On tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by bnsf railway. And by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Supporting science, technology, and improved Economic Performance and Financial Literacy in the 21st century. Carnegie corporation of new york. Supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of International Peace and security. At carnegie. Org. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and individuals. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Obrien harvey is gone, but houston still faces texassized problems tonight. It runs the gamut from catastrophic housing loss to the dangers of damaged Chemical Plants. And as the region struggles to recover, officials are searching for the living, and the dead. William brangham begins our coverage. Reporter above its more sunshine and mostly clear skies. But down below flooding from harvey, still as far as the eye can see. As the water begins to recede, fire and rescue crews in houston are going doortodoor in flooded neighborhoods, hoping they wont discover more bodies. Were finding out, just to see how much damage there is, if there is any civilians that have been left behind. We dont think were going to find any humans, but were prepared if we do. Reporter at the same time, many of those who fled the floods were returning to their homes today, to assess whats left. Im in the northeastern part of the city, one of the areas hit hardest by flooding, people even began pulling their soaked belongings out to the curb. Just outside houston, there were small explosions at a Chemical Plant, sending 30foot flames and plumes of smoke into the air. A power outage had left containers of volatile chemicals unrefrigerated, and as they heated up, they ignited. It happened at the arkema site in crosby, texas. Dozens of workers were removed before the hurricane. And officials had already ordered People Living within a mile and a half to leave. Were trying to make sure that our citizens are comfortable in whats going on, and that they know the truth. And so with that, these are small container ruptures, that may have a sound excuse me may have a sound of a pop or something of that nature. This is not a massive explosion. Reporter the u. S. Environmental Protection Agency said the smoke posed no immediate threat to Public Health. 15 sheriffs deputies went to hospitals, but most were quickly released. To the east, orange county, texas ordered a mandatory evacuation this afternoon, as the neches river surged higher. The river also knocked out the water supply in the city of beaumont. That forced the evacuation of nearly 200 hospital patients by air, and the closure of local shelters. We are not sheltering anybody any more. With the situation that we are in with the water, we are having people, people that are displaced, we are finding other locations for them. Thats what were working on. Reporter Vice President mike pence, his wife karen, and other members of president trumps cabinet today visited areas of texas hit by harvey. The Vice President again promised full federal support, in the severely damaged city of rockport, where harvey first came ashore. We are with you, the American People are with you. Reporter meanwhile, harveys hit on the countrys Energy Supply also came into focus. Colonial pipeline said its shutting down part of a key line that moves nearly 40 of the souths gasoline. It could start carrying fuel again by sunday. But the interruption, coupled with the closure of several big texas refineries, sent gas prices soaring. In turn, Energy Secretary rick perry, a former texas governor, and part of the pence entourage, announced hes releasing 500,000 barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum reserve. Gas prices are going to go up because of the cut in supply. Every states attorney general will be watching to make sure that theres no price gouging going on, and anybody that is considering raising prices above what would be considered to be appropriate need to watch out. Reporter to the north, remnants of harvey moved farther inland. Its been downgraded to a tropical depression, but its still soaking western louisiana and southern arkansas. And, as much as 10 inches of rain could fall in mississippi, tennessee and kentucky in the hours ahead. That report from William Brangham. William, houston is no stranger to flooding. Do you get the sense that people there see this as if you excuse the term, a watershed. Yes, in many ways houstonians are familiar with flooding, it has been going on for decades what is not talked about as often is the way houston continues to grow has substantially exacerbated what those floods do tho to this area. The nickname for houston is the city with no limits and in many ways that is true. The growth that occurred the last few decades have been explosive and they have been digging up farm land outside the skirteds of the city and they put up parking lots and highways and developments. You dont have to be a hydrologist to know that if you replace spongy, absorbent farmlands with hard concrete surfaces, when a lot of comes down that water will flood these neighborhoods. So harvey was going to be a problem no matter what. But there are many people who argue that there could have been things done in the decades past that could have made harvey a little less damaging. It sounds like there is a big civic conversation that needs to occur in houston that might be a little bit overdue. Certainly that conversation has gone on in the past. But every time reforms have been suggested, they have been put aside for one reason or another. After i believe it was ike in 2008 there were numerous Flood Control projects that were proposed, they were shell of the. After allison came through and devastated a lot of this area, more reforms were proposed, they were put aside. Voters here have several times said they dont want to change the zoning laws which are incredibly lax and dont really require cities and townships to put in good Flood Control measures. So every time this has come up as a conversation, people recognize that its an issue but the incentives of Economic Growth and Economic Development and inexpensive housing are very powerful. So the conversation maybe will occur again but right now the focus is really on rescue and recovery. William brangham in houston, thank you. Youre welcome, miles. Obrien louisiana is the next target for harveys wrath. Like texas, the terrain is prone to flooding and for residents there, the worst is yet to come. Congressman clay higgins represents louisianas third district, which covers much of the states southwest coast. Hes a former Law Enforcement officer and now serves on the house science committee. I spoke with him by phone a short time ago. Congressman higgins, thanks for being with us. I know you were very worried about your district in advance of harvey and the concern was that there be a direct blow on that second approach to landfall. It appears you dodged that bullet. Give us a sense though of what the consequences of harvey were in your district. Well, the hit exactly at the state border which my district, of course, includes the parishes in louisiana that border texas in the southern portion of the state. So so many of our citizens from louisiana and from the district that i represent were part of that rescue, civilian rescue effort that is commonly referred to as the cajun navy was essentially just thousands and thousands of civilians with boats and four wheel drive trucks that load up their vehicles with water and food and temporary shelter and they just roll out to areas, neighborhoods that have been flooded. And they begin reses cueing people from rescuing people from second floor, you know, apartments or from rooftops or out of atiqs. A very common mistake is for someone as a house begins to flood they go up to the second story or crawl to the attic and then they have no way out. So we have to use chainsaws to cut through the roof in order to get sometimes whole families out of an attic on to a boat and then to high ground and then from there, they have to be picked up by buses and brought to a shell ter, a temporary shelter until they can get put somewhere more permanent until they can return to their homes and begin the recovery process. Ive been through many storms, brother, and ive never seen this much water, never. Not in katrina and not in any of the storms that hit louisiana. Im 56 years old. I have never seen this much water temped at one time. Tell us a little bit about how many shelters you have in your district, how many people have come from the hard hit areas and are being sheltered there. We have two major shelters set up in parish in the lake charles area with hundreds and hundreds of displayed americans out of texas that have been brought into those shelters. So its quite an endeavor. There are so many entities working with this response and recovery, and rescue efforts that it can be quite difficult to coordinate all those entities, especially when you include civilians working in massive quantities just out of the goodness of their heart, out of their own pocket, they dont get a dime back, you understand. And you have large government responses. It can be quite complicated. Congressman clay higgins, republican of lust lust, thank you for your time. Thank you and god bless you for shedding light on this and for your kindness during this interview. I thank you for your journalistic integrity, sir. Obrien the recordbreaking nature of harvey has renewed the conversation about the role of Climate Change in extreme weather events. Congressman higgins has been public about his denial of human influence. I asked him if the events of the last week have at all changed his mind. You can listen to that exchange on our website, www. Pbs. Org newshour. Obrien todays explosions at the arkema Chemical Plant northeast of houston are underscoring concerns about the hazards of dangerous chemicals in the area. Houston is a major hub for refineries and has some of the largest petrochemical operations in the country. Our science producer, nsikan akpan, has been looking into those concerns, and published a piece this week documenting some of the other leaks and ruptures in the region. It is on our web pij, nsikan, tell us a little about what we know about ar connect arkema, what is apping there. Arkema produces organic peroxide that produce plastics, they are inherently unstable. So they tend to react with other elements in the environment. They are also very sensitive to the heat. So arkema was storing these compounds in refrigerated boxes and when the power went out, the heat rose, it lead to pressure to build and you have this explosion. And unfortunately the backup systems didnt keep the materials cool and hence you had this deficit. Lets listen basically to richard raynard an executive with arkema. What we have is a fire. When you have a fire where hydrocarbons, chemicals are burning, sometimes you have incomplete come bust shun and you have smoke, any smoke will be an irritant to your eyes or your lungs or potentially your skin. So if you are exposed to that, we certainly are encouraging anyone that may be exposed to the smoke coming from this fire to call their doctor or to seek medical advice. So point well taken. Its not as bad as an outright leak, i suppose, but with the smoke, there is some concern, isnt there . Exactly. I mean these compounds are cor rossive which means they tend to react with things. They want to react with the water in your eyes, with the compounds in your skin. And that might explain why 15 deputies from the Sheriffs Office were sent to the hospital because, you know, potentially they were exposed to this incomplete burn that he brought up. Good reason to have that mile and a half zone around it where people should not go in for now until this gets sorted out. Lets look at the bigger picture. Houston in general, huge pet ro chemical facilities, a number of them, you have had a chance to look at the big picture, tell us what people are looking at, what concerns there are. So the sierra club looked into epa data and found that 170 chemical petrochemical and oil gas Hazardous Waste facilities exist in Harris County which is home to houston. Many of these facilities exist in flood plains. And we know that at least a dozen of them were damaged by the hurricanes. Obviously a lot of petrochemicals in houston. Give us an idea of the types of concerns, the specific problems that can crop up. So it is known that Petrochemical Companies have these emissions when thefer whenever they start up and shut down. So before the hurricane even arrived, there were reports, Regulatory Filings by these companies showing that they were releasing hundreds of pounds of these chemicals into the air. But most of them were done in a controlled way, which isnt so much of a hazard to the environment. If you leak these very slowly, they spread out in the air and they are not going to be toxic to somebody. What happened was after the hurricane hit there was so much rain, so much wind that there was damage to what is called floating roof tanks. And so the floating roof tank is exactly what the name suggests, right. So you have a roof that moves up and down depending how you fill the tank. And what it allows for a certain amount of venting, for a certain amount of the chemical to turn to vapor. What happened was some of these facilities, these tanks took on so much water that their roofings actually collapsed into the liquid that they were holding which allowed the vapors to escape into the air. So lets talk about other potential hazards. A lot of Super Fund Sites if houston what about those. There about a house Super Fund Sites in Harris County in the flood plains, so far Harris Countyssued about 45 boil water advisories, and i think about, and there are about 160 issued for the state. Okay. So you could ask the question we knew a hurricane could hit houston, of course. Are these facilities, when you look at the big picture, are they hardened enough against that threat . Well, so other studies have looked at these floating roof tanks and shown that when hurricanes hit, that they do tend to take on destruction. So due to the fact that they are built with very thin walls, that they have very untirdy foundations, these things do tend to move around when there is a lot of rain and wind. Nsikan akpan is our science producer, thank you. Obrien there are lots of questions about the Health Risks Associated with this explosion, and what people need to know about the air and water. Dr. Anthony fauci of the National Institute of health is here to guide us on some of the Public Health questions about these toxic chemicals. Fir of all, give us an idea, when we hear about kem kales like organic peroxides or benzyne either in the air or water, that naturally raises peoples concerned, help us calculate calibrate how concerned we should be. It depends on the con sen taition of these things. You were talking about the smoke because of the fire and the burning. Had the authorities in that area cordoned off the area so that you have a circle around so that you dont get direct exposure to that, exposure, if they are mild in the sense of daily just a small concentration, its mostly an irritant, particularly the peroxides, that in that smoke would irritate the skin or even irritate the lungs. So for the most time it could be either just a little bit of a nuisance irritant or if you get a really big whiff of it, particularly people who have, for example, reversible Airways Disease like asthma or different types of hypersensitivity diseases, you could get a serious problem. For the most part what im seeing and hearing that is being done there, about cordoning off an area to keep people far enough away that at worst it would be just an irritant, hopefully it stays that way and we dont see any more of it going to where people are. What about when we hear about chemicals that end up for one reason or another in the water itself. How big a concern should that be . It really depends on what the chemical is. You had mentioned hydrocarbons, things like benzyne and tuloine, those are more an an irritant because they with can be absorbed from the gastrointestinal track or lungs, it is really a whopping dose, i dont want people to get concerned that if it is a really diluted in water that there will be a problem. But at its worse it does have the potential to cause organ system disfunction like liver or kidneys or even Central Nervous system and even some cardia arrhythmias. But again, thats in the extreme. You dont want people to be concentrating that that is going to happen to them if they are in the water and you have a very low concentration of these. But ultimately the capability of that really depends on what the dose is and the concentration. Tell us about some of the other Immediate Health concerns people in your position have as they look at houston. Yeah, well, it really is a Broad Spectrum. It goes from anything from the immediate acute thing, we have already seen it on tv multiple times. You have people, for example, who could drown, that tragic situation of a family drowning in a van. You have people who could get electrocuted, could you have injuries. That is the first thing, then when you have the water which is contaminated with sue age, you can have multiple problems with that. It could be, you could have gastrointestinal problems like inadvertently swallowing some of the contaminated water that is contaminate