of dry skies but the flood waters will continue to rise. untold numbers of people are still awaiting rescue by first responders volunteers, anybody with a boat. still, it was the first day in so many that forecasters promised improving conditions. exclamation point. in the note that they sent out. we expect a live briefing this hour from fema and homeland security. we want to go first to cnn's drew griffen in beaumont where the weather has not taken a turn for the better. we just lost drew. the weather so bad right now in beaumont and port arthur that the signal went down. again, that is where the storm is at its worst right now. do we have city councilman raymond scott on the phone with us? okay. we do have drew with us. let us know how things are going where you are. >>reporter: we just literally rescued this guy. you can see his car, john. i don't know are you working on that video. this man just accidentally drove into a ravine that looked like a road, didn't it? looked just like a road and his truck just went in, and it's now going down that ravine, and we zwrus pulled him out. the it happens within seconds. this is why it's so dangerous right now to be out. it's unbelievable. come on, sir. literally, he came, it looked like -- you can show me right there. looked like a street. right? >> but it wasn't a street. it's a ravine that's covered up. his car got -- a white truck is now banged up against the side of the ravine and whew. how you doing? lord have mercy, this is too much of a time for you to be interviewed right now. i just want you to be -- are you doing all right? heart doing okay? you're alive, sir. you're alive. why don't you just step out of the rain for a second. john, this literally just happened. scott and i and brian just rescued this fellow. there was no time to call 911. he was floating down this ravine. that's his truck right behind me. life tv. no profanities. >> thank you for saving my life. thank you. >> where are you from? >> winny, texas. >> what's your name? >> jerry. >> jerry, somebody needs to come and get you. >> i'm staying at the motel right up here. >> oh, lord. okay. take a breath. get some water. >> i just can't believe that happened, john. i don't know what to tell you. the guy's truck is floating away and this can happen. this is why they don't want you out. they don't want you driving around. the you can't tell the difference between a road, a ravine, a creek, a culvert that's just overflowing. this is very dangerous situation. >> drew, i'll give you a second to breathe right now but we can see that truck behind you. that's video of the truck behind you. we have video we're showing of you having pulled that man out of the truck in live picture is of the truck floating away. right now. in beaumont texas. the. >> that's exactly right. >> which is an extraordinary sight so see. now, drew, if you can, again, walk us through the chain of events. where was he trying to do drive to? how did the car end up in that? i don't know if that's a stream or bayou. >> this is -- yeah. i can tell you. this is not going to be pretty. scott just work with me. we're going to swing the camera around. we're in beaumont texas. this is an access road to i-10. the this will get you on i-10. it's a river. that's about a foot of water right now. but look right here. you see where it looks like a street is coming through? that's not a street. that is a drainage ditch that's been overrun. so this fellow was over here in the jack in the box parking lot, and he thought, oh i'll just drive right through this parking lot on to what looks like a road covered with water. he drove right into maybe 12 to 20 feet of moving water. and that is where he ended up. he thought that was a road. just covered with water. it's not. it's a drainage ditch and just took his truck and him, and i got to tell you, you talk about lucky to be alive. i didn't think we could rescue him and i was trying to dial 911 thoughi knowing they wouldn't get here in time. fortunately we had a rope. the man was able to swim out of the front seat of his truck and he's still alive. but that's how quickly things happen. just like that. please, stay indoors. if you're wet, uncomfortable, if you haven't had anything to eat, even if you think you into ed a cigarette, it's not -- you just got to survive this storm for the next hour or so. you just got to survive it and let this water go down. >> again, drew. you can't see it but on the right just moments ago we were showing video of what happened after you pulled the man from that truck. and it does go to show the dangers of getting in your car at all. at all. in this situation when the rains are falling or just after they're falling because what looks like a road could be a drainage ditch with some 12 feet of water. drew, bring us up to speed on what the night was like for you in beaumont which looks a little bit better than it did a few hours ago but clearly where the storm is still hitting. >> the problem is the water keeps rising even -- if the wind has stopped, the rain has settled. it's still pretty steady rain. no t not gushing. but the water is still rising. port arthur, texas, about 20 miles south of here, john, apparently has been inundated with water. the local judge has told the newspaper there that several of the fire trucks that were doing rescues have become encompass kateencompass -- they're holding off the boat rescues until daylight hours. also a shelter, the civic center, shelter was being flooded. they had to move people up on to risers. the problem with all this jefferson county is all the roads are impassable. the i think we have a before and after pictures to show you of i-10. this is i-10 south of beaumont heading into houston, where it just -- it's gone from dry to looks like a lake. a wind-driven lake. so there is no way for those county emergency vehicles literally to get around to save anybody. that's why they're saying if you're dry, just stay in place. the if it's not a life threatening emergency. of the because just getting out becomes life threatening. >> there's been so much focus obviously on houston and the flooding. since friday. but there's been feet of rain in port arthur and beaumont as well where you are. so obviously a wide swath of area in the danger zone. before i let you go can you give me a sense of how that man is doing? i have to believe he was an utter shock. >> yeah. i would be -- i'm still a little bit in shock too. he's doing okay. we're getting him -- he's on the phone now with somebody. our producer is putting him in touch with somebody that can come and pick him up. he says he's staying at a hotel just a little bit away. i don't know how far away that is or if he can walk there. he's only got one shoe on getting out of that car. we'll take care of him. we'll figure out how to get him back. he seems to be doing all right. >> all right. drew griffen for us in beaumont texas. i want to give you and your crew a chance to take a breath. we will come back to you, but as we see this, that truck just drifting down. i'm being told to listen in but i'm not sure into what. what are we listening to? >> how you doing? lord have mercy. this is too much of a time for you to be interviewed right now. are you doing all right? your heart doing okay? you're alive, sir. you're alive. why don't you just go step out of the rain for a second. john, this literally just happened. scott and i and brian just be rescued this fellow. there was no time to call 911. he was floating down this ravine. that's his truck. no profanities, live tv. >> i want to thank these guys for saving my life. thank you. >> where are you from? winny texas. >> so you guys have been hit pretty hard. >> what's your name? jerry. >> jerry. somebody needs to come and get you. >> i'm staying at the motel right up here. >> oh, lord. okay. take a breath. get some water. i just can't believe that just happened, john. >> all right. we just reran the tape there. the that was drew griffen talking to jerry summerall. drew pulled him out of the water. that man tried to drive his truck. he thought it was a road. it was clearly a stream or bayou with 12 feet of water. truck started floating away. dry and his crew took a rope and got him out of the truck. he told him no profanities, one or two could be forgiven right now. he is alive and hopefully finding someone to get him. his car is gone. we'll get back to drew in a moment. in the meantime, you can tell this storm not over. the impact not even close to he booing over. these pictures are from port arthur texas. this was supposed to be a shelter but you can see the place where people went for refuge became inundated with water. the joining me by the phone is port arthur city councilman raymond scott jr. i have to ask about you. i understand that you had a harrowing night water wushing into your home many how are you and your family doing? >> we're doing fine. the we got to dry ground. due to the fact my neighbors had a truck next door. but the water came in pretty fast and we were able to get into the struck and get to a dry ground. so. it was some type of experience, but, you know, my wife and i hadn't experienced before, because a few storms you wouldn't have left but thank god, and we made it to dry ground. we just ask that you all everyone keep us in the surrounding area in prayer because we definitely need that. >> so the mayor overnight posted this message on facebook. saying the entire city, our whole city is underwater. if you can look outside, give me a sense of the situation right now? >> well, it is underwater. it's just that this type of storm moves so slowly that it distributes water constantly all over the city and all surrounding areas. it's just moving very slowly. the water everywhere. we have boats, we have heavy pieces of equipment that we can possibly use to try to help get our citizens to higher ground and safe and sheltered. we trying to use every piece of equipment and have boats going all through the city to try to pick up citizens and bring them to safe ground. >> do you have a sense, councilman, if the need is being met, how many people are stranded right now? >> i don't have a number on that. there's people stranded all over the city. so that number is not a very small number. it's a lot of people that's stranded. but, again, the people that we got out here are trying to work throughout the whole city, surrounding areas, we're trying to get to the citizens to again, like i say, get them to safe ground but a lot of people that were stranded. but we are trying to move them. >> do you have the resources right now you need to reach these people? >> we have the resources that we have. we are using them all. i don't know where the numbers are or how much equipment and stuff we have. i don't have the numbers for that, but there are citizens still there and particular areas that need to be rescued. >> councilman, while i do have you, we understand the nation's largest oil refinery, which is in port arthur was forced to shut down over night. do you have any information on that, how that will impact your city or the concerns that might surround that? >> well, just we -- probably going to get information from that particular refinery on what particular things they'll be doing, and how long they're going to be shut down. le we'll be receiving that information i'm pretty sure to the city from that particular company. but as of now, we don't know any particular status of that particular company. >> i understand you're probably most worried first about your family, second about the constituent, third the city. oil refineries are probably fairly low on that list until it affects the safety of the people in the city. councilman raymond zot of port arthur, we hope help comes your way and wish you the best and stay safe. >> i appreciate it. again, please bring prayers, the prayers makes a difference. >> all right. councilman thank you very much. that's the situation in beaumont where we saw drew forgiven sagra life. the one place where the sun is blessedly shining over the last 12 hours is in houston, finally getting a break in the weather, but they're not out of danger yet because the waters are still rising. our own alice kin cam a rot ta by the buffalo bayou. ? well, john you're right. houstonians are waking up to blessed blue skies this morning. that will be a relief but they're not out of danger and we have a lot of sort of striking images to show you on that front. here i am next to buffalo bayou, as you mentioned this. is where these reservoirs, two big ones when they overflow, this is where they are dumped, and this river has swollen to five times its regular size. and the clip at which these rushing flood waters are running is really striking. i mean you can -- i don't know if you can see the current. it's really fast. of the i didn't get how fast it was until i saw the debris floating down. this is a walkway, normally. heaven forbid -- i will be safe don't worry. i'm hanging on here but to try to cross this general walkway to try to get out of danger, you would instantly be sort of he waist deep in these rushing waters. le another striking image is what is looked like yesterday. these are two bridges. i'm about to show you here. the this is interstate 45, the first one and you can see on top of it a tree has been depos zitded. there's only one way for that to have gotten there and is that is that the flood waters brought it there. in other words, just 24 hours ago the flood waters were what? 40? 50 feet? higher to bring a tree there. and then, what we keep seeing here, john, are just people's lives sort of floating by us. here's one stark example. i don't know if you can see that big white box in the distance. that's a refrigerator. our camera man saw that refrigerator float by, doors flung open fully stocked. in other words that just came out of someone's home, it was plucked by flood waters, and just thrust down here through the bayou and has come to rest here along with all of these ducks who are swimming in the bayou this morning. so there's just tom different juxtapositions. this is an interstate. i'm standing normally in front of the busiest interstate. it's quiet. so, houston is not out of the woods. the there are still a lot of people who are stranded. and there is still much more flooding that is expected so people here are still bracing for what's coming in the next 24, 48, 72 hours. >> all right. thanks so much. you and your crew go get a snack from that refrigerator as most tv crews would do. i want to go to the convention center. senator ted kroocruz is talking >> this remains a very dangerous storm. i'm here this morning at the convention center which was been set up as a shelter. it initially was set up to house 5,000 people. the capacity last night, there were about 11,000 people here. we're seeing an outpouring of love and scare and support across the region. we have that we know of, about 32,000 texans who have sought shelter, many more are staying with friends or staying with families, or renting hotel rooms but those who have sought shelters, it's about 32,000 and there are about 230 shelters across the houston region and across the state. and so we're seeing a really incredible outpouring of love and support and care, and that will be ongoing. it is terrific here seeing all the volunteers to come out and help. many especially all the young people. it's really nice to see college students, high school kids comes out and saying how can i help my community? how can i make a difference for people in need? that has been throughout this devastating storm, the most inspiring part of it all is the response of texans coming together, helping each other and the unity where seeing. we will make it through the storm. and on the other side, we will rebuild. to those who lost their homes, to those who lost their businesses, that's an enormous trauma. it's very difficult to deal with, but we will rebuild, come together and texas will come back stronger than ever. houston will come back stronger than ever because that's the spirit of who we are. >> you know i think it's really sad that there are some politician that is seem very disparate to get their name in the news and are tossing around all sorts of political insults. the with people who's lives are in danger. we have people who are fleeing flood waters and fleeing for their lives and i wish all of us were focused on providing the help and relief to people facing a natural disaster, facing a crisis. of the i'm a houstonian. i have been here this entire week at home, and my focus has been trying to help bring together and coordinate federal and state and local assets to save and preserve lives. going back this past weekend on saturday, houston mayer sylvester turner and the county judge here, ed em mitt both told me we lacked sufficient asset the for high water rescues, that the calls to 911, volume was so great there were not enough boats helicopters and high water trucks to meet the need. so i immediately hung up the phone and began calling federal officials, state oh officials, spoke with the go-- awe enormou resources. the governor deployed over 500 dps troopers, sent them to houston for search and recovery. governor called up over 3,000 national guardsman to send. it's now over 13,000 who have been called to help with disaster relief. the governor september boats an helicopters. at the federal level the coast guard deployed more for high water rescue to help people in need. >> senator ted krooucruz of tex. he has been briefing reporters there talking about the rescue in relief efforts now getting underway. he also talked a little bit about politics. there will be time for that soon enough. today still deal with the the very real life threat anything situation that ex zises in some places. we want to get to meteorologist chad myers. give us a sense of where things stand. >> things stand that the storm moved back on shore near cameron, louisiana about 5:00 a.m. this morning. the but moving to the north but 9 miles per hour. entire time we were doing two or three. now nine. cedar bayou almost 52 inches of rainfall. beaumont is disparate. flash flooding this morning. 26 inches in 24 hours. the happened in that little municipali municipality. the especially port arthur. the water is tremendous. over the entire city. so there's the storm for the rest of the day. even making some heavy rainfall in parts of mississippi and alabama. the but the center still close to beaumont. eventually making it into memphis. something else, this buffalo bayou thing and we're still going to see some rain but it's going to be east of the buffalo bayou and that will not go into it procedure. so here is the addicks and barker reservoir, they were built a long time ago to hold water going into houston. when houston had a population of 250,000. now, over millions. here is the map itself. i'm going to move you head -- i'm going to toss back to you until we get the camera worked out. >> we understand we are forgiven given the sheer magnitude and complicated niert of everything happening. we know you will help us understand what is going on when you get that set. thank you very much. let's get back to houston. houston police chief sat water rescue calls are just down to 40. still more to go. ar miguel marquez is out in thatwater. >> skies are blue here. at least seeing some blue skies. water is receding but some of those rescues are still happening and people can start to look forward to a very long recovery. we'll have all that coming up. when i needed to create a better visitor experience. improve our workflow. attract new customers. that's when fastsigns recommended fleet graphics. yeah! now business is rolling in. get started at fastsigns.com. yeah! now business is rolling in. when it comes to planning trthe best routes,. nobody does it better. he's also a championship-winning football coach. look at that formation. but when it comes to mortgages, he's less confident. fortunately for andre, there's rocket mortgage by quicken loans. it's simple, so he can understand the details and be sure he's getting the right mortgage. apply simply. understand fully. mortgage confidently. . you're looking at live pictures, waiting to hear from fema on the state of the disaster response in texas. hopefully get new numbers to find out how they feel things are going. do they think they have turned a corner. finally in texas. thousands of people have been kesk rescued. we just don't know how many people still need to be rescued right now. it is hard to tell. there is still a search as we are now four days into this in houston. miguel marquez. the give us a sense of what you're seeing. >> we're stepping off the boat now because it's hard to get boats into the water now it's receding so quickly. 2302 creek leaf road. you can look down the road. it looks like a perfectly normal road except for the four feet of water. this is good right now. the water here was up over the roof line for most of these homes. debris, like this mailbox that's sort of been knocked over. there are cars in here that are sunk. there are about 40 calls out to police now for rescue. most of these in the addicks reservoir area of houston. what they will start to move into now, say officials is a recovery mode. getting into places they haven't been able to get into before. looking more finely at places and trying to see if there are people who are alive there or perhaps deceased in certain parts of town. there is still a long way to go. the one headline here is that for the iffist time in many days, houstonians are waking up to blue sky which they have not seen in a very long time. it rained very hard throughout the day yesterday and for many days before that. things are starting to turn the corner but the beginning, at least they can see the light at the end of the tunnel. the beginning of a long, long recovery. i want to show you the boat we were in earlier. this had problems getting around in here because it just became too low. a guy named kenny delgado, a one of many texans who came in here forming this navy of boats helping people out. they pulled 30 or 40 people out in the first couple of days of this. it has gotten harder to find those people and get in there to help them. le now et just going to be a it waing game as this water recedes. they will come out and go in and look through houses and apartments. the thousands of homes still inundated at this point. >> just quickly, i want to ask you. it's important for people to know. have the water the begun to recede right where you are? >> oh, i incredibly. put this boat in a few hours ago and in two hours it was already getting too low and dangerous to have the boat in there. other thing is getting the boat out and back onto the trailer that it needs to get on to. that's very difficult in very low water. so smaller boats can get in here. some of these air boats are effective in here. the problem with the air boats is as the water recedes and starts flowing fast it's difficult for them to operate and maneuverer. they also can't hold a lot of people oftentimes, so there are pluses and minuses with both boats. officials are probably looking to get into a recover dwri mode. >> thanks so much for us. the message is at least for miguel the water is receding and quickly. that is not the case everywhere. people still face a harrowing situation. thousands have been evacuated. the red 0 cross promising no one will be turned away. the convention center now holding 10,000. actually we're going back to rosa in a second. this is the fema update. >> we heard first hand the experience of the first responders, and the vol un tiers that are helping in the texas area. the we met with state and local officials to continue coordinating our response and identifying opportunities for closer collaboration. this was an important first visit to the area. i also want to reinforce the president's message from our trip yesterday. we expect a many-year recovery in texas and the federal government is in this for the long hall. we will continue to support the people of texas as long as it is in es sere. the president reiterated this again, both publicly and behind closed doors yesterday. at the initial word we got, people first, is continuing through our response. while we continue to monitor the storm as it heads towards louisiana, we remain concerned about houston. the we're catastrophic flooding is likely to persist days after the rain stops. this cooperation between fema, the other federal agencies, and state and local officials has been outstanding. and we are collect i.ly focusing on rescuing those in danger and providing housing and immediate care for those displaced. the resources from across the country have been dispatched to the area to aid in response and recovery. finally, the local officials in texas, governor abbott, mayor turner, judge em mitt, chief oz a vade dough and all the others are doing a tremendous job under considerable strain. what we must do in the federal government is to continue to support them and their teams. i want to also thank the men and women who are putting their lives on the line to help the people of texas. their heroism is truly humbling. homeland security's own custom and border protection are working with the local first responders and have safed countless lives. yesterday, we tragically lost one of these local heros, houston police sergeant steve perez, our thoughts and prayers go out to his family and to those who have lost loved ones in this terrible storm. while the focus has been understandably on texas, we are working with the state of louisiana as the storm moves through their state. to the people in h texas and louisiana, please continue to listen to your local officials and heed warnings, we expect this storm to continue and our number 1 priority is everyone's safety. the we will continue with the life sustaining, life-saving mission for the next few days, and then move into recovery for the area. and the officials with me here today will tell you more about that. i'll turn it over to the common dant now to talk about the continuing life saving missions. >> thank you, ma dam secretary. the we are still very much in the emergency response phase of this historic storm. number one priority right now is recovering survivors. over thousands yesterday, but these aren't numbers, these are people. and i just want to put myself in the shoes of these community members whose lives have been turned upside down. the so we will be there for as long as it takes, as the storm is is that writing to shift to the east, we will be able to shift our resources to the east as well. we will be able to stay if front of this. getting great support from the national guard, from the state of texas, the entire first response community. this is truly been a unified effort, and i can't emphasize enough the great work that a good smar tans are doing as well. back in our coast guard headquarters i now have 32 watch standers standing watch around the clock because the 911 calls have inundated the call centers in texas. we're tanging that overthrow and we are not out of this by any long stretch yet. we will be as we continue to watch this storm move on and as we move into the long road to recovery. thank you very much. >> so the whole community continues to descend upon texas. 'amassed quite the government support. over 12,000 staff mers. it's going to continue to grow. le not only are we pushing people through the dhs capacity, the detective duke proactively put into place and also the common dant's people. also calling upon other states through emergency management assistance compacts and contracts where we're asking state es support to come down and they're continuing to mass in texas. so the operation right now is very clear. we're still in life safing live sustaining mode. not only performing through the coast guard but the sustainment issue is huge, it's going to grow. we have over 230 shelters operating in texas with over 30,000 people. but i don't want to get fixated on numbers because those numbers are going to change fts next 30 minutes but just to let the people of texas know we are supporting the efforts to provide mass care, not only mass care but also medical care to those who have been displaced and we understand this is going to be a painful process. over night, the areas of beaumont and port arthur got hit, got slammed with 20 inches of rainfall. while we're focused a lot of effort on houston, we have to in r stand there are over 50 counties impacted right now. we're continuing to watch the situation develop. citizens in the louisiana are not in the clear. still nfr evacuation warnings. please make sure you're heeding those. and we're ready to support governor john bell edwards in his efforts to take care of folks over there in louisiana. we've also turned on individual assistance in some of the most important information you're going to hear about today is from the recovery director alex ampa are. o. we're providing a dispri dugs skts we are already providing points of distribution in disseminating life sustaining commodities not currently impacted by rainfall. for example, we've been down in rockport, port aransas, where the rain has stopped but they sustained category winds and storm surge. we are supporting those folks down there. power restoration is ongoing. we're very concerned about the infrastructure, obviously, it is the key to restoring routine to everybody's dale lives. we will try to help private power kwps bring the power back on as quickly as we can, but right now, many areas in texas still around out of the clear from the threat. security is a concern. we've amassed quite a bit of federal law enforcement out of the department of homeland security. again, they're working in conjunction with over 12,000 national guard members that have been deployed by the national guard in texas as well as the true first responders at the local level. again, we're sporting medical support, secretary price is highly engaged. we're constantly watching the hospital situations and being able to -- we've evacuated several hospitals but also trying to sustain self hospitals to make sure they're up in operation and providing a standard of care everybody deserves. with that i'd like to ask people to volunteer when it comes to invo ed.org or basically going 0 through the state of texas's organizations to able to organize the volume tier effort. the near to vol up tier is going to take place over the next couple years. okay? and the need to volunteer is -- 50 counties right now. not just in houston, but everywhere. so that mission is going to continue to expand. but right now what i would like to concentrate on is how we get disaster survivors to start activating assistance for those that qualify. my recovery director is going to if go us critical information. the. >> good morning. so as of this morning, we have over 195,000 registrations of individuals asking for assistance. we've provided over $35 million in financial assistance to those that have registered. so our message is clear. if you have impact from -- damage from this disaster and have been impacted, find yourself in a shelter, first, contact your insurance company. file your claim, and immediately after that, go to disaster assistance. gov. our assistance is not dnsed to make you whole, which is why it's important to first register with your insurance company. it's also important that you provide us your location, where you're at, during the registration process, because we can provide you immediate assistance. we also have the transitional shelter assistance program over 1700 families last night, and over 2,000 rooms in five different states that we're providing assistance to. so after you register, you'll be assigned an inspector. that inspector will contact you to come out and view your damages. due to the volume, we are prioritizing inspections base off of the greatest amount of damage. we will be in contact with you throughout the process. t make sure that fema assistance can provide some rental assistance. we can also provide assistance for repair. we can provide assistance for personal property. its it's important that when i register, address, current location, how we can contact you. what kind of damage you have sustained. the insurance that you have, stay in contact with us. go to disaster assistance dot gov. providing assistance to those in shelters and out of there and into a better place. working in partnership with our non government organizations as administrator long had mentioned in support of the state of texas. these organizations like american red cross, southern baptists. this is an unprecedent the event. we've seen our call volume increase and sky rocket larger than ever before. so have the registrations. we are in h the long hall to provide the assistance to every disaster survivor we can. the. >> take some questions at this point if it there's any. >> do you have any estimate of how many homes have been flooded and how many people will need assistance? how much this might cost. >> right now, it's a dynamic situation. we don't have an accurate number. the i could try to but put you a number out there, but in 30 minutes it will be wrong. we try to use the best mapping capabilities we have when it comes to understanding the flood zones, flood plane mapping we have. le but the best i indicator is just what alex was saying, nearly 200,000 people already registered. that number is going to climb. it's going to continue to project and we have to be ready to go. >> looking at some of the decisions the administration made ahead of this disaster, proposed budget that would for instance cut some fema grants and some other agency programs that are involved in this effort or rolling back to the last administrations flood risk imagine mgt standard, under standing that did not impact the response we're seeing now, how is that playing into the administration looking at how you prepare for those disasters going forward and reconsidering some of those decisions that were made in the prior months? >> right now we're focusing on this specific disaster. i think that the planning that the communities do as grown over the years and we're looking at having grant program that is are appropriate to have 24e78 continue their planning, but many of these communities including texas, has made extraordinary process in h its planning for disasters. this particular storm was unprecedented in terms of volume of rain, and that's what we're focussing on now. >> what does the temporary shelter look like? is it going to include trailers? what are the options that you're considering? >> so very simply, the goal is to sustain life. so we've already turned on what is called transitional shelter assistance program. getting them out of those shelters. they're obviously not ideal. and unfortunately, people are going to be there for quite sometime as we're trying to mobilize people into hotels. how many people have we already moved? around 1800 people have already been placed in hotel motels. we have to understand the vacancies that are there. the make sure that will continue. but that about continue to grow. the next goal is save houses. as thewater starts to recede, we have to go in and this is where the volunteers mead to be organized. helping people muck out the houses get the wet carpet and drywall out. make simple repairs to hopefully get people back in the house at a very baseline level and sustain them there. and then finally, the fema manufactured housings and travel trailers, we pulled the trigger. we have a limited amount. the we have to implement what's called the defense production agency to buy. the buy these -- this capability but it takes time to produce those. slowly is the last resort, we start to bring those in it. and it's a very sizable mission. what we have on the ground right now is what we call disaster housing assistance teams. this is a coordinated effort between not only fema, but hud, it's also going to be sba and the most important piece is working with our state and local partners, those counter parts down through to make sure we put together a comprehensive plan and clearly explain how the system work the. >> sir? >> jeffrey cook from abc news. president said yesterday probably never been nic like this in history -- is that true or? >> you can't do a point by point comparison of the storm. what's unique about this storm is the area of devastation, also the amount of rainfall, which has now measuring in some places over 50 inches, which is more than the annual rainfall. and also, the how long it has been. so we've been experiencing this rainfall at over a long period tif of of time. so the duration and we expect the flood waters not to dres for another couple days. so those are some of the unique things that we're behind the >> it's important to point out that this is going to be an incredibly large disaster for the country. it's going to reshape some of the ways that we do business. we're going to learn from it and go on. but it's very important to recognize that the cost of this disaster, the economic cost to measure the disaster versus our physical cost as the federal government family, we're not going to know a true cost for that for many, many years to come as we work together to understand what the communities are entitled to from public assistance or hud community development block grants or reimbursement costs. it takes a lot of time to understand the true costs of this disaster. it's going to be a huge one. >> are there areas in houston still that you feel that you don't have good visibility into and that there are individuals who are trapped and not able to communicate they are in an emergency situation? >> so we have been able to use google heat maps, if you will. and where the concentration of most of the calls are coming from, even if someone can't communicate, we have 11 fixed wing airport airplanes that are surveillance as well. we have a good idea of where the concentration of those are still in high water. we're monitoring, as you heard from the administrator, the heavy rainfall that occurred. so this isn't like 5-year-old soccer, everyone clustered around one point. we're looking across the entire metropolitan area to make sure that we've got resources allocated. it's very well coordinated with coast guard, other first responders, national guard. >> you can get mo >> can you get more specific where you think there are individuals who can't get help? >> we're talking square miles. we're not down to blocks. we're talking the entire houston metropolitan area. others more impacted than others. but we're seeing an awful lot to the west and southwest of the center of houston proper itself. >> can you tell us what's necessary to get the insfrafr infrastructure back up and running, including chemical plant that had to be evacuated. >> i will talk about the chemical plant. they were able to restore electricity. the refreigerated tank cars should be stabilized. it's 20 miles to the northeast of houston. we're looking at reopening the ports. right now, it's too rough for ships to even -- pilots to embark ships. we're working with the army corps of engineers, coast guard. we will have the inner harbor of corpus christi surveyed today. even when we open a port, what we have seen in the past, it will take several days before those facility workers can get back to work. when you can fire up those refineries. when pilots can actually safely get to the boats and then continue business as usual. we want to make sure that those ports are open well in advance before the first worker can show up. i can at least speak to the maritime. other infrastructure, perhaps, you might want to address that. >> so we are in constant contact with all the critical inf infrastructure in the area. secretary perry is leading us. there are two pieces to that we have to keep in mind. one is getting distribution up and then second is getting power to individual residents and homes. that's challenging. the flood -- the high level of flooding requires quite a bit of preparation to make sure it's safe as the electric companies connect their distribution systems to specific points of system delivery. additional, we're tracking the refineries and other gas and oil in the area. very good news is we have seen no environmental issues at this point, because that critical infrastructure did act proactively in shutting down. we are looking at getting those up and running to keep oil refinement and production going. but it's still a safety concern, and they will be up as soon as possible. >> if i may add, too, you know, emergency managers around the country realize that restoring routine is the number one goal and recovery as well. it's not just keeping up the critical infrastructure. but we also activate what's called business eoc or business emergency operation center. one at the national level and all states at the state level to understand when the private industry is coming back online. if we can get the roadways open and get private industry back on to restore some of the routine as well as the schools, we will be -- the department of homeland security also -- and fema will be working to help figure out how we're going to do school, if schools have been damaged. we may have to set up temporary capability. it's in the front of our mind, actually, on the recovery side is getting the lights back on, getting the sewer system working, bringing up the private industry, the private industry is the most important thing. >> one of the keys to getting routine back is getting people back in their homes. when you look at the raw numbers, about 9% fewer people have flood insurance in houston than they did five years ago. do you understand what's behind that decline? because this flood is so far outside the area where people had flood insurance, what's the advice for home owners who don't have flood insurance? >> simply put, those that have flood insurance need to be activating their policies. those that don't will most likely be dealing with the small business administration and looking at low interest loans. because they also have a disaster declaration. so typically, anything -- if you are uninsured outside the nfip, the next step is most likely going to be the small business administration. >> what's behind the decline in the numbers? >> you have been listening to a news conference from fema and the department of homeland security giving an update on what they consider life saving and life sustaining measures taking place on the gulf coast. they do know the storm is moving on. houston, soon, will be able to begin the recovery effort. not there yet because they still have to get out on boats and look for people who may be stranded in their homes. the storm itself has moved on past houston through beaumont and port arthur, now over lake charles, louisiana, which is right under that path of the storm you are looking at right now. joining me is the mayor of lake charles. mr. mayor, thank you so much for being with us right now. we saw a radar shot from lake charles. give me a chance of what it looks like outside. >> can you hear me? >> yes. >> we're doing well here in lake charles. we actually had more intense rain and flooding events monday evening than we did last night. my heart goes out and my heart breaks for our neighbors to the west. they are really getting the brunt of this storm. but i can tell you in lake charles, our number one priority is still the safety of our citizens. but right now, we are doing well. >> we were looking at pictures of the last few days in lake charles. there has been a lot of rain there and a number of rescues taking place. what's your outlook over the next few hours and your area of greatest need? >> well, right now, of course, the greatest need is the safety of our citizens. we do have a shelter set up in lake charles for those who have been displaced. locally, we have an amazing group of elected officials here that are working together. we're taking care of our citizens. but we're very resilient people here in southwest louisiana. i can say that moving forward, the federal assistance from fema -- i appreciate your comment is -- it will be essential to get people back into their homes that were damaged and get people back to work and get businesses back up again. both of those agencies will absolutely be needed in the days moving forward in our area. >> any sense of how many people are stranded right now in your city? >> speaking only for the city of lake charles, right now we have about 200 to 300 people that are at our shelter. some of those came from outside the city of lake charles. we have heard a few reports of some people coming from texas that made it to our shelter. again, you know, we do have some areas that were affected. but compared to what we are seeing to the west, we have not seen the intensity that our neighbors to the west have seen. >> that is good news. we hope the good news holds out for you in the coming hours. we need a lot more of that in the days ahead. mayor of lake charles, louisiana, thank you very much. we have a lot of news this morning. stick around. we'll be right back. with a $500,000 life insurancety policy. how much do you think it cost him? $100 a month? $75? $50? actually, duncan got his $500,000 for under $28 a month. less than $1 a day! his secret? selectquote. in just minutes a selectquote agent will comparison shop nearly a dozen highly rated life insurance companies, and give you a choice of your five best rates. duncan's wife cassie got a $750,000 policy for under $21 per month. give your family the security it needs, at a price you can afford. since 1985, selectquote has saved over a million families millions of dollars on life insurance. back with you. the life saving mission in texas and wherever harvey heads next is huge and it's just going to grow. that moments ago from federal officials. more than 200 shelters are housing 30,000