Activated 3,000 national and state guard members to help with the countless rescues. Abcs lana zach joins us live from houston with the details. Reporter good evening, the situation here in houston, continues to be very serious. By abcs latest confirmation, three people are dead and there are still thousands more waiting to be rescued. White house confirms that the president will be here, to visit the affected region on tuesday, and by all estimates it will still be raining then. Houston is trying to stay afloat, amid nearly 500 billion gallons of water. Sinkholes opening up, tornadoes touching down, this lake was once a runway at houstons airport. Already there have been thousands of requests for rescue. On your roof, to be taken from the air, wave sheets, towels, or anything to get our attention. Reporter National Weather service tweeting, this event is unprecedented and all impacts are unknown and beyond anything experienced. Follow order from officials to ensure safety. Overnight,
Abcs maggie ruly live in houston with more on this. Reporter were getting more rain and wind in houston with more bands of heavy rain expected adding to a catastrophic situation. The countrys fourth largest city remains under water. With more heavy rain expected, the city could be soaked with up to 50 inches. This is a landmark event. We have not seen an event like this, you could not draw this forecast up, you could not dream this forecast you mean. Reporter and today a new problem, Officials Say city dams built to protect downtown houston against a 1,000 year flooding event are nearing capacity. The reservoirs rising 4 inches per hour. We have experts monitoring the suspects 24 7. Reporter to control the flooding army corps of engineers have to release the dams. But homes in the neighborhood could be flooded. Floodwaters are rising rapidly bringing snakes and alligator to the front door forcing entire apartment buildings to flee to the roof. Theres like 30 of us on the roof. Across t
Cooperation with the Houston Police department and our partners have effected 290 water rescues since midnight last night. Neil all right. Epicenter financially, just sheer breath and scope a incredible storm, houston, texas, that is where you find our jeff flock. What is the latest there in. Reporter neil, here is the problem, we had a break in the rain. Seems things improved. They have releasing water out after couple different reservoirs so they dont compromise the dams. These people have never had flood problems before, but you now think you might be on the edge of a problem . Very much so, actually with the dam releases this is all from the dam releases, because they dont want the dam to breach. This basically has come overnight. We never had water anywhere close to this house. It is very close now. Reporter if they dont release on the dams they may potentially lose the dams and downtown understand. Absolutely understand. It is just scary. Reporter you said you heard they will rel
Been rescued in the houston area alone. Abc 7 News Reporter maggie ruehly is tracking the latest live in houston. Maggie . Reporter we are getting hit with more rain and wind here in houston, and were expecting another band of heavy rain coming our way only adding to an already catastrophic situation. The countrys fourth largest city remains under water. With more heavy rain expected, the city could be soaked with up to 50 inches. This is a landmark event. We have not seen an event like this. You could not draw this forecast up. You could not dream this forecast up. Then today a new problem. Officials say city dams built to protect downtown houston against a 1,000year flooding event are nearing capacity. The reservoirs are rising at more than 4 inches an hour. We have dam Safety Experts monitoring these structures 24 7. Reporter to control the flooding, the army corps of engineers will begin releasing the dams, but first they have to evacuate residents whose homes could get flooded. Th
Evacuees showing up at hotels only to find there are no more rooms. If this hotel would just give us a room. I think they have Convention People coming in with reservations. Reporter and people preying on abandoned homes and businesses. One shop homer asking for help, showing looters going unpunished. This is houstons main evacuation center. There are already thousands of people here. We know that they set up 2,000 cots earlier in the day, and those quickly ran out. And still, people just continue to come as the rain will continue to fall. Reporting from houston, abc 7 news. Now, the historic flooding in texas is causing massive flight delays, of course, cancellations all across the country. Matt keller has a story from mineta san jose airport. Reporter today was supposed to be a celebration at Mineta San Jose International airport. Southwest airlines was expanding service. But as fate would have it, one of the new nonstop destinations is houstons hobby airport. We did count down the c