The interstates are, the major highways, state highways are shut down. We keep on trying different routes. And we come to the end of the road where its flooded and then we see rescues. We see the same kind of scenes unfolding in these small towns in east texas that we saw unfolding in houston. And there are real fears that the kind of flooding theyre talking about in beaumont is going to be even worse than what we saw in houston. And there is a perilous situation unfolding in port arthur, which is just slightly east of bomon. There is a city center there that theyre using as a shelter for hundreds of people. That civic center is filling up with water. Officials have to figure out not only how to get those people out of there, but where theyre going to go. These roads are impassable. They are limited. And to give you also a frame of reference, we had a crew of ours that was staying in a hotel in beaumont. They had our satellite truck. That crew is now surrounded by water, as well. So, you can see that it continues to fall here. It is torrentially raining right now as we drive along. Its just getting worse and worse. Hallie . Stephanie gosk, be safe out there. Well talk to you, once you do, if you make it to beaumont. I want to bring in somebody who knows that place well. Jefferson county includes both beaumont and port arthur, as well. You can see it on the map there. Deputy mcclellan, thank you for being with us here. You just heard stephanie talk about this city, this town is now an island, essentially. So, how are you getting help to the people who need it there . Right now before we got cut off, we did request for individuals with boats that could get over here because we were anticipating what we got with significant amount of rainfall. And then once we got that rainfall, we were cut off. The only way in and out is interstate 10 east of us. And is that still passable at this point . Right. Once you geet tt to the city of bomob beaumont you cant go any further to the rural areas because the water through the bayous are over the highways and over the interstate. Do you have enough boats . Are you satisfy would the ied w people who are coming out to help . Do you need more help . We have a tremendous turnout with boats. We have some of the boats that went over to houston and assisted over there are now coming over here. So, theyre helping on that west, that Far West Side where a lot of our water is. Theyre assisting the volunteer Fire Departments and the Emergency Services district and our officers on that side getting people out of their houses that are flooded and weve had boats come in from louisiana and tennessee that are coming in this way and were getting them pushed up to the north end and helping out the bevel oaks area that way. You called it a significant amount of rainfall. That was the expectation. Did you expect this . Have you or your county ever had to deal with this magnitude before . Not to this magnitude. Back in 1994 we had significant flooding in the bevel oaks area and a little bit of the west county, north county area. But this, i mean, this is unbelievable. Its, obviously, taking an emotional and physical toll on you and your folks in the sheriff department, im sure. Yeah. We have a number of our deputies who have between two feet and six feet of water in their houses. Our sheriff alone, she has three feet of water in her house and none of them are taking time out to attend to their own personal matters. Theyre getting out there. Getting involved and doing their job and getting the citizens of Jeff Jefferson county in the rural areas out to safety. It seems the rural areas are the real concern here. We have been looking at some images of this evacuation shelter, itself, that was flooded. People trying to get away from the flooding and instead found themselves standing in water at a shelter. What are you doing to relocate those people . What is the process . The city of port arthurs Emergency Office is handling that situation down there. Theyre scrambling trying to find another location to move those evacuees to an area where it will not have that issue of flooding and then, of course, Tropical Storm harvey has made landfall and has pretty much almost passed us now. So, hopefully well have some dry skies ahead of us. Deputy marcus mclelen, thank you very much. Good luck to you and to the people in your county. In your town who are dealing with this flooding, including the sheriff herself, as you mentioned. Thank you, again. I want to go now to bill karins. Let me pick up where the Deputy Sheriff left off. Theyre hoping and praying this Tropical Storm moves out so they wont get more of the torrential rain that Stephanie Gosk ref rensed. How much longer do they have to hold out . Not much longer. Heres the beaumont area. Houston cleared out last night. No rain whatsoever on the way to beaumont. This is the last bands. The center of the storm now starting to move up here north of lake charles and eventually this afternoon it will pull this huge rain shield away with it. Its still pouring. Im glad we have Stephanie Gosk driving through the small towns north of io10 here in this region. These little small towns have the same stories as all the big cities do. Im glad shes out there witnessing some of the rescues in the small towns. I want to update you what happened in beaumont last night. Its unimaginable. The rainfall that fell in the last 30 hours in beaumont was actually heavier than what fell in the houston area saturday night into sunday when we had the crazy total. This was almost 27 inches of rain and now beaumont has a rainfall total of 45 inches closing in on it. That is more than what downtown houston got with those storms. Thats why were hearing about all that bad stuff. When the Sheriff Deputies and the Police Officer was telling us about how many other deputies and sheriff have water in their homes. I think the concentration of houses that are flooded will be much greater when we get the pictures in of beaumont and port arthur. Harris county which is all the greater houston area. They estimated 20 , 5 of the homes got water in them. I think its 50 , 70 in areas when we get those images in. Show you some of the other maps. Track where we are with those storms. The storm total went from the houston area to beaumont. We continue to update these numbers and, of course, we had that one spot that was about 51 inches. Just to keep it in perspective. 21 trillion gallons thats how much they estimate fell in the greater area and thats the volume of water over Niagara Falls in one year. Have you ever been to Niagara Falls and how much water is flowing over that. That is an incredible amount of water that has flown over that region. Unimaginable problems. Were not done. The storm is heading north. As we track it north, it still has this big rain shield and moving and making progress but starts going over hillier terrain and funnel the water into the smaller areas. Areas of northern mississippi and also up here. Watch out around greenville and also the memphis area. Still the potential for up to seven inches of rain in west tennessee. If it wasnt for what already happened, this is a big deal. Wait and see how much destruction takes place. Bottom line, bill karins. This is not over yet. This seems like the end of it. We have been covering it since friday. But this really is i dont think well get people on the rooftops like we have now down in beaumont and port arthur. We may get more typical, some cars flooded a couple homes here and there. What you would expect, not what weve dealt with. Thank you very much. I want to go to Garrett Haake in the neighborhood where the flood waters have risen quickly forcing more people to evacuate. Garrett, youre shin deep in flood water. What is going on . It gets that deep pretty quickly, hallie in the back end of this and they had a double whammy. They had the rain that the rest of the city dealt with and this neighborhood backs up to the Buffalo Bayou which is the drain and getting all this water back out of the city. First come through here after it comes through those dams that we were talking about all morning. I am here with jeff who lives to the house just to our left here. Your house is still dry, but barely. Barely. How quickly did this water come up yesterday . So, starting about yesterday morning it came up about a foot, foot and a half pretty quickly. This is mostly after it stopped raining, right . Yes. After it was raining. This has all been from release or overflow or whatever is coming from the dam. You have been here for 20 years. You were here for alison and ike and all the great soakers. Have you seen anything like this . Never anything close to this. Yeah. I know you said you and your wife left last night. What has it been like coming back and talking to your neighbors about coming back tan not being so lucky. We havent had any water in the house. Its guarded because depending on how much they release further, we still could get hit. They are really close there. Some of our friends behind us, all the neighbors that we have known for a long time. There are several people that are flooded out. You know, several people further in the neighborhood who have six, eight feet of water in their homes. You told me earlier some people back there still waiting for a boat ride to get out of this neighborhood. Yeah. More so on these two streets here that just came up yesterday. And, you know, they were going to ride it out. And now theyve got water in their homes and theres no point. Jeff, ill leave you here for now. Thank you, good luck. Stay dry. Hallie, i just wanted to show you what were talking about here. How quickly the depth has changed in this neighborhood. To my left, you know, its ankle, knee deep. As you get out into the street here. You see this, i want to draw your attention to this mercedesbenz here floating in the street. This is somebody who came back into the neighborhood yesterday and thought it was still only knee or ankle deep. Obviously not. It looks like a scene of a ship sinking here. Pieces of driftwood floating by and some culdesacs are just completely under water and unsafe to wade or wander through. Well try to get further back into this neighborhood, hallie. This is still a developing situation. The water still rising even after the rain stopped falling yesterday afternoon. Garrett haake thank you. Live from houston. Well check back in with you. Joining me on the phone is john, former fema director for the Southeast Region under former president bill clinton. Thank you very much for joining us here, john. I know you have been listening to what we have been discussing and it seems like the area of intense focus now is beaumont, in addition to houston with torrential rain happening in the beaumont, port arthur area. Can you talk about where femas efforts need to be focusing right now . Hallies, femas efforts need to be expanding. They cant stop responding in houston. They have to continue to be there for quite some time. The situation there is, no pun intended, still fluid. Still an awful lot of water and rescues that need to be made and much to be done. But as the rainfalls accumulate in beaumont and as the situation of severe flooding shifts to the east and north, fema is also going to have to be augmenting state and local resource in those areas. Theyre going to have to be as the area of focus increases, theyre going to have to be stretching to accommodate it. So, theyre going to begin to get a little bit thin. Even though they have an awful lot of people who are there or on their way. We just heard from fema a couple minutes ago which said this may end up being the greatest single response the federal government has ever had to launch to a natural disaster. From what you can see and from what you have been watching, do you think that is the case . My guess would be that when all is said and done, this will be the greatest response. The most significant response. Both in dollar terms and in terms of number of homes impacted either damaged or destroyed. People affected. More than katrina. The Geographic Area that is being covered is huge. You think its more than what we saw from katrina . I think that in katrina you saw a significant, a significant area, but just in terms of how big the area was. If you look at the area in houston and in and around houston. I think they compared it to somewhat the size of the state of new jersey. Thats huge. Thats almost unfathomably large. And its, obviously, critical. Sort of Mission Critical here for brock long who is the current fema director. Can you provide your assessment of how director long is doing right now . I know its still early, but im wondering from what you have seen what you take away from his leadership and his response here . Administrator long came to work for fema in the Atlanta Office of fema. Right aboutthe time that i was there heading up the Atlanta Office. He has a tremendous background in Emergency Management has seen, obviously, lesser floods. But many, many of them. I think that he is doing an outstanding job. I sincerely hope that he is being made to get a little bit of rest. I know brock well enough to know that hes not going to get want to get any rest. But he has to get some rest. A number of the positions underneath him have not yet have been filled. So, the staff at the very top of fema is a little thin right now. But brock is tremendously capable and i have the confidence in the world in him. John copenhaver, thank you very much for joining us here on the phone and for that perspective. I appreciate it. Were following this developing story as it continues, including how you make sure that the tens of thousands of people who lost everything have enough food and clothes and a place to stay. That is the biggest challenge facing groups like the Salvation Army. So, were going to ask one of the groups coordinators how thats going and what you can do to help after the break. Take a look at this. Live pictures of houston. Well take you there with Gabe Gutierrez who has been on the ground for days, next. So, your new prescription does have a few side effects. Oh, like what . Youre gonna have dizziness, nausea, and sweaty eyelids. And in certain cases chronic flatulence. No. Sooooo gassy girl. So gassy. If youre boyz ii men, you make anything sound good. Its what you do. If you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. Its what you do. Next next i am totally blind. And non24 can throw my days and nights out of sync, keeping me from the things i love to do. Talk to your doctor, and call 8442142424. We are back now with continuing coverage of harvey in houston and beyond. You are looking live now at a picture of houston, where we find nbc Gabe Gutierrez. That flood water rushing past a minivan that has been sitting in the street. Gabe, this is the location where yesterday we were watching live on the show as people were coming and essentially a convoy of boats getting rescued from their houses as the waters were rising and compared today with what you were seeing now compared to 24 hours ago now. Actually, hallie, this is a different location. This is on the south side of the reservoir. The reservoir where those time releases are spilling all this water into this neighborhood. Yesterday there were evacuations were told by residents. But that was just, so were clear, this is something that is happening all over the houston area. Ill walk over here pretty quickly, if i can. We have some of the volunteers here that are coming out and starting another day of rescues here. Just ran across this gentleman a few minutes ago. And he says that he felt compelled to come out here and help out some of these folks. What is your name. Where do you live . In katie. You dont live in this area. John does. Hi, john. Hows it going . Why do you feel compelled to come and take your boat out and check on people . He has a situation at his house. Lets walk over here and make sure this water is not too deep here. We should be all right. So, where exactly, you live down there or over here . We live down brierpatch. Its towards the dam. Oh, really. So, really, right up close to Buffalo Bayou. And when did you see this water start rising . Ive been out with work. They made me leave. So, this is the first time ive really gotten to come back and check it out. This is the first time youve seen this street . Yeah. But ive seen pictures all along, so i knew it was bad. Do you have any idea how many feet of water in that home . There is a stop sign and my house is roughly the same height as that. It is about a foot below the stop sign. So the first floor of your home is destroyed. Probably destroyed. Did you ride out any of the storm here . I was up on lake conro which almost flooded. Youre on this boat and want to go in and check on your house. Go and check on a couple neighborhoods and i have a couple cats in the house. Hope theyre okay. Hallie, this is something we saw over and over again. We saw it in our location yesterday and clay road and highway 6 rather. Just a little west of here on the north side of the reservoir. People have been coming over and over again. Private citizens. Not just Law Enforcement and coast guard and private citizens coming in to check on their neighbors. What do you think it says that so many people have come out just to check on each other . I think it shows great for the spirit of the city and, you know, people want to help each other out. How surprising, though, we spoke with some neighbors and you said you havent been here for several days. But the water is rushing. Ive never seen it like this. How long have you lived here . Ive lived here for about 15 years now. 15 years. Hallie, just so you know. Take a look over there for those of you just joining us. The water rushing over this neighborhood. Thats the bayou. Never gotten a couple feet out of the banks of the bayou. If dwayne scott my cameraman can pan down. This is completely under water. Buffalo bayou one of the main artery flooding its banks. All this water being released from these two reservoirs in houston in order to relieve pressure on the dams. This is the effect were seeing. The rain has stopped. And the sun is out. But now were seeing the effects of whats happening here. S