For catastrophic flooding. Tornadoes and a massive surge from the biggest storm to hit texas in more than 50 years. Our team is on the ground in the storm zone with the very latest. Good morning, everybody. Paula is off. Glad to have Abcs Amy Robach alongside me as well as abcs chief meteorologist ginger zee as were tracking the big breaking news on this saturday morning. The monster storm. Hurricane harvey and its tortuously slow march along the gulf coast. Satellite image of where it is right now. It is a category 1 hurricane about 30 miles southwest of victoria, texas, but it came ashore overnight as a ferocious category 4 storm, winds of 130 miles per hour. It made landfall around rockport where the high school we know was heavily damaged. This is the strongest to hit the United States in 12 years and already dealing a devastating blow. Heres what makes this storm so extraordinarily dangerous. Its not a normal hurricane that come as shore and whips people up and buildings up with high winds and a storm surge. It is also going to stay in place for days and days and days and dump up to 40 inches of rain in some spots. That could mean catastrophic and life imperiling flooding. So far 16 inches of rain have fallen near victoria, texas, with widespread catastrophic flooding expected as i said as we also said places could see 20 to 30 to 40 inches more in the coming days, on top of all that, tornado warnings and watches are up right now. We have Team Coverage from texas including all along the gulf coast but we begin with abcs rob marciano in port lavaca, texas, where he has been battered all night and morning long. Rob. Good morning again, guys. It is relentless, thats for sure. We just measured a hurricane strength wind gust and you can see certainly blowing that way. Youll see how ferocious they are. Its southwest of us meaning the center has passed us but were in the back part right of this system and its just spilling in to low pressure and accelerating some of these winds and the storm surge is still high and that has not gone down at all. This thing escalating, the last few days, ramping up to a category 4 storm coming ashore last night. At least for now the state of texas bearing the brunt. Overnight harvey taking aim at texas. A monster making landfall with category 4 winds extreme storm surge and torrential rains. In rockport, catastrophic damage across the city. The goliath storm destroying this hotel tearing off the roof. The walls collapsing with the force of the wind. Debris flying everywhere. Harvey is no joke. Reporter at this local high school a building completely wiped out. We are hearing that there are buildings down. Weve got reports that we cant exactly confirm because were unable to get people out on the street. Its a little too dangerous. Reporter extreme winds leveling this gas station. Signs along the interstate ripped off and tossed to the ground. Hurricane harvey came barreling in packing winds of 130 miles per hour. Tearing apart these power lines. Watch as they ignite lighting up the neighborhood. Oh reporter in our hotel the staircases flooded. The water still rising making it impossible to walk around. The water is surrounding us, the storm surge now has made us an island and you can hear the wind cranking up even more. And in Galveston County, this blazing house fire causing three homes to go up in flames. In fulton ripping winds blasting through town tearing off rooftops leaving dozens of homes uninhabitable. Texas officials with a dire warning telling people who decided to ride out the storm, to write their names and Social Security numbers on their arms should they need to be identified. That is a sobering message as are these sobering conditions. Actually this is the worst it has been all morning and now that the sun is come up and skies brightening im not seeing the debris that surrounds our hotel but the vegetation, the palm trees and the bushes and the trees that are being tossed around like toys in the wind is unbelievable how powerful this storm still is now that its been on land for several, several hours, it is lengthening at this point and sobering sight as the sun is starting to brighten things up and get a look around obviously as the day progresses and these winds start to die down but they have not done that yet, dan and amy. This wind has been relentless to use that word yet again. Sobering, indeed. Rob marciano, thank you. For those of you who watched this show regularly and know and love rob, i just want to assure you he has covered many of these before and theyre taking every precaution. We want to move to brock long, the fema administrator, in charge of making sure that the Emergency Response in this country is robust. Mr. Long, thank you very much for joining us on this saturday morning. Good morning. Glad to be with you. As we all know and you certainly know, after Hurricane Katrina which was 12 years ago this tuesday, your fema, your agency took a beating politically and in the public eye for many viewed was an inadequate response. As we head into this, the biggest and strongest storm to hit in 12 years are you prepared . Yeah, absolutely. Fema is vastly different from the days of katrina and we learned a lot from that event. You know, Congress Passed meaningful legislation through it to allow us the ability to move forward. Last night the president expedited the governors major disaster declaration request and approve tla approve that. What that does is we can move forward and bring the entire firepower of the federal government down to help the state and local governments to meet their response goals. You and i spoke yesterday when harvey was a category 2 storm. It made landfall as a category 4 storm. It is certainly catastrophic. It is not going anywhere any time soon. Talk a little about what youre anticipating and what the actuality is and how youre going to go about getting help to those who need it. Unfortunately, the citizens of texas are about to endure a very long and deadly inland event. You know, this system is this is just the beginning so were going to see over the next 48 to 72 hours devastating rainfall, we realize that. I think the primary migs will be focused around search and rescue, swift water rescue right off the bat. Well be worried about mass care, longterm mass care. A sizable individual assistance in housing effort as well as being able to mobilize lifesaving and sustaining commodities so were already prepositioning teams in an effort to support our state. The way Emergency Management works is, you know, all disas r disasters begin and end at the local level and decide Mission Priorities and work them up through the state and our support is designed to help the states achieve those goal. Youre heading into a key few days and i just got to ask you, do you feel you have the resources you need . Theres been some reporting about the fact that some top positions in your agency are not filled. Do you feel like you have what you need . I got what i need. Despite the positions, the appointments, were moving forward. I got great staff. As you can see behind me i have a dedicated staff. Were working around the clock and ive got knowledgeable people with a lot of experience despite having those positions in place. Were moving forward. Brock, whats your biggest challenge . Well, the biggest challenge or concern i have is the isolation that many texas citizens are going to face. We have not built a true culture of preparedness in this country and we got a lot of work to better prepare our citizens and, unfortunately, what scares me or what keeps me up at night right now is many of the citizens in texas are going to be isolated in their houses or their dwellings for multiple days. Its going to be a very sizable mission to support citizens and with the weather event, we cant just fly helicopters in. We cant get to people right now until the weather subsides because we cant put our own resources in danger. You talk about that culture of preparedness. Weve been talking a lot this morning about the fact that there is what some people call hurricane amnesia after these 12 long years of not having a storm of this size so lets just hope that everybody is able to make it through this safely. Brock long, thank you and we send you the best wishes and best luck as we head into this tumultuous time. Thank you. Lets get it down to abcs matt gutman who is in Corpus Christi, texas, which is another of the areas thats been extremely hard hit by harvey. Matt, what are you seeing . Reporter more wind, more rain, you know, it wa we heard administrator brock long talk about just now, that was the isolation of some of these communities and we drove up to rockport. That is thatom earlier, hammere overnight. Now, we knew that this would be the case. It is a lowlying place and when you talk about a 6 to 12foot storm surge we knew it would be inundated and driving through we saw houses. We saw empty streets but when we stopped to talk to some officer there is, they told us that only 60 of the population hre a lot is fema administrator mentioned they cant get to them so First Responders cant get there. I want to give you an example why. This limb snapped off a tree 30 yards in that direction. Now all morning this wind that weve been buffeted by and my cameraman is being slammed by right now has shifted this giant limb from this side of the street now to this side of the street and everywhere you look theres debris on the ground and this is what First Responders, rescuers are so concerned about is driving through this stuff, getting their own personnel hurt. Theyve got to bide their time. Now, one of the things that the mayor of rockport told citizens is you got to get out. If you dont get out you might be signing your own death warrant saying literally write your name and Social Security number on your arm so we might be able to identify you so still very dangerous situation and you mention here in Corpus Christi whats the situation, well, most of the city in the surround areas are not only isolated but without power. 200,000 without power. Theres also a human toll, dan and amy and we got to meet a pregnant woman due to give birth tuesday. Her name is danielle weeks and she has a very harrowing and sad story to tell. Lets take a listen. Nervous seeing whats going on outside your window . Yes, very nervous. What about your home . We actually live in an rv. So we had to leave it on the island so were pretty worried that we wont have a home to go back to. Im so sorry. And perhaps the most heartbreaking part of all of this is the weeks family just moved back here to texas from colorado a month ago. Amy, dan. The personal toll there is just unspeakable in some ways. Matt gutman, thanks so much. Unfortunately, there are going to be more stories like theirs to come. Absolutely. Lets bring in Michael Brennan from right now, what are you most concerned about . Were starting to see harvey continue to move inland across texas very slowly now. Were seeing the Forward Motion beginning to decrease and as the winds lowers the storm begins to weaken from a wind perspective the flooding threat will only increase, feeder bands are coming in off the gulf of mexico bringing heavy rain out hundreds of miles away from the center of the storm into the Houston Galveston Area southwest louisiana and very heavy rain near the core as it moves inland. Weve seen widespread rainfall totals of 10 to 15 inches in the Corpus Christi, victoria area. 5 inches already in houston, so were really looking at a mul multiday disaster as administrator long mentioned. Several days of rain because harvey will meander around the middle and upper texas coast all the way into the middle portions of next week and thats going to lead to very, very high rainfall totals, 25 to 35 inches in areas like houston with isolated totals in some places as high as 40 inches and thats going to really lead it a catastrophic lifethreatening flooding situation. In these types of situations it is the water that kills and that is your biggest concern for that reason because these totals we saw in houston go up to possibly 40 inches of rain . Right. And water is what kills most of the people in Tropical Storms and hurricanes. Everybody focuses on the wind but storm surge and inland flooding account for about 70 of the fatalities in the United States from Tropical Storms and hurricanes so thats shifting into our main focus now is going to be shifting from the wind and storm surge into the rainfall hazards. Its going to extend for several days. We appreciate it. Michael brennan, thanks for joining us. We want to turn to san antonio mayor and mr. Mayor, thank you for joining us. We know thousands have evacuated to your city to get to Higher Ground and to shes shelters but you are getting some of that weather from harvey and are expected to get more. What are you focused on right now. Well, good morning, thanks for having me. Yeah, we have two events happening. And were a coordinated Regional Emergency Operations Center so weve been staging equipment and resources for the state to help people out of their emergency situations with receiving evacuees and have over a thousand now in sheltered locates in the city but were also getting the rainfall and here in san antonio were in flash floodally ey so even a sml amount can cause problems and its significant so while were statementing areas and actually have urban search and rescue teams ready to deploy to the coast were also working to keep our residents off the road and on high ground is there how do you manage i was going to say a dual mission, but that underplays it but there are two big missions at the very least that youre dealing with right now. One taking in all these people who have left their homes to get away from the eye of the storm as it made landfall and, two, keeping everybody safe given the fact that you too will be affected by this storm. Well, it comes down to neighbors helping neighbors, you know, san antonio is a compassionate city. Our First Response is just to find out where we can help so those people who, you know, are seeking refuge will have friendly neighbors and have teams prepared to receive them and places they can go. But were always prepared here. We are a regional staging ground for any state emergencies like this and we stay prepared 365 days a year. It just so happens we havent seen a hurricane of this magnitude in, you know, 1 years in the United States, but we stay prepared all the time and were ready to respond today. Mayor, youve had practice, unfortunately, we know back in Hurricane Katrina days back in 2005, in fact, coming up on that anniversary, 12year anniversary just next tuesday. Your city was the evacuation point for 25,000 people. So you know what youre doing. We do. Our question we ask when people need help is how can we help . When theres a need we will fill it. Thats what our city is built on and well continue to be that way so no one will be turned away in san antonio. Were here to help. Those are comforting words i know to so many thousands. San antonio mayor ron nirenberg, thanks for being with us. Ginger zee, what a busy day for so many people, but especially for meteorologists and thank goodness we have the technology we have to be able to get people the warnings they immediate. Yes, those warnings are popping up on the map right now, amy. I want to get you straight to this radar because you saw that spin as the Hurricane Center was telling us and, yes, that eye is important. We still have 80mileperhour max sustained wins. Some of the higher reflectist is where were seeing higher wind gusts and where ron was feeling it. The outer bands taking that moisture from the gulf is where were seeing they will keep popping up, whams when the circulation of the bands come onshore you get spin ups and brief tornadoes that could rip a roof off with very little warning. Well have more on the path coming up. For now, lets get a check closer to home. Reporter good morning, everyone, im meteorologist chris sowers with this accuweather update. Nice and clear in the delaware and lehigh valleys. Lets get you outside and show you the view live on sky6 live hd looking at the Commodore Barry bridge. A nice comfortable morning, the humidity levels dropped off after the cold front pushed through earlier in the week. The exclusive accuweather sevenday forecast, 79 degrees today under a mostly sunny sky, very comfortable in the Human Department and then we do it all over again tomorrow. Become a tropical depression by wednesday, just west of houston. Not going away soon. No. It certainly hasnt been going away in intensity at all for our rob marciano who is in port lavaca, texas, want to check back in with him. Rob, good morning. Hey, ginger, good morning. You know how bad it is but i got to tell you its starting to get old. Its starting to get old. We have winds at hurricane strength plus now even after this thing has been passing. Because these cars are apart, just how crazy the trees are being blown around and the street lights and even blowing harder last night. The infrastructure and our hotel. Theres debris and roof tile and gutters and downspouts, all littering what is the bay now surrounding our hotel. Winds havent stopped and the storm surge has not stopped either. We are continuing to be in this as it weakens and the the sun comes up, still getting hit hard in port lavaca. Every time we check back in with rob we keep thinking it might look less severe. He is just continuing to get hammered throughout the morning. Weve been talking to him for hours and hours from port lavaca and as you said, just keeps getting worse. Harrowing to watch but we really do appreciate rob giving us a sense of what it is like there near the eye of this thing. Were going to be covering this story all morning long and be right back with our extending breaking News Coverage of Hurricane Harvey. Good mornin