had first responders out early this morning. clayton: we just got a tweet in the president up this morning from camp david tweeting in response to senator chuck grassley who told the president to stay focused and respond to this and not make a hurricane katrina mistake like george w. bush did, here s what the president says: got your message loud and clear. we have fantastic people on the ground. got there long before harvey. so far, so good. is that the response that you re experiencing at the local level there, mr. paxton? oh, absolutely. the president has been on this from early stages working with our governor, working with our people. so, you know, he was here early. i think he is very focused on that. we talked to the governor and i think he is pretty pleased with the response. they have already declared many counties disaster areas. i think we are on top of this as well as we can be. and i think the president has been, too. clayton: what does that mean for our viewers that d
todd: as we approach 6:00 in the east, 5:00 in texas. a fox news alert. hurricane harvey ravaging parts of texas right now. the storm downgraded to a category 2 hurricane. it s still very serious. it made landfall last night around 10:00 p.m. local time as a category 4 hurricane bringing winds up to 160 miles per hour. clayton: this is the strongest storm to hit the united states in more than a decade. could drop more than 60 inches of rain in parts of texas before it s over. it s going to hang out four or five days. thousands of people evacuated. more than 200,000 are without power this morning. abby: emergency crews putting their lives on the line. firefighters battling abrasion in the middle of a storm in corpus christi overnight. harvey is expected to leave behind about $40 billion in damage. but president trump has signed a disaster declaration in texas. todd: we have live team coverage all morning long all over the coast this
national guard that have been deployed and they are stationed throughout the region. they have even brought in air assets in the event that rescues need to be carried out and they can assist with those. so, a number of different things that we are looking forward to as the sun will start to come up here soon. and it will give us our first look at the devastation harvey has left behind because, remember, this has made landfall in the night, evening hours. when the sun was already out and gone. so now once we start to have sunrise, we re going to see some pretty devastating images all throughout the region up and down the texas coast impacted by the storm. clayton: casey,just talk a little bit about the historical context. the people of galveston here know the devastation that the 1900 hurricane wrought on that city changed the course of this country forever. it was a large port. it was rivalling new york city at that time, destroyed
destruction. store fronts caved in by high winds. walls falling off apartment complexes. firefighters battling a blaze in the middle of this while the storm is ragingment take a look at this video. harvey is expected to lee behind $40 billion word of damage. president trump has signed a disaster declaration in texas. todd: we will be with you all morning long. live team coverage all along the coast this morning. first we go to matt finn. every time we go to matt his shots are definitely some of the most dramatic. wind is pounding that general area. matt, we will check back in with you one more time. how is it looking how you are? this storm might have been downgraded but here where we are in matagorda county has been getting broively worst leading with violent winds. the water behind me extremely violent. it s been inching closer and closer to land. now the waves are crashing up against us. this area has been experiencing blackouts. this dock behind me goes in
todd: matt, thank you very much. one of the concerns where matt is right now besides the obvious in the shot, the combination of the storm surge which you can see in matt s shot also the fact that when rick s forecast 58 inches of rain could fall there, combination of that, absolutely horrible for flooding. abby: matt, please take care of yourself out there. unbelievable. this is not easy for them to go out and do when you think about the heavy winds coming against them. he has been a trooper throughout the entire night. clayton: on a wooden pier no less. ken paxton texas attorney general will join us on response to harvey. special coverage continues right after we take a quick break. copd makes it hard to breathe.