Sunshine at our beaches. 63 liver more and a spare the air alert today as the air quality goes down. In our east bay and the santa clara valley. We will looking at an excessive heat warning interest 11 00 today through 9 00 p. M. Monday night. This is the Higher Elevations of the diablo range, the santa cruz mountains. Highs reaching from 95 to 108 degrees. So we will talk in detail about your neighborhood and a look at how long this is going to last and of course the hurricanes. Chris. Lisa, thank you. This morning Hurricane Harvey is traveling north towards the city of houston, residents are expecting major flash flooding. We will have the latest on the situation there coming up in a live report. But first happening today, organizers behind the Patriot Prayer rally have canceled their plans to meet at crissy field. The conservative group made the announcement on facebook citing safety concerns. Instead they were planning to hold a press conference this afternoon at alamo square. Cornell bernard joins us live in San Francisco where city officials are very concerned. A lot of questions on who is going to show up at that park. You have late breaking details for us. Reporter chris, we have a lot happening here at alamo square. We have just learned from park police that alamo square is closing to the public right now. Chain linked fence is being put up all around this giant park, an attempt perhaps from allowing a planned News Conference by a protest group from happening here later today. As you can see police are out in force outside of this chain linked fence. In a moment they will be asking people not to enter this park. Now, the right wing group Patriot Prayer announced on facebook friday it was canceling a planned rally at crissy field today, citing safety concerns. Instead the group says it will hold a News Conference here at alamo square. We dont know what that News Conference will cover, but we do know the group says it wants to attend a rally in berkeley tomorrow, even though organizers for that event telling people not to come. Meantime two blocks from my house and call it a News Conference. We never had a News Conference up here. You know what thats about. Thats just another smoke screen, you know. Its easy to see through. Reporter the chain linked fence went up early this morning, all around the park, an attempt to close the park and it looks like that is what is happening right now. Mayor lee said in a News Conference yesterday that security plans for crissy field have not changed, those security plans will be moved here to alamo square and were seeing that right now. Park rangers say they will be allowing people to leave the park shortly, but we are thinking here in the next hour, in fact, people are being turned away right now. People are being turned away from alamo square park, they cannot enter. Were also hearing that a perimeter may be set up around this park to prevent cars from coming in. Story is changing by the minute. We will let you know. We will be back in 30 minutes with another update. Im Cornell Bernard live in San Francisco. This afternoon a coalition of bay area citizens and Community Groups will rally in San Francisco as a counterprotest to the Patriot Prayer organization. The group will gather at Civic Center Plaza where a unite against hate rally was held yesterday. Organizers say the theme for today is peace, love and understanding. The rally will take place from noon until 5 00 at the civic center in San Francisco. Keep watching abc 7 news for complete coverage of the rallies and demonstrations in the paris this weekend. We have a full list of events posted online at abc7news. Com. You can also download our free abc 7 news app and enable push alerts for the latest updates. New this morning firefighters are mopping up a grass fire in the oakland hills. Flames broke out just before 11 00 last night at grizz lee peek. Officials say the fire began 200 feet down a hillside but thanks to sparse vegetation crews had little trouble keeping it to just one acre. An arson investigation is under way. In val low, firefighters used a rope rescue so bring an injured pair glider up a steep hill. This happened near Blue Rock Springs and saint jons mine road. First responders found the man suffering from significant injuries rmt they were able to use hopes to get him up and into a basket. They carried him to an air air a balance. Hurricane harvey is slowly moving up Southeast Texas this morning, drenching cities and blowing the roofs off buildings. Now in the full light of day residents are coming to terms with what harvey has already done and what it could possibly do in the coming hours. Natasha barrett joins us live from houston with the at the latest. Good morning to you. Reporter chris, good morning. And, you know, the most devastating news is coming to light as we get daylight out here in houston. About 25 minutes southwest of houston in a city called missouri city, that suburb, were learning that more than 50 homes do not have a roof. 55 homes had roof collapses now emergency officials are out there right now trying to assess if anybody was hurt and as for Hurricane Harvey, yes, he has been downgraded, but he is not ton yet. Hurricane harvey roaring on to the gulf coast. The best way i can describe it is a tin can being kicked down the road. The strongest in the u. S. In more than a decade. This is not anything thats going to be a quick one and done. Were not measuring in inches of rain were measuring in feet of rain. Residents of texas, mississippi and louisiana getting hit the hardest, rockport, texas, right in its path, trees tossed on to roads, buildings destroyed, emergency crews facing difficulties responding to the damage. I fear were going to really see some severe damage. We havent been able to get out and see what weve got going, but its not looking good. Reporter the mayor there urging those who stayed behind to write their name and Social Security number on their arms with a sharpie. Residents of Corpus Christi under a voluntary evacuation order. Winds so powerful they blew off this highway sign. Its a constant howell out there. You hear the rain you dont hear the rain going on. The wind is definitely going, you can hear the boards on the house shaking. Reporter winds so tiers they rattled the Ceiling Tiles at our affiliate. A tree branch fell through this womans room. The governor activating 1300 members of the National Guard and pleading with residents who didnt evacuate to have a plan. They need to be prepared to be without power and maybe have inadequate access to food and supplies for a couple of days. Reporter right now it looks are pretty peaceful in houston its not even raining where im standing but that doesnt mean anything, thats because local meteorologists, local Officials Say the big concern is with harvey coming back, hovering over houston and all that rain coming down has to go somewhere and in houston were flat so that can mean flooding. That is a big concern out here. Chris, back to you. Natasha, weve been checking the feeds from houston. It appears that drivers are staying off of local roadways. Thats certainly a good sign. What can you tell us about Power Outages in the area . Reporter last check it was more than 300,000 people without power and that number is probably going to grow because though its calm right now the winds are expected to pick back up so you know what that means, we are going to have more damage out here and that means more people without electricity possibly. Natasha barrett from our abc sister station in houston, thanks for that live update. We appreciate it. Its best to be prepared before disaster strikes, thats where the halls yen Neighborhood Association in berkeley is offering free emergency preparation classes today, the event is from 10 00 a. M. Until noon. Professionals will provide First Aid Training and speech survival skills. Meteorologist lisa argen is here tracking the accuweather weather. We could see trim digits. We were in the 40s in the north bay, we are out of the 40s, well into the 60s in our east bay valleys. Excessive heat warping for the Higher Elevations even with this fog. We will have temperature swings from the 60s at the coast to up to 102 inland. We will have the details next in my accuweather sevenday forecast. Also ahead in the midst of that massive hurricane President Trump has issued a controversial pardon. We will have local reaction to the late move. The pride festival takes over downtown san jose this weekend. Its a time for celebration b one letter left on the board. Your clue is a great way to start the day. What is the final letter . Lutenfree, lutenfree. Its a g its a g g,g,g,g,g g z. Oh what show me z. No we were looking for g. Glutenfree breakfast cereal. Good starts with g. And now introducing new blueberry chex. While much of the nation is focused on Hurricane Harvey, President Trump made a controversial move. He pardoned former arizona sheriff joe arpaio. Abc 7 News ReporterKatie Marzullo has the story from the south bay. Reporter the chair of la razaound tab in snk said he was saddened that President Trump pardoned joe arpaio. I would have been behind bars a long time ago. Reporter joe arpaio was convicted of disobeying a judges order that involved racial profiling. Trump is very racist and joe arpaio and a lot of the wongs men that are in congress and senate, they are as much a racist as he is. Reporter President Trump tweeted, i am pleased to inform you that i have just granted a full pardon to 85yearold American Patriot sheriff joe arpaio. He kept arizona safe. Arpaio thanked the president on twitter and in a radio interview with abc news. Well, i appreciate the president s pardon. They humbled that he did that. He loves Law Enforcement. I was with him from day one two years ago in phoenix at the first rally and i always said pardon or no pardon, i will stick with him as long as he is the president. Reporter the pardon did not come as a surprise. President trump hinted at his decision in a speech in phoenix earlier in the week. I will make a prediction, i think hes going to be just fine. Okay . Reporter San FranciscoDistrict AttorneyGeorge Gascon a former police chief in mess say, arizona, said he fought arpaios tactics in a latino community. He said in a statement by granting this pardon it the president of the United States has emboldned white nationalists and made a mockery of the rule of law. In san jose Katie Marzullo, abc 7 news. This morning the white house is dealing with another high profile departure. Counterterrorism adviser Sebastian Gorka has left his post. He says he resigned, but a white house official would only say he no longer works there. The this comes a week after chief strategist steve bannon also resigned. In Alameda County the fate of a controversial Law EnforcementTraining Exercise remaining up in the air. A task force charged with recommending whether the urban shield Training Exercise should go forward failed to vote on the issue yesterday. Its been put off until late next month. The Sheriffs Office says it is critical but critics say tths harmful to people of color. You see the harm and danger that it has on our communities. It is based on racist stereotyping. There is no doubt in my mind that we are better prepared to respond to any type of major mass casualty incident here in the bay area and elsewhere as a result of the collaboration that takes place during urban shield exercises. Urban shield is funded by a 5 million grant by the department of homeland security. S. W. A. T. Teams from the bay area, across the country around around the world participate in p 8 15 is our time. The u. S. Military has officially been given the green light to ban transgender people interest serving. President trump signed a memo directing the military to stop recruiting transgender troops. It also bans the department of defense from using its resources to provide medical treatment to transgender individuals. The decision has outraged some california lawmakers. Donald trump is a bigot and he talked a good game during the election that he was going to support and protect the Lbgt Community and he was lying. There are many reasons why you can be disqualified for being in the military. Gender dysphoria has really high rates of suicide and the military is a very stressful job. The new guidance gives the pent gone six months to determine if there are any circumstances in which transgender troops can continue to serve. Happening today, the Silicon Valley pride festival kicks off in downtown san jose. The Lbgt Community and its supporters say theyre ready to celebrate diversity and conclusion where the two day event will take place. Many Silicon ValleyTech Companies plan to take part in sundays pride parade including netflix. Festival tickets can be purchased at the entrance. Now your accuweather forecast with lisa argen. Good saturday morning. We do have fog at the coast, it is dense in spots, visibility has been reduced, but we are looking at the marine layer being compressed by a big area of High Pressure thats building in allowing for heat not only today, excessive heat warnings, a heat advisory tomorrow and triple digit heat for much of the workweek ahead so less than a quarter mile visibility petaluma and halfmoon bay. Lets take you down to texas where it looks as though the eyewall is less impressive but really now the flooding is beginning. We are getting big time problems with over 17 inches of rain near victoria, texas. You can see the outer rain bands now into houston. So we are looking at days and days of rain, this moved ashore as a category 4, now its a category 1 with winds of 75 miles an hour, its moving to the north at 2, but thats the key, notice the movement. It moves with winds of 50 miles an hour and then by tomorrow morning it moves a little bit more, but it is essentially staying in the same spot. And because of that 7 Million People could see 24 inches of rain. We are looking at some tornadoes here, some excessive rainfall as this system continues to inundate much of the texas coast. So we will be watching it closely for you and its really an unfortunate situation as some of these towns may not even recover as this rain continues into next week. 5 degrees above where you were yesterday in liver more and san jose. Cooler in noeft toe. Were looking at big changes today. We were in the upper 70s in santa cruz yesterday, about the same today. 64 in san jose right now with sunshine, 58 in oakland, San Francisco in the 50s and we had fog earlier at sfo, peninsula well into the 80s today, around stand nat joe, menlo park, its going to be a warm day. 65 by the delta. Look at all the fog here. We will get some sunshine at the coast. Today looks to be the cooler day at the coast, tomorrow near 70. So temps soar this weekend, we are looking at a spare the air alert today and the heat continues into the week ahead. In fact, this is going to stick around for quite some time. We are looking at 90 today in san jose. 97 los gatos, we talked about the warm numbers into the 80s on the peninsula, upper 60s coast side, look for low 70s in San Francisco, in the north bay, about 90 today in santa rosa, i hope you folks can get used to this because this warm weather will hold on. A little bit of a decrease in the middle of the today 100 pleasanton and liver more. This excessive heat warning goes into effect today through monday with highs in the highlighted areas of the Higher Elevations from 95 to 108 degrees. So the accuweather sevenday forecast featuring triple digit heat for the next several days inn land, very warm around the bay, the coast stays pretty comfortable with fog coming back into play tomorrow and then perhaps a bit of relief on tuesday and wednesday but as we get into september, chris, it looks like the heat will continue to grip certainly our inland valleys. Already looking forward to the cool town. Thank you. Just ahead, a hollywood actor wants to help artists in the bay area. Find out how he plans to do it in richmond. Also the hottest ticket in town may be a pass to a Museum Dedicated to all things ice cream. We will tell you whats planned just for s joe a man of hollywood plans to build a mixed use development in the east bay. Actor Wendell Pearce plans to build in the downtown main street corridor of richm