>> every step of the way, the president and his cabinet remained in constant contact with me and my staff, they all had one thing to say, texas, what do you need. >> we want to do it better than ever before. we want to look at this in five years, ten years, and say, this is the way you do it. this was of epic proportion. working with the governor and his entire team -- >> if the storms stop now, the toll would be ruinous. but it is not stopping. the rain is still coming down and the rescues are still ongoing. >> it's a situation of life and death. we have another crew, it looks like some people are being rescued right now coming in. >> the one on the little boat my neighbor had, and trying to get out.

seeing the way everything was. i was traumatized. >> my house is six feet up, it was up at our -- like the top of the door. >> have you ever seen flooding like that? >> no, i haven't. >> i thiank the good samaritan for coming to pikus up. there was no way we could walk out of there. >> 4 to 6 weeks. >> we don't have water, we don't have food, we don't have sewer or electricity. we don't have anything right now. >> nbc news can confirm that three people have died in the houston area. the family of six are missing today. officials feared they died after their van was swept away as they tried to escape the storm. road after road is unpassable. neighborhoods look more like lakes. thousands are still trapped, stranded in their homes. an estimated 9 trillion gallons of water has been dumped on the

region. 11 trillion more could follow. 30,000 people have been forced into shelters. 3500 people have been rescued. 12,000 national guard members have been activated by governor abbott. and outside help continues to pour in. teams from all over the country. including florida utah and california are in texas right now to help stranded residents. >> let's go to mia rodriguez in houston. you're near the attics reservoir. that's 17 miles from downtown houston. engineers have been releasing water from that reservoir. it hasn't been enough. >> you can see a lot of that walter has creeped into this area. look at this situation we have

here, there are volunteers, the national guard, they're about to head back into the neighborhood again to try to get more people out of their homes. we have been told by volunteers that have been in this area that the water there is at least five feet deep. some volunteers have been telling us they have been running into people that do not want to leave their homes. it's unclear why much we're going to attempt to talk to people. i'm mia with nbc. did you just get rescued from in there? >> you're one of the volunteers? >> yeah. >> describe the situation in there. >> everything looks really bad many i think people inside -- we're trying to help a little. >> thank you so much, sir.

there are so many people coming out of here, as you can see, they're trying to use all kinds of flotation devices to help people out. people are carrying what they can, look at this lady right here, she's carrying a couple bags of her belongings, this is a very stressful situation for so many people out here, as you can imagine. they're just trying to get away from the rising water. it was not this bad last night. that's what people keep telling us. they were surprised. oh, my goodness, now there's all this water out here, that's where this whole flotilla has been launched. katie? >> are you able to talk to anybody else around there, anyone who thought they may be able to stay, and didn't realize the reservoir was going to get inundated? they're saying both reservoirs are at record highs. >> we spoke to one of the volunteers who came out here to rescue her aunt, her own home was flooded. she came out here, jumped in a

boat, went to get her aunt, her aunt was surprised by all of this. that's the feeling out here, you don't really know where all the water is going to end up. this is unprecedented. where all this water is going is catching so many people unaware. they've never seen anything like this. >> a ton of kids, dogs, other animals. people -- this is difficult. there's no people don't have any idea when they're going to be able to get back into their home. we're hearing estimates that these homes could be inundated with water for maybe a month more. >> that's something we saw during hurricane katrina. it took them a long time to basically get all the water out, whether it's pumped out or drains away naturally here in the houston area. it's not clear how long that is going to take. people could need shelter for weeks, possibly months. this is going to be an extremely

long recovery, there's a lot of uncertainty out here from everyone involved about from the people being rescued, the volunteers, the sheriff's office. right now they're dealing with the here and now, let's get people out of the water, to dry land and then we can assess the situation. >> we just saw the boy there fall, you don't know what's in the water beneath you. there's always an issue when it comes to flooding, potholes and manholes. those covers tend to drift away. manholes, people can get sucked into those. >> mia i'm hoping you can find someone behind you, someone that may have just gotten out of their homes. there's a gentleman holding a couple rafts right there. it feels like they're getting anything they can that floats in order to get people out of their

homes? >> yes. you can see some of these flotation devices. are you one of the volunteers that's been going back in and getting people out? >> my husband sent me pictures out of there, and some places it's up to the stop signs. >> how is your own home? >> mine's fine. >> you decided to come out and try to help your neighborhoods out here? >> yes, ma'am. >> thank you so much. >> these are just all kinds of -- it's basically a rubber boat. they have personal water craft heading down this side street. they're trying to get people, their pets, whatever belongings they can grab just to get out of here, katie. >> mia rodrigez, thank you very much. let's go to gadi schwartz who's in baytown texas. we've been watching rescues all day. >> there's a lot of stuff going

on. you are trying to get out of the way, there's boats coming out of the water. this neighborhood behind me where the bayou came up has been cleared from what they can tell. you're seeing these boats, in fact a lot of these kboets are moving to different places. i'm going to wait for this boat to swivel around. >> i think we're having a little trouble with his mike there. he went probably too far from the camera, it seems to have cut. he's interviewing a gentleman who has his own boat. looks like he's search and rescue. underscoring how everybody is trying to do what they can out there to save as many people as possible. in the meantime, let's go to msnbc's garek hak who is in corpus christi texas.

when are the president and first lady expected to tour the damage? >> well, touring the damage isn't really a part of this trip. they're headed back here to the airport right now. i just heard them fire up the engines of air force one behind me. this is mainly a wind and rain event here. not significant flooding to speak of. trees down, some power lines down, what the president saw here today was a little more the recovery effort and what it looks like when the state and federal and local governments work together to get people back on their feet. that was one half of the two part nature of the president today. >> the president was meant to see some of the people who have been down here affected by it, meant to speak to some of the first responders. he's trying to boost the spirits of the people down here.

you saw a massive effort by the president to say, we are here for you now, we were here for you a week ago, and we'll continue to be here for you in the future. essentially saying, they're committed to the rebuilding of the texas coast after the floodwaters drained. that was sort of the consistent message from the president. they want to set -- they want this recovery to set a standard. they're not ready to congratulate themselves just yet, because this recovery effort will fake so long, and no one wants to get into a job well done moment at this point. when there's so much to deal with, especially up the road in houston. >> he's going to austin next, he's going to tour the command center up there. they've declared disasters for both texas and louisiana. obviously, though, this is a politically tricky situation. there's criticism about when any official is going to go down there, whether they go down too early and redirect resources or

if they go down too late and don't give enough attention to it. a bit of a double edged sword for the president. mia rodrigez is still standing by for us, what do you have. >> reporter: you can see the water right here, trying to get out of the floodwaters. right now joining us, a couple people who have managed to go back in there. you have come out here, you're vollen teering to help unload people. what's the situation? >> they bring them out, we help get the people out of the boats. >> you were mentioning, they've only just started going into this neighborhood. they only hit a couple of the first side streets here? >> they've been going back there, they just hit the first couple streaks. the water's up to here, they haven't gotten those people out yet. >> they bussed the fire

department in to the school. >> are they trapped in the school? >> the water, yeah. >> yeah, this whole situation -- >> other than that, just have to go back and get them. >> it's really water water, everywhere at this point. you've had people launching so many boats back there. you're just standing here waiting to see who comes out, what we're seeing are people coming out with rate crates carrying pets. people carrying belongings, a plastic bag that had whatever they could grab. it's just amazing, and it's raining, katie. it's raining again. it's been raining for days here. it's incredible this amount of rainfall. they cannot catch a break here. >> meteorologists say they can get another foot of rainfall. a massive amount of water. we've been able to reconnect

with gadi schwartz, who's in bay town, you're standing by with a rescuer? >> here we go. here we go. >> can you hear me? >> yeah, we got you. >> so here's -- right now we're with enrique. we were interrupted a little earlier, because our cameras are getting wet. i think they can hear us. tell me, there was an elementary school, it was an emergency shelter, that's been evacuated? >> that's been evacuated by boats and buses. >> tell me about the coordinati coordination, we have a ton of boats out here. how does everyone communicate. >> we talk to each other and see where they need help. we go there, and it looks like we're moving to a different spot now. >> perfect. >> just checking social media and stuff like that. >> i don't want to get in your way. thank you for your time. there's another group that just came down right here, this is a family that just got off one of these rescue boats, are you

doing all right? >> yeah. >> what does it look like in your neighborhood right now? >> it's bad and getting worse. >> the water right now at the back of our neighborhood, the water is up to waist high. >> and i live on the corner. and the corner house, that's the highest spot on the block. we decided to get out. i don't want anybody taking chances. don't stay, get out while you can. >> do you mind asking that gentleman if he has a long term plan if he's not able to get back in his home, do they know what they're going to do? >> we're wondering, what comes next? what's the plan after this. what's the long term plan? >> we don't know. we have -- for right now, i don't know. we still trying to -- >> we just moved out here two weeks ago.

>> you just moved out here? >> this level of water, this is our first time. >> how big is the family here? >> six of you? >> yeah, usually there would be 12, but we have three other little kids we adopted we take care of too, they went home since then. >> do they know where they're going now? >> i've never seen this much water in my life. >> do you know where you're going now? >> we have no idea. >> no idea. >> have they talked about shelters or anything like that? >> no, nobody knows anything. we're just here. >> got it. at least you're together as a family. >> we got out. i looked at you last night. >> no worries. i'm so glad. >> i appreciate this much support for the people who can't get out. >> it looks like they're saying there's a bus over here, they're going to take you to a shelter, we'll try to catch up with you. >> i think there's a bus behind

walgreens, they're going to take us to a shelter. see where we go from there. >> we'll see you later, good luck opinion. >> that's one of the families we've seen coming in here, several more coming in right now, we're having technical issues because things are pretty soaked here. if you can hear me, we have these crews out here, they're dropping people off and ready to go back out there, back to you. >> don't worry about those technical issues, i know when water gets involved, camera equipment can start to act a little funky. thank you for talking to that family, and let's hope they find beds. the shelters out there. they're working as hard as they can to find beds for everybody. a lot of those shelters are overwhelmed. it's unclear how many people are going to be displaced from their home. a lot of folks will be examination for federal disaster aid. 450,000 people will need help after this storm.

it's unclear when these people will be able to get back into their homes. we saw something akin to this. those homes, you don't think a foot of water is that much until you go in and realize a foot of water in a house, means you have to gut the entire first floor and redo it. it can mold quickly, it's the end of the summer, it's going to get hot in in, and then cold quickly. this disaster is ongoing. it's certainly not going to be limited to how long the rain lasts or how long the floods last. steve sossna is monitoring the rain. >> good news in terms of the rain, i don't want to give people a false sense of security here, the reason why, there's an aftereffect after the rain ends. we'll talk about that in a second. a glimmer of good news, the intensity of the rainfall has stepped down, we don't see the oranges or reds. that was the one to two inches

an hour that got us in real trouble last night in the houston area. now just light rain. the reason i'm concerned about the rain ending is that a lot of people get curious and start to head out and check out these high water levels. i've been seeing on social media, some of these people getting up on the levees, you do not want to do that. these levees, a lot of the infrastructure had been tested beyond their means now. they're very weak and can compromise quickly. i know you may be curious, this is an all time historic event. as the weather starts to improve, it will get better here in houston, there's going to be an after effect that all these streams and bayous will drain into the gulf. that's going to take a long time. that's what we saw where this was compromised. all these people went to the bed thinking they were okay. look at the water level go up during the overnight hours. they're chest deep in water.

even places where they sought to be safe in these evacuation centers are now being evacuated. this is an unfolding situation. you're going to be hearing about this in the next couple days. the other part of the good news here. the storm is starting to speed up a little bit it's up to 8 miles an hour, the storm was crawling at 2 to 3 miles an hour for a while. it's starting to hit the gas pedal, let's get rid of it, the damage is done, all these flash flood warnings that are in effect. even after the rain ends, you'll still see the aftereffects of that. can't emphasize enough, keep checking in, keep your phone charged. it's community by community right now. >> those reservoirs. they're at record highs. >> that's not the only issue. the guadeloupe river cresting. >> air force one meanwhile, is

now taxiing on its way up to austin texas. that's where the president and first lady will be touring a command center they're leaving corpus christi, they wanted to get a brief on the rescue efforts underway down there. they were not towering the damage corpus christi was not hit in the way austin was. texas is not the only state that is feeling the effects of harvey, louisiana is also dealing with flooding from the storm. evacuations are underway as we speak there. and all of this is happening as the city of new orleans marks the anniversary of katrina. louisiana's governor joins me live next. (woman) when you have type 2 diabetes,

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operating immediately. thank you, everybody. what a crowd, what a turnout. i want to thank our governor, your governor has done a fantastic job. governor abbott, thank you very much. he's right here some place, he's right here, we just want to thank your governor, senator cruise, senator cornen. everyone, dan, the whole group. this has been a total cooperative effort. again, we will see you soon. i will tell you, this is historic. it's epic, what happen ed. but you know what? it happened in texas and texas can handle anything. thank you all, folks. thank you, thank you. what a crowd, what a turnout, the president addressing the 200 to 500 people or so that greeted him when he

landed and left corpus christi, saying the state will get what they need. that's the president's plane right now, flying to austin, texas, where he and the first lady will tour a command center, meanwhile, the resz cue effort in other parts of texas is still ongoing. our local affiliate is in king wood texas, where rescue efforts are still underway. people are still trapped in their homes, thousands, potentially. untold how many have already fled and go to local hotels or potentially staying with family, thousands are in shelters as well. these are images from kprc in king wood, texas. >> as louisiana marks the 12th anniversary of hurricane katrina, it is now in the eye of another storm. this one hurricane harvey. it has new orleans under a flash flood watch, with meteorologists

predicted 4 to 8 inches of rain up until thursday. some 500 residents have been forced from their homes in lake charles, due to flooding. as the storming bears down on new orleans, a bit of good news, the city was able to fix a broken pump that threatened to make flooding much worse. >> joining me now by phone is governor edwards. thank you for joining us, first off. you know what this is like. you guys have lived through katrina, you're sending resources to texas, how long do you expect your resources to be needed out there. >> well, it's going to take a long time in texas for them to get through the response phase, where they're worried about life and preserving life, making sure people are taken out of perilous situations. as long as that continues, we will make assistance available. right now we have four alpha

teams, that's about 40 with boats, who are partnering up with their counterparts in texas. they made over 1,000 rescues over the last couple days, we're doing that, we'll make additional assistance available upon request. we also have our own concerns with what the storm is going to do in louisiana, as you know. >> given that it is headed toward new orleans. potential flooding out there, lake charles already dealt with some issues. you rescued 500 people from their homes already. are you in a place to make sure you can respond to any need that arises? >> we are. we've been staging for about a week now. moving personnel and equipment. different high water vehicles and vessels to where we think they would be needed. we are still anticipating the majority of the impact is going to be in southwest louisiana, the situation in new orleans is

stable. if we get only the forecasted rain, we're going to be fine there. the problem is, these rain bands, you don't know exactly where they're going to appear, how long they're going to stay and how much water they're going to drop. >> we feel confident that so long as the forecast holds up, we're going to be fine in new orleans. >> as you're talking i want a reminder, we're looking at images from king wood texas, from our sister station down there, kprc. these are live images of rescue efforts underway. governor, we're just in august. hurricane season, if you want to say there is a hurj season any longer. lasts for a couple more months. this is a big one. are you ready if there's going to be another one? can you handle this? >> yeah, we're going to handle

it, and look. nobody is going to get through a storm this size and the severity of harvey unscathed. our hearts go out to the folks in texas, and sure to keep them in our hearts and prayers. i want you to know the president and his team, we've been in constant contact. i've had multiple face to face meetings with the fema administrator just since he came online in june. we feel like our federal partners are there with us, and leaning forward with us, we're going to do whatever we have to to protect the people of our state. unfortunately -- of course, it's a good thing when you need it. we have a lot of experience with hurricanes and other floods. we're just a year removed from thousand year flooding in louisiana last august. that was not a tropical storm or a named storm at all.

>> we have a lot of experience and what we're seeing play out on tv right now in texas, is something all too familiar with us in louisiana. >> to that point, climate scientists will tell you storms are only going to get more aggressive, we'll see more extreme weather in the years to come, given that, are you confident enough has been done to prepare in the long term, that the funding is there to make sure that cities in these coastal areas, especially cities on the gulf are equipped in a way to deal with these strengthening storms? >> no, and i don't think anybody should be comfortable with what's been done. when you repair damage of its happened and add in a layer of resiliency through infrastructure enhancements. how much cheaper and more effectively that can be done on the front end to mitigate

against the risks to start off with. and the investments a huge portion of our population lives in close proximity to the coast. it's always been a great place to live. and you want to be there for obvious reasons, you're also in more danger there. we have to do more. hopefully the cost of this storm will be an impetus to the congress and president and a national conversation about what we should do going-forward that would be smarter than what we've been doing. >> it's not just the coastal communities. do you want to ask the federal government for anything specifically. are you preparing any sort of requests that you're going to put forth that says here is what we need? >> we will do that in due course, we're very much in

response mode here, i'm traveling to lake charles, southwest louisiana. i want you to know that i have been in contact already today. we're making requests directly to him, and to our friend in the white house. and we feel very confident about our ability to make requests and have them granted as warranted moving forward. but right now, we're still very much in response mode. >> louisiana governor, john bell edwards, thank you for calling in. >> thank you, katy, appreciate you. >> let's go back to texas. kerry sanders is in cuero texas. he's watching people trying to get out of harm's way you've been showing us truly remarkable images with the drone you have there. talk us through it.

>> reporter: this is rick wheeler's house. he lives along the guadeloupe river. it's well beyond its banks, oath feet from rick's house. and rick is here with us right now. he's getting ready to drop his own drone to get a look at what is going on. he has four decades in the insurance industry. he understands flood insurance. there are so many people now, only one in four has flood insurance. what's going to happen when they call their homeowner's insurance company and says, i was flooded out. >> it's an exclusion for flood in a homeowner's policy. >> they're going to look in their policy and it's going to be a cold reality. >> they're going to call their agent and they'll say, you have no coverage. >> your home right here, does your mortgage company require you have it? >> you're in a flood zone, your mortgage company requires you to have flood insurance, yes.

>> the big question will be whether the floods plane map put together by the government says, you have to have flood insurance. >> well, the mortgage company will go, will require you to have a flood elevation certificate, to show what elevation and flood zone you're in, based on. you have to produce a policy showing you have flood coverage. >> there are a lot of people that are going to find out the horror of all of this, they can then turn to the government and get a small business administration loan. but the reality is, you wind up with two mortgages. >> right, that's what happened here in, '98 we had a really bad flood. this year we're looking right at 45 feet, back then we had 50 feet. we had 300 homes that were flooded.

>> the question now is, as we're looking at the river here, and take a look at the drone shot how quickly is this water moving? >> this is about close to 300,000 cubic feet a second. >> which is hard for me to understand in terms of numbers. >> we're going from 45 if you go to 50, you're over 400,000 cubic feet. that's what it was in '98. you're going to have double the river flow you have right now, from now until '98. >> i'm going to stop you, i'm going to continue walking and turn the camera, i want to show you, i am on texas road 72. and it's -- if you follow the yellow line down, you can see if runs into the guadeloupe river. >> before you leave that gentleman. i want to know, what's the solution here, do you put everyone's homes on stills? is that enough, with the water levels rising? do you force everybody to move?

what is the solution? >> because you have the experience and the flood program, which is a federal program, it's had a lot of problems, right now it's $24 billion in the red, the treasury can only give them up to 30 billion. with all of your experience, what is the solution to this for homes that are in the flood zones. >> they have to have a solution. i've had people during a flood zone here, after the third time, fema won't insure them. >> if you're in a flood zone, a flood plane, and you have three claims, large claims. they won't insure you any more. they're telling you have to move. >> that is the marketplace making the final decision? >> yes. >> if the government won't give you the flood insurance after three floods. you're not getting a mortgage. >> but are those -- >> but there is also a political component to all of this, the political component is, when congress tries to fix the problem with flood insurance and

that is to raise the rates, people complain. they call up their local congressman and go, these rates are ridiculous, and then you have the political element involved in flood insurance. from what i understand it doesn't work to have a politician running an insurance company in. >> no. they do a good job, and what they did before, they contracted with the insurance companies to handle everything, then they took it over themselves. they actually did a pretty good job leer in 98 helping people out. a lot of people had to get second loans. is there a solution? no, people want to go to the water. >> i heard a statistic that upwards of 50% of our nation's population lives within 25 miles of the coast of this country. when you understand that, people are drawn to water,

unfortunately this is not what people are drawn to. katie? >> there's also issues with the fema flood maps, they weren't up to date, adequately conveying who was in a flood zone and who was not. that federal flood insurance program you were talking about, severely under funded. they are not charging what they need to pay out the claims that have arisen in the past few years. kerry sanders, thank you so much. fascinating interview, i hope the water does not reach that gentleman's home. >> as we look at more images of people being rescued. we know an estimated 30,000 people have been displaced by hurricane harvey. up next, we're at a dallas shelter that has already reached maximum capacity. rethink your allergy pills. flonase sensimist allergy relief

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appointments available now. when i was too busy with the kids to get a repair estimate. i just snapped a photo and got an estimate in 24 hours. my insurance company definitely doesn't have that... you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance. have you ever seen a flood like that? >> never, never. i couldn't believe it when i started seeing it come in my house this morning. i had about this much space left this morning when i left. >> how terrifying is it to see the water coming up?

>> very terrifying. we're by ourselves. he's diabetic, and sometimes he goes into a coma and i go bananas. >> that woman and her husband are two of the more than 3500 who have been saved by crews in the houston area. president trump is on his way from austin, to austin from corpus christi, for a walk-through at the emergency operations center. meanwhile, harvey is back over the gulf, gearing up for its third landfall, which will only dump more water on to the houston area, a local meteorologist put it into perspective, 1 trillion gallons of rain has fallen there over four days. that amount would run niagara falls for 15 days. meanwhile, the mayor of houston is still under fire for not ordering an evacuation ahead of the storm. earlier he ripped into critics and challenged them to come and help with rescues now. the demand for shelter has led

other cities to open their doors as well for those in need. dallas has transformed their convention center into a mega shelter. they have experience with this from hurricane katrina and are planning for the long term. >> we started to work on alternative housing for folks. we had some learning about this in katrina, we had 28,000 people come, and many of those people ended up staying in our community through housing. we don't know exactly what's going to be thrown our way, we're going to make sure we have all the options covered. >> how many people are they

expecting to house there? >> this cool has transformed into a shelter as you mentioned, and they already have 300 people in here, they are at max capacity right now. the red cross is providing clothing as well as medical assistance for the children along with the dallas fire department. many families here from houston, other areas of texas. and they have been here as early as last thursday. i want you to meet nikea who we just met out here. you're here with your husband, your three children. what has it been like the last couple days inside the shelter? >> i'm comfortable, but they've made it very -- they've been very hospitable to us. we've had a lot of volunteers. it's cramped in there. because we're holding so many people, everybody's working together, so it's been okay. >> a big concern for many of the folks is the fact that they left family members behind.

is that your case? >> yeah. we had to leave our stepdaughter behind. she's with her biological mother. she's my stepdaughter. >> how old is she? >> she's 7. >> how hard is this for you? >> we're getting some reports from co-workers. we don't know what my stepdaughter's condition is because we haven't been able to reach them by phone. some of my co-workers have been posting things on facebook about our streets being flooded. and the highways being flooded. and it's terrifying, we don't know when we can go home or what we're going back to. >> you've been in the shelter now for almost five days. what are the challenges now, as the next phase comes in. >> anything in terms of supplies, anything that you feel you need at this point for your children? >> the challenges we've been facing is getting our clothes

clean. we work solely on donations, so if someone doesn't donate our exact need for our exact child's fit or something like that, then we just don't have it, if we can wash the stuff we have. we need laundry soap, quarters or a laundry facility would zepp up and say, we're here to help, that would be great. >> thank you so much for sharing your story. i hope your stepdaughter is okay. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you so much. >> a lot of people here as you heard, planning for the long term because it is still raining and many of the cities they left. and as i mentioned before, there are thousands of people expected in it the city of dallas, just in the next couple hours, 5,000 alone in that mega shelter you mentioned in the beginning, so again, shelters like this, already at max capacity, you can already start too see the challenges this city is going to face in the next couple hours and days. >> it's unclear how long people are going to need shelter, when

they're going to be able to get to their homes and when they're going to be able to get back to their homes to live. mariana in dallas/texas, thank you very much. >> as thousands pour into those shelters, thousands more are still waiting to be rescued. >> i'm joined by tony wade. tony, thanks for joining us. am i correct to say you've been able to save 35 people? >> yes, myself personally. i think -- i don't have an official number for our entire group, we're into the hundreds of people at this point. >> talk to me about why you decided to come out and help? >> this is what we do. we're a full time search and rescue operation. this is what we do, we respond to incidents of this magnitude or smaller, it just depends. we come out and go -- is there something we do with our hearts? we have to. >> what are you seeing out

there? >> complete destruction. complete destruction, i'm seeing lives turned up side down. very emotional people. not sure where to go, what to do any more. it's been heart wrenching to say the least. >> what are they able to take with them? they able to take with them? >> well, unfortunately, not very much. a couple of sets of clothes, you know, the family pets, those things. you know, just the limited space in the boats and our high water rescue vehicles, we just can't have them take a whole lot of things out of the house, we just need them to bring out a couple of pair of clothes and get them to safety which is first and foremost. >> this is what your volunteer group does, put this in terms of perspective with what you've seen before and what you're seeing now. >> we were active during katrina and rita, and the last several stores, we have seen a lot of destruction, and this ranks over

the top two of things we have been involved with over the last several years. it's extremely widespread, the threat's increasing, we're going to haveize teams to get into l.ouisiana. it's going to take a while to get things straightened out. >> we're seeing images of rescue workers on boats bringing families out of the neighborhoods and we're skiing one rescue worker right now holding a baby, a toddler, we're seeing a lot of people with pets, when they get in the boats, tell me, how are the kids faring? >> you know, the resilience of kids, i'll tell you, they're scared for one thing, but we have rescue canines with us that just love children, so we try and build them up, let them pet the dogs, play with them and

kind of talk to them a little bit, try and keep their spirits up. it makings it rough, but we try to meet everybody as best we can, we try to give them blankets to keep warm and those things while we can transport them out of the weigh. seeing the children is just the heart breaking sides of what we do. >> you pull-up to a home, it's flooded with water, how are the people able to get out of their home and into your boat, are they on the second floor potentially, are they on the roof? >> we have seen people on the roof, second story windows, second story of hotels. we require two people per boat, we have a boat operator and a rescue tech, usually the rescue tech will get in the water to go out in the water and lead the folks back tour boat. they'll lead them back to the

boat and help them into the boat. we have been pulling a lot of elderly people, it makes it extremely rough on us, a lot of lifting, a lot of pushing, but the people who are willing to help themselves and help us help them. so that makes all the difference in the world right there. >> and you've got 36 full-time volunteers working with you, any idea how long you're going to be out there? >> right now we have no clue, we're all dedicated and we're going to remain in action until this is over with, until we're just not needed anymore. we don't give up easily, we fight to keep going. our guys are tired, we're working on days with very little sleep. you know, most of the time we're not eating, we don't want to shut down, we want to continue going. >> and i presume you'll move to louisiana if the need arises out there? >> yes, we are mobilized we have teams that are staged in louisiana. in the event that this happens, we're from louisiana so we want

to make sure that our state is taken care of as well. >> thank you for all you're doing for everyone. and not just children, not just the elderly, but quite a few pets. people are taking out their dogs, their animals, whatever they can. but some are forced to leave their animals behind. the last time we saw something on this scale is hurricane katrina. buzz feed estimates that 250,000 pets were abandoned during katrina. and 150,000 of them died. congress later passed a law requiring state and local governments to take pets and service animals into account when developing emergency evacuation plans. joining us now to talk by phone about this is monica schmidt,

shelter operations manager for the houston humane society. people are opening their doors to pets, are they not? >> we're seeing a lot of shelters that are attallowing p some are allowed to go in directly with their parents, some are perhaps kept in a different room. but we are seeing a huge amount of shelters that are allows pets to be brought in and the rescuers are allowing pets to be taken. while we're so overwhelmed right now in houston, it's very heart warming and it very inspiring to see all of these animals coming out with their owners. and not being left behind. >> and what about those that unfortunately have been left behind? how are you managing to get to

them? >> it's slow going, you know, a lot of the rescue boats that are being run independently are going in to get some of these animals that have been left behind and, you know, social media has actually become almost a god send for these animals, we have seen a huge social media rescue pet network that has popped up where people are able to post if they had to evacuate without their pets or perhaps they weren't home and couldn't get back home. and people are posting i'm in need, and before an organization can respond, a neighborhood has already responded or a volunteer has responded and said we're on our way. we have got a boat. so the same thing that we're seeing with humans we're seeing the same thing happen with animals, where people are pitching in, they're coming together, and that's really made all the difference this time around. of being able to safe these pets. >> what sort of conditions are

the pets? i think we're seeing right now a baby deer in a man's hand, it's not just household pets, these are wildlife as well. >> we're seeing all sorts of animals. of course just like typical dogs and cats, wildlife is being displaced, we have partnership with texas wildlife and rehabilitation coalition, they have been inundated with baby swirl squirrels being knocked out of trees and you don't think about that until this hits and the wind was blowing so much. people not knowing what to do have been dropping off at twrc nonstop. and we have people evacuating with reptiles, we have people with exotic birds, bunnies, you name it, anything somebody might

have as a pet, we're having to figure out how to make allowances and how to help people. >> there are images online, and maybe you don't feel very sorry for fire ands, but there are images online of entire globs, i guess you could call it of fire ants that have been pushed down in the guadalupe river, the pets that you have been able to rescue, what happens to them now? >> right now, we're working on a couple of different things. we at our shelter, we took in all of the mandatory evacuation animals from the port animal controls because they had to move every single animal from their shelter, we're actually en route right now to set up at the berry center in cypress to help people that are being brought in by boats so we can set up temporary shelters for those people until they can be shipped

to an actual shelter. animals are visibly shaken, just like people, they're stressed. but it makes such a huge difference when they can stay with their owner. i mean it makes all the difference, not only for the people, but for the pets as well. >> monica schmidt of the houston humane society, monica, thank you for joining us. one more thing before we go, folks across the country are opening their wallets to help, including celebrities. texan james watt raised millions of dollars on sunday. comedian kevin hart donated $50,000 and urged his famous friends to give $25,000 to a harvey releaf challenge on insta grab, he's now raised $34,000

with the cakardashians pledging $50,000 today. and a gofundme page has raised more than 16 million. this is going to cost billions and billions of dollars, and that is only a drop in the bucket. ali velshi will pick it up now. >> red cross allows you to text harvey to 90999 a$90999 and it text so right away. and that conversation you had about the immediate needs in houston, specialties, people who have particular skills and the clothes of the detergent and the diapers and the formula and what's heartening is the way people are stepping up. >> are you back later? >> no, i'm not. one of those rare days. >> good afternoon a i'm