we appreciate it. the jaw dropping disaster and relentless floodwaters in some areas, it may be no surprise that the death toll is also rising. 21 people now confirmed dead 9 still missing and several more days of rain are on the way. let s turn our fob us to houston, one of the city s hardest hit by flooding and now the threat of storms and more disastrous rainfall looms over the next four days. here is cnn s dan simon. good morning. reporter: good morning, carol. i think this pretty much sums up what you re seeing. just these debris piles littered all over the street. this is one of the areas hardest hit. i ve got to tell you, you walk down the sidewalk and pretty much every house in front of it has one of these big piles of debris. you re seeing carpets and couches and those are the keends of things that are immediately going to have to go. so the house may still be standing but the contents that s a whole other story. but carol, i have to tell you, houston right now a little bi
we will stay in close coordination with them to make sure that our response is quick. that we re cutting through bureaucracy. and that we re helping them recover. there are still going to be weather events over the next several days that will potentially make things tougher for folks. i m confident that the communities will ultimately get back on their feet. politics will put aside in texas as representatives from the families of some of those nine missing people spoke about the search efforts. this effort is not over. we are 100% committed to finding laura, andrew, leighton randy, will, ralph, and sue. we will need your support to keep this mission and the stories alive in the days weeks, and months ahead. we have a 40% chance of rain this evening into tomorrow. it is going to shift debris piles and affect the searched areas that they have previously
and when it rains, that creates a problem. first of all, you don t want fluctuation in the liver level because of all of the debris they are sifting through. down the river, they have debris piles as tall as these trees they re going through. more rain it displaces some debrie and makes it really challenging. three people identified one pending identification and one of the most recent ones we learned about today was michelle charba found the rest of her family unfortunately missing. her husband, son and her parents. they told us today these crews will be out no matter what and will keep searching until the rest of the victims are found, jake. jennifer it s not just south texas getting the severe weather. the right? reporter: absolutely. in fact we had a tornado in the panhandle yesterday. in fact three people were injured from that. it hit an oil rig area and hit
including heat rain rough terrain. safety must come first. if you d like to make a financial contribution as an individual do so through the official go fund me page established by the families. we ll distribute that address following this conference. if you d like to make a financial contribution as a business entity contact wendy souther land 512-947-9771 for details. lastly we ve learned some local residents are burning debris piles in an effort to clear their land. we ask that you please do not burn debris or brush until we ve located and recovered every missing person. at this time we will answer any
were talking to john berman and kate in their program. and they said that this big issue was additional rain. because every time you get a little more rain the flood levels go up again and they disperse the debris field. so if there is a debris pile it gets moved and pushed and changes. and if the searchers who have gone through that area have to come back and do it all again. are you seeing evidence of that? reporter: yes, well, the waters have steadily been going on ever since we have been here. so the debris piles are exactly where they were when the flood waters initially went down. now, what you don t want as you mentioned several inches of rain, several more inches of rain this weekend. that is exactly what you don t want because then the levels come back up. a lot of these trees, they may move down stream, you will get new debris to come up and wash in with some of this. and so i think that is why a lot of these crews are in here. you will see dump trucking