Transcripts For CNNW New Day 20170830

Tree lying across the highway because thats how high this bayou had gotten. It brought trees with it. Theres just no better illustration of what downtown houston is facing than all of this water. This is the area where the reservoirs are let out into. So they are trying to keep up with the more than 50 inches of rain, chris, that has fallen in this area. And as you can see, they cant keep up with. It has swollen over and bled onto highways and on ramps. Those reservoirs are being emptied into Buffalo Bayou. Were watching. You cant see it right now but a city bus has been immobilized trying to cross the water and is bei being towed away by a tow truck. There are three mega shelters open in h the city of houston to handle the tens of thousands of evacuees who have been trying to flee harveys flood waters. Of course they are not out of danger, jus because it is not raining with are we are, they are still expecting massive flooding and people are still trapped in their homes. They dont believe the water will crest until later this week. And that will be the first point where they can start to assess how long it will take to dry out. Stay safe. Well be back to you in a moment. Unfortunately, where alisyn is, the best news we have for you in terms of harvey coming back on shore because areas the western parishes of louisiana and some small parts of east texas are getting another two feet of rain in just the last 24 hours. Harvey is posing a flood threat to several states now that will be in its path. All of this as president is back in washington. He got so mame criticism and praise. Lets begin with paul low sandoval. Where alysin is theyre worried what the water will mean. Where you are theyre worried about having more water and dealing with what is there as well. Reporter absolutely, chris. Just h. Just because the skies are clear doesnt mean the threat is over especially here in fort bed county. The water that has overflowed from the brazos river is slowly invading this brazos river here. Many of the that is where a he officials are tracking sadly an increasing death toll among them. Houston police officer, Sergeant Steve pet tis, were told he gave nearly half of his life to Public Service in uniform, serving the Houston Community there. We are told that he his body was sadly recovered just yesterday. He put on that uniform on sunday, went out to work, even though his wife begged that he not go out there because of the deteriorati deteriorating conditions and satly he did not make it. There are still many unaccounted for including a family of six. Reheard from some of their loved ones who say hope is very quickly diminishing that they may be found alive again. The current just lifted up the van and started pointing it towards, you know, into the water. It just took the van. And he had his window down so he managed to get out the window and he tried to get around the van but he couldnt. It was too strong. The current was too strong. You can hear the kids screaming and trying and get out of the van and he kept telling them go to the back of the van, open the back doors but from what hes describing im sure the kids couldnt even grab a grip on the van just to reach the door, much less open it. The he said it just went under the water. Report back is what now the bank of the braz theyre hoping to prevent more tragedies from happening. Oh, my gosh, paul low, what a tragedy to hear the story of those fine flal moments. Thank you. We will be with you throughout the rest of the program. The American Red Cross says that more than 17,000 hurvy evacuees are now in shelter as across the state. There are these two new mega shelters open in houston to try to alleviate some of the maesive crowding weve seen in the first shelter where i was just in the past hour. The cnns rosa flores is live at one of the other shelters. The nrg convention center. What are the continues there now rosa . Reporter well, alisyn, weve learned there are 1,000 people at this shelter. And miss fay mcdaniel is asking for help this morning because, as you know, its been a very chaotic situation with the rising waters, so and she tells us that she is missing her family. So shes trying to reunite with her family. If you could tell us, miss mcdaniel, your full name, where your family is and hopefully somebodys watching and they can come reunite with you. Okay. My name is fay mcdaniel. I have a son Charlie Mcdaniel and a daughter Tina Mcdaniel that lives in houston. In the downtown area . Yeah. So everybody knows, she was at the Arbor Terrace in kingwood, which is in north hughes to be and shes here with her dog, patches. So we know a lot of families are going through what youre going through, so if anybody recognizes her, if her family is watching, shes at the nrg, alisyn, right here waiting with little patches down here which is just a beautiful, beautiful little dog and theyre allowing people to be here with their dogs. Shes right here, safe. And hopefully her family will come reunite with her pretty soon. Reporter rosa i lets hope we can connect her with her family. Thats part of the power of television. Lets hope they are watching and can be reunited. So this Tropical Storm harvey has made landfall again this morning for a second time. Its made landfall in louisiana right near the border of texas. Hes l hes live in bow month texas. Reporter pretty breezy. Bands and bands of these thunderstorms coming through, just more rain, on top of the two feet or more that they had here yesterday. Its made rescues overnight almost impossible. Port arthur were hearing, which is about 20 mile the south of me. Is inundated. In fact we have pictures from our partners at 12 news now that show the shelter where people were sent to, that is being flooded now. We do know that at sun light today, they will sart the both rescues. Theyve been trying to go out with dump trucks around jefferson county, other high water vehicles but really the call from the sheriff was you just going to have to stay in place and ride it out unless its a dire emergency. And theyre going to have to evaluate the situation. The biggest problem is mobility. You cant get around the roads just about everywhere are very, very deep. The just a few cars attempt to go through and weve seen several of them die just behind me here. As the rain continues to fall, this event is not over. Everybody is still hunkered down in h place, hoping, hoping that the wind, chris, will die down, that the rain will stop and the water will start to recede. Thank you for being there for us. Wind moves water. So how much nor rain will fall in where will the winds be . Will those dams in and around houston hold um. Cnn meteorologist chad myers is facing the questions for us. I think the maximum amount of rain is twoblly somewhere around 10 inches today. That is like the different rivers, just to the north of bow month, port arthur where they picked up 25 inches in 24 hours. And orange texas, right there on the border picked up nine inches of rain in four hours overnight. Thats the same thing that happened to houston the night that it really flooded. Here goes the storm for today. Up toward the shreveport and even showers in little rock and memphis. Th now im going to get you to the map of these reservoirs. The add h. Addicks reservoir here, this is 109 feet loabove a level. Water coming out the spillway, yes, but water is going around. Now, i want to show you what the city officials were thinking in 1950. This is what is looks like right now. Here is the dam. Its a park. Theres never water in this reservoir unless you get Tropical Storm harvey. This is what it should look like with green grass. Notice all of the land and all of the houses back out here. Now, i take you to 1950. Theres not a house. Theres a farm. Theres probably more cows than people. Because this is farmland. This is what was supposed to drain into this reservoir and stay here in case there was a big flood. Well, look at the farmland, creeks streams and cows and you can see what it looks like now. Hundreds of thousands of houses. Hundreds of thousands of square feet of concrete that the rain just runs off rather than stooa in. Chad, that is quite the illustration for us and i have more illustrations. The i finally coming down here to the Buffalo Bayou, a you can finally see what the folks in houston are grappling with. The this river has swollen to about five times its normal size and you can see this is a walkway normally behind me and look at how fast these brazos riv river you can see how easily people can get swept up and can get carried away or trapped. You think that you can get past it. You think its shallow and it is just moving at such a clip, it instantly becomes dangerous. Thats what the coast guard has been dealing with. Theyve been working around the clock trying to rescue all of the tens of thousands of people who have been stuck in their homes or stuck in their cars on the road because this fast moving water caught them unawares. Lets get an update from the operations from the commander of the coast guard atlantic area. Vice admiral shalty on the showshow phone. Good morning, alisyn, it is in fact a busy day. The center of graft is shifting a little bit. Were in houston and weather is getting a little bit better today, better enable the rescue operations. We should see less rain here today which is a very positive thing so that will give us a chance i think collectively through the state so tee how many spokes are still in need of rescue. The 25 inches, 24 hours down in the port arthur bow month Southeast Texas is a high activity. We had a lot of calls last night. The we are pre positioned with helicopters lying out of a Fort Operating base in louisiana. To hop into as soon as the weather abates. Weve got six of our flood response Shallow Water boat crews that are heading out again this morning. They were on the water last night ant with state and local partners. And americans helping texantexa. Were in the fight to respond. That is sort of where the urgent cases emerging cases are today. Back mere in houston we are still in the fight with all kinds of capacity and not stripping it for Southeast Texas. Weve other stuff. We will be ten euwaiting the urgent cases. Dro helicopters are on stand buy. Well, almir recall can you give us a sense of the scope of what youre looking at. The Mother Nature is giving us a little reprieve right now but how many rescues do you think you into ed to pull off . Two things, Mother Nature is giving us a reprieve. The i think that story, harvey is tracking north. Hopefully thats going to be a finite window. Here in hughouston, more stationary. Hopefully not anything near the duration we saw in houston. The in terms of the rescues, we will stay connected to the state and attenuate the most dire rescues there as we triage the calls and i think we are operating as seamlessly as absolutely possible. And what i want to leave you were is it is we are in the fight with the state and localities to get into those emerging areas of high demand nor rescue right now and well stand by. But like i said, last night our team just to give you one team. They were on their way back after a long day in port arthur and came across a nursing home which needed evacuation. Were getting Situational Awareness and bad weather is going to have the same kind of effects it did in the early days of the urgent rescues. We were pushing in on the water here. Okay . Yeah. Admiral, we know youre in the fight. Thank you so much for all youre doing. Weve seeing all of the video and to you will a of your men and women there who are helping, we are obviously be checking back with you throughout the day. Thanks so much for being with us. All right, alisyn, thank you very much. There is no substitute for experience. The making it through a storm like harvey, like sandy, it takes experience. New jersey governor, chris christie, knows first hand what these storms can do and what it takes to respond. He learned it in 2012. He joins us now. Governor, always a pleasure. So your perspective on what youre seeing in harvey. Where do you think the heads of those in charge need to be . They need to be in a spot now where they say, how do we return our citizenry to some sense of normalcy. Because if you look at the big picture right now, its overwhelming, whats ahead of them. Were five years in. The and were still not completely recovered. And so we have four steps to normalcy in nurew jersey that i laid out after the storm. Restore power, clear the roads, mechanic sure gasoline is available for generators and cars and return kids to school. If you can do those four things within the next 14 days then people are going to have a sense theyre being helped, saved and thaif lives have a chance to be normal again. Thats what they want more than anything else. And the most important thing for Governor Abbott to do, i told him this he has to be visible and out there visible to his people. You cant relate to this as a governor until it actually happens to you. When i would go out there people would grab me and hug me and say thanks for not forgetting us. Youre a symbol of government as well as the leader of the government. The governor here has shown a stiff back. He wanted the federal involvement. He want the the president to come down. He did come down. Well talk about that. But the National Guard, they were slow to request. Theyre there now. Theys 30,000 more military being made available. The governor hasnt said he wants it. The what do you mang of those kinding of moves of restraint . Weve got 3500 National Guards men and women in zblenez have experience. 24 to 48 hours is hes going to ask. Because. Why not ask . I think partbecause sometimes if you dont have the need and dont know exactly how you deploy them, you have a lot of people standing around not knowing what to do. But i will tell him whats going to come next. Looting. They started the curfew in houston. You believe that the good nature youre seeing with people which is amazing, its only a matter of time. Its only a matter of time that the bad elements exist . Every society and every state will try to take advantage of it. Desperation too, right . Some of it but i think its more the off zit. We saw it at the jersey shore, criminals trying to come in on boats to go in and loot houses they knew were empty. We put National Guardsmen in every town to make sure looters didnt come in. I think he will be asking for more National Guard. Youre going to need to prevent that looting and it gives those people a sense of safety and security as they go back to their homes and have to deal with the emotional trauma. Think about this. Photo albums of lifetimes of history will be gone. The videos of their children will be gone. Books that are important. Yearbooks from high school will be gone. The trauma that people are about to suffer. They think its bad now in the shelters, wait until they go home if their home has been destroyed completely or belongings been ruined. It takes away a part of your life. We need to have them feel safe and skiecure. You have a sensitivity people know thats a part of you are. The president had to go down in and perform. He had to be the consoler in chief. Lets play a piece of sound that became a point of criticism. I want your take on it. This was of epic proportion. The nobodys ever seen anything like this. Le governor, again thank you very much, and we wont say congratulations. The we dont want to do that. We doets want to congratulate. Well congratulate when its all finished. He says great crowd, great crowd. You could say this who he is. This is a special moment. It requires certain skills that you exhibited in grand national during sandy. What do you make of the president s appearance . I think yesterday he was himself. I think you hit that nail on the head. I think what he wanted to show was the Builders Confidence yesterday. Were going to come down here, fix it. He said youre going to be back on your feet ficry, were going to get it all done. I think when he goes back here this weekend because remember, the difference here is he wasnt in houston. He wasnt near victims. By design you were a hug aloll ic. And you say why you did it. The you talked about the survivors, dont call them victim the. You dealt with those empathy points. He didnt. He didnt yesterday because he didnt see the people. I will tell you that when you see those people, and i know him, he wont be able to avoid and wont want to avoid hugging and making those people feel better. The fact is yesterday was a competence day. He was at the Emergency Operations center, with the governor, he was with his own cabinet. I believe when he goes back on saturday, and he starts 0 see victims and see rel damage there is no damage as a human being you can see that and not be affected. I think you will a he see the personal side come out there then. Two other points. The first the moment you have with president obama. I think we have it here. Do you have any regrets about that moment . No id do it again today. I remember, before that picture it was taken and thats been called a hug. Thats an interesting looking hug. When i give hugs i give hugs. The fact that remember what was going on at that point. We were six days away from a National Election where id been the number one surrogate for mitt romney and beating the bejesus out of this guy all summer and fall. But we both knew people died and were suffering and we had jobs to do. I know i got a lot of criticism when i ran for president for being nice to the president by saying that he did a good job, by shaking his hands like normal human beings do. You know what . I wouldnt change it. I do would do the same thing with barack obama if i had a chance. It created a relationship between the president and i that served the people of new jersey. Now, i am apologize for hard ive been pushing to get you on the show. I was happy to hear you were it going out today. Youre one of the only people who can talk about this plainly. When it came time for the money to get paid for sandy, you got the first chunk of money like 9 billion. Then that second, third, fourth iterations of the bill. Big price tags, 50, 60. Of tomorrow price wspeaker of t want it. Cruz changed what he says happened back then. He says 2 3 was if he dont wall it out for what it was then, why would it be any better now. Ive been calling it out for the last 24 hours. Senator cruz was playing politics in 2012 trying to make himself look like the biggest conservative in the world. What i said at the time both to him and Everything Else is if you represent a coastal state, dont do this because your day is going to come and youre going to expect people to help you. 2 3 was not pork. As you know, Washington Post did a fact check. In it is an absolute outright falsehood. And the fact is that that money is rebuilding new jersey and rebuilding new york still to the day because thats how long these kind of things take. What im urging all the people to do is hurricane an dri drew, lepassed in 10 days, can katrina 6 days, sandy 66 days. We need to get back to work next week and pass a bill that starts the fund the recovery. It should not be connected to the debt ceiling offsets. If the federal government is not here to help people when 50 inches of rain, fall on them in historic way, then what the held are they there for . Thats it. I have no sympathy for this and i see senator cruz and its disgusting to me that he stands in a Recovery Center with victims standing behind him as a backdrop and still repeating the same reprehensible lies about what happened in sandy, and its unacceptable to me. Absolutely unacceptable. Im not going to let him get away from it. One of the reasons i came on this show is to remind people past is prologue. If we allow this politics to be played by either party in the next few days, the only people who will suffer are the people in houston. What you ignore you em power. If we ignore, we governor, thanks as always. A okay chris, here in houston this morning. At the Buffalo Bayou, which has swollen to five times its normal size. You can see behind me normally a walkway but now under all of these sort of very rapidly flowing river waters. The weve seen so many Amazing Stories of survival all across this city. Youre looking, i believe at video right now. Spring, texas where boats are out still looking for people who are even at this hour days later, still trapped in their homes. We dont often, however get a picture of exactly whats going on inside those homes unless somebody happens to be with a foe to go fer. She normally document the trouble spots across the globe like iraq and afghanistan but this week it was a disaster in her own home. She was back here at home. She was visiting her mom here in suburban houston, and harvey came to pay a visit. And erin joins us now. You are often in disaster zones of one kind or another, but you came home to visit you were not expecting what you encountered this week. Tell under the circumstances what was unfolding. Right. Yeah. I was Home Visiting my mom and sister just for a short trip. And the storm camestarted hitting last friday and really took hold of the neighborhood that they both live in on saturday. The night before i went out of my mothers house and water was starting to come to the doorstep and i thought overnight it would drain but it didnt. Then the next morning we went outside and we were in a foot of water outside. So you grabbed your camera. You started documenting this, as you will, because youre a photo journalist, this is what you do for a living, but what were you thinking when you realized that the water was encroaching on your moms house and sisters house was even worse . Well, my first job, i feel like is to help my family and to be there for them. But i tried to do that while taking photographs, and for me, at the moment, the most important thing was twrully video, because i could see the water inch by inch seeping into my mothers house, so i just started taking selfie videos of myself and my mother while it was happening. I mean its really hard to balance trying to take pictures of a catastrophic event and being there for your family at the same time. That was a new experience for me. I can imagine. Which one where your priorities are. And what did end up happening . What did you decide to do . Well the water began coming in. We were hearing anything from a foot to three feet, and she lives on a onestory house and i did not want her to be waist deep in water and stranded and have to get up on to the roof. So after about an inch came in i decided it was time for her to evacuate. So we gathered up as much stuff as we could. P three dogs we had to put them in trash bins and basically carry them out into the flood waters. Luckily found refuge in a neighbors hues across the street. After that i kept wading over to my sister as house which was about four blocks away in dhes deep water. Thats incredible how one house across the street cannot be under the deluge and across the street atens of thousands of people. Thank you vep for sharing alof your story. Great to talk to you. Glad to here your sister and mom are doing well. Doing much better. Amen. The really happy to hear that. Back to you in the studio. Were hearing so many peep stories about people doing everything they can. Its exactly that kind of spirit that is also directing criticism towards a very popular pastor in houston. Crushed on social media for not opening his mega church for victims soon enough. Hes on your screen. You know his same and his fies. Joel osteen tells his side of the story. Next. K your allergy pills. Flonase sensimist allergy relief helps block 6 key inflammatory substances with a gentle mist. Most allergy pills only block one. And 6 is greater than one. Flonase sensimist. I wanted to know where i did my ancestrydna. The most shocking result was that im 26 native american. I had no idea. Its opened up a whole new world for me. So being cool comes naturally. Hmm. I cant decide if this place is swag or bling. Its pretzels. Word. Ladies, you know when you switch, you get my bombdiggity discounts automatically. No duh, right . [ chuckles ] sir, you forgot keep it. Youre gonna need it when i make it precipitate. What, what . What . Ri okay. So weve been watching an incredible number of both rescues who have been pulling stranded folks from their homes and from the rising flood waters so you can see all around me right now, standing next to the Buffalo Bayou. Cnns Miguel Marquez is live on a boat in the flood ravaged spring, texas. Tell us everything that youve seeing around you. Reporter were with a crew. That guy Kenny Delgado out since the very beginning of this. Pulled out dozens of people in this neighborhood. This is 2502 creek leaf road. The water when it was at its worst was over my head up to the top of the roof line. It has started to recede significantly. You can see the light on in some of these houses. This is someones front yard. Im going to walk carefully in case there is something in the way. But you can see the mailboxes here, drops down a little bit there and you can get back up to lit i rally now on the road, and its about a foot of water once you get up on to the road. The thing that is difficult for boats at this point is getting into these neighborhoods and dealing with the currents. Were seeing very fast currents, as the water starts to recede. Its also very difficult for larger boats to get in so the air boats are very helpful, but thousands of homes still inundated in this area and many people in those homes. Many of them did not want to, but at this point with the sun shining through today first day for people to see whos out there and who needs help. Yeah. Miguel vg i totally get it. Now because im here next to the Buffalo Bayou. I wouldnt have known how strong these currents are and this rushing flood water unless id seen it with my own eyes. Were watching how people get caught in this. Thank you very much. Stay safe where you are. Go back to chris in the studio. All right. So some of the good news that were seeing is that places are opening up businesses and different types of buildings to become shelters. Hundreds of evacuees now making their way inside the osteen mega church but a rot of critics saying that church should have welcomed victims much sooner. The pastor wants to respond. He joins us now. Joel osteen. Good to have you on the show. What is the Current Situation . The kirnts situation is were housing hundreds of people displated by the flooding and in all day today and yesterday weve been receiving supplies. Baby food, baby supplies, medical supplies as well to disperse to people in the different shelters. What do you say to your critics who said i didnt want to open up the church. The you said it was flooded but it wasnt and you were just waiting when you didnt need to wait. What do you say to them . Well, the church has always been open. We received shelter victims just the first day or two. But there was a time, chris, that the place was flooded. Thats not a true Statement People to say that. We have floodgates right behind me to the right. Twos within a foot of that. So there as a safety issue the first day or two. Youre you know as well as i do. The idea we wouldnt receive people. Weve been in h this community for 60 years. Tropical storm alice son, we housed 3,000 people. Weve always been open. Theres a big shelter four miles away, the city shelter that has all the dormitories. Once they filled up, people came here. How this notion got started that were not a shelter and not taking people in was a fault narrative. Were people ever turned away . We dont turn anybody away. We people came and chose to go to other shelters, nobodys turned away but the first day or two i think it happened on friday, saturday and sunday, thats what this this building was not accessibility. It can look like its high and dry but they cant see behind us. The we would never put people in here until we know its safe. It was not safe at those days. If can tell you. Part of the drit siccriticis out of the sentivity to the need because were seeing so many people step up. Lets go from the negative to the positive. We had unprecedented flooding down there, and problems, but also an unprecedented response of compassion in the human spirit. What have you seen . You know, it is amazing. People ever generous, sometimes the worth of times brings out the best in us. When we put out a call and felt it was safe and the city wanted us to become a distribution, thousands lined up for miles or blocks bringing tons of baby supplies. People want to help. People call in how with we donate. Its the best of the human spirit. It breaks our heart what has happened, and this is what we love doing. Taking care of people and helping them in some way. Did the backlash on social media change any planning for you . It really didnt, chris. I didnt i have never read one of those. Of course my team told me were getting blasted because of this. We always wanted to take people in. The our doors were open. The did it change anything . I dont know it probably helped us to step up some things torks do it faster but youve got to get back to a safety issue first and to stay on mission. That is taking care of people. But, its not easy when you have our own Staff Members and pastors that are being rescued. The how do you get people to the building to take care of people. This is a big building you kacat just open it up. It was a big storm but maybe next time we would be a shelter before, get people housed before the storm, but nobody dreamed that even the mayor, he never dreamed hed fill up 10,000 evacuees in h the shelter down the street. It caught a lot of us by surprise. Let me get your take on something else, the beginning of the month of august we had charlottesville and we saw one very ugly reality about the division and hate that is potentially in this country. But now weve seen this. Horrible situation, not of anybodys own making, but the way that people have stepped up, the interconnection, the interdependence, the idea that we are all in the same boat, liter literally, the worst of Mother Nature, the best of human nature, what do you make of these two so different realities in this country . You know, im not sure, chris, but i know what youre. Youre rescuing people you dont care iffer democrat, republican, white or black. The maybe this can be the start of healing. At least thats my prayer and we could have the same spirit even driving around the city, you see people in their boats and coming in from other places, and they just want to help. The theyre not getting paid. This is whats in i think its in all of us but sometimes it gets pushed down buy preconceived ideas and you dont think like me and im a pen person of faith and youre not. Life is be lifting each other. Pastor joel osteen, i wanted to give you the chance to respond and talk to the audience directly. Thank you for taking the opportunity, sir. Thank you, chris, my pleasure. Good luck to everybody down there sheltering in that church. When we come back well take a quick break. We have to get back to alisyn because she really is the heart of concern in and around houston, will those dams hold . Well check in with alisyn next. L provides up to twice as much pressure relieving power. So you wont toss and turn. Through september 17th, save up to 500 on select adjustable sets. Tempurpedic sleep is power. Whats going on . Oh hey thats it . Yeah. 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And right now save 50 on the labor Day Limited Edition bed, plus 36 month financing. Ends monday so chris i want to walk you and our viewers around. I think you can get a bit of a misconception because its not raining and we heard officials think theyre out of the woods. But its still really dangerous, next to the Buffalo Bayou and i didnt really know how bad the Rushing Waters were until i got down here. Look at the clip that these waters, these flood waters are traveling. Dont worry. The im going to hang on. The im going to say safe on this walkway. But right now, you can see it doesnt take too long if i were to wade in here before i would be waist deep and in trouble because of the current. I want to show you what it looked like yesterday down here. These two bridges that are just off in the distance, we were under water yesterday. The in fact you can see a tree on top of one because the flood waters deposited that tree up there. So in other word, just 24 hours ago, the flood waters here were what 40, 50 feet higher. One more thing i want to show you back here because theres so many symbols of peoples lives and,000 theyve been literally uprooted. You can see across in the distance. The that white box there, thats somebody refrigerator. Just yesterday, that refrigerator last night floated by here, the doors were flung open. My camera man said he saw it was fully stocked. So, in other words, all of these flood waters came into someones home, plucked that refrigerator out of their home and sent it down the river. Its just you see the signs everywhere. How peoples lives have been turned so topsy turvy by harvey. Theyre still saying the water in a lot of places may not crest until later this week. Then you have what happens once the water is gone and the recovery process. The and what is found in the homes and how the homes are rebuilt. As governor christie told us, this is going to last weeks, months, years. Well have to stay on the story just the way you are right now, alisyn, thank you for being there for us. And letting people understand just how severe it is and how the threat still exists. All right. As alisyn just told you, the flood threat very real in texas. People still trapped in their hopes. The man in charge in texas is governor greg abbott. What is he worried about . What does he see as the main need . Hear it from him next. Okay. So at the moment, the rain has stopped here in houston. But we want to let people know they are not out of the woods. There are so much Flooding Risk and danger here still. There have been about 50 inches of rain that has fallen because of harvey. If you can imagine that. It is soaked here. Le you can see the bayou next to me that is just swelled to five times its normal size. So thethis is a recordfalling rain, as youve heard. It is in fact historic. Its the most for any of the continental u. S. Of course now the city is trying to figure out what next. Theyre still trying to rescue people and figure out how to rebuild. Joining us now is the governor of texas. Greg abbott. Sure. Thank you, s. Thank you. Tell us about the president s visit and tell us what he accomplished . Well, it was very important for the president to show up and to show how much he cared about the state of texas, about our citizens and his commitment to helping us get through this process and rebuild. Importantly, in addition to the president we hat cabinet members such as the secretary of homeland security, secretary tom price, health and Human Services who is playing a key role of whats going on in houston, the fema administrator here where we were able to begin to strat j z jazz i got to visit with the president at length and see both his compassion and his commitment to helping texas get through this process. Governor, do you think that the president should have talked more about the victims . When you talk about his compassion, obviously theres some criticism today that he didnt talk enough about the victims. He didnt reach out to them enough. Well i no he that he talked to me at length about the victims and the devastation he saw and the deep concern about what people were going through. He and i together were watching on tv the flooding that was occurring in houston. He didnt want to go to that location because he didnt want to interfere. But he expressed his sorrow and deep concern about how these peoples lives have been completely inundated. And his compassion and commitment to help them respond is i think youve reported, he will be going there soon to try to help the people in the houston region but he understands its bigger. All the way from Corpus Christi to the flooding going on in the beaumont region. And you know, we heard him say to you well hold off on our congratulations at the moment, because obviously were not out of the woods yet but he has said there was a great effort. I think everyone would agree. But did you want him to call upon, put out the word for more help, to have more americans be involved in sort of this moment of coming together for houston and texas. Well, sure. What we talked about was that we have had a very collaborative and seamless connection between the federal government, the state of texas and the local governments, for a remarkable response to a record flooding. But also, we talked about where we go from here and what needs to be done to take care of the challenges that texans are going to be facing for months and years to come. We begin to talk in detail about how we will continue to work seamlessly to make sure we address these ongoing challenges. And okay. So speaking about whats next, the pentagon says that the u. S. Military has 30,000 troops and equipment at the ready, ready to serve texas, and theyre just waiting for the green light from you to send them. Are you giving them the green light today . Well, yeah. Sure. Its hard for you all to know what goes on behind the scenes. Let me bring you up to date. That is i personally as well as my staff have been in Constant Contact with the department of defense. Three and four days ago, i personally and my staff, spoke with the deputy secretary of defense, secretary shen i han, and we talked about what our needs were. The first was needs for more high water vehicles, which we were able to get hundreds of them into the houston area. And then i spoke with the deputy secretary about our need for personnel. At that time, multiple days ago, we spoke about the need to get these personnel triggered and implemented and deployed into the state of texas and so weve already begun the strategy about how and when that will be done. Before that occurred, you may have reported that i unleashed the full complement of the Texas National guard, 12,000, and they were working to get into houston. They could not even get into some parts of it because of the flooding. So its a matter of getting into the right locations, but as we were talking earlier, we will be deploying the u. S. National guard at the right time to multiple locations not just in the houston area, but as you can see, in the beaumont area, all the way over to the Corpus Christi area and port aransas and places like that as we rebuild. This is going to be a huge operation. The president and i spoke about the necessity of us working together to ensure that we get those National Guard members deployed at the right time at the right location. And so governor just help us understand this. Is today not the right time . Are you waiting a few days or waiting to see what happens on the ground before actually deploying those folks . And what about the assistance thats being offered from other states and mexico . They say they too have troops ready to send to you and just waiting for you to pick up the phone and give them the yes sign. Right. We are in the process of mustering all the appropriate National Guard that will be deployed buy the federal government. We already have on the ground National Guard from countless states across the United States and let me use this opportunity to thank all the states. Of i cant even list them all. Because so many have been involved in this process, and i express my gratitude to my fellow governors who have help deploy their National Guard to the state of texas. The we have an abundance of resource that is have been made available to us. But we will continue to add more at all the right locations, but, again, as we speak, we have those conversations from the president to his cabinet to the department of defense, and we are we have the right strategies in place to make sure we have the right personnel in place. All right. Governor greg abbott thank you very much for taking the time to join us today and just let us know when you need those resources, more refer sources and well help you get the word out. Thank you very much. Thank you. All right. Thats going to do it from here, christ, for the moment. Obviously well be going out to try to monitor more of the both rescues that are happening because there are still so many people stranded in their homes so well be able to bring that to you tomorrow when we join you again from houston. Back to you. I was looking at the same prompter i was going to say the show may be over but your day is just beginning. Our thanks to alisyn. Im a geing to be back at 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Can elly an conway is going to join us. Shes going to discuss the torm, and efforts and the his latest tweet about north korea. Did the president just suggest its time to act on that rogue nation . K breaking News Coverage continues on cnn newsroom with john berman right after this quick break. Please, stay with cnn. Its time for the biggest sale of the year with the new sleep number 360 smart bed. It senses and automatically adjusts on both sides. The new 360 smart bed is part of our biggest sale of the year where all beds are on sale. And right now save 50 on the labor Day Limited Edition bed, plus 36 month financing. Ends monday mikboth served in the navy. S, i do outrank my husband, not just being in the military, but at home. She thinks shes the boss. She only had me by one grade. We bought our first home together in 2010. His family had used another insurance product but i was like well ive had usaa for a while, why dont we call and check the rates . It was an instant savings and i shouldve changed a long time ago. Theres no point in looking elsewhere really. Were the tenneys and were usaa members for life. Usaa. Get your insurance quote today. When heartburn hits fight back fast with tums chewy bites. Fast relief in every bite. Crunchy outside. Chewy inside. Tum tum tum tum tums chewy bites. Captions by vitac www. Vitac. Com le good morning everyone john berman here. Please for help from another texas city. Overnight the mayor of port arthur said our whole city is under water. Harvey easily the most relentless storm in u. S. History maid a new land fall. So much water so fast and Evacuation Center that was supposed to be a refuge was itself inundated with water