Page 2 - Tracking Harvey News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

As we continue to look at the impact of harvey, one of them is obviously on the oil business. so huge throughout texas. and means a lot to all of us who put gas in our cars. nbc's miguel almaguer is in houston in front of a shell refinery. how prepared were they for this, and what impact is the biggest concern right now? >> reporter: yeah, chris. it's not just the sheets of rain here, but it's the rising floodwaters that threaten so many facilities like the one behind me here. more than 3,000 employees work here every day. and when they aren't able to come to work, that, of course, has an imme...

Know, this prairie land would absorb a bunch of rain water is, you know, ludicrous, it's absurd. and we can essentially fight concrete with concrete. we can through these massive public works projects that mitigate flooding, you know, retention ponds, widening the bayou system. that kind of thing. and, you know, some of that might be needed. but scientists are saying what's really needed is smarter development policies, and for public officials to start thinking about climate change, and how climate change will start bringing more intense and frequent rainfall. and a lot of them are not doing ...

Didn't know, you know, where harvey was going to go and if it was going to dump, you know, any amount of rain on houston or a lot of rain. and so i went to sleep saturday night and woke up sunday, and it -- everything had totally changed. it dumped -- the tropical storm dumped a huge amount of rain on the city overnight. and, you know, it all went down hill from there, pretty much. >> reporter: you actually have given a lot of thought to this and a lot of research to this, because you co wrote a joint tribune report in december on houston, and its potential for catastrophic flooding. and i wan...

The water is still rides rising in houston. the water in some roadways 17 feet deep. that's right. 17 feet deep. officials opened this spillway at the reservoir this morning in an attempt to keep the waters from overflowing their banks. but there are concerns the move could cause even further flooding. harvey, which came ashore as a category 4 hurricane, has been blamed for at least two deaths. now federal officials said this morning more than 30,000 people are expected to be placed in temporary shelters. more than 450,000 expected to seek some sort of assistance. the coast guard says it's res...

So we have seen so much of that. so it's hard not to notice that just as much as the anguish. and those people who have been rescued, they're also so thankful. there are a lot of emotions going on at the same time. >> jacob rascon who has been doing great reporting along with our entire nbc/msnbc team. thank you for that. and there are ongoing evacuations this hour to save thousands of houston residents. officials still defending their choice, not ordering mandatory evacuations earlier, although there were warning signs. houston wouldn't be able to handle the crippling floods of harvey. we're ...