Stranded is to stay off the streets. Stay home. Im going to encourage people, unless water is just coming into your home and its just totally unsafe, im going to encourage you to stay at home. If you are getting water but its not lifethreatening, i know no one wants water in their home. If you are getting water and its not lifethreatening, im going to ask you simply stay put. Do not get on the roadway. Do not try to go someplace if you dont know how to get there. Just stay put. Okay . Thats what i would ask you to do. We need you to help us. Because what is happening now is that there are a lot of calls coming in to 911, and many are them are not lifethreatening. They are calling where i understand the inconvenience. But theyre not lifethreatening. At the same time, there are many calls that are coming in that are lifethreatening. Our First Responders need to attend to them. You are watching special cnn live coverage of Tropical Storm harvey. We have been listening to a press conference from the mayor of houston. This is one of the biggest rain makers texas has seen. This is the second day essentially of a multiday crisis. Houston is the fourth biggest city in the United States. Right now its under a flash flood emergency. The National Weather service in south texas is using unprecedented language saying that catastrophic flooding is expected to worsen and could become historic. Millions of people throughout south texas from houston down to galveston and many points in between are being urged to shelter in place. The folks who are not doing that, you can see here, are stuck in some of the flash floodwaters. We are getting pictures in. Statements from local authorities bringing all of that to you in the next few minutes here. People are trapped in some places in and around houston, rivers are still on the rise. We heard the mayor just now say flooding has occurred all over. He says more resources are coming in to try to deal with this. Keep in mind, its still raining in some cases raining heavily. This will continue for many hours and days to come. The mayor saying, 40 more boats are coming in to assist. We know the u. S. Coast guard has at least five helicopters in the air. They are asking for more resources. Media note here, one of the television stations in houston, cbs affiliate khou, has had to evacuate. You can see this video. Floodwaters from the bayou have come over into the station. Khou has dealt with floodwaters before but not to this extent. The station had to evacuate. We will show you live pictures from khou as we get them in. Essentially whats happened is one reporter in the field has taken over while the rest of the staff actually evacuates and moved to higher ground. We are seeing other evacuations in houston as well. In many parts of the city, many parts of the metro area. Keep in mind, many millions of people live in and around houston. We are seeing flooding to the north and to the south. Neighborhoods like pasadena, deer park, out to the gulf, farther south to league city, dickinson. Reports of people trapped in their homes in all of the parts of south texas. We are seeing that in southwest pars of the houston metro area. Neighborhoods that are also inundated. There are reports of people moving to their attic. Local officials said, dont do that unless you have an ax. Better to go on the roof and wait for help there. More pictures in, more video in. Lets begin with rosa flores in houston who has had to move to higher ground. Where are you . What are you seeing now . Were in the historic part of downtown houston. Brian, earlier today we were doing our live shots from that intersection where you see the red traffic light. Right now you can see its completely sub mermerged in wat. We were next to the railing next to this building that has the spaghetti warehouse. As you can see now its a raging river. Moving towards the gulf of mexico at a good clip. I want to pan over a little bit so you can see how this water is testing the infrastructure. Take a look at the cracks that are on the side of the building. It appears to be buckling. We have been monitoring this for the past hour or so. It hasnt opened much wider than it is right now, as you see it. Initially, we could definitely see those gaps widening. What you are looking at right now is actually a parking lot underneath all of this water. Its a hill that rolls down to the banks of Buffalo Bayou. Right now all you see is a raging river. Yesterday, brian, we were actually doing live shots at the bottom of those trees. Now i can only show you the treetops. Thats how much water has inundated here. Normally, you would see Buffalo Bayou rolling through, meandering downtown houston. Theres a running path. People are usually running, walking their dogs. Not the case right now. Theres just so much water. And its still raining, its still pounding. You were mentioning khou. I worked for that station before joining cnn. Its just by alen parkway. Buffalo bayou, this bayou that you see behind me, except its completely overflowed now, flows through that area, where that station is. Im glad that our colleagues there are taking shelter, going to higher ground. You can see, brian, how this water has turned into raging rivers. The streets in downtown houston have turned into raging rivers there these particular areas. You can see the street signs are submerged in water. Thats how much water has accumulated. Of course, the concern is that theres still more rain coming. Brian . Possibly more feet of rain. What is the beeping dou ining s . Are those car alarms . We have been i believe its an alarm for a building thats over here to my right. I wish i could walk over and show you. We have been hearing these alarms as these buildings are being submerged by water. Like i was mentioning, this is literally probably about i would say maybe 25, 30 feet below or deep, i should say. Its a parking lot that kind of rolls down and theres a hill that rolls down into the banks of Buffalo Bayou that right now, of course, you cant see because of just the monumental amount of water that has accumulated here. Its rushing towards it appears towards the gulf of mexico, which is what its supposed to do, brian. Of course, right now the infrastructure here being tested. There are bayous that meander through the city that serve as a drainage for the city. Normally, it does work. When you have a combination of continuous rain and this water not stopping from all over the city coming through these bayous, you can see that the infrastructure is being tested. Right now, tested its a difficult test to pass. Theres just so much water accumulated already. The ground is saturated. Were getting more water right now. Thank you very much. We will try to stay with your pictures. We bring in the managing he hadar for the houston chronicle. Are you on high enough ground there at the chronicle . How are you trying to cover the storm . Caller yeah, were on the fourth floor. We got a ways to go before were in jeopardy. Im looking out of our window. I can see the highway access roads are rapidly disappearing under water. Almost nobody on the highway. Our parking lot is pretty much gone. Its raining really hard. We were showing the cover of this mornings chronicle, basically chronicling the destruction on the coast. This cover focusing on rockport and other communities that were mostly affected by the winds when Hurricane Harvey came ashore friday night. Now the big story is flooding. This was forecast. You have had days to prepare. I wonder what you are doing. Do you have staffers spending the next few days there . We have the entire Editorial Staff activated. Most people cannot get into the newsroom. We have a Skeleton Crew in the newsroom. Most everybody else is editing from home or from wherever they are, directing their teams. I have one editor in mexico in a starbucks dretirecting her team. I told her, do as much from there as you can from houston right now. Open up your laptop and get going. Lou dohow does this compare other recent floods in houston . Caller this has gone way beyond the two, one in 100 years floods in last four years. As i say, this is nowhere near completed. Its raining really hard. The skies are really dark. Theyre forecasting four more daze of rain. Where this goes, i have no idea. Thank you very much for calling in. Lets check on the radar. Lets go to the cnn weather center. Are these heaviest bands of rain still sitting on houston right now . Yes and no. The first round is starting to exit out. You can see that. Follow the purple color. You see it around houston. It begins to push to the east. Then you notice its starting to backfill. More rain is coming back into those areas where the original cluster of rain has begun to exit. Thats where the problem lies. Some of these areas keep getting rain over the same spots over and over again. In addition to the flooding threat, we also still have tornado warnings active at this very moment. A tornado watch thats in effect for regions of both louisiana and texas through the afternoon hours today. Thats going to be something people are still going to have to deal with. Keep that in mind. If you get a break in the rain, you want to go outside or the rain starts to lighten up, be careful if you go outside. There could be other severe storms in the general vicinity. Looking at some of the rainfall totals that have occurred, dayton, texas, over 27 inches of rain. Were looking at dixie farm area, 26 inches of rain. This is just a few of the areas that have already picked up over 20 inches of rain. The one sort of good news is that we are going to finally start to see this thing move. Not so much in the shortterm, but in the longterm. This is where we expect it to be by friday. Thats still in texas technically. At least you are going to start to see movement. The concerning part is what it does in the shortterm. As of now, it looks like its going to go back out over open water before making another landfall back over areas of houston. The question is, when it goes back out over open water, does it have the ability to reintensify before coming back . Thats the big question that we have right now. In the shortterm, here is what we expect the radar to look like as we go through the day. Notice, more yellows, oranges and reds indicating those torrential downpours over the same spots. Namely, houston. Lake charles, galveston, even alexandria, louisiana, looking at incredibly heavy rain to come down. Some areas further west, we have been talking about victoria and Corpus Christi. The rain will come back in your area. Overall, brian, the key thing to note is we talked about the areas that have had 20 inches of rain. We are still forecasting an additional up to 20 inches of rain that has yet to fall. Thats going to be the big concern Going Forward for a lot of these folks. We have been talking about this, other people, you hear the wording. This is potentially a historic storm. You have to keep in mind, this is not over. Were not near over for at least the next three to five days. We have to be sensitive about comparison to katrina. Most of the deaths in katrina were due to the manmade disaster of the levees being broken. The similarity that i see so far are the number of people that are having to leave their homes. That one tv station being evacuated. Last time i saw that happen in an emergency was during hurricane katrina. Do you think there are any other similarities, anything else we should be aware, or any big differences . The first thing that comes to mind that people on their roofs. People where their homes are so flooded, the only place they can go is the roof of their home. I remember seeing helicopter video of katrina, you see house after house of people sitting there waving, hoping to be rescued. You are starting to see stuff like that out of similar areas around houston. The big difference with this, surge posts a huge factor with katrina. I think the bigger concern for houston is the marathon, if you will call it that, where this storm is going to sit for seven days and dump rain. Thats going to be a big concern for houston. We dont have the pictures right now because theres not choppers in the air, news choppers. But there are people on their roofs right now in south texas trying to be rescued. Thank you very much for the update. We have heard from the houston mayor a few minutes ago saying theres more than 2,000 calls for rescues but theres more than that, but 911 has been overloaded. The mayor say only call 911 if your life is in immediate danger. Theres also a Civil Emergency warning from the National Weather service saying people escaping floodwaters do not go to the attic. You are supposed to go to your roof. You might not be able to escape the attic if it begins to flood. Citizens being urged to call 911 and stay on the line until someone answers. This is a major emergency in south texas. There are people stranded as we speak. Unfortunately, it will continue to worsen as the rain continues to pour. Up next here on cnn, reliable sources and the weeks biggest media stories. Taking a break. Whether we come back, President Trump calling journalists sick people who dont like our country. Some of those journalists now braving the floodwaters in texas. We will talk about his tweets and whether the press is properly balancing all of the things he is tweeting about. Steve bannon back at the helm at breitbart news. What can we deserve from tiscer . 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Never stop til we get there when heartburn hits til we get there fight back fast with tums chewy bites. Fast relief in every bite. Crunchy outside. Chewy inside. Tum tum tum tum tums chewy bites. Welcome back to reliable sources. Were staying on top of the rescue efforts under way in houston and throughout south texas. We will follow that throughout the hour and all day here on cnn. President trump tweeting about the situation. Repeatedly posting about it on twitter in the past few hours. He said, i will be going to texas as soon as the trip can be made without causing disruption. The focus must be on life and safety. The president s focus seems to be divided. If you look at what else he has been posting about, what else he has been sharing, promoting sheriff david clarks book. Clark, perhaps a fan of the definitely a fan of the president. The president a fan of his. Trump talked about his wednesday event to promote tax reform he is holding in missouri. I won there by a lot in 2016. Dems, cm is opposed to big tax cuts. The president has tweeted about nafta and the wall. Here is a tweet saying, with mexico being one of the highest crime nations in the world, we must have the wall. Mexico will pay for it through reimbursement other. We have seen the president repeatedly almost hijacking the news cycle in recent days, most notably friday evening. Think back to the news dumps, as they were described friday evening. As category 4 Hurricane Harvey was literally making lae ining think about the announcement of sheriff joe arpaios pardon. But also gorkas resignation firing. The president issued a director about his transgender ban affecting the military. A lot of news friday evening as this hurricane was baring down. How should the press balance the news stories . How should it react when the president is tweeting so many things at once . Lets talk through it with an expert panel of decision makers. Im joined by lydia, joann, running all the papers and joining us remotely is jeff. Great to have you all here. I wonder first for you, joann, you are directing the coverage in so many newsrooms, including in Corpus Christi dealing with the aftermath of harvey. When you have President Trump tweeting about so many topics, do you think journalists are the ones setting the agenda or is the president setting the agenda maybe too much . The job for us as journalists, obviously, is to report on the news and to separate what is news from what is just chatter. With usa today network, we have 109 local news organizations like the Detroit Free Press and Cincinnati Enquirer and the Arizona Republic. What were able to do is to really focus on the news where it counts. For example, on friday night, Corpus Christi, which we own, was all over leading our coverage of the hurricane. We own the Arizona Republic which has had a long relationship with sheriff arpaio and was with him on friday and able to report on that. Were able to sort of choose the news that actuall