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Unrelenting Storm Leaves Entire Cities Under Water; Texas Governor On Harvery "Worst Is Not Yet Over"; Harvey Drenches Wide Area East Of Houston; CNN Crew Saves Man from Floodwaters in Texas; Texas Rescue Efforts Turning to Recovery; Mosques Open Doors to Flood Victims; North Korea Celebrated, Trump Responds with Tweet. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired August 31, 2017 - 02:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


[02:00:02] JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: -- in Los Angeles, it is gone 11:00 here on the West Coast.

GEORGE HOWELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: 1:00 a.m. here in Houston, Texas. I'm George Howell live this hour at this convention center that's been converted to a shelter for so many people. Some 8,000 people, they're now calling this a temporary home.

But first, let's talk about the latest on the storm. It's left so much damage in this part of the world.

Hurricane Harvey no longer a hurricane, it's a tropical depression but the region still struggling with major flooding that's left behind.

I want to show you this drone video taken in Beaumont, Texas. For our international viewers, that's steady just to the East of Houston. And you can see the scope and scale of the devastation here after the storm essentially reloaded and hit the coastline for a second time.

Overall, the death toll, as it stands now as we understand it, at least 37 people have been killed since Friday when the storm first made land fall as a hurricane.

A military spokesperson says it's still unclear how many people are still stranded. Flood waters are nearly covering some roof tops in some buildings, and as for the storm itself, Harvey has broken a U.S. record for rain fall from a single storm. It's dumped about 52 inches, that's 130 centimeters of rain, in parts of the state alone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE ABBOTT, TEXAS GOVERNOR: The rain that was received in the greater Harris County area has set an all-time record. Now, that rain has moved to the Beaumont region in southeast Texas.

Approximately 15 inches of rain have already fallen in the area, and there's more to come. The worst is not yet over for Southeast Texas as far as the rain is concerned.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP) HOWELL: Help is steadily flowing into this part of the world. The U.S. Marine Corps is deploying nearly 700 marines to help in the Houston area.

They'll be sailing in on two navy warships carrying supplies, carrying water and food. They're also dedicating more than a dozen aircraft, including eight of these Osprey planes, that, just adding to the robust military response that we've seen so far. The air force, navy and coast guard have all been flying rescue missions for several days now.

Rescues have been happening around the clock. On Wednesday, CNN's Martin Savidge was allowed access aboard a navy helicopter in Beaumont. That's where crews rescued flood victims from air, and here's a look at some of the dramatic images from that very mission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: They are hovering over this city, rising and falling, and here we could see people being pulled out now. And they're going to be brought in, and they're safe.

As the hoist rises again, two more people are brought in. It's a remarkable scene. You can understand the fear they're in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: So earlier, I spoke with the police chief of Houston, Texas, Art Acevedo and he explained what it's been like for the work of first responders rescuing people and also maintaining order here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: Talk about hard work, talk about a busy time. Just tell me what it's been like watching your officers do so much.

ART ACEVEDO, HOUSTON POLICE CHIEF: I'll tell you, it's just been amazing. I've been a cop for 31 years and I've worked with so many good cops, but I don't think any of us have faced what these men and women have been facing now for six days.

We started our alert on Friday, and they haven't been home yet. Tomorrow will be the first time we'll get some home, and they're really my heroes.

HOWELL: What was it like the day of the storm? I mean that's when you had so many calls coming in. People were in really bad situations.

ACEVEDO: Well, you know, it was frustrating. It really touched my heart when I saw grown men, police officers and women talking to me with tears in their eyes and frustrated they weren't getting to enough people.

HOWELL: Wow. ACEVEDO: Yes. And so -- and they're here. They're still -- they're all still here working hard, you know. And this is their sixth day of working without going home yet.

HOWELL: Wow.

ACEVEDO: They're still smiling, they're still happy. And I think they represent the best while policing this in this country and in the free world as the American police officer in the Houston police officer on top of that list.

HOWELL: So we've been through the last several days after Harvey. Talk to us about the next couple days, the next couple weeks, months. I mean it's going to be a lot of work and you guys know that.

ACEVEDO: Yes, just to do but, you know, the truth is. We're still in the response phase. We still have some flooding going on. We still have some concerns about rising water.

And so, we're not past the danger, we're not past the challenge. And after we're done with that, the primary searches, we have to do secondary searches to make sure we haven't missed anybody to make sure there's nobody sitting in those homes that, has tragically lost their lives, and we need to recover those bodies for families.

[02:05:10] HOWELL: One more question that I want to ask you about this convention center. I saw some of your police officers singing and dancing with people here, just making them feel better --

ACEVEDO: Yes.

HOWELL: -- given how much they lost. I mean to be in this room with so many people who lost so much but their lives were spared, their lives were, you know, they were saved. It's a mix of emotions.

ACEVEDO: It is a mix of emotions and you know, I think Mayor Turner has talked about it a lot. People are happy. They're happy to be here.

But what the mayor really wants is for all of our partners in the federal, state and county and local partners to move quickly to restore these people's lives. It's his priority. I think it's this community's priority to get people back on their feet and get them back in regular housing instead of where they're at now which is on COTS.

HOWELL: And we do have one other thing to ask you. What's the most poignant thing, what stuck out to you from these past couple of days?

ACEVEDO: Well, you know, we obviously lost Officer Steve Perez that had been around serving the army with 34 years. But what has stuck out to me is I've been around cops my entire adult life and sometimes we can be a bunch of, you know, we complain.

But these men and women, we didn't feed them the way we should've fed them at first. We didn't let them go home to their families. We're not a Fire Department where we sleep at the station. You know, that's not our cycle, no complaints. Their homes are under water, almost 200 of them and not one has said, "Hey, I need to leave, coach," and it says a lot about collective heart of our department. I'm extremely proud.

HOWELL: Chief Art Acevedo, thank you so much.

ACEVEDO: Thank you.

HOWELL: At the Houston Police Department and men and women who did fine work. Thank you so much.

(END OF VIDEOTAPE)

HOWELL: So Harvey has caused an untold amount of damage already, but here's the thing. Officials warned things could actually still get worse.

Our Brian Todd has this report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: A flooded nursing home in Port Arthur, Texas. Because of the flooding, it is inaccessible by vehicle or by air. Patients had water in the hallways and rooms for 24 hours before a volunteer flotilla started rescuing them.

Also in Port Arthur, two men clinging to branches and fast moving water were rescued by a volunteer rescue team after their car was swept away. They were in the water for five hours.

The Port Arthur mayor says the entire city is under water, the latest part of Texas to be hit with floods with rescuers rushing to get to residents as the waters rise.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We rolled out with water in the yard and been rising by inches every hour.

TODD: Even the shelter in the city flooded overnight. All of its evacuees had to be evacuated again. Across Texas, more than 32,000 are now in shelters. Even this bowling alley has become a refuge for the state's growing number of displaced people. Officials warn, the flooding is still worsening toward the east of the state.

ABBOTT: There's more to come. The worst is not yet over for Southeast Texas as far as the rain is concerned.

TODD: In some parts of Houston, waters are still rising even after the sun came out.

LISA KATHER (PH), HOUSTON FLOOD VICTIM: Around 2:00 in the morning, the water started coming in the back and it just slowly started rising.

TODD: Some of the people now being rescued had thought they dodged the bullet.

DENNIS KITTLER, VICTIM: Yesterday afternoon, the sun came out, it receded a little bit. We put everything back that we had put upstairs and then we had a little hurricane party last night until about midnight. And at 1:00, we had a foot of water.

TODD: Volunteers like air boat pilot, Mark Malfa and his partner Joe Fairchild are looking for victims to help especially any place with a towel or other distress sign in spite of the dangers and reports that two rescuers may be missing.

TODD: Do you think about the danger out here?

MARK MALFA, AIR BOAT PILOT: Not really.

TODD: Why not?

MALFA: Just come and do it, you know. And I run a boat all the time. I've dealt with horrible crap on a consistent basis, you know.

I'm just here. I'm used to it, I don't think (INAUDIBLE). People need help, come help them.

TODD: Air rescues continue as well including this family in Houston by New York's Air National Guard. And with no helicopter and no boat, this group formed a human chain to save an elderly man in a vehicle that was being swept away near Houston. So far 8,500 people have been rescued in Houston alone.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I never thought in my life, this would happen to us ever. I knew it flooded back in Houston but I never thought it would get like this. This is just horrible.

TODD: And the damage in Texas and Louisiana is only growing.

BROCK LONG, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR: The cost of this disaster, the economic cost to measure the disaster versus our physical cost as the federal government family, we're not going to know a true cost for many, many years to come.

TODD: By our estimate the team on this boat pulled about 20 people out of their homes. We asked a lot of them when they came out whether they're going to return to this neighborhood.

Some of them said they would because their ties run just too deep. They don't want to leave this are. But for others, they say it's going to be an excruciating decision whether to return home.

Brian Todd, CNN, Houston.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[02:10:06] HOWELL: Brian Todd, thanks for the report.

Now, let's bring in our meteorologist, Karen Maginnis, at the International Weather Center. And Karen, I want to point out this tweet that came yesterday from the CEO of Harris County saying, this is Ed Emmett, saying, "Harvey dumped enough rain on Harris County to run Niagara falls for 15days, more than one trillion gallons." Wow.

KAREN MAGINNIS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And they were estimating that we might see in the vicinity of 25 trillion gallons. I think that went up to 35 trillion gallons across the entire flooded area.

But we also have to look at Beaumont, Port Arthur. I've mentioned this last night. They saw such heavy rainfall, 26 inches in 24 hours.

It is still raining there now. Not those types of rainfall amounts, but here is the latest regarding tropical depression Harvey.

So it had in carnations from a Category 4 hurricane made landfall right around Corpus Christi meandered across Houston and Galveston and all of those areas. And it kind of transitioned that broad rain field over towards the Louisiana-Texas border where we are still seeing the request for these high-water rescues in Beaumont, Port Arthur.

And one of the life's blood of some of these coastal areas are some of the refineries and the oils, and they've had to pull back or stop production. You've no doubt seen the gas prices at your local gas station rise.

And now, we've got the flood threat running up and down the central and lower Mississippi River Valley. And it looks like some of the hardest hit areas, at least coming up, will be right around Memphis and Nashville, Monroe, Louisiana, Jackson, Mississippi, Oxford, Mississippi, Pine Bluff, Arkansas. Those are a lot of cities to still be encompassed by essentially what's left of Harvey.

It still has a lot of this tropical moisture associated with it. Now, the National Hurricane Center has issued its last advisory on Harvey. Now it's going to be up to local cities and townships and counties to give us the latest update their public advisories as to what's happening.

All right, we go through time going into Saturday morning. Here's Harvey. Still hanging in there ever since last Friday when it made landfall as Category 4 hurricane.

It will, perhaps, produce as much as 12 inches of rainfall in some of these areas and perhaps one of the worst hit areas could be the western edge of Tennessee. But here we go.

Thursday morning, 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, still supporting 30 mile-an- hour winds so there still that potential for some wind damage. But this has primarily been, as we've all know, a flood event that could spread all the way through the central Mississippi Valley into the Tennessee Valley.

But before I leave, I want to tell you about the forecast for Houston. It looks like those temperatures in the 90 but in another chance of rain going into Tuesday. So, until then, George, time to evaluate, reassess, regroup, figure out what's going to happen next.

HOWELL: And take those sunny days. Karen, thank you so much.

A lot of people and a lot of organizations here in Texas need help and they need money. If you'd like more information on what you can do, how you could put you own hands on this, you can go to cnn.com/impact.

We have links there to charities that have been vetted by this network, also a handy guide to help you avoid scam charities I bet have popped up again. You can find that on our website.

Critics of the U.S. President haven't -- been that he shown enough empathy to the victims of Hurricane Harvey, but on Wednesday in Missouri, fine tuned his message. The question, will that be enough? Stay with us.

[02:14:01] Also as we go to break and before and after images of Interstate 10, this is about just outside of the city of Houston and you can see this main highway. It is the roads in New Orleans, the water there is so deep, so choppy in places. It now resembles an ocean covered in whitecaps.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM, our live coverage of the aftermath of hurricane Harvey. The storm hit the region once. It turned lives upside down throughout the Houston area, but then it circled back. It reloaded and hit this area east of Houston once again. This is the scene in Port Arthur, Texas.

The city's mayor got online to say the entire city was under water. Workers evacuated more than 70 patients from a nursing home.

Our Ryan Nobles is another in a hard hit area and shows us the story there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm in Orange, Texas which is along the Texas-Louisiana border. This is an area that was hit hard by the second wave of Hurricane Harvey.

This was after Harvey went back out to the Gulf of Mexico and then made its way back inland. And the rains that came down here led to flooding that this community has not seen in more than 20 years.

We're in a neighborhood about a mile from where we're standing right now where volunteers on boats were coming in and out of that community to get people to safety. I talked to one man who volunteered his entire day helping people, and he said he talked to many residents who have never seen flooding like this in their lifetimes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Believe it or not, most of them are telling me to go get other folks. I went through a neighborhood east of 87 that is completely gone, and I had about eight couples that said, "Please go get the next person they were (INAUDIBLE) to me."

And I left eight people in that water, waist deep water, to go get them. They didn't want to leave. Some of them were actually staying there to make sure looters didn't come through. And as matter that sounds, you know, we got a sheriff's officer in waist deep water around that making sure our houses aren't broken into.

NOBLES: And then many other of these volunteer boat captains told me that one of the big problems they had is that when they would get people to dry land as far as their boats could go, there weren't necessarily buses or vans or trucks to get people to shelters so there was some time for many of these folks standing in the rain, waiting for relief to come.

But most of those people did get to shelters, although the rescue efforts are still ongoing here in Orange, Texas and there is no doubt the clean up will take some time as well.

Ryan Nobles, CNN, Orange, Texas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[02:20:13] HOWELL: Ryan Nobles, thank you so much for that report. So earlier, I spoke with a person named LaQuishe Wright. LaQuishe, survived the stormed by she also lost her home.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LAQUISHE WRIGHT, VICTIM: Well, the storm first started on Friday which ironically was my birthday and I'd love to say we had a hurricane party but I stayed up all night trying to figure out what was happening.

In the middle of the night I realized that I was becoming concerned that even though our neighborhood doesn't normally flood, I was afraid that by the time -- if I waited too long we wouldn't be able to get out of the neighborhood because the streets surrounding our neighborhood tend to flood.

So at about 2:00 in the morning, I instructed my two kids, I have two sons that are 12 and 17, to start packing their things up and we decided that even though it was the middle of the night and we were being told not to leave in the dark we got our things together and found a hotel so that we could make sure that we could get out of the neighborhood.

Specifically for all of us, but specifically because my youngest son he's a type 1 diabetic and I needed to make sure that we were able to get out in time so that he could get proper medical care if needed. I didn't want to get stranded and I didn't want him to have the stress of having to potentially wait in water to get out.

We were able to get our initial car out and when I saw that the roads were clear enough, we then went back and got a second car, so thankfully we haven't lost either one of our cars. We were only originally able to take one of my dogs. So then we went on a rescue mission later in the day, that day on Saturday to go get the second dog but that was more difficult because by that time more things started flooding in the neighborhood. So we had to go up wrong streets and go in wrong entrances in order to get to him but we did.

So at that point by Saturday I had all of my living souls with me in the hotel and it was great to come early because now people can't get hotel rooms. We were able to get our spot, secured it here and then, you know, be here when the storm truly really hit and stop all of my neighbors from able to actually leave the neighborhood with their cars in a normal fashion.

HOWELL: So, talk to us about what you're next is. I mean, how did you find, you know, shelter? How did you figure out a place to eat? I mean that's the story that I hear from so many people here. You know, where do I lay my head at night? Where do I find food because I can't cook at home and restaurants are all closed? How did you figure that out?

WRIGHT: Honestly, in the middle of night I used hotels.com in order to figure out what hotels are close and had availability and would take pets. I was able to do a quick search and so that's how I found the Hyatt (ph) place that we're at right now so that I knew it would take my dog.

And then, once we were safely here, initially there wasn't very much of anything open but had already grocery shop for food in the thought that we would actually be staying at the house.

So we brought a lot of food with us initially. I have to make sure my diabetic son had access to certain types of food in order for him to stay healthy and OK. So that was the way that we got around the food situation initially was that we brought a lot of it in a cooler with us and because we had two vehicles we were able to grain quite a bit of food.

(END VIDEOTAPE

HOWELL: So you have some people who lost a great deal. They have family. They have friends that they can turn to. You have others who lost a great deal and have nothing but, you know, you do find John, many people are getting support from strangers, people that are coming together, giving their time and effort giving their donation and money to help those in need.

VAUSE: Yes. And these are moments when clearly, you know, the best comes out of a lot of people and clearly they will need that for some days and weeks to come.

George, we'll get back to you in about in moment. Thank you.

A day after being criticized for like an empathy for the victims of Hurricane Harvey. The U.S. President is now offering his prayers and support. Donald Trump was in Springfield, Missouri to promote his push for tax reform, but he started with a message, with those so badly affected by this huge natural disaster.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: In difficult times such as these, we see the true character of the American people, their strength, their love and their resolve. We see friend helping friend, neighbor helping neighbor and stranger helping stranger and together we will endure and we will overcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[02:25:08] VAUSE: Hundreds of demonstrators both for and against the President turned out in Springfield.

Americans are divided on President Trump's handling of the storm. A Fox News poll shows 44 percent of registered voters approve of the job he's doing, 26 percent disprove, 30 percent say they don't know. Most of the interviews were conducted before the President's visit to Texas on Tuesday.

Harvey made another landfall Wednesday morning, slamming into the Louisiana coast with the sort of (ph) flood. They're saying that any state officials are helping storm victims from neighboring Texas taking hundreds of them across the state line to shelters in Lake Charles and Alexandria.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BEL EDWARDS, LOUISIANA GOVERNOR: I was able to talk to Governor Abbott just where I left Baton Rouge and he had had found out about what was happening here in Lake Arthur and he called over to tell me how much he appreciated what we were doing and of course it's just the right thing to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Well, the overwhelming scope and scale of the flooding in Houston is only rivalled in recent memory by the images from New Orleans like almost entirely underwater when Hurricane Katrina made landfall exactly 12 years ago.

Today, Katrina ranks among the costliest natural disasters ever in history. And there are fears Harvey, could be even worst.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBOTT: When you look at comparisons. The population, size and square mile size of the area impacted both by the hurricane swath and the flooding is far larger than Katrina.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Well, U.S. army Lieutenant General Russel Honore led the military response for recovery after hurricane Katrina. He's now retired but General Honore is in Houston right now. I spoke to him a little earlier. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Tell me, what are the differences here between Katrina and Harvey and what does that actually mean for the challenges ahead?

LT. GEN. RUSSEL HONORE (RET), CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, let me talk to commonality first. In both cases the storm over matched our infrastructure and it's caused a lot of destruction and that's the case of Mother Nature. That's why we call them disasters.

The biggest difference is that this is much bigger and had lasted much longer and is the destructive nature of Harvey as opposed to Katrina. So the size and scope as well as the overwhelming day after day even today we're dealing with the aftermath of the storm that landfall last Friday.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VAUSE: Well, General Honore was also critical of the preparation leading up to Harvey. In particular, he says thousands of National Guard troops along with search and rescue equipment should have been deployed long before the hurricane may landfall.

We will take a short break. When we come back a dramatic flood emergency in the Houston, all caught on tape and CNN was there doing a lot more than reporting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:32:13] GEORGE HOWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. Our continuing coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. I'm George Howell, live in Houston, Texas.

The storm is now a tropical depression but it's moved on from this part of the world, not before soaking the city with record-breaking rainfall. Parts of the state have seen almost 52 inches. That's about 130 centimeters of rain.

The death toll as it stands now, at least 37 people have been killed since Harvey hit Texas as a hurricane last Friday.

We've been telling you about so many of these flood rescues that have taken place in the Houston metro area. One of them involving some of my own colleagues, and it was caught on tape. Talking about CNN Correspondent Drew Griffin and his team. They were preparing for a live report Wednesday when they saw a man accidently steer his truck into flooded ravine. There was no time to call 911. The crew rushed into help Jerry Summeral. They pulled him out of his vehicle with a rope. It was all caught on came. Here's a look at how it happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(on camera): Look at this.

Get out, dude! You got a power cord? You got a rope?

Hold on, I'm trying to get you a rope.

Give me a rope, give me a rope.

Brian, call 911.

I've got him. I'm getting him out of the water right now.

I'm hanging up with you.

All right, Buddy, come on out of that water.

No, don't go backwards.

(CROSSTALK)

GRIFFIN: No, ma'am. We got a car in a ditch. We just pulled a fellow out.

Lord have mercy.

GRIFFIN: Are you all right now?

JERRY SUMMERAL, HOUSTON RESIDENT: Yes.

GRIFFIN: OK. Take a breath. We're going to pick you up and get you off this bank. OK? We're going to get you off of this bank.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOWELL: Our Drew, he's a good man. He's got a good heart. I'm glad he was able to see that happen. He was able to help Mr. Summeral. I'm glad Mr. Summeral is safe with us. Shaken, obviously, but in good spirits.

Mr. Summeral asked to be part of a live report so he could thank the CNN team for saving his life.

Up until now, the focus has been mainly on rescue efforts, but as the flooding continues, that focus increasingly turns to recovery.

My colleague, Anderson Cooper, has more on that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

[02:35:02] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST (voice-over): For volunteers and law enforcement, exhausted after days of rescues, there is still no relief. The rain may have stopped in Houston but streets remain flooded. The grim work of recovery has just begun.

(on camera): So at this point, what are you looking for?

ED GONZALEZ, SHERIFF, HARRIS COUNTY SHERIFFS DEPARTMENT: We're still trying to find potential survivors, people that may have survived the storm, as well as bodies.

COOPER: At this point. it's really impossible to tell what the final death toll would be because the water in many areas is still high

GONZALEZ: Absolutely. The medical examiner's office was telling me they've already gotten calls from individuals being tied to a tree just to hold them there until they can make it over there.

COOPER (voice-over): Ed Gonzalez is the sheriff of Harris County.

(on camera): This neighborhood, there's still deep areas. Once the water has gone down, do you enter each house? At this point, do you know what's in houses?

GONZALEZ: We don't know at this point. We don't know who evacuated, who remained inside. And so there could potentially be dead bodies inside from medical issues and things like that.

COOPER (voice-over): Harris County deputies had been looking for six members on family missing since Sunday in a van that swept away. Belia and Manuel Salvadar, an elderly couple with dementia, were in the front seat. Four of their great grandchildren were in the back. The couple's son escaped but said he couldn't rescue any of the family.

In this neighborhood rescues have already slowed. Many houses have already been checked.

Marks on trees indicate how many people are living inside.

(on camera): In many parts of Houston, the flood waters have begun to recede, but there are still neighborhoods like this where it's very deceptive. In some streets, the water's only a foot or two deep. In others, it could be as deep as six feet.

(voice-over): Hour and hour, neighbors help neighbors move through the water. On some streets, it's easy. On others, the water tops parked cars.

GONZALEZ: We have volunteers on rescue boats. We've lost some volunteers out trying to rescue people the last few days. So it really touches at your heart. At the same time, we have to stay focused to complete the mission. And that's what we're doing. But it's very touching to see what's going on in our region.

COOPER: By midday, it was announced that six members of the Salvadar family were found. Their white van in a ditch, the bodies still inside.

(on camera): Today, the van was finally found?

GONZALEZ: Yes, the van was found earlier. It had had been submerged in water since Sunday about 10:00 a.m. We located the van. Unfortunately, our worst fears were realized. We were able to recover two adult individuals and four children.

COOPER: And they were 16 years told to 6 years old.

GONZALEZ: Yes. It was just a terrible scene to watch. I was a long- time homicide detective. I've seen a lot, but it is heartbreaking for all our officers at the scene.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOWELL: My colleague, Anderson Cooper, reporting for us.

Still ahead, flood victims find a place to rest and a sense of community at mosques that have become emergency shelters. You'll hear from the leader of Houston's Islamic Society who also had to be evacuated from his home.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[02:42:17] HOWELL: Welcome back to NEWSROOM, live here in Houston, Texas. Throughout the southeast part of this state, the rescue missions continue and the scenes are dramatic. For a fifth day, emergency workers and volunteers went door to door answering calls for help.

This is the scene in Port Arthur, Texas. Patients evacuated from a nursing home there. The mayor of the city said the entire town is under water.

U.S. Navy flew search-and-rescue missions over Beaumont. They lifted 25 men and women and children from flood waters.

Then look at this. This video of Jonathan Evola (ph) carrying an elderly woman on his back out of her house. He and his brother, Joshua, were in the neighborhood that had been cleared out. That's when they found two other elderly people and two children inside the house.

John, these stories of survival are just incredible. When you get a sense of what people are dealing with and the simple fact many of those people are here, given what they survived, it's inedible.

JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR: Also coming into the sixth day of this, and we're still seeing rescues, it makes you wonder how much longer it will continue.

George, thank you.

The rain from Harvey may have eased up over Houston, but thousands of evacuees are still heading to emergency shelters across the city. Several of those shelters are mosques that serve Houston's Muslim communities. As flood levels fall and more mosques become accessible, they'll also be open to anyone who needs a place to stay.

Earlier, I spoke about turning the mosques into shelters with Shaizad Chariwala, director of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: So how many people are you caring for tonight? How are you all coping?

SHAIZAD CHARIWALA, DIRECTOR, ISLAMIC SOCIETY OF GREATER HOUSTON: We started with six people, went up to 100, and today about 60 families, average family of four people.

VAUSE: And how are they coping? How are they getting by?

CHARIWALA: Oh, they love it because our shelter is like if you're in a five-star hotel, shelter they call it because it's a small-knit community. Kids enjoy it and we make their stay as comfortable as we could. So they're part of our community so they are no stranger to us.

VAUSE: I'm just wondering, you say there are people who you care for or are caring for who probably this is the first time they've been inside a mosque.

CHARIWALA: Some of them, but most of them are part of the community here and so they've been frequenting Islamic -- the programs, for prayer, for Ramadan. So they're not really strangers. So they have been here so they feel at home, really.

[02:45:20] VAUSE: I just want to make the point that you are taking in anybody from any religion, color, race. It doesn't matter, faith doesn't matter, everyone's welcome?

CHARIWALA: That is correct. So we are -- our shelter is open to humanity. That's has united this community in Texas. We're open to anybody. And the response from the community has been vice versa. We have people from all states coming in, pouring supplies and support. This is the first time we opened a shelter, and really just the outpour of support, and I cannot describe it.

VAUSE: Do you have any idea how long you'll have to keep operating as a shelter? Do you have enough food and other supplies for an extended period?

CHARIWALA: Oh, yes. Actually, we have three buildings on campus. So we have a full-time school with 400 kids and so we're housing the families in the school so the families can stay together because the trauma they've gone through. Islamically, we have separated men and women separately in different prayer. But we took this opportunity and put them in the schools. So once the school opens up, then we have the prayer house open. So we could go on as long as needed, yes, sir.

VAUSE: And you have a lot of volunteers working, but they've been directly impacted by Harvey as well. Some of them, have they lost their home? What is their story?

CHARIWALA: I'm one of them. I've been evacuated. And so this is my home now. And so is some of the volunteers that are supporting us. Like I said, volunteers coming to are coming to help and the people -- so I'm part of it and you're part of the community so that makes it easy.

VAUSE: Shaizad, they say charity can purify the heart. You'll have a very pure heart by the end of all of this, I imagine.

Thanks for being with us, sir.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: It is 11:47 back here in Los Angeles.

Time for a break. Celebrations in North Korea for its latest missile launch. While the U.S. president posted an angry tweet saying there's no point in talking to Pyongyang.

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[02:52:04] VAUSE: While Texas struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, there's catastrophic flooding in Asia. Heavy rain been falling on Mumbai, India, since Tuesday, part of a deadly monsoon season which has left 1200 dead in India and neighboring Bangladesh since June. In Mumbai, rescuers are scrambling to find survivors after a three-story residential collapsed. Officials say seven people have been killed but 15 others have been found alive. Authorities won't say if the recent heavy rain is partly to blame for the collapse but it is the second building which has collapsed in Mumbai in as many months.

The U.S. President says talking to North Korea won't resolve the standoff over its nuclear and missile programs. That message came in a tweet. And it's at odds with members of his own cabinet who are urging diplomacy.

Meanwhile, in Pyongyang, there was a celebration after the latest missile test that flew over Japan.

Our reporter in Pyongyang is Will Ripley, the only Western TV journalist in the North Korean capitol.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're approaching the top of the hour here in Pyongyang and right now crowds are gathering outside the central train station. All eyes are on this big screen for what we're told will be a major announcement about the missile launch.

UNIDENTIFIED KOREAN NEWS ANCHOR: (SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE)

RIPLEY: You may recognize the news reader making the announcement. She's essentially the face of North Korean state TV. Every major event in this country, she's the one on television.

(CHEERING)

RIPLEY: She reads the official government announcement, North Korea launched the intermediate range ballistic missile.

This is the first time many of these people are hearing about this because the government waited more than 24 hours after the missile launch to make their official announcement.

Their supreme leader, Kim Jong-Un, says more missile launches towards the Pacific will happen. This, he says, is a prelude to future military option aimed at Guam.

Many people around the world are frightened when they see things like this. How does it make you feel?

"I feel very proud of this brilliant achievement," he said. "I see the launch and feel our military is improving. I feel very proud to be Korean.

President Trump says launches like this show North Korea has contempt for its neighbors. What's your response?

"We're simply acting in self defense," he says. "We shot one yesterday, we could shoot one today. Maybe tomorrow, we'll shoot 10 more missiles. We have to do it to defend our country."

(SINGING)

RIPLEY: A lot of people in the outside world worry that your future will be harder because your country does things like this. What would you like to tell them?

She pauses as if searching for the right answer. "With the army and the leadership of Kim Jong-Un," she says, "we can conquer any enemy."

(APPLAUSE)

[02:55:04] RIPLEY: Unsurprisingly, everyone we spoke to said they're 100 percent behind their supreme leader, Kim Jong-Un. They say launches like this won't leave their country isolated or impoverished but, instead, will make their country stronger. What else would they say?

Will Ripley, CNN, Pyongyang, North Korea.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

VAUSE: Thank you for joining us at this hour. I'm John Vause, in Los Angeles.

HOWELL: I'm George Howell, live in Houston, Texas.

CNN's live coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey continues after the break with "EARLY START" next

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