all began. we do not know how many people have remained behind. we did have a refuge of last resort that had about 24 people in it. we don't know how many tried to shelter in place. we hope they are safe. they do not know. i do not have any confirmed deaths but that may be because i've been unable to get the teams out to assess. >> so you're saying they first got out about 30 minutes ago. what is the power situation as far as you know? what is the situation in terms of being able to get around the roads either as a result of flooding or trees down or power lines down? can your teams make it around rockport? >> all of their utilities are disrupted, cellular service

is -- major portions of cellular service is disrupted. internet of course is down. all of those utilities are significantly disrupted are significantly disrupted throughout the community. other areas around us, i have no reports on and have not been in contact outside of anybody on my own team. >> i heard a report in your high school in town has received significant damage of the structures. can you confirm that and do you have any other high schools? is that the only one in town? >> this is one consolidated high school and the middle school is adjacent to it, and then we have three other primary learning centers. one of the primary centers was our refuge of last resort for our citizens. our second one we could have used if necessary. the high school sustained damage. i have that report from their security forces. we also had a hotel where a wall

collapsed, but those are -- there's significant structural damage across the entire community. >> mayor, have you heard any reports that your forces, your volunteer fire department and police are going to get outside assistance? is there any word of the national guard or fema or the coast guard sending people in? >> i have not heard yet, and i cannot confirm this, but i am told that the roads leading in to rockport are currently flooded and impassable. >> if you get help, it has to be from the air or the sea? >> right now, and coming in from the sea is not a good idea. >> we've heard from our crews the same thing, that you can't get in. i want to give our viewers a sense of where rockport is. according to national weather service, that would have been about as close to the point at which this hurricane made land fall. >> the eye of the storm went on top of our city at 11:30 last

night. >> mayor, there's a bunch of towns south of you down the peninsula. have you been in contact with any of those mayors? >> i have not. >> okay. we wish you the best. i know your guys are out there risking their lives and trying to save lives. we wish you the best. >> thank you very much. >> that's the mayor of rockport. sounds like it has been hit very badly. we're trying to get as much information out of rockport as possible. if you have information, let us know. you can tweet me. we have some contact with rescue authorities in the area. if you know anybody is trapped, let us know. we will try and at least let people know they're trapped. as the mayor said, it is hard to move around there. >> i'm interested. i haven't heard any reports or saying anything on social media about what the military has done. i know after katrina went inland, we had marine vehicles that went into southern mississippi behind it. i haven't heard any stuff about

that with this storm. >> let's bring kerry sanders in in victoria, texas. kerry, which is another situation where in theory every time we look at you it's supposed to get better, not worse because this thing hit 12 hours ago, and yet, it continues to look remarkably windy, and i see a lot of rain around you. >> reporter: yeah. it's still raining. i guess that's what bill has been telling us. victoria is going to see this for days. we positioned ourselves in a more commercial area on the other side of a neighborhood. you can see what the winds have done here. we have a break in the winds. i can still hear those scary sounds of debris being picked up. this looks like it was a garage area for what is, i think a shed company here, because there's so many sheds here that they build. some of them falling apart. others holding together. the real threat, of course, is the debris. these pieces of metal when they rip off can go airborne and

become dangerous like missiles. while we have a break in the winds and even if it looks windy to you, it's been windier today. it's the amount of rain that's falling. the best way is to look at my boots. you can see the water is ankle deep, and the ground is saturated. so if as bill has been telling us, we're going to see the kind of rain for days here that's going to be upwards according to local forecasts, up to 37 inches, the problem is going to be the nearby rivers. the guadeloupe and the san antonio rivers, both of those are going to get flooded and get flooded badly. that means there will be a lot of water spilling into neighborhoods. this is the 100-year flood that is always on the maps and most people don't pay attention to. if your mortgage company doesn't require you to have flood insurance, you probably don't have it, and it's only after an event like this that people begin to learn that homeowner's

insurance doesn't cover a flood. as we project forward, people who have an opportunity once the strong winds are gone and it's now just a long-going rain event, they need to protect the items they can and get them up high or get precious items out. those flood waters cannot only be incredibly damaging but it can also be increditfully expensive if you don't have flood insurance. right now things are letting up. i guess bill could take a look at the radar and tell us if we're going to see more of the heavy gusts, but while this is a category 1 over victoria, i felt gusts that seemed like they were well into the 115, 120 miles per hour gusts. i know we're talking about sustained winds and a sustained wind of 85 to 90, but it's been a brutal morning. folks are anxious. they have been scared. they hear these sounds. they have no power. they're not sure what's going to

happen next other than the fact they're hearing from us rain, rain, and more rain. >> it is psychologically grating, even if you know the worst has passed to hear the rain and wind hitting you at those speeds. most people are used to 25 miles per hour winds, but at 80 miles per hour, that's not what normal people go through on a regular basis, and it hurts you psych longically to be standing in it. kerry, thank you for your great reporting. i'm going to come back and find you as we continue to report on this. millions of people in the path of the storm. we're not going anywhere. we've awaiting the brand newed a advisory from the national weather center. coverage continues. stay with us. so being cool comes naturally. hmm. i can't decide if this place is swag or bling. it's pretzels. word. ladies, you know when you switch, you get my bomb-diggity discounts automatically.

♪ no duh, right? [ chuckles ] sir, you forgot -- keep it. you're gonna need it when i make it precipitate. what, what? what?

good morning. breaking news coverage of hurricane harvey continues. let's get started. >> we have been here for quite a while. the eye. you get a break with the absolutely unrelenting winds. >> we're being hit by a pretty significant band from harvey. >> my gosh, what a fix here in texas for days to come. almost getting blasted back to the stone age. it's going to rain and rain. it's not going to stop. and it may be days before it ends up finally stopping. >> the wind is still blowing. the gusts sometimes upwards of 100 miles per hour. >> today is just the first of many difficult days ahead. >> and we now have a new update on harvey from the national hurricane center.

it is still a hurricane. it has been sitting on land for 12 hours. this is almost unheard of. millions of people remain in the path of the storm. this afternoon at 12:45 p.m. eastern, texas governor will give the first news conference since the storm hit land. president trump issues a disaster declaration for texas. our meteorologists are stationed in the storm zone to bring you the latest from the ground. i want to start with our nbc meteorologist bill karins. he was here with us last night and again this morning. you just got the first advisory? >> just as hopeless and life threatening for areas like victoria, texas. it hasn't changed. it's category 1. 75 miles per hour. the important thing to note, look at the movement. it's now moving to the north at 2 miles per hour. we walk on average as humans at 3 miles per hour. this thing is just barely

drifting about 25 miles west of victoria. we want to get to the forecast path. this is going to cause the problems out there in the days ahead. and here it is. the new forecast path from the national hurricane center. west of victoria with a category 1. weakens to a tropical storm as it drifts toward san antonio. stops tomorrow. comes back down to the south, and then as a tropical depression still then heads back to the north. that would be thursday at 11:00 a.m. it doesn't matter what the intensity is for rainfall as long as there's a tropical system to suck the moisture off the gulf and put rain down, we're going to get epic flooding. it's not the winds. thursday at 11:00 a.m., we could be sitting here. >> i haven't seen one like this. stand by. i want to bring in the joe fryer, nbc's reporter from galveston. joe, how are things where you are? >> reporter: hey.

right now we have a rare break from what has been a relentless pelting sideways rain throughout most of the morning. we've been under a flood watch warning -- flash flood warning most of the morning. and you can tell why. we've been getting a ton of rain. galveston knew the winds wouldn't be as powerful here. we knew the storm surge wasn't going to be as high here as in other areas. they've been worrying now that the storm has gotten to the coast and is sitting here, it's dumping a lot of rain. we had so much rain, the type of rain you would expect a lot of flooding. imagining this rain is going to go on for days and days is what has people here concerned. here's the thing. the flash flood warning extends up into houston and beyond. a lot of people thought there was really no reason to evacuate here. they would just be moving into another city that would also be experiencing flooding and there they wouldn't have a place to stay or maybe wouldn't know

anyone. that's why a lot of people decided to stay and hunker down in galveston. also a lot of people who live in low lying areas want to keep an eye on their homes. they have water and generators and food. i was at the target yesterday. most of the water is sold out. all the bread was sold out. people are preparing to try and keep an eye on things to see what happens to their homes. you can't have a conversation with anyone here without hearing them talk about hurricane ike. it hit the area in 2008. the bulk of the hurricane hit here and caused damage. in the aftermath, there was a good deal of flooding. you'll see markers on some of the businesses in some areas that show how high the flood waters got. people are keep ang eye on that, because they don't want the waters to reach that high or higher here. that would cause a lot of issues. this is a narrow island community. you're not just dealing with the water that's coming from the gulf. they have a sea wall to try to keep that water at bay. then it's the other side of the island where the water can start

to flood. not to mention some of the creeks and streams that can overflow quickly. that's what they're keep ang eye on. >> thank you for your great coverage. we'll continue to check in with you. let's go to corpus christi. maya rodriguez is there. the sun has been up for a few hours. what are we learning? >> reporter: i had trouble hearing you there. all right. well, about 24 hours ago we were out here on the sea wall. this is the famous sea wall that lines corpus christi. i don't know if you recall, but the water was not only over the walkway but over the step. what a difference 24 hours makes. you can see right now the water is very calm, especially compared to the swells we saw yesterday. things are beginning to get back to normal here. a lot of people decided to shelter in place here in corpus christi. they did not evacuate. there was not a mandatory evacuation here, and we've been

seeing a lot of traffic on the roads. that's not to say all is well. there are some downed power lines around. there are about 300,000 people along the texas gulf coast. many of them here in corpus christi who don't have power at this hour, and the city is under a precautionary boil water oil. the city is asking people, especially those are who are young or the elderly or who have compromised immune systems to make sure that they do not cook or drink or brush their teeth or wash their face with the water, because they are not sure what hurricane harvey did to this particular city's water system. and until they can test the water and make sure that everything is safe and sound, they're asking everyone here to just boil it as a precaution. again, i've covered a number of category 4 hurricanes. one of the ones is hurricane charlie. we have not seen that level of damage here at all. and that is a bit surprising. but that is good news. >> that is having to do a little bit with how the storm went.

a couple of miles closer to you, and that would have been the biggest population center to be hit by the storm. we've been talking about the damage in rockport. had that intensity hit corpus chris christi, we would be having a different story there. maya, thank you. let's go to jose live in victoria, texas. you are still getting lots of this. there's still a lot of wind and rain considering this thing made land fall more than 12 hours ago. >> reporter: yeah. as a matter of fact, as if cued by mother nature right now, it's one of the strong gusts hitting us right now. >> wow. >> reporter: it's been like this for hours. we were hearing the storm is moving at 2 miles per hour. at 3:00 in the morning we asked how far is the brunt of the storm from victoria in sn they said 30 miles from here. we asked two hours later and it

was 28 miles from here. something skrus crajust crashed us. the winds have been debilitating the structures. there's structures of steal or zinc and they've been pealing off. all this area here has lost power. we've seen now over the last 15 minutes some crews out, electric company crews out, but this is going to continue like this for hours. and that is extraordinarily dangerous. because a lot of the structures have been compromised, and this rain is just brutal. let me step aside and let you hear and be a part of this. this is a level one hurricane that came in at a level four. but i have to tell you this is -- these wind gusts and this

rain is just -- it's just cutting. it's horizontal, and sometimes it comes in vertical and does circles. a big concern, of course, tornadoes, as this storm progresses, and flooding. flooding, flooding, flooding, is what everyone here has been worried about. back to you. >> i would love it if you stood on the hard side of something at least, because you're right. the wind is changing and you mentioned tornadoes. it's sort of hard to believe for people who don't live in hurricane-proned areas, that you can have tornadoes inside of a hurricane or alongside hurricanes, and the forces of those can be so much more severe. you're seeing the stuff flying around and the stuff coming off the buildings. be careful. we'll continue to check in with you. gabe gutierrez is live on the phone from rockport. we were just talking to the mayor of rockport.

there are buildings that are collapsed. there are people who are trapped in rockport, texas, and they can't seem to get help. what do you know about what's going on there? >> reporter: well, we just arrived here, and actually saw some of the damage and then had to come out to the outskirts of town, because the communication barriers, it's just -- it's just too large. the cell phone towers are down, and it's just really difficult to make any sort of phone call out here. but we did have one cameraman who was in there and says city blocks are decimated. brick structures collapsed, and just a scene of devastation in rockport. it's only about 30 miles northeast of corpus christi, but it took us a better part of the morning to get here. we couldn't go over the main bridge from corpus christi to this area. we had to go the long way around and pass some difficult roads. we were at one point in taft,

texas, a neighborhood with a lot of power lines down, a lot of trees down. and then had to head further inland. again, we made our way to rockport, texas. this is where the eye of the storm hit. and bringing winds of, sustained winds of 125, 130 miles per hour. right now local officials are assessing the damage. we saw some police cars pulling into town. we saw damaged structures at the local courthouse. it has suffered some damage. so has the local public high school, and right now there's no word on exactly how many people were injured. we did hear a report from one of our local affiliates that spent at least part of the night in a hotel in town that was supposed to be -- supposed to withstand the category 5 hurricane. we were told by that affiliate that the walls collapsed. they're okay, but it's been difficult -- >> the walls in a hotel gave

that was built to sustain a hurricane, a category 5 hurricane? >> reporter: that's what we were told. we've been trying to get ahold of that reporter. i'm told by our local affiliate that it's one out of austin. they're okay, we're told. the crew is okay, but there was quite a harrowing story overnight that is emerging. they're not the only ones. anyone who spent the night in this town had a difficult night. the mayor here and local authorities c this was one of the towns along the gulf coast that issued mandatory evacuations. the mayor on friday in strong grim language urged people to get out and get out now. it's been difficult, the overnight hours, the fire department reached a point that they couldn't make it out to any emergency calls. the conditions were too difficult. >> do you see any emergency vehicles around you? are the streets clear enough to

get around? >> reporter: to tell you where we are, we had pulled into town and began to see some of that destruction pretty much everywhere we turned there were downed trees, some damaged homes. couldn't get all the way in because we wanted to come out and alert our news desk that we had made it into town. and i explained the cell phone service here is virtually nonexistent. we made it to the outskirts of town by the freeway. we're about to go in and see more damage. our cameraman is saying multiple city blocks are decimated. brick structures collapsed. we heard earlier reports of people trapped inside one of the building. i can't confirm that at this point. we're trying to learn more information from local officials as we get further in. >> all right. gabe, stand by. i want to bring in the mayor of rockport. we were just talking to him.

c.j. wax, mayor wax, since we last talked, what's the handle that you have on people who did not evacuate rockport? it was under a mandatory evacuation, but some people choose not to do that. what do you know of? >> approximately an hour ago since the eye of the storm passed over the city around 11:30 last night. there is widespread devastation. the hotel wall that fell in, that's way. we had a description of major damage at the high school and a number of businesses and homes that are either completely destroyed. catastrophic damage. as of right now, i do not have any confirmed deaths, but mostly because teams have not been able to fully assess the damage. they left about an hour ago, have not yet returned. are trying to begin to assess the damage and start the

recovery process, but the wind is still blowing at tropical storm values, and there is still rain. we already checked. when the flooding comes down from the interior as the storm stalls. it looks like toward the coast. >> mayor, when things are normal you got about 10,000 people there. do you have any sense of how many people other than emergency workers are left in rockport right now? >> we are very concerned about their safety. we have cross functional teams including ems, fire department, police, public works. they are small groups traveling in small and with the guidance. your safety is paramount, because we can't help anyone if

those people aren't taken care of. this is the first time that we felt safe to depart with caution. and we are hoping they'll return here shortly to give us another estimate of what has truly happened. >> all right. we'll stay in close touch with you. we pray for those in rockport and hope that those who remain are safe. we have pictures of some severe damage in rockport, texas, including collapsed buildings. we'll stay on top of that with mayor c.j. wax and gabe gutierr gutierrez. we learned victoria, texas may get up to five feet of rain. our special coverage of hurricane harvey continues after this quick break. stay with us. (vo) more "doing chores for mom"

per roll bounty is more absorbent, so the roll can last 50% longer than the leading ordinary brand. so you get more "life" per roll. bounty the quicker picker upper

year with the new sleep number 360 smart bed. it senses and automatically adjusts on both sides. the new 360 smart bed is part of our biggest sale of the year where all beds are on sale. and right now save 50% on the labor day limited edition bed, plus free home delivery. ends saturday! it's our back to school beeone cent evente. at office depot office max. 10 pack pens, one cent. composition notebooks,scissors, and plastic folders all one cent each! hurry to office depot office max. ♪taking care of business.

you see it for yourself. we're being hit by a pretty significant band from harvey as it's making land fall. we're here at the bay. the bay is in front of me. and the storm surge is pushing water from the bay this way. >> that was brandon walker from nbc affiliate kprc has hurricane harvey made land fall. a lot of brave reporters who are bringing the story, and a lot who didn't heed the mandatory warnings. joining us live on the phone is rick florez. did you have a mandatory warning in victoria? >> yes, we did. and it was given out yesterday

to get out, but we stayed here. >> because you texans are like that. >> we're tough. >> how did it go? how did it play off? >> well, it went very well until the power went out this morning at 2:06:00 a.m. we also caught a lot of wind. it was very scary last night. my daughter was upset. she's 15 and she was upset with us being here. my wife and i just hunkered down with her, and we just said it's going to be okay. when the sun came up, we could see what happened. there's a lot of tree damage. we also had some damage on the roof where the shingles are flying all over the place. flooding is minor. i don't know if you can hear that, but we still have high wind gusts. >> we just saw a picture of a tree go down. in a hurricane you sometimes see a tree break or things like that. but what you've got in victoria,

you're not even close to the amount of rain you're going to get over the course of the next couple of days, but our reporters keep telling us the ground is saturated, so it's going to take a lot less wind to drop a beautiful oak from victoria than it would under normal circumstances. >> absolutely, and we also had some pole damage, power pole damage in the front yard. it's leaning on top of the stop sign right now. so it's kind of scary. >> rick, we talked to your son richard a little earlier who also didn't leave. tell me about this decision not to leave, and tell me what your options are now if power doesn't come back soon. >> well, our options right now for power is we're trying to hold on, hopefully everything will be okay. we've got plenty of united states to ice things down. our reason for not leaving, my reason was one, this house is over 100 years old. it's withstood the challenges of hurricanes in the past, and we were pretty sure that this was going to be okay this time, and

so far it's worked out in our favor. >> all right. good to know you're proving a point. your son was saying, though, he's been through a few hurricanes, and that this one feels worse as a young man, so he hasn't been around for that long, but he says this one feels worse. >> yes. this one is really bad. we've stood with him and his sisters. we had claudette, and claudette was not even close to this bad. i was a young kid when carla came through, and that was -- i don't remember a whole lot other than rooftop on top of our fence line when we got home. that was caused by a tornado that had hit at the time. >> are you in a position to get in a car and leave if you needed to if your power wasn't coming back and you're running low on food and water? >> yes, sir, we're good to go in case that happens. >> we'll stay in close touch with you. thanks for talking with us. we hope you and your family keep safe. now that you've made your point,

the next time there's a hurricane, get out. >> absolutely. >> we'll continue to cover hurricane harvey. the good news is that we have not had word of loss of life. the bad news is that this thing isn't going anywhere, and it is still more than 12 hours after making land fall, a hurricane. you're watching msnbc. what powers the digital world. communication. that's why a cutting edge university counts on centurylink

to keep their global campus connected. and why a pro football team chose us to deliver fiber-enabled broadband to more than 65,000 fans. and why a leading car brand counts on us to keep their dealer network streamlined and nimble. businesses count on communication, and communication counts on centurylink. four seconds on the clock, championship on the line. erin "the sharpshooter" shanahan fakes left. she's outside of the key, she shoots... ...she scores! uh... yes, erin, it is great time to score a deal. we need to make room for the 2018 models. relive the thrill of beating the clock.

the volkswagen model year end event. hurry in for a $1,500 in available bonuses and 0% apr for 60 months on a new 2017 jetta or passat. and life's beautiful moments.ns get between you flonase outperforms the #1 non-drowsy allergy pill. it helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause symptoms. pills block one and 6 is greater than 1. flonase changes everything. so find a venus smooth that contours to curves, the smoother the skin, the more comfortable you are in it. flexes for comfort, and has a disposable made for you. skin smoothing venus razors. i expect a lifetime guarantee. and so should you. on struts, brakes, shocks. does he turn everything to gold? not everything. at midas we're always a touch better. book an appointment at midas.com

it's hammering the area. i think the best way to demonstrate what the winds have done already is to look at the oak tree which is split here falling two directions, going on to the roof. this house -- >> i've never seen this before. >> multiple floods are possible for the city of houston. we just don't know how this is all going to play out. >> that's sort of been the theme of this. we don't know how it's going to

play out. it is a massive storm. it landed as a category 4. it is more than 12 hours after land fall and it's still a hurricane. it hasn't become a tropical storm, and it's not going to dissipate and go inland. it's looping around. it's going to hit some of these towns a second time. kerry sanders has low center of gravity, but it's windy. that part of texas is known for old, solid oak trees. you know the metaphors. there's nothing more solid than an oak tree. oak trees are breaking and falling and being uprooted from the ground. this is a serious hurricane in the midst of it, donald trump pulled a few things last night on the expectation that we would all be covering this storm, and he pardoned the arizona sheriff, former arizona sheriff, joe arpoia. houston was not in the direct

path of this hurricane, but it's the nation's fourth largest city and feeling the effects of hurricane harvey with flash flood warnings for much of the houston metro area. it's expecting a drenching up to 35 inches in spots. the most optimistic view is that it's going to get 20 inches. 35 inches would be two-thirds of the rainfall that that city receives in a whole year, but worse than that, houston's had a lot of rain. this has been their rainiest season in a long time. this place is already suffering from drainage problems. it's notoriously vulnerable to hurricanes. the last storm to effect the area was hurricane rita almost 12 years ago to the day. it resulted from 100 deaths from the gridlock alone. joining me live is al green of houston. congressman, good to see you again. normally we don't have occasions like this to talk. but this is a dangerous one. our people in houston taking it

seriously that that flood, it's not going to be the wind in houston, but the flooding that can be a problem. >> thank you for having me. i'd like to express my concern and sympathies for those in direct path of the land fall. people in houston are taking it seriously. i've been out and about, and people have been in the stores. they were stocking up as they should. and i believe they're stocking up for the long hall, at least five days. people in houston are off the streets. i was out to make sure i had a first-hand observation of what's going on. and there were very few people out there. people in houston understand what it is like to go through a storm of this magnitude. probably not specifically this one, but we went through ike, and we've been through others, and after ike and many of the damages that are still lingering, people in houston are taking this seriously. but i'm still encouraging people in houston to stay off the streets. go out only ifs the necessary.

please look in on your friends who may be sick, or maybe disabled. look in on people who may need some help, more than once, i might add, and look out for your pets. look out for all the things near and dear to you. i hate to tell you to do this, but please, do an inventory of your valuables. it's easy to do now with cell phones, with cameras, because if after this is over we have to take measures to restore you, we want to have what's needed to make sure that you get what you deserve. >> right. and we saw that after katrina, that unfortunately, it brings out some of the worst in folks. in houston, the governor suggested that houston residents leave town. there was no evacuation orders and others were saying shelter in place, don't move around. in houston you have so many people and so many cars. i think you texans have two cars were every human.

it becomes hard to evacuate a place like houston. what's the right thing for people from houston or people who live in the greater metro area? there are 6 million or 7 million of you down there. what's the right thing to do now? >> yes. thank you for allowing me to address this issue. the mayor and the county judge met yesterday. i was privileged to be able to be with them. at that meeting there was a discussion about this circumstance there on the ground here, and at the press event they had, they had the person who manages these types of emergencies. they had the police chief, the sheriff, and there was an agreement that it would be better for people to shelter in place, because it wasn't wind that people would be trying to escape. it was really and is water. in houston it doesn't take much for us to have flash floods. and this circumstance, this storm, this hurricane, this monster is being measured in

winds but also in the amount of rain. when you measure rain in feet as opposed to inches, and you measure duration of time in days as opposed to hours, that is a formula for a catastrophe. so we are encouraging, again, people, stay out of harm's way. shelter in place, and do what you can to look in on others who may wibe in harm's way. while i was out, i saw people who are still living in circumstances that are unacceptable. they are camping under bridges, overpasses, and we do want to do all we can to get them in. but i also know having talked to some of the persons from time to time, that this is something that they refuse to extricate themselves from. there are places in houston for people to go. in this country we give liberties that can sometimes allow people to be of harm to themselves, but my hope is we

can get as many off the street as we can. >> congressman, it's good to talk to you again under not great circumstances. once this is behind us, we can get back to talking politics. >> i'll look forward to it. thank you so much. >> congressman al green in houston. eve within a major hurricane hitting texas, there are still headlines this morning. they are political. coming out of the white house. yet another member of the west wing staff is gone. kelly o'donnell joins me now. i know i sound like a broken record, but it happened on a friday night in summer, normally a time when -- and i'm a business, economic journalist. if a company tried that, they would get called out for trying to bury the news by doing it on a friday night. but this was the white house, and there was a category 4 storm hitting america. and the white house came out with relatively important news last night. >> reporter: that's true. and i think that it has become sort of a washington expectation that on the friday of holiday

weekends we're on pins and needles at 6:00 thinking there's going to be this news dump, as it's been called. here at the trump white house we've seen a lot of that. fridays have been eventful here. and this week was no different. we had a couple of key things happening. on the personnel front, sebastian gorka is out. he had been a part of the national security apparatus here advising the president. we didn't have a sense of his specific portfolio. he comes from the far conservative right, the nationalist wing in the orbit of steve bannon, the chief strategist who a week ago was also pushed out. this is a realignment by chief k kelly on the staff. expected that gorka would not survive, but notable. then you have the pardon of the sheriff in arizona. this is the kind of like that stands out. it's the first time the president is using the authority

to pardon. it did not go through the normal channels of a review at the department of justice, and it comes a few days after the president was, himself, in arizona with a rally crowd, not a white house event, a campaign event. so he forecasts that he was going to do this. and he did. and a glowing letter from president trump in his announcement about the pardon saying that the sheriff is worthy of a pardon. others say he has used racial profiling in his border patrols. he has been a get tough hard liner on immigration for such a long time. he was really the face of that movement before donald trump ever contemplated politics. he's now 85. arpaio is something we thought was coming, but it fell like a thunder clap. >> gorka, what was his role?

he was a deputy advisor to the president. he was supposed to specialize in terrorism. when we asked for somebody, this is a world you live in, but when stephanie and i asked to interview somebody from the white house, they gave us sebastian gorka. it was after the mosque bombing in minnesota, and we had never heard this before. there were all sorts of theories about why people bomb or threaten religious structures. he thought it might be an inside job or somebody from the left trying to turn people against the right. it becomes very difficult when the white house puts people out there to be on the media, in the media, which seemed to have been gorka's main job and they say things like that and people like us are put in a position to have to challenge them. >> reporter: that was the role we saw him in. he's able to hit hot buttons that riles up some of the president's base, and certainly

he's a confident television speaker. it seems that was his lane in this white house. he had a deputy assistant to the president. that's not the most senior staff, but he became a well-known in conservative circles were being outspoken, which is an understatement, and he would be the person put out on television as a surrogate for the white house. and so in a john kelly world, that is not the kind of structure he wants in this white house. it was expected that he would be out. there's two stories on this. gorka says he resigned, and he published a kind of a lengthy resignation letter with, again, sharp-tongued sort of criticism of this white house. the white house doesn't always do this, especially in personnel matters, a senior white house official said he did not resign, but he is no longer at the white house. >> right. it was tricky. >> implication, he was fired.

>> was his security clearance revoked in we've heard a lot of stories since last night. the reason i'm talking to you, kelly, you're there. it's a saturday. we work all the time. there's no amount of nonsense you can throw our way at any time, including if there is a category 4 hurricane that is going to prevent us from covering all the news all the time. that's what we do. that's what you do, kelly o'donnell. thank you for joining me. >> reporter: good to be with you. >> we're returning to our hurricane coverage nec. later this hour we'll talk with the man who led south florida through the devastating hurricane andrew. you're watching msnbc.

oscar mayer deli fresh ham has no added nitrates, nitrites or artificial preservatives. now it's good for us all. like those who like. sweet those who prefer heat. sfx - a breath of air and those who just love meat. oscar mayer deli fresh. sweet!

and life's beautiful moments.ns get between you flonase outperforms the #1 non-drowsy allergy pill. it helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause symptoms. pills block one and 6 is greater than 1. flonase changes everything. welcome back. hurricane harvey is now a category 1 storm. it is battering east texas right now. it remains a hurricane, though. it is not actually yet a

tropical storm. the governor of texas warned residents moments ago to watch out for rapidly rising waters. that rain, that historic rain continues to fall. we spoke live with the mayor of rockport, texas who says there is widespread catastrophic destruction in his town. buildings have collapsed. here's what some of our reporters have been facing. >> if they got a call for help, there's no way their officers could be out in the middle of this. >> oh, my goodness. we got word. it's a category 4 hurricane. i hope and pray the people evacuated. if they did not, they are going to go through the worst night of their life. >> the hurricane here, and it is imminent. >> hurricane-force winds are going to penetrate well inland. >> it could cut a new path along the texas coast. >> we're getting hammered with a thunderstorm. >> we're really getting battered

down with the wind. >> all eyes are on the skies to see how much water falls. >> there's very little they could do to respond to the fires when they're also dealing with a hurricane. >> that's almost half a year's worth of rain for some of these areas in just about half a day. >> let me give you some perspective. i have covered seven hurricanes and never before have i been in a hurricane for 12 hours. this hurricane made land fall more than 12 hours ago. and it remains a hurricane. it is slow-moving. it is standing above texas, continuing to batter it. moments ago we heard from nbc's kerry sanders in a hard hit victoria, texas. >> it's still raining. victoria is going to see this for days. we positioned ourselves in a bit of a more commercial area on the other side of a neighborhood. you can see what the winds have done here. there's a break in the winds.

i can still hear the scary sounds of debris being picked up. this looks like it was a garage area for what is i think a shed company here, because there's so many sheds here that they build. some of them falling apart. others sort of holding together. the real threat, of course, is the debris. these pieces of metal when they rip off can go airborne and become dangerous like missiles. the other thing is while we have a break in the winds, and even if it looks windy to you, it's been windier today, is the amount of rain that's falling. look down here at my boots, and you can see the water is ankle deep, and the ground is saturated. so if as bill has been telling us, we're going to see the kind of rain for days here that's going to be upwards according to local forecasts, up to 37 inches, the problem we're going to see is the nearby

rivers. so the guadeloupe, and the san antonio rivers. both of those, they're going to get flooded, and they're going to get flooded badly. that means there's going to be a lot of water spilling into neighborhoods. this is the 100-year flood that is always on the maps and most people don't really pay attention to. if your mortgage company doesn't require you to have flood insurance, you probably don't have flood insurance. it's only after an event like this that people begin to learn homeown homeowner's insurance doesn't cover floods. once the strong winds are gone and it's a long-going rain event, people need to protect the items they can and get them up high or get their most precious items out. because those flood waters cannot only be incredibly damaging but it can also be incredibly expensive if you don't have flood insurance. right now things are letting up. i guess bill could take a look at the radar and tell us if we're going to see more of the heavy gusts.

while this is a category 1 over victoria, i felt gusts that seemed like they were well into the 115, 120 miles per hour gusts. we're talking about sustained winds, somewhere around 85 or 90. within that it's been a brutal morning. folks are airngs. folks have been scared. they hear sounds and have no power. they're not sure what is going to happen next other than the fact that they are hearing from us. rain, rain, and more rain. >> and just to that reference of power, we're getting reports in now. at least 300,000 people without power. but these reports are incomplete, because as we spoke to the mayor of rockport, in some cases it's only been within the last hour that emergency workers can get out into the roads and evaluate the situation. we know at least 300,000 people are without power. the only blessing is it's not cold. but it sure is wet. let's bring in bill karins right now. what's your update? >> the big update is just on the

rainfall and who is most at risk now and who is going to be most at risk over the next five to six days. you see the spinning motion. that's the gusty winds and the heavy rain around victoria. we get isolated reports of flooding. and then we have a fire hose coming in off the gulf with the lightning strikes. that is active lightning strikes. one report of a tornado that did damage outside of houston this morning. we're watching galveston. they were saying i thought we weren't going to get hit that hard. they have sideways winds and thunderstorms and tornado warnings. it's continuing this morning. flash flooding, in the fire hose which is north of houston. we were concerned it would be over houston all day. right now it's shifted barely north. >> that's galveston through the houston shipping channel. it's where refineries are and pipelines go in. tornadoes are very dangerous around there. there's infrastructure that can hold out with a strong hurricane

and winds which they're not getting over there, but not from tornadoes. >> every tropical system is different. some do a lot of tornadoes, some don't. they're strong enough usually to do damage, flip a car. they're not going to wipe a town off a map. we mentioned the cruise ships that are stopped. i have it on our weather one computer, i have a view of the gulf of mexico. of course on the far left we have harvey which is the big storm over texas. there's also that thunderstorm and that mess there off of fort myers south of the tampa area around sarasota. it's not named yet. barely off the east coast. between these two systems and storms, the water is a mess in the gulf. people can't get to their ports where they want to go. 20 different cruise ships can't get to where they need to go. they're kind of floating and waiting to see where they can

get people. i guess we said they were stranded before. if you're stranded anywhere, a cruise ship doesn't sound like a bad place to be. >> stand by. i'll going to talk live with the man who knows hurricanes better than anyone else. he led south hurricanes better anything else. he led south florida through andrew. you're watching live coverage here on msnbc. not this john smith. or this john smith. or any of the other hundreds of john smiths that are humana medicare advantage members. no, it's this john smith. who we paired with a humana team member to help address his own specific health needs. at humana, we take a personal approach to your health, to provide care that's just as unique as you are. no matter what your name is. heri think i might burst..... totally immersed weekenders. whatever kind of weekender you are, there's a hilton for you.

book your weekend break direct with hilton.com and join the summer weekenders. and life's beautiful moments.ns get between you flonase outperforms the #1 non-drowsy allergy pill. it helps block 6 key inflammatory substances that cause symptoms. pills block one and 6 is greater than 1. flonase changes everything.

all right. right now floodwaters are rising in texas as hurricane harvey dumps more rain. some estimates say 5 feet of rain could fall. i'm like only 5 feet, that's a lot of rain. catastrophic damage -- i'm not, i'm 5'8". i'm 5'10". catastrophic damage along the coast of texas, strong winds ripping homes apart and businesses. harvey is spawning, as bill karins just told us, damaging tornados as well. let's bring in bryan norcross, the weather channel's senior hurricane specialist.

this guy has truly, truly seen it all, including andrew. so you've seen more of this. the rest of us have seen we've never seen a hurricane moving this slowly, dumping so much rain where the rain is more damaging than the wind. what is this like, bryan? >> this is like nothing we've ever seen before. hurricanes don't happen that terribly often, thankfully. the closest analogy that i can think of here is actually a tropical storm, it was tropical storm allison back in 2001. it went up to north of houston, looped around and came back down. it was an epic flood. well, the rainfall in allison is less than our forecast for houston with this storm. so folks in houston know allison very well, they know what happened and they need to be thinking allison plus in terms of preparing for what's going to happen there over the next five days. >> the rain is supposed to continue. this is the issue, certainly for houston, which is the biggest population area, population center in the area. we're talking about 25 inches

there, 20, 25 inches, some say 40 inches in some places. let's just talk about that. obviously these places are not built for that kind of drainage, but ultimately doesn't the water just all go away and things are okay? >> well, what happens is, you know, houston or most cities have a tremendous amount of pavement. the water is not going into the pavement. whatever falls on the pavement ends up into some drainage ditch. and then the water comes from up the hillsides, ends up into a drainage ditch. so in houston so much of that city is drained by the buffalo bayou, which is a drainage ditch which goes right to downtown houston and eventually out into galveston bay. but you have rivers all over this part of texas, and they are all forecast to go into flood stage and most into major flood stage. 82 different rain gauges in here all forecast to go to major flood stage. i've never seen anything -- i don't think anybody has ever seen any kind of forecast like

this on such a wide scale for so much rain and so much flooding. so anybody near anything low needs to get to high ground. that's the bottom line. >> thanks very much for your perspective on it. we are going to keep on covering this, because it is not even close to over. we're not even halfway done. it remains a hurricane. albeit a much weaker hurricane than when it came onshore and did what you're just looking at over there. look at that, flipping that structure over and over again. that's a carport, so you can imagine what things smaller than a carport like signs, pieces of metal and pieces of wood all over the place. thank you for watching this hour of "msnbc live." i'm ali velshi. our breaking news coverage of hurricane harvey does continue with my great friend, alex witt. we will stay with you through this story. you're watching msnbc. ♪ we're drowning in information. where, in all of this,

is the stuff that matters? the stakes are so high, your finances, your future. how do you solve this? you don't. you partner with a firm that advises governments and the fortune 500, and, can deliver insight person to person, on what matters to you. morgan stanley.

it came ashore as a category 4 but now a weaker hurricane harvey is hovering over texas, and the hits from this storm keep on coming. >> just reading the new update in from the national hurricane center. we did officially just get our landfall. >> we have been here quite a while. the eye is right over us. >> that storm surge is pushing water from the bay this way. >> look at this oak tree which literally has split here, falling two directions, going onto the roof of this house. the winds at times have been gusting to 110 miles an hour. >> i still can't believe how bad it still is here. >> plus a day of major announcements from the white house. a pardon, a departure, and the implementation of a controversial ban. good day to all of