Designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why were your retirement company. Additional support has been provided by and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. From the tisch wnet studios at Lincoln Center in new york, hari sreenivasan. Sreenivasan good evening and thanks for joining us. The mayor of houston had a message for his constituents in the nations fourth largest city today please, stay off the roads. The warning came as Hurricane Harvey still classified as a Tropical Storm dumped torrential rainfall on the texas coast along the gulf of mexico. Two days after making landfall as a category four hurricane friday night, harvey has weakened, but with little relief for millions of texans. At least five deaths are blamed on the storm. An estimated 300,000 texans are without power today. Parts of Southeast Texas expect a cumulative 50 inches of rain, the most ever recorded in the state from one storm. The worst flooding is in houston, where there have been more than 2,500 rescue calls. Wading through deep water in search of Higher Ground people used inflate annal rafts and even air mattresses to get through floods. In the town of dickinson south of houston, a resident describe it came up like a tsunami almost. Rescuers reporter Emergency Responders in a boat rescued roxanne rasmussen, along with two disabled residents. It was up to here. I was out showing everything trying to get the National Guard to see me, because our subdivision. This is a disaster. Reporter rainfall varied across the states gulf coast, but by dawn, houston had been swamped with more than 11 inches. The total rainfall could double by the time the storm clears in the next few days. Houstons Fire Department performed hundreds of water rescues. The u. S. Coast guard deployed five helicopters and rescued more than 100 people in the houston area. City officials urged residents trapped in their homes by rising flood waters to go to their roofs, not their attics. The storm system is also creating tornadoes. This home video shows one twister touching down northwest of houston. Houstonians are not under any mandatory evacuation orders. Houston mayor Sylvester Turner defended that decision today. Every neighborhood, every communities received water in the flooding. Every bayou went over its banks. You cannot put, in the city of houston, 2. 3 Million People on the road. That is dangerous. Reporter Texas Governor greg abbott says hes activated 3,000 national and state guard troops and deployed 600 boats to protect human life. He also warned houston is not the only city at risk. I realize theres a lot of focus on houston right now. Its important not to forget the challenges that people in the counties outside and around houston because of the immense rainfall. Reporter the federal Emergency Management agency, fema, coordinated relief efforts from its Regional Center in denton, near dallas. In an interview today, fema administrator brock long said nearly 5,000 federal government workers are involved in the response. We are already pushing forward Recovery Housing teams, we are already pushing forward forces to be on the ground to implement National FloodInsurance Program policies as well. And doing the inspections that we need. So we are setting up and gearing up for the next couple years. Reporter the white house said President Trump, again today, was monitoring the response from camp david by Video Conference with Vice President pence and cabinet officials. He returned to the white house this afternoon. On twitter, the president called the storm a once in a 500 year flood and said the he would visit texas, as soon as that trip can be made without causing disruption. The focus must be life and safety. By the newspapers metro editor dianna hunt. Ms. Hunt what a difference 24 hours makes. You were talking about some of these preparations yesterday but the video we are seeing from houston is dramatic. Tell us a little bit about what your reporters are seeing out there. This is an extraordinary amount of flooding and torrential rains. Its actually stopped at the moment, theres been a bit of a break. But the bayous have flooded, streets are flooded and people are being rest constitute by helicopters as we speak now. They set up shelters in the Convention Center downtown, everybody is trying to shelter in place if at all possible. All over the region trying to capture all thats going on, we still constant get whats going on. Weve had thousands of rescues, six people have died already in the storm in the area, strairs disasters. If we continue to get more rain as we are predicted to get it will just get worse. Sreenivasan and thats the thing thats hard to comprehend here. There are breaks in the range, but this weather system many whether i. T. Goes back out, comes back in or just stays, this is what you are going to have in the next couple of days. How does the city drain this kind of water, thats that fast . Well it just tries to its bayous and the waterways have retention ponds. Those can all carry a load. They just cant carry it as fast as its been coming down. If we can get a little bit of a break and let it catch up a little bit, that helps the system. But we were at one point getting three ofour inches in an hour. And it just canned handle it. The drain systems cant. We have rivers that are about to go over their banks and then outlying counties that are threatening homes there, too. But it also as it drains downstream it creates flooding problems there. So its going to be with us for a while. Sreenivasan i remember covering hurricane rita where there was a Mass Evacuation of houston. The mayor said you cant move 2. 3 Million People and puts them on the road, thats dangerous. But at this point theres going to be people stuck in their homes without power and trying figure out how to leave. But if you look at the map of road closures, its not easy to get out. At this point if your house is not flooded, you should not leave. Stay where you are, off the roadway, that causes more problems. I talked to a woman this morning who has about three feet of water in her house. She is at white oak bayou, shes staying in a friends house, there is no one sick or injured, three families in one home, waiting for this to go away to get out. Sreenivasan what is the status of all kinds of functione the schools or hospitals up and running . The hospitals are up and running. There is report of problems at one of our hospitals in the basement. We had one problem during Tropical Storm allison, very similar to this, it stayed over the city and dumped rain over a period of days. They had generators that went out, had to evacuate. They have made changes in the hospital district, in the medical district to prevent had from happening again. So the problems have been minimized, with Tropical Storm allison that was in 2001. But the rest of things are trying to catch up. We get a break, theres a little bit of almost sun shining right now and people try to catch up. But they are still plucking people too. Sreenivasan are there areas of concern over the next 48 hours or 72 hours for greater rainfall . The whole area is threatened by the potential for additional rain. The storm system just stops over us. It can just rain endlessly. At the moment weve had some raves of rain. It isnt doing that now. But if the system just stalls as it can do then we just get days of rain and theres really nothing you can do about it. Sreenivasan all right, dianna hunt of the houston corroborate chronicle. Thank you. Sreenivasan nine years ago, when hurricane ike caused 30 billion of Property Damage in the houston and galveston area, it was a wakeup call. But according to the report hell or high water, published last year by propublica and the texas tribune, houston did not adequately heed the warning. Texas tribune reporter kiah collier is one of the coauthors of that story, and shes also covering harvey today. She joins me now by skype. Preparedness for storms like this, you worked on this for more than a year. What did you find . I mean we know that theres hurricane preparations and then theres flood preparations and you have a story just on that. The projects were to focus on houston vulnerability to hurricanes and then flooding. And how flooding has been exacerbated by Unchecked Development in houston. Building rules are not too strict, and developers are just paving over prairie land and wet land. And not thinking too much about it. And when rains like this hit, it just makes it so much worse because those flood waters dont have anywhere to go. And of course, with hurricanes comes rain. And theres a big question whether harvey would hit houston as a hurricane. It was never projected to do that. But we wrote about a specific hurricane that if it hits at a particular point on the coast it would send an enormous storm surge into a highly populated area and the u. S. s largest refining and petrochemical complex in the bayou city they call it. Sreenivasan one part of your story mentioned houston had the most urban flooding in the last 40 years. Yeah, thats right. Flooding kills more people here than anywhere else in the u. S. And in general flooding kills a lot of people, more than have been hurricanes actually. So its the number one killer, in terms of natural disasters. Sreenivasan so when you look at these beautiful sets of maps that you have and you look at sort of 100 year storms and 500 year storms you can kind of layer this over into where these flood zones are and you see the dots just kind of line up and they go right over areas that are expected to flood. Right, exactly. And these recent floods, this is the third major flood heurch has seen in the hiefn has seen in the last three years i guess. Historic floods one a year for the past three years and a lot of that flooding has occurred outside the zones that are most likely to flood. And today, were seeing flooding that exceeds 500 year throod levels which is really flood levels which is really rare. Houston has a Flood Control board. Is there tension there between what scientists predict and when they say is necessary to prevent these things and how houston develops . Right, well, our project was based on a lot of interviews with scientists who said houston is not doing enough to mitigate flooding. It is not leaving open green space in these developments. And its only going to get worse because of climate change. And so we talked to the head of the Flood Control district for our story. And she basically didnt agree with any of that and told us that they can kind of fight concrete with concrete. An jeer can engineer their way out of this problem with flood retention, you know, kind of basically Massive Concrete projects to direct floodwaters out to the goifl. Houston doesnt have enough of those and he admitted that this was behind on creating those projects or building those projects. But scientists that we talked to say youre not going to be able to engineer your way out of the problem. What houston really needs is smarter development rules. All right kiah collier joins us, one of the authors of boom towrn flood town or hell or high water. Thank you so much for joining us. A two hour drive southwest of houston about 30 miles in from the gust cost lies the city ofg gulf coast lies victoria. Residents and emergency are responders are dealing with the heavy damage. 24 hours after reporter 24 hours after the winds subsided, thomas cano is still shaken. The house shook. It shook like crazy. It shook like somebody was doing a whip on it, you know . I was scared. You know ive been scared before, but when you cant see it, that makes it even worse, when you cant see the danger, you know . Reporter born and raised in victoria, cano and his family boarded up their windows before harveys arrival and opted to ride out the storm in the home his mother bought 40 years ago. Now a tree, uprooted from the yard, lies fallen on the side of his house. Did you hear that tree fall . Yes, sure did. I was on that window upstairs. I was looking when it fell. I said, oh, my god i was like its just it was scary. It was scary, you know. Reporter in another victoria neighborhood, scott koonce and jake lutz cleanup debris strewn across their neighbors yards. They wanted to help restore their community to normal, before evacuees begin to come back. If we get a head start on it, the faster we get it cleaned up, the faster they can come in here and fix the electricity, get the water back on, things like that. I had a friend down the street, came back down and asked us if we could help him because a tree fell through his roof. So were just out here doing what we can to help everybody and trying to clean up. Reporter the city says itll take months to clear away all the debris and trees that harvey left behind, but what theyre most worried about is what happens here at the Guadalupe River and victorias other waterways, which arent expected to crest until at least midweek. Were expecting every creek and river in Victoria County to go to record flood levels over the next few days. Reporter o. C. Garza is the victoria Emergency Operations centers Public Information officer. He says while the rainfall rate has slowed, the citys residents need to brace themselves for the flooding to come. These are not life threatening, high rapidly highspeed flood water. These are waters that back up into peoples homes and such. And and, so, weve got floods to contend with for at least a week. Reporter the difficulties facing residents are not limited to housing damage. Greg heavener of the National Weather service says that the flood waters may get high enough to cut off victoria from the rest of the state. Weve been forecasting major flooding for the past three to four days, so people are well aware of it, but, again, if it does happen, likely a lot of these roads here will be impassable and people will not be able to get out of the city. Wow. And so where will people go . Exactly. So, you know, if youre gonna come in, be prepared to be here for several days with flood waters around the area. Otherwise, you know, stay out of the city. Reporter Victoria Police officers are going door to door encouraging residents to leave this area. They told people in this neighborhood, the last time the Guadalupe River flooded here, it crested at around 30 feet above flood stage. This time, police say, they expect it to be far greater. Residents we met said theyve lived through bad flooding in the past, but what is projected from harvey is unlike anything theyve seen before. Sreenivasan Christopher Booker joins me now, from victoria, texas. Christopher, you have been out and about all day. How are they dealing with their basic needs. I see there are probably power lines that are big and trees that are also down. Yes, its a bit like moving through a maze of trees here. Across the city there are hundreds and hundreds of really substantial trees across the streets. Power lines down. We only saw one open store and that store had a line outs the door. People lining up to get food and water and they were going into a store that didnt have food or electricity. The gas station didnt have power, and people were setting up porta potties. Sreenivasan when is it safe to return . Its really unclear. Folks are coming back. Wee visited a home right next to the Guadalupe River. A family of four pulled up to their house which was right next to the Guadalupe River and huge tree branch had fallen on top of the roof puncturing the roof flooding their kitchen. They were there for a really brief moment to pick up as much as they could because their house is most certainly going to flood. And the city now is facing this bigger question of okay, the winds have died down, the recovery has started. But the water is rising. So the folks that might return might actually end up getting stuck here. Sreenivasan how are the officials preparing for all that rain . Well, Police Department tells us that they have building their dispatch team. There was only one reported injury here in victoria, a power line that fell, the injury was nonfatal but the police are really waiting to see if and when theyll be needed to help people out of the water. Sreenivasan Christopher Booker thanks so much. Sreenivasan for more on the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, visit our website at www. Pbs. Org newshour. Sreenivasan secretary of state Rex Tillerson says north koreas latest testlaunching of three shortrange missiles was, a provocative act against the United States and its allies. The u. S. Military has said two of the missiles launched friday flew about 155 miles, while the third blew up. Tillerson called the tests another violation of u. N. Security Council Resolutions restricting north koreas weapons programs, but he also held out hope. Were going to continue our peaceful Pressure Campaign as i have described it, working with allies, working with china as well to see if we can bring the regime in pyongyang to the negotiating table. Sreenivasan only days before fridays missile tests, tillerson had commended north korea for recently showing restraint. The white house is defending President Trumps friday night pardon of former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio on his contempt of court conviction. The 85yearold arpaio had faced six months in jail for defying a federal judges order to stop profiling and detaining latinos on the suspicion they were illegal immigrants. Until he was voted out of office last year, arpaio spent 24 years as the sheriff of maricopa county, which includes phoenix. Today, Homeland Security adviser tom bossert described the pardon as routine i think theres a clemency argument that can be made for the long history of service both in the United States military and in Law Enforcement for the sheriff. I think the president has been clear, pretty straightforward, that he believes that that long history of service merits this clemency. Sreenivasan speaker of the house paul ryan is adding his voice to those republicans criticizing the pardon. A ryan spokesman said the speaker does not agree with the decision. Law enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States. The Washington Post reports mister trump sought months ago to protect arpaio, who campaigned for him last year and shared his hard line views on illegal immigration. Citing three sources with knowledge of the conversation, the post says mr. Trump pressured attorney general Jeff Sessions to drop the case against arpaio before this srings trial, but sessions declined, advising that would be inappropriate. The terrorist vehicle attacks in spain ten days ago claimed another victim today when a 51 year old german woman died of her injuries from the barcelona van attack on the famous las ramblas boulevard. That means 16 are now dead from the attacks, and 24 people remain hospitalized. Isis has claimed responsibility. In britain, police have arrested a second man for friday nights attack outside londons Buckingham Palace for suspicion of involvement in terrorism. On friday, police subdued and arrested a 26year old man who drove a car toward them, then got out, yelled god is great in arabic, and allegedly brandished a fourfoot sword. No members of the royal family were in the palace at the time. A Multiracial Coalition of activists plans to begin a ten day march tomorrow from charlottesville, virginia, to washington, d. C. , calling attention to confederate monuments along the way. The group is protesting the white supremacist violence and rhetoric on display since the charlottesville rallies two weeks ago, and what they say is President Trumps failure to denounce it. Police have arrested two more men in connection with the charlottesville clashes. 18yearold daniel borden, from ohio, is charged in the assault of deandre harris, a 20yearold black man whose beating in a parking garage was captured on video. 52yearold richard preston, a ku klux klan leader from maryland. Is charged with illegally discharging a firearm. He was captured on video firing a gun into the ground near a black counterprotester in charlottesville. A medical study published today offers a potential new drug treatment for people with Heart Disease. Instead of relying on statins to reduce the risk of heart attacks by cutting cholesterol levels. The new drug, called canakinumab, has been shown to lower risks by curbing chronic heart inflammation. Its given by injection every three months. According to one researcher, about 15 million americans have the kind of Heart Disease studied in the trial. The drugmaker novartis sponsored the study published in the new england journal of medicine and in lancet. Later this year, novartis plans to ask the food and Drug Administration to approve sales of the drug. Finally, the white house announced this evening, President Trump plans to travel to texas on tuesday to see the storm damage in person. No word yet on exactly where hell go. 18 texas counties have been declared federal disaster areas, 7 Million People live in those areas. The most rain has fallen in southeast houston, 25 inches in the past 24 hours, while the small city of dayton northeast of houston has lotiond 27 inches are d are be logs 27 inches. In the past 24 hours. Im hari sreenivasan, thanks for watching and have a good night. Captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org pbs newshour weekend is made possible by bernard and irene schwartz. The cheryl and Philip Milstein family. Dr. P. Roy vagelos and diana t. Vagelos. The j. P. B. Foundation. Sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. The Anderson Family fund. Rosalind p. Walter, in memory of abby m. Oneill. Barbara hope zuckerberg. Corporate funding is provided by mutual of america designing customized individual and Group Retirement products. Thats why were your retirement company. Additional support has been provided by and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. The gulf of mexico is bountiful and the holder of many secrets. My name is penny hammer and ive lived near this majestic body of water most of my life. Far away, deep within the gulf, lies a secret place, and id like to share it with you. To get there, we must journey 100 miles past these waves. Among the archipelago of steel platforms, the water becomes crystalclear and caribbeanblue. Come with me to explore this magical explosion of life