Good day to you around the world. It is 4 00 a. M. Here in houston, texas. Most people here at this emergency shelter, they are getting sleep, getting a good nights rest for the night. Some who dont have a home to return to but are still thankful that they survived because there are many who did not. The death toll from this storm now stands at 50 people who were killed. One week after harvey made landfall, crews are still dealing with several problems. A second fire that broke out friday at a Chemical Plant in crosby, texas, and more are expected. The immediate area around that factory has been evacuated. The u. S. Environmental protection agency, epa for short, it says it has not detected high levels of toxins in the air. In the meantime, u. S. President donald trump plans to return to texas today marking his second visit after being criticized for the first for not meeting with individuals, the people who were affected by the storm. This time he is expected to meet with victims of this disaster. As for the recovery itself, the white house has asked congress to approve almost 8 billion in emergency aid. In the days since that storm hit, more than 72,000 rescues have taken place. And the governor of this state says more than 440,000 people have registered with the federal Emergency Management agency fema for assistance. In the meantime, there is a lot of work to be done from flooded neighborhoods to major fires. Our brian todd has the very latest. Im brian todd in beaumont, texas. There are indications the crisis in Southeast Texas is not over. In crosby, texas, the site of arkema fires broke out on friday in trailers where chemicals were being stored. These were deadly and toxic peroxide chemicals. They were stored in chemicals that caught fire. Officials at arkema expected this to happen. They said there are going to be maybe six trailers that will catch fire in the coming days. Thats because the chemicals have not been cooled in days. They had severe flooding in the plant which shut down the cooling systems. But they do say that so far theres no danger to the public. The epa said they flew a plane through there to monitor airborne toxins. Theres no dangerous toxic substance in the air. But theyll keep monitoring that. Here in beaumont at the Water Treatment plant behind me, they are working to get the water supply back online. Theyve been without water for a couple of days now. And they brought in engineers from exxon and other companies to try to get water pumped from the river into the Treatment Plant here and back out to the people in beaumont, texas. About 120,000 people have been without water. Brian todd, cnn, beaumont, texas. Brian, thank you so much for that report. In the meantime, rescues continue and there are so many people who come to this state to help and even the rescuers, in fact, need some help. One local businessman is doing just that. Id like to introduce you to shawntae l taylor. He owns many zaxbys in the area. You have people coming from all parts of the country to help houston. And they need food as well just like the people that have lost their homes. They need places to stay. How are you guys helping . First of all, thank you for having us and thank you for being here to tell the houston story. Im a zaxbys licensee. I own seven in the houston area. Weve been closed for several days and reopened on wednesday. One of the first things we elected to do is start providing hot meals for not only First Responders but volunteers and folk who is have been displaced into shelters. There are so many, at what pace . How many have you done so far . Since thursday, weve supplied over 600 hot meals. Zaxbys hot lunches, platters, tea, lemonade, you name it to a host of organizations around the houston area. Shawn, i mean, have you ever seen Something Like this . This is your city. You drive these streets. Some you cant pass. Some neighborhoods still submerged. Have you ever seen this before . Ive never seen an epic crisis like this in my life. 57 years old. Saw katrina from a distance. Saw rita close up. But ive never seen anything of this scale and magnitude here in the United States. What about the spirit here in houston . Texas strong, houston strong is what the hash tags all say. You see it, you feel it throughout the city. Theres a lot of truth to that. Its a fact. If you go back to katrina when we owned up the doors here opened up the doors here under our former mayor bill white to take in evacuees from louisiana, the city rallied around our guests to try to help them and get them situated and make them feel welcome. Youre seeing the same thing just on a greater scale because the devastation is so far spread. Its not isolated to a pocket of the city. Its not isolated to just houston. The surrounding suburban areas, as well. Donations are pouring in. Im getting calls from around the country from fellow zaxbys family, how can they help, what can they do. Its people just wanting to help those that were affected by the tragedy. Shawn taylor, helping the people help the people. Thank you is much. Thank you. As people leave their shelters here, leave the emergency shelters like the one were at now, the flood waters are still in many places around the city and officials warn bacteria in the flood water surrounding homes and businesses can be toxic. Cnn hired a lab to check the quality of the water in houston and the results are in and the results, quite frankly, they are disturbing, they are concerning. Elizabeth cohen has more now on the threat survivors and rescue workers are facing in those waters. Reporter we went out and tested these waters here in houston and when we got the results back, they were shocking. Not only is the water contaminated, it is highly contaminated. Numbers some experts have never seen in their experience. Lets take a look at e. Coli. This is an indication of how much fecal contamination there is in the water and other bacteria as well. We took three samples in this one area in houston. The first had 8,600 cfus or colony forms units. The second 3,700. The third one 6,300. The lab that did this for us, they say the epa standard for recreational water is zero. Youre not supposed to have any e. Coli in recreational waters. Now lets look at total chloroform, the first sample 57,000 cfus. The second 43,000. The third one 45,000. The epa standard, less than 100. The lab manager who was out testing with us, he said these numbers are huge. His lab is a professional Water Testing lab. This is what they do for a living. He said hes never seen numbers like this in water that is publicly accessible. Hes not just concerned about fecal bacteria. Hes also concerned about a flesh eating bacteria. He said that these numbers show there could be a likelihood that thats also in this water. So what does this mean for the countless people whove been wading in this water . If they had a cut in their skin and it was big enough and didnt get cleaned out quickly enough, it could be a serious problem. It could cause a serious skin infection that could actually be life threatening. And that will be true even if the person were very healthy to begin with. Another concern is if the water splashed into someones mouth. If you ingest this and youre completely healthy, youll probably just get a round of diarrhea youll get over. But if youre older, weaker, if your immune system is compromised, it could be much more serious. Back to you. Elizabeth cohen, thank you so much. The numbers at this shelter are on the decline. Many people here are returning to their neighborhoods. The biggest question is to find out whats left of their homes. An estimated 136,000 homes and buildings have flooded in houston. And even with the water still standing, one resident still wanted to see her home. My colleague Anderson Cooper went along with her. Reporter Susan Peterson has to use a canoe to get to her house. Its probably a quarter of a mile from here. Reporter shes waited all week for the water to recede, but she cant wait any longer. She needs to see whats happened to her home. She invited us to go with her. The water too deep and dangerous in some spots to walk through. Theres quite a current. So this is of her cars is completely submerged. Only the roof still visible. Thats one of your cars . Its a 91 cavalier. Reporter from the outside, the house doesnt look too bad. Are there stairs there . Yeah. Theres stairs under here. Her s. The kids bedrooms and bathrooms are all down the hall. I mean, you know, that was ground lelevels of the house ar water. The garage, her office, and three bedrooms. Mold is already visible on the ceiling. Susan looks for her four cats, but finds no sign of them. Guys . Reporter does it help to actually see it or does it no. I think i probably would have been better just waiting until somebody told me the water was down. Reporter so thats an original . Yeah. Reporter after about 15 minutes inside, she decides to leave. Shes not sure how to begin to rebuild. Shell come back later with her kids to search cs. For susan and so many others here, the difficulty of the days ahead is all too clear. Its overwhelming. Yeah. Thank you. Lost so much. Personal belongings destroyed. As Elizabeth Cohen pointed out, dangerous bacteria in the water. Snakes, alligators in the water. This is the reality for people that they have to deal with trying to get back to their homes. And it will take some time for recovery. If youd like to help, there are ways that you can donate to people here in the state of texas. You can visit cnn. Com impact. You can find links there to charities that are working to help people that have been hardest hit with this storm. Looking at that piece from anderson, it just kind of raises the hair on my arms to think about what people are going through, try to think of what would i do if i were in that situation. Again, thats the reality for people as they try to move forward. Absolutely. And as you explained to us, its not over. And over the next few days, were going to see new dangers emerging. Youll be there reporting on that, george. Thank you. Parts of the Los Angeles Metro area are kurcurrently unda mandatory Evacuation Order because of a wildfire. The it has now consumed 8,000 acres. It is only 10 contained. About 260 firefighters are battling the blaze. As of friday evening, no structures have been damaged and no injuries reported. Well have more on this story later this hour as the fire develops. Coming up later in the show, were learning President Trump wrote a letter to james comey explaining why he was firing him. Only comey never got the letter. Find out why next. Plus russias top diplomat has an interesting analogy for strained ties with the u. S. Why he says that washington is break dancing. Just ahead. Choicehotels. Com. Badda book. Badda boom. Thats it . He means book direct at choicehotels. Com for the lowest price on our rooms guaranteed. Plus earn free nights and instant rewards at checkin. Yeah. Like i said. Book now at choicehotels. Com hit could be the next big thing i should totally get that domain name. Get your great idea online too. Get your domain today, and get. A free trial of gocentral from godaddy theres a new development in the russia investigation we want to tell you about. Special Counsel Robert Mueller now reportedly has a letter by mr. Trump giving insights into why the u. S. President fired his fbi director earlier this year. The New York Times and Washington Post report that bob mueller whos leading the investigation obtained this letter a few weeks ago. It was dictated by the president to one of his aides shortly after he fired james comey. According to the reporting in the letter, mr. Trump explains his reasons for doing so. However, the white House Counsel reportedly thought the letter was problematic and in the end it was never sent. Comey received a different termination letter. Scott lucas joins us now. Hes a professor of International Politics at the university of birmingham in england and hes the founder and editor of ea world view. Scott, if the reporting is right, mr. Trump fired comey because he wouldnt say publicly that the president wasnt himself under investigation. Well, the broader point is that comey was not fired as the white house officially said days later because of his mishandling of the Hillary Clinton emails. In fact, as trump then said, it was always about the russia investigation. And as you point out, if it is specifically because comey would not give the president an assurance that the investigation would be limited and would never reach donald trump, what we may have and i emphasize may we may have a building case for obstruction of justice. It is a political charge that can lead to impeachment. It can also be a criminal charge. I suspect what were seeing here is this is one of the key lines Robert Mueller is beginnng to pursue when he possibly brings this up as a substantive case against the president probably months from now. But scott, several things to unpack here. First of all, youre telling us that in this new reporting, the reasoning given for the firing of james comey, it was not the real one. But listen to this sound bite. Listen to this interview that the president gave shortly after he tired james comey. He was pretty transparent. Well, we dont have it right now. But the interview im sure youll remember it. He said he essentially had been thinking of pulling the trigger for a long time. He had the russia investigation on his mind during the time. He was transparent about that. He was transparent three days later. But he was transparent in an interview with lester holt. As he ripped apart the line that his staff had carefully put together that this had nothing to do with russia. So he then also, if you remember a few days after that, it was revealed that he had told none other than Sergey Lavrov, look. I fired this nutjob. I fired this crazy comey. So he was bragging that he was able to or he thought he would be able to shut down the russia investigation. So i agree, trump was transparent. But in that transparency lies the very case that far from there being no connection between donald trump and russia, there were multiple connections and the president was trying to wish these away. He may be the architect of his own downfall. What about the tidbits were finding out about why he fired james comey . Do you think they help make the case for or against the obstruction of justice . The issue at this point is we dont know the content of the draft. We know that it was written by a hard right adviser Steven Miller after trump consulted with three people. Miller, daughter ivanka, and soninlaw jared kushner. If the letter says im getting rid of james comey because he would not give me assurances that i would not be investigated, then yeah you have an obstruction of justice case. But we dont know. We need to look precisely at what the language is. From a legal viewpoint of many of trumps statements including his request for loyalty from comey. Including his intervention after National Security adviser Michael Flynn was dismissed that comey not investigate, that he halt the fbi inquiry into flynn. Any of these could be grounds for the political and criminal charges. But Robert Mueller is going to proceed carefully. He has not said a word since he was appointed in may. He is not going to say a word until the evidence is compiled and probably presented to a grand jury which is now sitting in washington, d. C. All right, scott. Thank you for your view. Scott lucas in birmingham, thanks. In other u. S. russia news, its a diplomatic tit for tat thats been building for months. Friday was the deadline moscow gave. In response the u. S. Ordered the closure of the russian consulate in San Francisco as well as two annexes in washington and new york. Commenting on this back and forth, russias foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said moscow didnt start it. And when talking about relations in general, he used a dance analogy. Translator regarding the usa, as the president repeatedly said, we are not looking for any nights with this country. We have always been friendly to the American People. Open for constructive interaction. But as you know, you need two to tan tango. So far our American Partners have been performing a solo break dance again and again. Lets find out more about the solo break dance. Cnn contributor, former Moscow Bureau chief jill doherty joins me now from moscow. Has the u. S. Complied in taking out the number of diplomats from have that it had to . Happened yesterday on the first. They do say theyve complied. This is all the idea that essentially what the United States is saying is this is parity. You have now the same number of diplomats or diplomatic staff e consulat consulates. And thats where this lasp comes in, cyril, of cutting down the number of consulates in the United States. The russian consulates to three which matches what the United States has here. You know, as you note, though, the comments by mr. Lavrov the foreign minister, he does have a way with words. Hes very clever. And thats kind of a diplomatic way of saying something. Youve also had kind of a little more positive spin by the new ambassador who had just arrived in the United States on the very day that all of this news was breaking. And he said, look. Im not here i am here to convince the American People that russia is not the enemy. We have to deal with all of this objectively and professionally. But theres a different tone that you hear coming from the kremlin. A little harder one. I was noting these comments that are being quoted in the Russian Media by a very senior aide to president putin who called this order to vacate the cons