Two feet of rain has already fallen. We have 20 to 30 more inches expected in places. And within the past few hours, the death toll now standing at 5, the number of homes without power in the region inching a lot closer to 1 million. The National Weather service says flooding could be life threatening, and officials are warning residents to take florence seriously. People should not return to their homes or neighborhoods until theyve been cleared by their local officials. And the continuing risk of falling debris, rising waters are potentially a great hazard, also with the loss of power, weve had one tragic death with generator use. Trees and power lines are definitely down across both states. First responders have been pulling off pretty dramatic rescues. We have several reporters in place across the carolinas to bring you the latest on the storms aftermath. Lets go to jacksonville, North Carolina. Thats where theyre facing the major flooding. Im joined right now by joe fryar. Joe, pretty traumatic stuff that you bore witness to, a rescue operation. Tell us what you saw . Yeah, thats right, alex, in the last 24 hours, flooding has become a major issue here. This area where were in started flooding yesterday. The neighborhood is under water, that car way down there almost entirely submerged. This flooding started yesterday, we wanted to show you video we just took within the last couple hours of a neighborhood thats about 15 minutes from here, this morning, one woman tells us she woke up 6 00 a. M. , put her feet out over the bed and they went over the water. The waters have been rising ever since. So much so that in part of that neighborhood, if you walk down the street, the water is chest high, catching many people off guard. One woman lived there since the 1980s, theyve never seen that neighborhood flood. Its happening now. Many people caught off guard, needing to be rescued, boats are showing up in good samaritans, volunteers, strangers, at one point when they were there. The National Guard showing up trying to help people get out of those areas. We spoke with one family that was rescued during all of that, take a listen to what they had to say. We woke up this morning, our house was just flooded. Like seven inches of water. Went to the door and it gushed all in. Woke my family up and said we had to do something. What was going through your mind . Im not going to make it out. Its a blessing to have people that still care about you and risk their lives for you. A lot of emotions right now in that neighborhood. People thankful for volunteers that come in, we want to show you whats happening right now where we are as we speak. If you look down there, some people are making the trek up the water here, you can see just how deep it is, waist high at a minimum, making their way up here. We dont know their story at this point. What they were doing down there, and why theyre coming up this way. This is not recommended for most people to be in this sort of situation and walking. Perhaps it is that theyre trying to flee or theyre trying to rescue some items that they had to leave behind when the water started to come up here. Well keep an eye on this to find out whats going on here. Throughout jacksonville, and much of north and south carolina, as these waters rise from the floods here in jacksonville, its right next to the new river, thats a river thats prone to flooding. They knew theyd see some flooding here. The question was going to be how much, when you add in all the rain weve received here, it started range thursday afternoon, and its been like this ever since, on top of the storm surge, and the tide, thats a big issue, alex . Can you have your cameraman zoom back down there and watch these people as theyre making their way. I think it looks like theres a dog swimming with them as well. It looks like a pet, doesnt it . I mean yeah. Now that theyre getting closer here, you can see that, and it looks like the issue, it looks like two folks carrying at least one dog, and there might even be a second pet coming up from behind, i cant tell if thats a cooler that the gentleman in the orange shirt is holding on to or what, theyre theyre gradually making their way, theyre not dressed in waders or anything like that, this is not a rescue mission or anything. We saw when we were on the other neighborhood a few minutes ago, one woman had three giant dogs in a boat as she was coming to shore. It was hard to control the dogs. I grabbed the leash from one of the dogs to help them out. Dealing with pets in these situations, theyre scared, theyre not sure whats going on, dealing with all this water, as you can see there, it looks like at least one they have a couple dogs, maybe you can talk to them, if i cant i mean, your cameraman has zoomed in, it looks like theyre getting close enough, by the time i ask you this question. Is that a street we see flooded . Im curious about that car. Was that car parked there or you think it was floating over that way . We can answer that for you, alex, this is court street, it is one of the streets that goes through town here. Right about i guess, where im standing here, it was flooded about here yesterday when we first got here, it is a street that keeps going down, that car was not there last night when we were here, so the car definitely did get pushed out by the floodwaters. Experts will tell you, you only need about a foot of floodwater, and that can actually move a car so that car was definitely not there when we were here last night, when we arrived this morning, we could see the car there. Many people who live in this neighborhood tell us, they started to see the floodwaters rise in the morning yesterday. They werent sure how bad it was going to get, many decided to get out of here, not everyone got out, they didnt think it would get this high or this bad. My producer brian here, well see if we can grab anything with these folks coming in. How are you guys doing . Were live on msnbc right now. Did you guys go in to try to rescue some stuff or were you there . Were evacuating. Theyre evacuating right now. Do you mind if i ask you a few questions . No, we wanted the story, i wabtded to see what the story was with those guys and their dogs many theyre evacuated. Are they back up . They arent. Okay, we will hope to find out from joe via phone. Well talk to our producers and let you know what happened with those dogs. They look to be okay which is good news. Moving over to tammy laettner. I know there were downed trees and lines all over the state. Did you enl counter those kinds of difficulties trying to make your way to conway . The drive wasnt bad. Weve seen significant flooding. This is a road thats completely washed away. Ill step out of the frame so you can see it. If you want to follow me over here, i want to show you more significant flooding this is only about 20 miles inland from where we were on the coast. And what a difference, because the flooding is significant. If you take a look at this house, its significant flooding. We have a house, a car. You can see this, this is just the beginning of what they fear theyre going to get. They told me theyre still extremely concerned. The water from North Carolina, all the flooding they got up there, it has to go somewhere. Theyre afraid its going to come down here to south carolina, its going to flow into their rivers where it will crest when those rivers crest in this county, they will flood the roads here. I called them a short while ago, are you still concerned about the main road in and out of murt el beach flooding . They said, we are. This could happen any time in the next three days to a week. And we have no control we dont know whats growing to happen. We have to wait and see much thats whats on their mind. Theyre keeping an eye on this, they dont know when or if its going to happen. Theyre watching carefully. Ill bet. People who are watching tv, and lets say they dont see their home looking in the malaise that the one behind you is, but they think their home is in a safe place and theyve evacuated. Have officials given orders yet as to whether people should go back to their homes or still stay away . This will county is still under mandatory evacuation, no one is being allowed back in. From tammy now we go to good et, hes in new bern North Carolina, which has been pretty drenched and watering soed spot. Talk about what youve seen there. Every time i think the storm is over here, we get hit by another band of rain, its a good reminder of the size and scale of this thing. How this disaster is not ending for anybody in this region. The water level has stayed high enough to be a problem since thursday afternoon. We have seen additional rescues today. Theres been folks out in these big trucks with tires that come up to about my waist. Working their way back through these neighborhoods. On the intensity scale, what we are no longer seeing is the high winds and heavy rain. The water can be up to my knee, my mid thigh. Especially if you 3450i9 be elderly or infirm. We are seeing folks who thought they could ride this out, maybe their house didnt get flooded. But their street did. Theyre running out of medication, food and water, theyre getting a sense of the scale and scope of this thing, that its going to be a problem for a couple days. Even as the water level is starting to come down now, as the rain starts to stop. The noose river, which has been the big water maker here. Theyre getting ready for another water event in a few days. Much like tammy was talking about in south carolina. When that river crests from this water thats falling all over the state. If this storm swings back north, that has to get back out to the ocean somehow, and its likely to come out to the same river the storm surge originally pushed it up. You could have secondly flooding that happens all the in the middle of the week. Garrett, how much have you seen, part of the footage that we saw in your report while you were talking we saw First Responders, neighboring . How much of that are you seeing where you are . Quite a bit. We shot that in this neighborhood. What youre seeing is a meticulous effort by First Respond irs to go door to door and house to house, and make sure if theres anyone remaining in these homes, theyre doing that on purpose and not because they dont have anywhere to go. We heard of a couple welfare checks. Weve had this problem here ourselves today, just today, weve lost some of the cell towers here this morning, even though without power we had been able to communicate, its been much more difficult to do that this morning. Theres a lot of angst, a lot of nerves here the fact that someone who might have been okay thursday night when the power was out, is still out of it now, Everyone Needs to be checked on again. Coming up, look whos talking. The man who would take a bullet for President Trump is having a change of heart. Next. Your mornings were made for Better Things than rheumatoid arthritis. Before you and your rheumatologist move to another treatment, ask if xeljanz xr is right for you. Xeljanz xr is a oncedaily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. It can reduce pain, swelling and further joint damage, even without methotrexate. Xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. Serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. Dont start xeljanz xr if you have an infection. Tears in the stomach or intestines, low blood cell counts and higher liver tests, and cholesterol levels have happened. Your doctor should perform blood tests before you start and while taking xeljanz xr, and monitor certain liver tests. Tell your doctor if you were in a region where fungal infections are common and if you have had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. Dont let another morning go by without talking to your rheumatologist about xeljanz xr. President trump has now declared parts of North Carolina a major disaster, paving the way for federal aid. The governments response to florence comes as the white house deals with the Major Development in the mueller investigation. The president s former Campaign ManagerPaul Manafort, now agreeing to a deal with the special counsel. The president s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen is talking to muellers team. The news coming one month after cohen pleaded guilty to Campaign Finance violations. Both developments renewing speculation over whether the special counsel will get even closer to President Trump and his family. Lets bring in katie rogers, White House Correspondent for the new york times. Lets get right to it, jeff. Starting with you, any sense that the white house had any idea that Paul Manaforts plea deal would be coming their way . Its hard to say if they did. The white house has been following this closely along with people all over the country. The president watches it closely, both getting updates from his attorneys, as well as watching television. Its hard to say whether they saw it coming. Definitely a blow, after the president has previously praised manafort for not breaking under pressure from the special counsels team. The question will be, what does he have to say, and what does he have to share. Certainly he was someone involved in critical moments in 2016, particularly being part of that meeting at trump tower. Which the special council is looking into, and being able to describe perhaps more in detail what happened there, and how that fits into the broader puzzle of this russia investigation. You bring up the president speaking in growing terms about Paul Manafort, that in the wake of Michael Cohen, agreeing to a plea deal. You have to wonder if hes going to comment on it now, what in the world will he be saying. Now to you, katie, i want this Cooperation Agreement to be put in context for all these latest developments to come out of the investigation. Were talking about george p papadopoulos and the 14 days he got sentenced to behind bars. Its a huge deal. Paul manafort was not in any stance to cooperate as little as a month ago. We know he was waiting for clues on whether or not he might be granted a pardon, as those hopes diminished, he clearly rethought his legal strategy. One of the most crucial questions, the special council might have for Paul Manafort, is one that they are trying to put to the president , which is, during the campaign, what is the extent to which your campaign had any contact with russia, this question specifically mentions Paul Manafort, whether or not your campaign reached out for assistance, they have been trying to get the president to brooch this question. And in addition to dozens of others, Paul Manafort may now provide the answer on the other end without the president. So the president is we did hear from donald trump jr. In an interview he gave on wednesday. Lets listen to that, part of it. Your father has denied reports that hes worried you may be in legal jeopardy because of the mueller investigation. Are you scared you could go to jail. Im not, because i know what i did, and im not worried about anything of that, it doesnt mean they wont try to create something. Weve seen that happen. Do you think hes still confident this is not going to touch him at all . Its impossible for me to say that, but i think he and others will be watching closely to see what manafort says for sure. What he said, also mirrors what the white house has said and Rudy Giuliani has said. Which is what manafort has said and manafort is doing or was accuses of in the charges that end ended up bringing limb down have nothing to do with the president. The question is whether or not that ends up being true and whether or not that ends up being something they can maintain. For now, the white house is saying, look, this has this doesnt have anything to do with us, and that said, im sure that theyre watching it closely, and may have cause for concern. Katie, the president never being specific about this, but kind of dangling the carrot of the possibility of a pardon for months. What do you think it says in the end that manafort ended up trusting Robert Mueller over trump . Im not in his head, so i dont know. I know that as that possibility seemed to diminish as we also reported that the president had discussed this possibility but ultimately backed away from, you know, people read those reports and are aware of where the president what the president was thinking at the time, and the development we saw this week with manafort shows that he decided to take a different deal. Guys, i want to switchgears here now, and talk about this decades old allegation of Sexual Misconduct against brett kafanov. He has denied this claim by a woman who remains unnamed. She says he assaulted her in high school at a party. What more are you learning about how this has created friction, not only between democrats and republicans on the Senate Judiciary committee. But democrats who are mad at feinstein for her handling of this, keeping it to herself for a couple of months . Yeah, there seems to be some con sister nation about that choice, and why she handled it the way she did. The broader question is whether or not this will have a greater impact on kavanaughs chances of ending up on the supreme court. Its part of the democrats efforts to raise kbe ever questions about him, multiple questions they have raised. In general, the train seems to be moving in the direction of him getting confirmed and probably getting confirmed in time to be on the court this fall. When it starts in the beginning of october. When the term starts. Katie, i want to play for you what jane muir first reported against kavanaugh. She talked about this woman whos making the claims, here it is. This is not somebody who was smoked out by people trying to bring kavanaugh down. She was troubled by what she knew. She thought she had information that was important, that she wanted to share with the authorities. Do you see anything beyond what jeff and i were talking about, whether or not this presents a problem to Brett Kavanaughs con firmation. Congress