No rest for people northeast of the center of the storm and these nighttime hours, Tornado Warnings are requiring people to stay up and stay alert. Harvey has been downgraded to the Tropical Storm but it continues to punish the infrastructures of central and coastal texas with wind and water. One confirmed death and injury. Most of them in one town that seem to take harvey dead on. Local media is reporting at least ten people in this one town were treated for injuries from a collapsed rooftops. It is rockport, texas. Take a look from the air. This is what is left of rockport. There was no escaping harvey. Rockport is a fishing town about 30 miles northeast of Corpus Christi and other areas like port lavaca and others pierced by the power of harvey. Leadership in the state of texas compared for assets deployed all over the region and we just heard tonight. Lets bring in the texas Lieutenant Governor dan patrick by phone. Always good to be with you. I wish it was under different circumstances. You were right on target. Im in houston, northwest houston, where we had been diluted with rain for hour after hour. This is only the third time in history where we have had a Flash Flood Emergency. That is what we are under right now. P every 15 minutes our bayous are filling up and when they overflow they create Neighborhood Flooding and they are in for potentially some of the worst flooding in the history of the city and that is saying something in a city that has flooded many times five Lieutenant Governor is so different from where you are in some of these other lower line areas which are smaller towns, rockport has about a population of 10000 people and we heard of those mandatory and some voluntary evacuations. You cant evacuate the entire
city of houston. Is this the very major disaster that you were warned about is that what the governor called it before it hit. Yes, ive been on fox a number of times in last place and ive had the same refrain that is this potentially could be the worst storm we have ever seen because, harris, i have not seen a hurricane attached to the Tropical Storm combined to sit over our area for four or five days. This is think about this, the hurricane is over. The Tropical Storm began when that ended. This is now the third day that could be three or five days of consistent rain over an area that was i looked at the map today in san antonio to houston is 200 miles and were about 100, 2 miles to rockport. This would be the same thing, harris. If a storm hit new york and
boston flooded. The Hurricane Hit Rockport and it still hanging in that area but the band from the hurricane are hitting us at 150, 2 miles out in houston. This is a combination that concern me and one of the things that concern me, harris, was a relatively good day in the houston area, not a lot of rain during the day starting at around 3 00 oclock we started with Tornado Warnings and probably been on a Tornado Watch most of the last six hours and weve had half a dozen Funnel Clouds cited. Fortunately, none have touchdown to do massive damage but around 3 00 oclock it turned. I hope that people in the greater houston area, millions of people, did not get to relax because this is what Governor Abbott and i have feared this happened. Harris that is a mouthful
there. Around 3 00 oclock and that has now been to several hours. That turn that you speak of is punishing your state. You know what i have in front of me, the mayor of houston has been taking and is now saying that people are asking for help in many areas that are stranded in their cars. What is frightening about this is when you look across our recent history of human loss and we have been so blessed so far but we have one confirmed death but relatively speaking we have been blessed so far. When you look at the human toll more than 50 of people perish inside their cars. When i hear about people needing calls for help they have not heeded the warnings. Harris, i believe it was tonight, a major event in downtown houston, this is a normal Saturday Night Out and
people go to movies and my concern is that again if people didnt Pay Attention to the potential forecast and they went out during their normal evening thinking it will rain but weve gone through this and now they are stranded in stock. Im very concerned. Remember this started in order and rockport and its now hard to get to those places where we have Search And Rescue. We have 900 bps officers are Highway Patrol and 900 officers in this area south of i tend to san antonio and the coast and it goes beyond that. The core is. We have 1800 guard troops now and we are doing a Search And Rescue in these areas that have been devastated, leveled, in towns like victoria which have nearly A Hundred Thousand people which is not far from rockport. Now the Search And Rescue may have to expand. Im positive it will expand to houston now because of the people who will be stranded and this rain i talked about that were having right now, harris, its a forecasted to continue maybe 12 or 15 or 20 hours. All of our bayous and creeks will be over their banks if they are not already and this is a massive part of the storm that we feared and we are concerned about. This is still with the eye gel in the victoria, rockport area, a good 150 miles away or so and that is not even having the storm possibly come back and loop around and come back to houston, galveston later this week. Harris is this what was anticipated for houston is the question and the situation is now starting to change. Lieutenant governor patrick, you may know this already but my crew is telling me now that the mayor of houston, the Police Department, you talked about those 900 officers that are out there helping and they are getting ready to holding emergency News Conference to communicate to the people of houston. Can you talk to me a little bit about the size of houston, population wise, i think we need to dig deeper into this because this is changing as we speak. You talk about those sheets of rain and you have 4 inches in 58 minutes in just the last hour and this is a situation now that is evolving much faster than anyone might have anticipated because you were 200 miles away from the center of harvey. Talk to me, if you can, but the demographics in terms of where people live, what those areas are like and how many people are there. Houston is a town of about two and a half million in the county of paris. As the for largest
thirdlargest county in the country. If you take in all the surrounding areas your well over 5 Million People that on a 3 00 oclock in the morning when theres no one on the road you can drive from one end of the west side of far houston to the east end and a half an hour where its a spread out town. Traffic, of course, it takes you longer but thats the breadth of the city. North to south from the Bush Intercontinental Airport and beyond all the way down to galveston, people think of houston quite frankly as being from galveston. Thats about a 70mile stretch but houston itself in the surrounding areas as well over 5 Million People and were very flat and a lot of concrete in
growth. We dealt with flooding in the past but we never had this situation. Its only the third time in history that weve had a Flash Flood Emergency and so, im not surprised that the mayor is pulling together a Press Conference because we probably have hundreds of motorists out there stranded and i may be cutting that number short. Im hoping that if the rain got heavier earlier this evening that people decided to cut off their dinner plans and went back home because by tomorrow morning, harris, it could be hard for people to get anywhere in houston particularly in the areas what will happen this time is that neighborhoods that have never flooded the floor will have flood. Again, this is day one for us. The real tropical. We have about five or 8 inches of rain in the last 24 hours and storm first came into rockport but its picking up an
opportunity to end anytime soon. We need your prayers. Harris you have our prayers. Absolutely. The people of texas will put together, neighbor by neighbor, street by street, county by county, city by city and we will do this but right now it is definitely a Flash Flood Emergency for the whole town. Dont forget, harris, all of the refineries that we have. Thirty refineries along the coast that have been shut down and will now be down for several more days because workers may not be able to get to work. Harris and that may not be her First Priority at this point with 5 Million People who are dealing with flooding. Lieutenant governor, as we are speaking im also getting information that this is going
to complicate efforts to speed up those people, some 20000 who are stuck on cruise ships because the ports are closed along the gulf. What is the latest on that situation . I dont know except i do know i see the Carnival Ships in the Royal Caribbean ship, last i heard, cannot get into galveston as planned. They wouldve been early in the morning but if you would go to new orleans and the others were coming in later and theyll have to work that out and turned to another port whether its in florida and theyll have to find a place to land and bring people back here. Right now, you are right. The refineries and Oil Production in this part of the country, people may be watching and listening and be saying that terrible but it doesnt impact me but this will have a big impact on energy across the country. Theyll get those refineries back up and working as quickly as they can put all of those workers have to take care of
their Families First in their homes first and its about the safety of them and their families. I would expect that to Impact Energy for this week across the country and im thankful for President Trump who has i dont know he could have worked any faster helping Governor Abbott as giving us all the assets we need an Governor Abbott has done a great job of staging everything but if you cant get to somewhere, you cant get there and its getting very hard for us to get to where we need to get but i can our rescue take teams will do a great job as they always do. Well have to wait and see The Sun Come Up and hopefully get an opportunity to find people where they are and help them. Harris Lieutenant Governor dan patrick, with us tonight. Hes putting out a call now for the 5 million or so people in houston to heed the warnings because the storm has taken a
different shift with a whole lot of rain. Lieutenant governor, thank you for being with us very much. We have a News Conference coming up. Its all about houston. Their mayor is very concerned. Our coverage of Tropical Storm harvey continues. Stay close. Its ok that everybody ignores me when i drive. Its fine. Because i get a Safe Driving Bonus check every six months im accident free. Because i dont use my cellphone when im driving. Even though my family does, and leaves me all alone. Heres something else. I dont share it with mom. I dont. Right, mom . I have a brand new putter you dont even know about its awesome. Safe driving bonus checks, only from allstate. Sometimes i leave the seat up on purpose. Switching to allstate is worth it. Or tomorrow night, we dont know. That is why we can do everything on our part but we asked the public to cooperate and the best thing to do is stay inside. The mayor, i appreciate you being here. I turn it over to you. Let me echo every single thing that judge has said. I agree with him hundred . A few days ago we were told this to be a very serious storm and we said this would last four or five days. That is correct. Its a serious storm and will last for five days and quite frankly this is day one. There are some who think everything was fine after there was a wall today and several hours people got outside and people thought it was okay and not as bad as they claim and then this rain came through somewhere around 7 308 00 oclock and this is
streets are treacherous. It makes absolutely no sense for anyone to be out on the road unless its an emergency. I can attest and so can the chief attest, judge, trying to get from the tech center we made it most of the way and then we did it the oldfashioned way. We got out and walked the rest of the way. It is just that much water out on the roads. I want to thank the chief he wasnt able to make it all the way but he put put up blockades to keep people from going under the underpasses. Because of the amount of water that is being dropped, we decided to set up two shelters. For progression and for peoples
if their homes get water they cant stay in their homes we wanted to make the shelters available. Thanks to metro have also positioned buses at those Shoulder Locations in the vicinity to get people as quickly as possible out of their homes. I will tell you that it has now exceeded the banks and some of the homes in the west area are taking in water. The last, just before i left i know that the bayou was close to its bank and i cant tell you whether if it has exceeded or come out of this but it was right at its bank because this last band. Much installed in the area but its gradually moving. I think the anticipated and moved somewhere around 1015 or 10 30 and we shall see. Then i want to underscore how
dangerous it is to be on the road. We got word that there might be was in a vehicle who may have lost her life. Not in an underpass but just driving and being overtaken by water. We are thoroughly investigating that matter. I cannot underscore the importance if people stay at home unless its an emergency and allow us to do what we do best. Allow us to make sure that you are safe and most people in fact, in most instances people dont lose their lives because they are at home in their home. They lose their lives or they are seriously injured when they are on the streets. That is when the injuries occur in fatalities occur so, the safest place is in your home. Be reminded that this is a four or five day event, not a one day or two day event. These advance will come and go and its very important for everyone to do their jobs. The judge and i, i appreciate again the cooperation from the county. We are working handinhand and we would ask that if the public would take heed of the notices and advisories then we can get through this one day at a time. Anything you want to say contract. Thank you. The judge and mayor are spot on with their remarks. The system is experiencing a tremendous amount of rain over a wide area and we have high water on many of our freeways. Were experiencing rainfall rates that go from 3 inches an hour to over four and a half inches an hour. The mayor is spot on. Please stay home and stay put. Thank you. First of all, thank you for your leadership. Weve been seeing all along that this is a long, protracted event and we been warning people all along to stay off the roads and sally one person at least did not heed that warning and they may have lost their lives. This will continue and everything is flooded around here. The ten freeway where i came from is flooded, regular traffic, we are flooding five we are watching this News Conference now in houston and that was a popup because of such a serious situation that is going on now. Its an emergency flood alert. The first time we had the Lieutenant Governor of texas on a moments ago and now the mayor of houston, sylvester turner, the Harris County judge and all
of them saying the same thing that this is the first time they had to issue this level of flood alert for the city of houston. Some 5 Million People live in that city and a couple of things that we just heard to take note of. The mayor says that he is now working to confirm with his Police Department but we may have a second fatality because of harvey. He said the woman got caught in rising waters and they are trying to work to see if she has survived inside her car. Moments ago before the pop up News Conference we know for certain that the number one way that we see human loss of life in all of this from flooding his people inside their cars, not able to anticipate the rising water in front of them. It is dark and they are asking people to do one of two things, stay in your house and stay up all night or stay in your house
and set an alarm to remind yourself to get up and check on your property. Neither one of those things includes going outside in getting into your car. They havent had a lot of electrical outlets is outside of the areas around where harvey had just nearly 200 miles away from houston so people are able to get these warnings and they can watch this on their television set. But there telling people is stay indoors because you are creating a situation with these rain bands that are coming into houston where they have to come and rescue. We do know there have been 13000 military members deployed in