Advised anyone who has not left by now to write their name and Social Security on their arm to help recovery crews identify them later should they discover the body. We have reporters and meteorologists and new information just in from the National Weather center. I want to start off with cnns Martin Savidge, feeling the worst of it in Corpus Christy. What is the latest right now . Reporter were under an extreme wind warning. We could see wind speeds up to 145 miles an hour. If that happens, i wouldnt be standing. But the wind has just continued to blast Corpus Christy and the trees here are bending to the point where you swear theyre going the snap. The rain is just now a fog almost, because its become so midwest f mystified by the heavy winds and the gusts that hit you are almost like a physical punch. And then theres the steady roar of the ocean, the wind, the trees. Sit a massive amount of energy thats being unleashed right now, and its in a level that people refer back to say katr
And that does it for this edition of Andrea Mitchell reports. Im Chris Jansing in for Andrea Mitchell. Follow the show online, facebook and twitter at mitchell reports. Katy tur is up next here on msnbc. Thank you very much. Hurricane harvey with winds of up to 110 Miles Per Hour is bearing down on the texas gulf coast at this hour. It has the hall marks of a historic storm. The city of Corpus Christi lies directly in its path. Voluntary evacuations are now under way. And landfall is expected tonight between 10 00 p. M. And 2 00 a. M. Eastern time. The storm surge is projected to be between 6 and 12 feet. Widespread flooding from extended rain over the next few days could be the most serious threat, though, as some areas could see over 3 feet of rain. President trump has been briefed, and is being kept apprised of the developing situation, along the gulf coast, according to the white house. And in the gulf itself, personnel have been evacuated from some of the more than 700 manned oil
Because it gets pretty warm down here during the summer. So we expect power to be off for days, maybe even weeks. Oh, my goodness. And then what about any rescue or Recovery Efforts . How does that power outage issue impact that . And what are you finding as you look for people . Well, during the night when the storm was the greatest, we had to make sure that we only went on calls that were very necessary for First Responders to be out there during the storm. However, Corpus Christi did not have very many rescues at all within our city limits. Most of the storm, the most powerful part of the storm was actually north of us. And we prayed very much for those from rockport, victoria, and all those cities that are had a little bit more damage than Corpus Christi did. And do you have any idea how many people are, you know, left the area, how many people are, you know, still unaccounted for . We didnt have that problem here in Corpus Christi. We did have people evacuate certain low levels of
Response from the white house and we will have much more on that in a short time. But first to Hurricane Harvey. The massive storm packing winds up to 145 miles an hour. Torrential rains and the potential for massive flooding in the coming days with the storm surge of some 12 feet. The fema director saying texas is about to have, quote, a very significant disaster. Texas officials now telling citizens who do not evacuate, listen to this, to write their names and Social Security numbers on their forearms. Just how big is this hurricane . Youre looking at harvey from outer space now. A camera on the International Space station. Harvey expected to be the strongest hurricane to make land fall in the u. S. In 12 years, since 2005. Rain fall totals up to 40 inches are expected in some areas. Thats more than three feet, causing widespread flooding. Made worse as the storm is predicted to stall over the region for several days. Large parts of south texas could be, quote, uninhabitable for week
The National Weather service says large areas of south texas may be uninhabitable for weeks or even months. The Texas Governor is already asking for the state to be declared a major disaster area to trigger additional help from the federal government. As the First National disaster on his watch is about to hit a natural disaster, President Trump is over at camp david. The white house says hes been actively engaged with emergency officials and is planning to travel to texas early next week. We are also just learning that the president assigned and directed following up officially on his ban on transgender troops that he announced in a tweet last month. This hour ill speak live with the head of the federal Emergency Management agency, brock long. There you see him. And our correspondents, specialists and other guests are standing by as we cover this breaking story. First, lets go to cnns Martin Savage. Hes right in the heart of things in Corpus Christi. Martin, youre in the danger zone.