Crosby is in hard hit Harris County. It is of course the same county as houston, about 25 miles east of downtown. That same plant was hit by a fire and explosion on thursday after floods knocked out Power Supplies needed to run the refrigerators that actually can cool these chemicals. The smoke was not a serious danger to people yesterday. But locals were evacuated for oneandahalf miles around the plant. The fire that youre looking at right now, as you see that black smoke, it is much bigger and more intense cht we h have much more on that in a moment. We are also following the breaking news on a new major hurricane tonight, hurricane irma, a major category three storm right now and it will get a lot bigger. It is intensefying. The satellite picture captured irm and what remains of harvey. It has the potential to hit the mainland as a major storm. Possibly bigger and stronger than harvey. It could make land fall in florida or even crossing the gulf and plowing into the disaster left behind by harvey. Many storm paths terrifying. Joining me on the phone, obviously, still issues with communications with the ka trdir there. What do we know about this plant and the explosion . This smoke is this isnt just regular chimney smoke, this is black, thick stuff. Yeah. There is 500,000 pounds of the organic per rox ied in this plant cht plant. As you noted yesterday, part of the plant burst into flames. 15 deputies with Harris County were in the maplant at the time. They had to be treated at the hospital. It causes an irritant. They were not badly injured, but the plant out of an abundance of caution has instituted a oneandahalf mile exclusion zone out of the plant. It suffered six feet of water. It is not the water that has set off these chemicals. It is the lack of refrigeration. The power went out in the mapla and this is something officials at the plant thought would happen in the days ahead. They knew that this was a very likely event that would happen, and it is happening. The chemical safety board has started an investigation into the first explosion, and this one is being watched very carefully as well. It is not clear how long this will burn or if it will spread to other areas of the plant. But this is why they have this explosion zone, this oneandahalf mile zone around the plant in the event that it is catastrophic situation. This is the petro chemical oil area of the country. There are many, many of these plants in this storm and the issues raised not only with the flooding but with the power and everything that comes with these storms is being looked at by many, many agencies right now that the Environmental Protection agency watching very carefully whats happening here. But this, unfortunately, is oftentimes what happens in these sort of major disasters where you have water rising over many, many days and it can be a slow, sort of unfolding disaster. This may be just one of many days that we see of this. Erin . All right. Thank you very much. As we get more, well go back to miguel here on the scene. I want to go to one of the top officials here. It includes houston and the fire at the plant you are looking at right now. The sheriff is back with me. And let me get to the breaking news here. Obviously, we see that black, thick smoke coming from that Chemical Plant. There was a fire yesterday. This one of course is much bigger than that one. You have crews there. What is causing this . Do you know . What exploded . Well, we have nine containers there, boxed containers there that contain this organic peroxide. We knew eventually we would have these ruptures. We experienced the first one yesterday. This is now the second one and we anticipate more, at least seven. As you mentioned, thats why we have that exclusion zone for a mile and a half now. Seven more. Its foul. Its black. Its noxious. I know 15 of your deputies were taken to the hospital after inhaling that. How are they tonight . How are the officers doing . They were fine. Fortunately, thank god, they were released later that morning. And, so, were happy that theyre doing well. And, you know, were still continuing to monitor the situation. Were working very closely with our fire professionals near the scene and assessing everything and we have all the top experts trying to determine what our next steps if any we need to do. We need to take a defensive posture and allowing these containers to burn. We thought that would be the best option and thats what were trying to do at the moment. Ours is more of a Public Safety police function we have regarding the general area and the fire professionals are handling the fire and the chemical issue. When you talk about Public Safety, obviously these are chemicals and a massive plant. The fire is black and thick and looks noxious. Our executive from that plant was actually asked about that smoke and whether the smoke is toxic. The answer was certainly not one to be proud of from a Public Relations perspective. I just want to play it, though, to get your response to the facts, the allegations here. Let me play it. Nontoxic or can you not say that . It is noxious. You are not able to say that any of this is nontoxic . Toxicity is a so you cant say it . Either you can say it or not. I think its a pretty important the smoke is noxious. Its toxicity is a relative thing. Using a scientific distinction here, but a distinction without a difference to the public that you are trying to protect. Are you concerned with whats going into the air right now . Well, i mean, there is always a concern. And the images obviously are very troubling. So that is a concern. But i feel confident in talking to the fire marshall since the chief is there. Trust him a great deal. Hes very experienced. And they have been in communications and deliberations with them from the beginning on this. I have to go with what our professionals are saying and were working closely with them. If anything changes we will definitely adjust our plans. But not sure about what they are mentioning. I cant really speak to their statement. No, i understand. Sheriff, though, as our reporter pointed out, youre standing at the epi center at the petro capital of the united states. You have refinerierefineries, c plants. You have oil coming in. You have a lot of old super fund sites. Are you concerned at this point that there could be more massive, toxic fires or leaks . Youre correct. We have a lot of Critical Infrastructure here. We cover over 1,700 square miles. Were the Third Largest in the country. But beyond this, we have not heard of any other facility compromised in any way or any other issues at this point. We have our Industrial Team with the Sheriffs Office and other administrative partners and regulators that we communicate with, so we do not have other concerns at this time. All right. Sheriff, i appreciate your taking the time, talking to me again. Thank you, sir. Thank you, erin. And joining me on the phone now is sam, a professor of Chemical Engineering at texas a m. He did a study on all the chemicals in the area. Now so much of it underwater. Sam, can you answer, i guess, the crucial question here of how hazardous is this explosion . When you see this black smoke, how concerned are you . So i am concerned, but i dont think it is something of the order of magnitude of the west explosion or the whole west scenario. But it is a matter of concern. And the thick black smoke you see coming out, it primarily contains the product of combustion. But depending on how incomplete the combustion is and the darkness of the blackness of the smoke indicates that there is some incomplete combustion. So because of that, some of the chemicals are getting in the air. And my hope is, and i have to assume that theyre getting dispersed properly. But if people get exposed to it over longer periods of time, there can be health affects. Whether or not theyre going to be reversible or irreversible health effects, wed have to dig deeper into it. Thats what i think is really terrifying for people to hear. When you look at this, you think more broadly about other chemicals leaking into the water in houston. But in this case, they have evacuated people within a mile and a half of the Chemical Plant. Thats even as they said dont worry about it. They did evacuate. You are saying this is going into the air, and it sounds like we dont know how dangerous it is. Should they have evacuated a broader area or are you confidence oneandahalf miles is enough . Only time will tell if thats the right decision. But again i have to assume that oneandahalf mile radius was picked on the basis of some calculations that took into account explosion over pressures, shockwaves, as well as the concentrations they might see at that distance after dispersion has taken place. Clearly, the resolve is uncertainties with those calculations. But usually people make those determinations on a conservative basis, so you are always on the safe side. I am hoping that is the case in this case. But it is not something that we should just treat as something we should not be concerned about. Clearly, we should be concerned about it and there are seven other tanks that are there with significant quantities of the material. They will also burn sooner or later. And right now, the plant or anyone else doesnt have any other options but to let it burn and hopefully the consequences will be limited to this type of explosion. Okay, all right. Thank you very much, sam. I appreciate your time and seven more of those explosions to come at least just there. And this comes as another hurricane is intensefying over the atlantic. Right now it is a category three, but it is still very far away. It coalessed into a storm and could pose a major threat to the united states. Alison, were talking about irma here. What do you know about it . We know right now it is a very strong hurricane as it stands. But its also in the middle of nowhere. So the question really is where does it go from here . Right now you are taking a look at irma. It is not really around land of any kind. Still well away from the caribbe caribbean. Heres a look at the current statistics. Right now a category three storm. Winds around 120 miles an hour, moving west at about 13 miles an hour. But as we take a look at the track, youll notice that it is going to start to take a more southerly turn pretty soon. Now, the reason it does that is it is going to have a height. It will block it pushing it south. But in doing so, it will end up getting into slightly warmer water. This allow the storm to strengthen even more, perhaps into a category four storm, if not potentially stronger. Thats really the short term. The ultimate question is what does it do in the long term. So lets take a look at what some of the models are kind of spitting out for this, per se. We take the top two models we have. As it treks across the atlantic, coming in towards the caribbean, both models have consistent tracks. It is once we get towards the bahamas, thats when they split. This is the american model. It keeps it further away from the u. S. , hugging a little closer towards bermuda. But the european model actually treks further west, pushing showers and thunderstorms towards florida and even maybe skirting along the North Carolina and South Carolina coast. Now you are talking 7 to 10, even 12 days out. We will keep a close eye on it in the coming days. All right, alison. Of course everyones eyes are on this after the catastrophe in houston. Next, in teour exclusive te in. We went out, tested the toxic flood waters. What is in them . You are going to see them just after this in their entirety. Brace yourself. Plus, a man returns to his home for the first time. Will he ever be able to live there again. And a letter about jim comey may prove to be big trouble for the president. Whats in it . According to feng shui, the bed should face north east. On it. Youre trying everything to get pregnant. New oneaday couples pack gives you both nutritional support you may need. For her to prepare for a healthy baby and for him to support healthy sperm. Be in it together. 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I wineverver wash my hair again now, i fuel it pantene is the first shampoo and conditioner system with active prov nutrient blends that fuel 100 stronger hair. Because strong is beautiful. Breaking news, officials in texas warning about bacteria in the toxic flood water that is right now drowning the city. We have the water tested and the results came in just a few minutes ago. Elizabeth cohen is out front live and elizabeth break the news here. You were out yesterday. I know you collected samples of the flood water. You have gotten these results back and what is in it . Unfortunately the numbers are stunningly high. Talking about bacteria, especially fecal bacteria. When we looked at e. Coli, the numbers in our first sample, we took three in a small area, 8,600 cfus, 3,700 in the second sample, 6,300 in the third. The epa standard for recreational waters is zero. You are not supposed to have any. Now lets look at total cola form. The first was 5 ,000. The second 43,000. The third sample 45,000. The epa standard tells us the standard is less than 100. So as you can see these numbers are much, much higher than that. Now, the lab manager at the lab said these numbers are huge. He said we do Water Testing every day. Thats what we do. Hes never seen numbers like this in water publically accessible. It is not just fecal matter, but these numbers are an indication there could be something that is the flesh eating bacteria. Hes really worried about the people that waded through this water. That is terrifying because we know what that can do. You are saying they are worried about the possibility of flesh eating bacteria, that people could have been exposed to that. What does this mean for people in the flood waters . Because that is hundreds of thousands of people have been in that water. Right, exactly. So the concerns are on two levels. First of all, i have seen it, people are out in the water and inadvertent lly splash around a water can get in your nose and mouth. That can be dangerous for people who are fragile or who have immune issues. For most of us you will get diarrhea and it will go away. For other folks, it could be a problem. If you have a cut large enough and it gets in there and you dont clean it out quickly, that could be a serious infection. Right. Of course with the flesh eating bacteria, that is obviously with horrific outcome. Thats the risk, too, of that. It can get in any kind of cut. Right. And that could be even that would be even for a healthy person. Even if a healthy person gets that in a cut in their flesh and they dont cut it out soon enough, that could be deadly. Thank you very much. Very sobering results here. I want to go to the former fema administrator from 2005 to 2009. You oversaw the fema Recovery Efforts in katrina. You just heard these results. This stuff is toxic and foul. There could be flesh eating bacteria, which as we know for incredibly Healthy People can result in horrific outcome. How worried are you when you hear these results . Very much so. This is really, really nasty water. And its very difficult for people not to be in it because it is so much flooding. But as much as possible, they need to stay out of the water if they can. Dont get it on your hands. If you do, try to wash off and get clean. It countld be some terribly nas infections. Theres a lot of other stuff in this flood water that can be very harmful to you and your family. And were looking at these images. People are walking in it. People are diving under it to try to retrieve things. People are in this water. Thats the reality here. The first study for e. Coli, 8,600 forming units. The standard is zero. And for coliform, 54,000. On t