reciprocate and the federal government is on standby to help. i am impressed the coordination and preparation has really gotten good. >> randy, congressman, republican of texas, 14th district, we appreciate your time. [inaudible conversations] >> i want to thank everybody for gathering here today, especially want to thank senators cornyn and crews for taking the time to join us today and being part of the aerial overview were able to take to get a better assessment of the entire region as well as to work with us here on the ground. i want to thank the two local area congressmen, one for the two strict and congressman and adjacent district as well as lieutenant government patrick and state senator nichols and local representatives, thank them for being here. i want to thank your judge, thank you for hosting us and being with us. it's been a pleasure. working with you through this. >> thank you for being here. >> of course. and mayor i think is still here, they are, thank you for being here. i want to express a special thank you to the admiral for providing the coast guard that provided a very helpful tour of the entire region. as we flew around the region at about 1000 feet, we could see the way the storm impacted different areas differently. of all the areas we saw, buchanan was the worst -- it was orange. it seemed like the most significant damage i was able to observe both from the sky as well as on the ground in this region is in orange. you saw more rooftops ripped off, shingles missing, more trees down, big pieces of steel framing wrapped around some trees. he saw roads still inundated underwater. impassable at this particular time and that's just what i was able to see from the sky, driving down the street. as people get closer look at buildings or homes, there will be additional damages of the people who have to deal with it. how they feel about working their way to this hurricane, everyone pretty much had the same brains. it could have been far worse. there would be storm surge that could easily exceed 10 feet. i was told earlier the storm surge was about 3 feet. the 7-foot differential makes all the difference. we would not be gathering right here right now as we see 10-foot or higher storm surge. it is anticipated earlier. when you consider the magnitude of the damage that could have occurred here, we did dodged a bullet. that doesn't help those whose homes had been hit. his interest had been hit. the people, we want them to know we are already working on a process of helping them rebuild. most important person in the room, tony robinson with. he worked very collaboratively with the administration and the time of hurricane harvey all the way until today. we thank you and your leadersh leadership, i was telling both dana, the head of or administrator of. >> and i told the president, never before experienced as governor, have i ever seen an administration that responded as swiftly and effectively as president trump administrator gaynor have done. we really appreciate this. some details i want to get into, declared a disaster and 62 counties in the president has similarly declared a disaster in each of those counties. 30 miles east of the texas louisiana border at 1:00 a.m. is a category for storm hurricane. winds exceeded 80 miles an hour and the storm surge was an estimated 2.5 to 3.5 feet texas national wildlife about 34-mile an hour sustained winds with gusts up to almost 90 miles an hour. lindsay 30 miles an hour sustained winds with gusts up to 51 miles an hour, orange county airport, wind sustained 29 miles an hour with gusts up to 54 miles and bouma regional airport, 59-mile an hour sustained with gusts up to 66 miles a. tree damage has been reported in jefferson county as well as the other surrounding counties around this region. i hear from some reports that we would expect to see even greater tree damage as you go further up north into east texas. other damage reports will come in over the course of the day. we do have teams in this region already, whether it be search and rescue, law enforcement, the national guard, assessment teams that are covering every city, every county, every region to make damage assessments but also to go about the process to determine the safety of everybody who lives in this area. i want to get one confirmation, i have, from you, in interstate ten is currently closed. >> all the way to the border on the louisiana side. take the louisiana side. >> i attend is open all the way to the border. i did have the opportunity to speak with government edwards of louisiana this morning. he was his typical self and ready to offer help to texas so he's in good spirits and i know the people of louisiana are dealing with challenges themselves right now and texas stands ready to help our neighbors in louisiana. several state agencies including the texas department of public safety, the texas parks and wildlife as well as the texas military division are scouring every aspect, every zone of the affected areas to provide search and rescue capabilities as needed. we will continue to process until we know for a fact that there is no person and accounted for. as of now, the remains more than 160 power outages throughout the entire texas region affected by hurricane laura. we have almost 8500 people who were provided shelter throughout the state with more than 3000 hotel rooms, sheltering evacuees. sheltering operations are occurring in the county and harris county and those efforts will continue as long as needed. one important. >> , save lives was evacuation orders made by local officials and it was so important for local residents to heed the local warnings and by people getting out of harm's way in an early time, one of the reasons why the loss of life was minimized as well as the damage was minimized. i want to emphasize just as people listen to local officials and knowing when to evacuate, it's equally important to listen to local officials about one is a good time to return. if you have no power, there are other challenges on the ground, there will be different parts of a particular county who will have different levels of operability. it's important to continue to listen to local officials about when the best time is to come back as well as what the challenges are maybe existing in any particular county. one thing we are continuing to look at is, we stand ready to watch and respond to potential flash flooding as well as potential tornadoes as the stones continue to go through the exiting process exiting the state of texas. i have one report, unconfirmed about the death. it is completely unconfirmed but that's the only report that i've received at all about any potential loss of life. if we make it through, category four hurricane, that ripped through the coastline all the way up to the texarkana area and we have been able to have minimal or perhaps no loss of life, that is a miracle. it shows that prayers were answered. so many people care so much about their neighbor and preparation paid off so i applaud local officials effective as they prepare their regions the ongoing hurricane, they were able to do to communities in ways that led to saving lives and property and will lead to a quick recovery, one of the local officials is your county judge to whom i would like to turn the mic over to at this time. >> thank you. we think dodged the bullet definitely fits what we feel here as a whole. probably about 2:30 a.m., 3:00 a.m., is probably the cost texas a huge sigh of relief that things started going east. with that was also the sadness it was going to our neighbors. we hate to see it go there and we will do all we can to help them as they came over and helped us during harvey. louisiana help us secure our folks over here from the flooding. thank you for your efforts and all that you have done. you responded so well. it is important whenever we get the resources and you respond, everybody. talking to all the ones standing behind us, without that support, we can't support our citizens which is our focal make sure we are getting the support they need so they can be safe, they did heed warnings to evacuate got to think a lot of that is our local city officials as well as city mayors and managers that we will work together. have a good county region that we work together and so when we put about evacuation orders, we do it as a team and the message goes across the communities it is a huge benefit that helps the citizens understand we are trying to do and they trusted. there was our goal as we move through the storms and once we knew we were, we started focusing on the land damage we didn't get the 140-mile an hour winds thank goodness but was enough to have damage so this morning, our assessment teams went out as soon as i got daylight and the first goal was to get them on the roadway to find the class we need because we knew people would want to get into town and back to their homes and businesses. we should have those reports soon. that is a twofold approach, it lets citizens come back safely, it's one thing to not get her in a hurricane but we don't want you to get hurt coming back either. there are trees that have not completely fell yet so we have to be careful holding around we also know we have a lot of assets may not but our neighbors will. want to have the available to send the assets over help our neighbors because they have always helped us. thank you for everything you've done, city mayors and managers throughout orange county because we work together and without them, we come up with good solutions as a team and that's what we tried to do. thank you. >> of course. >> the mayor next. >> i'd like to thank everyone for coming out, this is a tremendous show of support. from all the different organizations across the state of texas which is truly a remarkable situation, not one loss of life in the city of orange and surrounding counties. want to thank my emergency management coordinator, leanne. all the city staff for working together to evacuate and it's not only about policies and procedures, it's about loving people and loving them they are who they are and that's what we stand here for the most. i want to thank you for your support, is a pleasure to meet you among these other fine gentlemen appear at a look forward to working with you in the near future and bless you for your support. >> i'd like to invite senator up. >> we celebrate with all of you, this is wonderful news we've dodged a bullet but we know this won't be the last one. one of the things, natural disasters is this level of cooperation and coordination by different parts of government. there's a role for everybody to play, local, state and federal level texas congressional delegation but one of the rules is the five piece. prior, profession prevents corporate. another p, practice. i just want to congratulate you for stepping up on this project, working on enhancing the storage surge storm surge, there's a lot of attention on this and it is a priority. it's one step closer as a result of your leadership and commissioners stepping up to deal with the enhanced levee system that covered 27 miles in orange county but also helps surrounding counties deal with this in the future. congratulations. >> thank you. >> thank you, governor. ... our hearts are heavy for our neighbors in louisiana and we've toured some of that damage and the damage in louisiana is significant or greater. given the magnitude of the storm it could have been so much worse and there were a whole lot of prayers that were lifted up across texas and whole lot of prayers across the country and we saw prayers being answered but we also saw a testament to the leadership we have in state at the local level, federal level and one of the realities in texas when it comes to hurricanes is this was not her first rodeo. we have experienced natural disasters at at this point we have county judges, mayors, state officials, federal officials who have come together and delved with tragedy from hurricane harvey to rita to ike and we have seen the devastation that can come from natural disasters and we are grateful that this one did not bring that same level of magnitude but one of the reasons that we limit some of that damage is because we have such terrific cooperation at the local level, state-level, federal level and all of us have been talking to each other, talking to the governor repeatedly, talking to the white house and yesterday i talked to secretary of homeland security and you got the federal government, state and local working hand in hand and for those who were impacted by this there will be resources and support and support also from the community from the churches and chairs -- >> we leave this briefing with governor abbott to watch online at c-span .org and we take you to baton rouge, louisiana for hurricane briefing with governor john bel edwards. you are watching live coverage on c-span2. >> he will talk about coastal flooding and we have secretary of department of transportation and of element who will speak in a little bit on roadways and then we have far fire marshall butch browning who is here to answer questions perhaps that you might have about the fire at the chemical plant in westlake and obvious

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