Lets say good morning to you. Im alex witt in new york. It is 9 00 on the east coast, texas, you are getting hit hard. We got dramatic weather ikts from overnight. There are also three other breaking headlines this morning, as the president faces his first big test with a growing weather disaster. Late friday the white house announced a pardon for sheriff joe arpaio. Also, the president has made the band on transgender troops official, which directs the pentagon to move forward on that band. Also late last night, the ousting of sebastian gorka, a deputy adviser to the president. He said he is no longer with the administration. We will have more later on this hour. Right now in texas, more than 20,000 people are stranded on cruise ships, sitting in the gulf of mexico, all thanks to Hurricane Harvey, harvey, of course, made landfall late last night. It was a category 4 hurricane. As weve said, downgraded to a category 1. However, that does not mean danger is far from over. It is still right there front and center. Parts of the gulf coast are seeing sustained winds of 90 miles an hour. There is a storm surge. We know at least ten people have been injured in the storm so far. All of them, when the roof of a Senior Living facility collapsed. You have about 239,000 officially who have lost power. Harvey is the first storm of this magnitude to hit texas since 2008. Thats when ike caused and estimated 20 billion worth of damage. Lets go to nbc news maia rodriguez, the hurricane first made landfall there just a few miles away from Corpus Christi, but you think it was spared. It was not. Talk about what have seen for the night. Reporter well, you saw us earlier, alex, we had that downed street light. Take a look, we are seeing pretty much all over the place. A massive branch came off the tree here. Also this huge palm tree. Like you mentioned, there are problems here, of course, there are more than 200,000 people along the texas coast who do not have power at this point. We wanted to see if there were some areas here where there were downed power lines. In fact, they are. This area right here where we are, it has an electrical grid thats basically underground. All the power lines still have power here. However, a meanwhile to the south of here, you get the a residential anywhere. We were meandering through the streets very slowly, because there were quite few lines down, that is something that the city of Corpus Christi has warned residents about, saying if they do choose to go out at all today, to be very, very careful. Because there are so many downed power lines all over the place. There are other problems, too, having to do with fires. There was a fire at a house on south padre island, a barrier here. Fir fitters had to go over there during the category 4 hurricane to basically prevent it from spreading to any other houses, there was also a house fire, three house, in fact, on boliver peninsula north of here, firefighters had to go out there and hand him that. Back here in Corpus Christi, the outstanding issue with there is a precautionary boiled water in place. They say look you cannot brush your teeth, wash your face or cook or drink with this water. Because they are not sure what kind of damage Hurricane Harvey caused to the water system here. But its going to be several days before they can actually test that water and physical out if there is any kind of contamination. So out of an abundance of caution, they are asking people to please boil tear water here. Wow, we are getting quite a gust right now. Sorry about. That they are asking people to make sure if they bill their water to prevent any contamination to them. Alex. Okay. Very quickly, im looking at this driveway to the hotel behind you, it doesnt lock too wet. Does that mean whats the rain situation right now there . Reporter actually,er with fought getting any rain right now. It was raining a little earlier. You know these things have been coming in sort of spurts. You have these bands making its way around this. It could be we are behind two bands. It is very, very windy. Right now, there isnt a lot of rainfall happening. Again, thats been changing basically hour to hour here. Understandably. Okay. Maya rodriguez from Corpus Christi w. Rain bands, you think you are out of the woods. You are fought. Lets talk about the good first. Lets do that. Landfall less than two hours ago. We havent had any fatalities. Thats great. Thats a Huge Positive so far. Landfall category 4. Now, we havent seen the pictures from the areas of rockport the coastal section, 20,000 people live there to the east. Across the bay of Corpus Christi. When we get those pictures in, thats when you will see what it will do to structures. The other positive we saw there in the Corpus Christi area. They didnt go through the eyewall. So they are highly inconvienced, but their houses around destroyed, maybe they go a week or so without power. They will return to their normal live, once they get the power on there. They look to avoid the heaviest rain. That leads us to the heart breaking bad scenario that is now developing. The storm, itself, we lost the eye. We expect that to happen. We will pretty much ignore the fact that that will go down to a Tropical Storm. Thats not the story t. Story is what will happen with the rainfall with the storm from here on out. Heres a look at the radar view. The concerns, two, one a possibility of isolated tornadoes and the flash flooding threat, this band on the outside going through the outside here of the houston metro area. This is over the top of houston. If we slide it over, over the top of galveston, lightning strikes in here, this is where the radar is located. The houston area, thats where the heavy rain is for you. Back here towards the center of the storm, as we look towards victoria, texas. This area is not going to move much. The storm is financial to become stationary throughout the day today. The expected rainfall is still from the weather prediction center. Thats our government forecast. The official forecast. Its still in the 20 to about 20inch range from victoria to houston. They even mentioned 40. Our long range computer models, which gives them the guidance, one has this crazy total here above 4 feet in victoria, thats our european computer modem. Notice it gives ten inches to san antonio. 14 to houston, the full mild of that triangle, our gfs also says about 30 inches in victoria. Thats a lot less than the 56. That sets the alarms off, that itself the gravest concern for extreme flooding throughout the next couple days. Thank you very much for. That bill cairns keeping you busy. Lets go right now to Corpus Christi, news anchor lester holt, we were taking a live shot with our colleague may e maya rodriguez. There were dry patches behind her. How about where are you . Reporter in fact, its let up. I can only feel a few drops t. Wind has died down. We are watching the back side of the storm, the water pushed out here. We havent gone out since the sun has come up to get a good idea of whats happened here. Earlier we saw trees down, power poles down, traffic lights. We dont know of major damage here. As you know, the storm struck mainly to the east and north. And weve we heard from some of our crews making their way to the more heavily damaged areas. They say it is slow and difficult going, a lot of floods and low hanging electrical wires from toppled poles, so it is very dangerous conditions. The worry irwould think of right now is, if you didnt know any better, you look out and think its over. Its fought over. As we have been hearing this thing is lingering. It will continue dump a lot of rain. The tides will be an issue along with the storm surge. This will be, no one has backed off from the forecasters will be a sustained weather event is the term ive we heard a lot of them use in terms of the risk of flooding. Theyre still using the word the risk of catastrophic, lifethreatening flooding. So anyone who may be looking at this and thinking that its over, it is certainly not, alex. You know, lester, i have to say, we look behind you and the waters look relatively calm, they are not surging on shore there. So at this point are there storm surnls expected to come specifically where are you, if Corpus Christi, still . Reporter i dont know specifically where i am. I think galveston is nearing high tide. Thats an area to watch right now. We did notice, i dont know if you can see on the camera, a vessel, a yacht or a tour boat that appears to have maybe run up on some rocks there, certainly not in the marina nearby. So we will try to get a better look at that. Yeah, its extraordinarily calm here. The birds came out a while ago. We saw dolphins feeding nearby here. And the clouds are moving rapidly as they watch the back side of this huge swirl that we have been all looking at, as an orange blob on the map. We see it with our very eyes as it goes over. Your cameraman caught that yacht, it is not where it is supposed to be. All right, lester hospital, thank you very much, again from Corpus Christi. I appreciate that live report. Lets bring if james lee witt, former head of fema. He joins us from little rock, arkansas. Id like to get your early assessment how texas has prepared for this storm. How do you read it . Well, texas has a good system in place and has done a good job in years. I think they will do an excellent job and brock long the new administrator of fema, who i know very well, who has a vast amount of experience and fema the eight years i was there i can tell you those fema employees are dedicated. They will be there for them helping in these Recovery Efforts. With regard to fema and what lie ace head for the residents there in texas, it is a days long Natural Disaster. Fema will be dealing with this for months to come, no doubt. When you talk about the aid the people need before this storm ends, what do you point to . Well, of course, theyve got a lot of shelters set up and a lot of people will take advantage of those. They will need food and water, which i know fema in this stage is already prepositioned. The red cross and Salvation Army and volunteer organizations will be there to support them and for medical help, in needed and medicine. You know one of the things ive always known about is children. We never talk about that very much. Because children get tra ma advertised in situations like this. And ive sao paolo it many times and floods and hurricanes an earthquakes. You know, i would just encourage people to make sure that they look out for the children, it explains what is going on and keep them aware of so they will not get scared or trauma advertised. Thats a very good. As a mom, i appreciate that. Also pets. You got to keep your pets safe. People sometimes, a pet gets out. Can you only do so much to try to protect that pet. What about the flood waters, sir, how long do you think it will take for these flood waters to subside, with that, basic needs of residents, things like clean Drinking Water that. We know is a problem already in Corpus Christi, our colleague says they have been told. You will boil the water for everything. Brushing your teeth, watshing your face, you cant count on it getting clean. I know fema prepositioned bottled water. The state as well, as soon as they can get this there to supply them with water when conditions get a lot better, then i know they will. You know, you got to be safe getting in to help people. You want those people to be safe as well. So the supplies will be there. Its just a matter of getting in there and getting them to the people. The fact that the president had advance disaster warning and declared a federal declaration there to help out. How does that help fema do what it needs to do . What kind of things get opened up or constraints or shackles gets pulled away from fema . Well, it just depends on the local governments and the state and the damage aid sassessments the stco costs will be weeks and years, it may be a supplemental. Because this will take a while. You got infrastructure damaged. You got power out everywhere. And will you have a lot of Small Businesses damaged. And will not be able to open a while, for a while. Will you have sba in there helping them with fema. So its going to take some time. But the most important thing now is to do it safely and make sure those teams that will be going in there, getting the debris out of the way and i know theyve got standby contracts for debris removal. One company has a lot of contracts there. I know they have contracts to help local governments in Recovery Efforts and i know wsb parson has housing inspections you know for fema contracts. So there will be a lot of people and different players there helping to make sure that this recovery effort goes smoothly. Yeah. You know a lot of people this summer have been enjoying record low gas prices. But we know theyve already spiked about 10 . This is due to the fact the houston area is home to all the major refinery, dozens of chemical plants, you have offshore platforms there, does fema have a plant to mitigate any financial disaster caused by the storm . Of course, e is a part of femas federal response program. I am sure e will be there on top of this we were discussing this last night about the potential of an environmental contamination from any particular potential structure that might lead to our few. Im sure they will be on top of that very quickly with the state health department. All right. James lee witt, former head of fema. Thank you for joining us on this saturday morning. Appreciate your time. Thank you. Hurricane harvey weaker the threat poses a great danger. We will hear how authorities are dealing in texas right now and how they will hand tell longterm effects of this storm. Liberty mutual stood with me when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night, so he got home safe. Yeah, my dad says our insurance doesnt have that. What . you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Whats Critical Thinking like . A basketball costs 14. Whats team spirit worth . cheers whats it worth to talk to your mom . Whats the value of a walk in the woods . The value of capital is to create, not just wealth, but things that matter. Morgan stanley hey youve gotta see this. Cno. N. Alright, see you down there. Mmm, fine. Okay, what do we got . Okay, watch this. Do the thing we talked about. What do we say . Its going to be great. Watch. Remember what we were just saying . Go irish see that . Yes im gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. Find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. 19 past the hour. As we look at Hurricane Harvey. It is a category 1. It is expected to be downgraded to a Tropical Storm sometime later today. This is the scene in gavelstop this morning. Harvey has planted itself over southeast texas. It is soaking everything if sight. Heres what the situation looks like as the storm came ashore late last night. Reporter we have been out here quite a while now. Inaudible inaudible its right through here, it would be absolutely unrelenting wind. Reporter you can see it for yourself, we are getting hit by a significant band from harvey as it is making landfall here about 50 miles as you mention south of where we are. We are here in port lavaca. There is point lavaca bay, the storm is pushing water from the bay this way. Reporter we are teetering here, we have been consistent with 50 to 60mileperhour winds. This may be some of our worst weather. Wow, all those guys deserve a little bonus if their bay check. Lets go to joe friar, he is in gavelstop, he deserves the same. What is it look right now . Its been very windy the last hour you could barely speak to us. Reporter thats right, it is still raining, harder tan we have sewn, since we have been here, thats the biggest concern, there is a Flash Flood Warning here. It was extended a couple hours, yoders are good, we will see Flash Flood Warnings in the coming day, all along it wasnt the Hurricane Force winds or the storm surge, they knew that wouldnt be as bad here. The concern is the system basically sitting over us, dumping rain, not just for hours, but for days. That Flash Flood Warning. It isnt here along the coast. It goes well inland to houston and beyond that. That one of the reasons a lot of people here decided not to evacuate. They fixed if they were going to houston or san antonio, those places are going to get a lot of rain. Theres the potential for majored intoing there. Then theyd be in a place where they dont live or know anyone. Thats why a lot of people decided to stay here in galveston and keep their eye on a home in low lying areas. People shuddered themselves in, they have stocked up on water and food, if are you in the low lying areas, you into ed to keep an eye out for the weather here the flash flood asking happen rapidly, there are some homes that can quickly go under watt. So they want to keep everyone updated. They figure there will be a lot of damage here from the flooding. If its as bad as theyre predicting. They want to make sure no one loses their lives here, thats the number one priority, it wont be like there for a few hours, it will be raining this hard for a few days, alex. You aptly described that sea wall behind you at the turn of the century in 1,900, which is Still Holding there. Are you seeing spillage, a storm surge from the gulf waters at this point or is it keeping it at bay . Reporter not much yet t. Sea wall is doing a good job. You can see the sea wall. Its pretty high up. They have been confident the water wont go much over the sea wall, if at all t. Big issue here is that its not just the rain, the tide is rising here. It will be high tide, so that adds to the worries here. Theyll definitely be keeping an eye on this, this is a nar ray isle, the water can wrap around to the other side, its not the gulf. Its a bay t. Water can rise quickly there. There are streams and bayous around this island. Those can rise quickly and quickly get in lowlying neighborhoods. Thats probably the concern. Certainly they will be keeping an eye on here and the sea wall in this boulevard, because if it comes over here, that will create