texas time. this morning the fourth largest city in the united states mostly under water, and it s only going to get worse. the national weather service calls the flooding unprecedented and beyond anything experienced before. the catastrophic flooding from now tropical storm harvey stretching government resources well past their breaking point. authorities in and around houston now scrambling to save those trapped by the high waters after 24 inches of rain fell there in 24 hours. officials say at least two people were killed by the storm. and the death toll is likely to rise. houston s mayor warn that some 911 calls are going unanswered as operators prioritize calls in areas where lives are at stake. officials say that so far there have been about 2,000 water rescues. the houston independent school district has canceled classes for the week. dallas has announced plans to open a mega shelter to accommodate 5,000 evacuees.
now, i think when it came to hurricane katrina in 2005, the big complaints were in the aftermath of the hurricane. i think that s where the big test is is in the rebuilding phase. you know, rain is still falling on houston and is projected to keep falling for several days. i looked up the ten-day forecast. still a 40% chance or higher of rain through september 7th. this is not stopping any time soon unfortunately. we will get in just a couple of hours, there will be a press conference that we ll take live at cnn with the department of homeland security and fema in washington. so there will be that visual of the federal response. i wanted to ask you, jason, but something that happened this weekend. the secretary of state, rex tillerson, and really the defense secretary, james mattis, distancing themselves i would say from the president s reaction to charlottesville. i want you to listen to this and get your thoughts on the other side.
pyongyang. no one has a better perspective and view than you. thank you, sir. back to our storm coverage next. they ve already had 15 to 25 inches. could be in for double that rain amount in the houston, texas, area. early start continues right now. this likely is going to be an historic rainfall if not an all-time record. 50 inches of rain. parts of texas under water face a devastating few days of more rainfall. months if not years of cleanup ahead. we have loive coverage of the damage, rescues, and what lies in store. welcome back to early start. i m christine romans. i m dave briggs. devastation there for more than two million people in houston. almost seven million in the houston area under water at 4:30
the victims of tropical storm harvey with contributions. property damage is forecast at $40 billion, $20 billion in houston alone. big companies are writing checks toward disaster relief groups. caterpillar, walmart, lowe s. exxon itself hurting from the storm. floods and rain forcing it to close its baytown refinery, second largest in the country. united airlines is encouraging its customers to give. rewarding members up to three million bonus miles in exchange for donations. united is also matching the first $100,000 raised. the storm posing a major test for president trump. he s set to fly to texas tomorrow, perhaps to san antonio, but avoid the hardest hit areas. how s he done responding to the storm? we ll discuss next.
uh-huh, yeah. pretty good. pretty good. i think pretty good for the circumstances. it s bad. everything s floating. it s bad. 11 minutes past the hour. rain and flooding inundating heart of oil industry. oil rigs have been evacuated, and ten refineries shut down. one, exxonmobil s baytown refinery. one-third of the refineries on the texas coast. the closures take 2.2 million barrels of oil a day off line. that disruption means higher gas prices. futures hitting a two-year high, up 7%. gas prices could rise 5 to 15 cents over the next week especially in the south, southeast, mid-atlantic u.s. higher gas prices just one of the potential costs of harvey. the storm also threatened the economy in texas. the state s unemployment rate just started to fall after spiking last year. remember there was a crash in oil prices that hurt the texas