is that wind gusts what are we looking at? in this radar, shows where the heaviest rainfall is. and those are the areas we could expect to see 50 or 60 inches of rain. were looking at storm totals of about 40 inches, in some places ten or 15 have already fell. elizabeth: thank you for joining us. we hope people stay safe out there. an update coming in a couple of minutes from austin, texas. you can see the podium for the governor of texas and behind that the emergency operations center where there gathering more information. it will get a lot worse before it gets better in terms of destruction and devastation throughout southeast texas. crews are monitoring. one of the biggest issues is getting help to the communities. the fema directors up next on how long it will take to reach the communities that are still cut off.
and infrastructure to have to repair. we appreciate your time and obviously your service through some difficult times in america. we appreciate it, sir. thank you very much. leland: a little bit later in the show, current fema administrator who he just talked about, brock long, been on the job just a couple of months, joins us with the latest on his agency s response and what they re working on right now. obviously, this is now just beginning in the very couple the first couple of hours day break there in texas and then they start rolling things in. elizabeth: absolutely, we know that there s mange damage already reported out of cities where harvey made landfall. much more is expected up to 30 inches of rain, if not more could fall by mid next week. it s a huge job for texas law enforcement and emergency workers to manage. i want to bring in ken paxton, texas attorney general. thank you for joining us, we appreciate it. thank you for having me on. elizabeth: obviously, you see the
request for fema assistance. the fema administrator brock long is currently here at the national response center with the representatives from the hall of government and also region six of fema is there in texas leading local operations. elizabeth: i want to ask you a little about the resources. we obviously see them behind you, but i m curious about the resources on the ground. what is physically taking place right now and what will physically take place over the next couple months? well, a lot of that is dictated by the storm itself. right now we re limited by the storm s staying in the area and we re just start to go see a demolishing of win diminishing of winds. we ll have the coast guard air assets stationed there, ready to begin surveillance operations. we have the initial response of some search and rescue operations, but that is dictated by the storm itself. i know that you were with, if i m not mace taken, the
to be. leland: may not know for a number of months or a number of weeks. elizabeth: we have a new statement from fema and read it in part, says the priorities right now are supporting states with search and rescue, mass care, medical services, temporary power and life sustaining commodities. the reason i want to bring up that statement. there s a lot that first responders are doing right now and the president said, well, i could be down there as early as tuesday. that may be a high-risk situation and he could be bringing down a lot of resources and when we re bringing out search and rescue operations. does he have to walk a fine line, when he goes down there, if he goes down there, it s a political dance and how does he tiptoe around that? that s always a difficult balance for a president i hate to interrupt you. go down to corpus christi, texas, a coast guard news conference. often times these are the first people with a look at the damage.
shuts down travel. you can make the case that a presidential visit there actually hinders recovery. if he is not seen there though, or if the federal recovery is seen less than effective, mainstream media and his political opponents will be hammering away. take note for sure that regardless of what the response is, it will be in some way, shape or form politicized. to the extent that the federal government can help here, it generally happens over the long-term and we ve seen the initial stages with the travel disaster, and home repairs, low cost loans to cover uninsured property losses to help individuals and businesses to recover. these are key hours,the next 48 to 68 hours or so, we ll see how the administration does here. elizabeth: that we will. thank you for the latest, doug, appreciate it. leland: a little perspective. let s bring in former fema director james witt. appreciate you being with us.