HOUSTON -- A video going viral in Houston is giving people a little something to smile about amidst all the devastation.

Viviana Saldana posted three short clips to her Facebook page with the caption, "Why go out looking for food when the food is coming to our living room?"

The videos show her father Saul diving for a fish in the murky flood water that flooded their family home's living room.

In the final video, which has over 12 million views, her father catches the fish and holds it up proudly.

In an interview with Circa.com, Saldana said her father tried to make “the best out of a scary situation.”

And there's no relief in sight for Houston as the flood-ravaged city braces for even more rain.

The National Weather Service says nearly 13 million people in Texas and Louisiana are under a flood watch or warning.</s>HOUSTON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - Floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey, which has already killed at least seven people in Texas and was expected to drive tens of thousands from their homes, will likely rise in the coming days, officials warned on Monday as heavy rains continued to pound the U.S. Gulf Coast.

National Guard troops, police officers, rescue workers and civilians raced in helicopters, boats and special high-water trucks to rescue the hundreds of people still stranded in and around Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city.

The storm was the most powerful hurricane to strike Texas in more than 50 years when it came ashore on Friday near Corpus Christi, 220 miles (354 km) south of Houston, and the worst was far from over as the National Weather Service issued numerous flood warnings across the region.

U.S. President Donald Trump plans to go to Texas on Tuesday to survey the damage and may in the future visit Louisiana where the storm is now dumping rain.

Trump, facing the biggest U.S. natural disaster since he took office in January, has signed disaster proclamations for Texas and Louisiana, triggering federal relief efforts.

Harvey has killed at least six people in Harris County, where Houston is located, said Tricia Bentley, a spokeswoman for the county coroner's office, including a man who died in a house fire on Friday night and an elderly woman driving through flooded streets on the city's west side the next day.

A 60-year-old woman died in neighboring Montgomery County when a tree fell on her trailer home while she slept, the local medical examiner said on Twitter. With other people missing, the death toll could rise.

Both of Houston's major airports were shut down, along with most major highways, rail lines and a hospital, where patients were evacuated over the weekend. As of Monday evening 267,000 Texans were left without power in the southeast corner of the state.

One of three main rivers crossing Houston, the Brazos, was expected to crest sometime on Tuesday at 59 feet (18 meters), the National Weather Service said. The San Jacinto River was expected to crest over Interstate 10, the major east-west artery through Houston.

The Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management issued a "shelter in place" warning to residents of La Porte and Shoreacres, about 25 miles (40 km) east of Houston, after a chemical leak was caused by a ruptured pipeline.

As stunned families surveyed the wreckage of destroyed homes and roads flooded or clogged with debris, Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned Houstonians to brace for a long recovery.

"We need to recognize this is going to be a new and different normal for this entire region," Abbott said.

Harvey was expected to linger over Texas' Gulf Coast for the next few days, dropping another 10 to 20 inches (25 to 51 cm) of rain, with threats of flooding extending into Louisiana.

In scenes evoking the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, police and Coast Guard teams have rescued at least 2,000 people so far, plucking many from rooftops by helicopter, as they urged the hundreds more believed to be marooned in flooded houses to hang towels or sheets outside to alert rescuers.

Harvey's center was about 100 miles (160 km) south of Houston and forecast to arc slowly toward the city through Wednesday, with the worst floods expected later that day and on Thursday.

Schools and office buildings were closed throughout the metropolitan area, home to 6.8 million people, as chest-high water filled some neighborhoods in the low-lying city.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Monday that it was releasing water from the nearby Addicks and Barker reservoirs into Buffalo Bayou, the primary body of water running through Houston.

"The more they release it could go up and it could create even additional problems," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner warned. But the release was said to be necessary to prevent an uncontrolled surge of water, which Turner said "would be exponentially worse."

Torrential rain also hit areas more than 150 miles (240 km) away, swelling rivers and causing a surge that was heading toward the Houston area, where numerous rivers and streams already have been breached. About 5,500 people were in shelters as of Monday morning, city officials said, with Federal Emergency Management Agency director Brock Long forecasting that 30,000 would eventually be housed temporarily in shelters.

Regina Costilla, 48, said she and her 16-year-old son had been rescued from their home by a good Samaritan with a boat. She worried until she was reunited with her husband and large dog, who had been left behind because they did not fit into the boat.

"I'm not complaining; we're alive," said Costilla. "When I saw the forecast of the storm I said I'll be happy if we get out with our lives."

In Rockport, National Guard troops passed out water to residents as utility crews worked to restore power in the city, amid reports of sporadic looting.

Houston did not order an evacuation due to concerns about people being stranded on city highways now consumed by floods, Turner said.

Abbott, who had suggested on Friday that people leave the area, declined to second-guess the mayor on Monday, telling reporters, "Decisions about evacuations are something that are behind us."

Gasoline futures hit their highest in two years as Harvey shut down multiple refiners, knocking out about 13 percent of total U.S. refining capacity, based on company reports and Reuters estimates.

Almost half of the U.S. refining capacity is in the Gulf region.

The nation's second-largest refinery was shutdown in Baytown, and the nation's largest refinery in Port Arthur was weighing shutting down with a final decision expected Tuesday, sources told Reuters.

The floods' path of destruction could destroy as much as $20 billion in insured property, making it one of the costliest storms in history for U.S. insurers, according to Wall Street analysts.</s>First Lady Melania Trump will join President Donald Trump in traveling to Texas on Tuesday, August 29. This news was confirmed via Vice President Mike Pence, who let interview listeners know that Melania would indeed accompany President Trump to Texas in the wake of devastation brought to the area by Hurricane Harvey. However, logistics for Melania’s travel with President Trump to Texas means that the president will not travel to Houston, but perhaps Austin or San Antonio, so that their won’t detract from the ongoing rescue efforts in the region.

As reported by the Washington Examiner, Melania’s spokesperson, Stephanie Grisham, also confirmed that Melania would travel with her husband to Texas on Tuesday when Grishman posted the news on Twitter.

The governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, confirmed that President Trump would not go to Houston during his trip with Melania to the area so as not to put themselves in the way of harm or hamper any rescue efforts.

“The place he will be going to will not be Houston, so [he] will not be getting into harm’s way or interrupting the evacuations or emergency response in the Houston area. He most likely will be going closer to where the hurricane hit land.”

President Trump and Melania recently returned from Camp David with their 11-year-old son, Barron Trump, as seen in the above photo from Sunday, August 27. Soon after their weekend trip at Camp David, Melania and President Trump will find themselves traveling once more, this time to Texas.

As reported by Heavy, people have turned to social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to post photos of folks stranded on rooftops who were in need of rescue after flooding caused waters to rise in their homes. People also turned to social media to voice their frustration at calling 911 and other emergency numbers and not getting immediate answers, as reported by the Inquisitr. With more rain expected to come into the area, Houston officials noted additional personnel coming into the area to help meet the demand of folks in the flooded streets.

Chief Art Acevedo of the Houston Police Department spoke of the ongoing rescue efforts still underway in Houston, along with Houston’s mayor, at a press conference on Monday morning. Chief Acevedo urged people in desperate need of help to continue to call 911 and to remain on the line instead of hanging up and calling back.</s>HOUSTON — Residents of Houston, Texas, woke Sunday to flooded streets and homes, submerged cars and news of high water rescues after Harveydumped between 15 and 30 inches of rain on the city overnight.

One man woke up in a flooded hotel room while a woman tried to laugh off the shock of having her home inundated with water. One resident was told to not call 911 and said the situation was “devastating.”

Here’s what it’s like in Houston right now.

“I just woke up an hour ago and stepped out of the bed into ankle-deep water,” said Jake Lewis, who was visiting Houston for work and found himself stranded in a hotel Sunday morning.

“I’m not going to go out there and get in a bind,” he told CNN. “It’s been madness around here. The water keeps rising.”

Forecasts predict the rain will continue through at least Wednesday as Harvey lingers over southeast Texas, raising the threat of devastating flooding.

FEMA administrator: We’re ‘going to be there for years’

Ify Echetebu took to Instagram to post photos of her aunt’s house in Dickinson, Texas, southeast of Houston.

“The severity of the situation just hit me,” she wrote. “I’m overcome with grief due to how helpless I feel in all of this. This is truly devastating.”

The water had risen to her waist, she said.

“National Guard is only responding to emergencies and 911 said do not call them.”

Darakniqueca La’Shay Burns took to Facebook Live to show how she and her family were stranded inside their flooded home.

Their belongings are piled high on furniture and countertops as the water rises, filled with floating debris.

Burns and her family said they’re trying to keep a positive attitude.

“I’m trying to laugh to keep from crying,” she said. “I don’t even know if we can get out the door it’s so high. We laughing and playing, but for real, it’s getting too high and I’m getting scared.”

The family was able to escape the home and wade through the water to safety, Burns said. She told CNN that she and her child had nowhere to go, but she was grateful they were able to get out.

This is what South Texas looks like after Harvey hit

Rey Güatzin told CNN the water in his home was rising throughout the night.

“We have about five inches of rain inside the house, and we live at the highest point of the street,” the 28-year-old said. “However, outside it’s about two to three feet of rain, perhaps more as rain is continuing throughout the day.”

“It’s scary,” Güatzin said. “I’ve been through many storms in my city, but it has never been this terrible. The city is completely under water.”

Janet Castillo and her family found themselves walking through knee-deep water Sunday morning. Her husband Luis posted a video to Facebook of the water collecting in their home.

“Send some boats over here,” he can be heard saying in the video.

“We are still stranded in our home with little kids, and the water keeps rising,” Janet Castillo told CNN. “We have called already to several numbers, but no luck.”

The lines were all busy and phone operators didn’t answer, she said.</s>Scott Olson/Getty Images(HOUSTON) — As the Houston area is stricken by historic flooding, workers on Sunday are fighting to locate survivors of Hurricane Harvey, which has dumped an estimated billions of gallons of rainwater onto southeastern Texas this weekend.

Joe Gleason, a producer for ABC affiliate KTRK-TV, showed viewers the damage done to his home following the persistent flooding that has hit the region, with his living room, kitchen and dining room completely submerged in water.

“It’s never gotten this bad before,” Gleason told the station, comparing the damage to previous floods in the area.

Gleason and his family are hiding out upstairs to avoid the flooded downstairs area of their home, which appeared completely unlivable in video footage he provided to the station.

Other images recorded in the region on Sunday show water reaching freeway signs and traffic lights. Water reached the windows of a tractor-trailer that was stuck in rising floodwaters at an intersection that was submerged.

At least three people have died in the aftermath of the flooding, officials said.

A family of seven, who did not give their names, was interviewed by KTRK-TV after being rescued from the attic of their home. The father, holding an infant in his hands, told the affiliate that his home was completely destroyed in the flooding.

“Chaos — back-to-back, non-stop rain,” the father told KTRK-TV. He described his home as a “total loss.”

Some police departments are seeking help from local residents in their rescue efforts.

The League City Police Department, located about 30 miles south of Houston, posted on social media that they were looking for boats to jump in and help save lives.

Meanwhile, residents in the region are leaving their possessions behind in an effort to survive the ordeal.

A grandmother, along with a mother with her baby rescued by the Houston Police, were filmed by KTRK-TV carrying only a small bag and a blanket with them.

Asked whether the items represented all of their possessions, the grandmother, who did not give her name, answered back, “For right now.”</s>HOUSTON (AP) – Houston’s mayor says city officials are keeping watch on the ongoing release of water from two flood-control reservoirs in the Houston area to see if it might cause additional flooding in some neighborhoods.

The Army Corps of Engineers says the controlled release into Buffalo Bayou is being done to relief pressure on the Addicks and Barker reservoirs, which have been overwhelmed by flood waters from Tropical Storm Harvey.

The reservoirs help prevent flooding in downtown Houston and other urban areas to the east.

The release of water is expected to flood some neighborhoods near the reservoirs. And officials are worried that other homes in areas near Buffalo Bayou, which had gone out of its banks, could be impacted as well.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner says he’s asking the Harris County Flood Control District for more information on how much higher Buffalo Bayou could rise and whether that could result in more homes in west Houston being flooded.Houston officials say fire personnel have responded to more than 5,500 calls for service in the city since Harvey began pounding the area this weekend.

Fire Chief Samuel Pena said during a news conference Monday that hundreds of emergency responders from across Texas and beyond are coming to Houston to help with rescue operations.

Mayor Sylvester Turner said at the same news conference that about 5,500 people have moved into city shelters. About half of them are at the George R. Brown Convention Center.

Police Chief Art Acevedo added that police officers from several states will augment Houston police efforts, particularly in light of concerns with looting.

Acevedo said four people had been arrested for looting as of Monday morning.

Water in a Houston-area neighborhood along a creek that’s overflowing has reached the roofline of single-story homes

People can be heard yelling for help from inside homes in the Cypress Forest Estates subdivision in northern Harris County also can be heard as a steady procession of rescue boats head into the area.

One man, Joe Garcia, wearing a blue jacket and a New York Mets cap, was carrying his German Shepherd, Heidi, in chest-deep water before he was picked up by a boat.

Garcia said he floated out a tub of his belongings, then went back in to get his dog. The current is swift and the waters have continued to rise Monday.

Houston police Chief Art Acevedo says authorities have rescued 2,000 people from flooding in the city.

Acevedo says the city has 185 critical rescue requests still pending as of Monday morning. He says the goal is to rescue those people by the end of the day.

The comments came at a news conference where officials provided updates on Harvey, which is still pouring rain on the Houston area.

The shelter set up inside the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston has already reached half its capacity.

Ken Sandy, a shelter manager for the American Red Cross, said Monday that more than 2,600 people took shelter in the George R. Brown Convention Center. Organizers with the Red Cross estimate the convention center can accommodate roughly 5,000 people.

Sandy says the shelter is currently out of cots and waiting for more to arrive.

With Tropical Storm Harvey still pouring rain on the Houston area, thousands more people are expected to need to evacuate their homes.

The Red Cross has also set up other shelters throughout the area.

First lady Melania Trump will join President Donald Trump on his trip to storm-battered Texas.

The first lady’s spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said on Twitter Monday: “FLOTUS will travel to #Texas w POTUS this week.”

The White House has said Trump will travel to Texas on Tuesday. More details of the trip have not yet been released.

Harvey is the first major natural disaster of Trump’s presidency and a significant test for a White House that is often chaotic and rife with infighting.

A major South Texas airport has reopened after being closed due to Harvey.

A city statement said Corpus Christi International Airport resumed commercial air service Monday. Harvey made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane late Friday about 30 miles (48 kilometers) from there.

Two other major airports in the region, George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Hobby Airport in Houston, remain closed as heavy rain and flooding continue. Both have been shut down since midday Sunday as Harvey-related flooding swamped roads leading to the airports

A Houston-area official says hundreds of people who’ve been rescued from their homes, vehicles and other places amid catastrophic flooding are being taken to dry land but not straight to shelters.

Harris County Judge Ed Emmett is the top administrator for the county that’s home to Houston. He said at a news conference Monday that many people are being ferried to a parking lot, school or other dry area as rescue personnel move on to the next rescue that’s needed. Those people then are struggling to find shelter, food and other resources.

Emmett says the focus now is on getting those people to shelters.

Meanwhile, Houston police Chief Art Acevedo on Monday said that he knows of 200 to 250 water rescues that still must be done in the city and that he hopes they’ll be completed by the end of the day.

President Donald Trump has issued a federal emergency declaration for Louisiana as a storm that’s flooded Houston dumps heavy bands of rain on that state.

Trump’s emergency declaration on Monday initially covers five parishes in southwest Louisiana: Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, Jefferson Davis and Vermillion.

A White House statement says the action authorizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts in those counties related to Harvey. The declaration also authorizes the federal government to cover 75 percent of costs of certain emergency protective measures.

Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards says lifesaving efforts including search and rescue and shelters will be needed, especially in southwest Louisiana where forecasters say 10 to 20 inches (25 to 51 centimeters) of rain could fall.

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• Woman says she was fired over her heavy periods</s>HOUSTON – There are at least nine deaths in the Houston area resulting from Tropical Storm Harvey.

A family of six is believed to have died after drowning in a white van Sunday afternoon while trying to escape the floods of Hurricane Harvey, relatives tell KHOU 11 News. It is thus far the single deadliest incident resulting from the storm. It happened while crossing a bridge on Green River Road in Greens Bayou.

On Saturday, a spokesman for the Houston emergency operations center said a woman appeared to have gotten out of her vehicle in high water on Werrington near S. Gaston in southwest Houston. She was found by neighbors about 30 yards away from her vehicle. Norman says she was pronounced dead at the scene by a doctor who was in the area, according to the Associated Press.

The sheriff’s office confirmed Monday afternoon a 60-year-old woman was killed when a tree fell on her home as she slept. The incident happened in the 17400 block of Louis Lane in Porter. The victim's husband told authorities he went to get help after the tree crashed into the home because he could not get to her. When authorities got into the home, they found the woman was already dead.

A man between the ages of 60 and 70 reportedly drowned around 11:30 p.m. Monday night. Montgomery County officials said the man was seen trying to swim across the flood waters located at Spring Park Ridge and SH 99. Witnesses tried to help the man after he went into distress. They were however unsuccessful.

Outside of Houston, the first death from Harvey was confirmed in a coastal community in Aransas County. That person died in a fire at a home during the hurricane. Harvey made landfall in Texas on Friday night as a Category 4 hurricane, but it has since been downgraded to a tropical storm as it weakens while inland.

WATER RESCUES: HPD says more than 2,000 rescued from flood waters</s>HOUSTON (AP) — Patricia Cain entered the George R. Brown Convention Center barefoot and carrying two oxygen tanks. The first was empty. The second was given to her by the Houston Fire Department after the U.S. Coast Guard rescued her from her flooded home.

She suffers from congestive heart failure, among other illnesses. Her son, William, and 9-year-old grandson were waiting for her inside. Both were barefoot as well.

“I live in a lake where there was once dry land,” William Cain said.

The Cains were among hundreds of people who arrived Sunday by boat, by bus, and by foot to Houston’s showcase convention center downtown, transformed by volunteers with few hours’ notice into a shelter as Harvey ravaged Houston.

Weary and carrying little more than what was in their pockets, they prepared for what could be several days inside the convention center. Many of the roads and major highways nearby were impassable. The American Red Cross was expanding the shelter by the hour as more people arrived, including dozens of volunteers and local residents who saw reports on the news or social media and brought bags of donations.

Inside a cavernous hall humming with the sound of hundreds of conversations, volunteers served food, handed out towels and set up tables with donated clothes for a long line of evacuees. Some people huddled around a projection screen showing television coverage of the storm. Others collected bowls of pasta with parmesan cheese and cups of black coffee.

A long line of people carrying blankets and pillows waited to enter a separate space in the convention center serving as the dormitory. Volunteers had set out around 1,300 cots and were quickly assembling more in anticipation of other evacuees arriving through the night. They have enough space and cots to house 5,000 people. Police officers and medics stood ready, though there were no reports of arrests or major incidents Sunday.

“We feel that we have the resources and the knowledge not to have this be anything but safe for families, children and others who need support and safety,” said U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, who visited the shelter Sunday.

The American Red Cross mobilized at the convention center on a few hours’ notice, said Ken Sandy, a shelter manager. The city of Houston had publicly announced just two shelters Saturday night, as the worst of the rain that pelted Houston and surrounding Harris County began. One of the shelters had to close because it was too close to high water.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner then announced Sunday morning that the convention center would become a shelter. A few hours later, the first group of evacuees arrived.

Most of the people at the shelter were African-American or Latino, and many of their stories reflected how Harvey affected low-income neighborhoods and the homeless.

Many were from the Clayton Homes, a public housing complex bounded on one side by an interstate highway and another by Buffalo Bayou, which flooded heavily along with all of Houston’s major waterways. Police used boats to evacuate many of the complex’s residents and bring them to the convention center in pickup trucks.

D’Ona Spears and Brandon Polson walked with their five children, bags full of belongings, and their 7-year-old Chihuahua, Missy. They decided to leave once the water in the first story of their home reached their knees. Polson said the management at the complex wouldn’t open a community building on site that had stayed dry as the apartments around it were flooding.

“As soon as you step out, a lot of cars are in the water,” Spears said.

Alex Cantu Jr. rode out the storm underneath a bus shelter. Cantu, 50, said Sunday that he was waiting for a bus to the Salvation Army shelter where he lives, but buses were canceled. The flooding made it too dangerous for his brother to pick him up. So he and a few other people slept in the bus shelter.

“I was soaked cold,” he said.

On Sunday morning, his brother told him he could go to the convention center, where he hoped to stay through the duration of the storm.

“I don’t know how long they’re going to let people stay,” he said, a white towel draped around his shoulders. “My brother said it would be over Wednesday.”

Several people told The Associated Press that in hindsight, they wished they had left Houston beforehand. Before Harvey hit, local officials pushed back against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s suggestion that people in Houston should leave and did not order a voluntary or mandatory evacuation.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner stood by that decision Sunday, saying an evacuation would have put many people on roads that eventually flooded and endangered more lives than having residents stay in their homes.

But Desiree Mallard disagreed. As she carried her nearly 2-year-old son in her arms and waited to enter the convention hall, Mallard said she saw on the news not to leave, and so she didn’t.

She escaped her apartment by floating her son on an air mattress through floodwaters.

“I could have (left), if I would have known it was going to be this bad, but I didn’t know,” Mallard said. “And then when it got bad, they said, ‘It’s too late to evacuate.'”

Walking into the shelter holding his son’s hand, William Cain gave a small laugh when a reporter asked if he wished he had evacuated.</s>Floodwaters reached the rooflines of single-story homes Monday and people could be heard pleading for help from inside as Harvey poured rain on the Houston area for a fourth consecutive day after a chaotic weekend of rising water and rescues.

The nation's fourth-largest city was still mostly paralyzed by one of the largest downpours in U.S. history. And there was no relief in sight from the storm that spun into Texas as a Category 4 hurricane, then parked over the Gulf Coast. With nearly 2 more feet of rain expected on top of the 30-plus inches in some places, authorities worry the worst might be yet to come.

Harvey has been blamed for at least three confirmed deaths, including a woman killed Monday in the town of Porter, northeast of Houston, when a large oak tree dislodged by heavy rains toppled onto her trailer home.

A Houston television station reported Monday that six family members were believed to have drowned when their van was swept away by floodwaters. The KHOU report was attributed to three family members the station did not identify. No bodies have been recovered.

Police Chief Art Acevedo told The Associated Press he had no information about the report but said he's "really worried about how many bodies we're going to find."

According to the station, four children and their grandparents were feared dead after the van hit high water Sunday when crossing a bridge in the Greens Bayou area.

The driver of the vehicle, the children's great-uncle, reportedly escaped before the van sank by grabbing a tree limb. He told the children to try to escape through the back door, but they were unable to get out.

The disaster unfolded on an epic scale in one of America's most sprawling metropolitan centers. The Houston metro area covers about 10,000 square miles, an area slightly bigger than New Jersey. It's crisscrossed by about 1,700 miles of channels, creeks and bayous that drain into the Gulf of Mexico, about 50 miles to the southeast from downtown.

The storm is generating an amount of rain that would normally be seen only once in more than 1,000 years, said Edmond Russo, a deputy district engineer for the Army Corps of Engineers, which was concerned that floodwater would spill around a pair of 70-year-old reservoir dams that protect downtown Houston.

The flooding was so widespread that the levels of city waterways have equaled or surpassed those of Tropical Storm Allison from 2001, and no major highway has been spared some overflow.

The city's normally bustling business district was virtually deserted Monday, with emergency vehicles making up most of the traffic.

Rescuers continued plucking people from the floodwaters. Mayor Sylvester Turner put the number rescued by police at more than 3,000. The Coast Guard said it also rescued more than 3,000 by boat and air and was taking more than 1,000 calls per hour.

Chris Thorn was among the many volunteers still helping with the mass evacuation that began Sunday. He drove with a buddy from the Dallas area with their flat-bottom hunting boat to pull strangers out of the water.

"I couldn't sit at home and watch it on TV and do nothing since I have a boat and all the tools to help," he said.

They got to Spring, Texas, where Cypress Creek had breached Interstate 45 and went to work, helping people out of a gated community near the creek.

"It's never flooded here," Lane Cross said from the front of Thorn's boat, holding his brown dog, Max. "I don't even have flood insurance."

A mandatory evacuation was ordered for the low-lying Houston suburb of Dickinson, home to 20,000. Police cited the city's fragile infrastructure in the floods, limited working utilities and concern about the weather forecast.

In Houston, questions continued to swirl about why the mayor did not issue a similar evacuation order.

Turner has repeatedly defended the decision and did so again Monday, insisting a mass evacuation of millions of people by car was a greater risk than enduring the storm.

"Both the county judge and I sat down together and decided that we were not in direct path of the storm, of the hurricane, and the safest thing to do was for people to stay put, make the necessary preparations. I have no doubt that the decision we made was the right decision."

He added, "Can you imagine if millions of people had left the city of Houston and then tried to come back in right now?"

The Red Cross quickly set up the George R. Brown Convention Center and other venues as shelters. The center, which was also used to house Hurricane Katrina refugees from New Orleans in 2005, can accommodate roughly 5,000 people. By Monday evening, it was nearly full.

At the Addicks and Barker reservoirs, the Army Corps started releasing water Monday because water levels were climbing at a rate of more than 6 inches per hour, Corps spokesman Jay Townsend said.

The move was supposed to help shield the business district from floodwaters, but it also risked flooding thousands more homes in nearby subdivisions. Built after devastating floods in 1929 and 1935, the reservoirs were designed to hold water until it can be released downstream at a controlled rate.

In the Cypress Forest Estates neighborhood in northern Harris County, people called for help from inside homes as water from a nearby creek rose to their eaves. A steady procession of rescue boats floated into the area.

Harvey increased slightly in strength Monday as it drifted back over the warm Gulf, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Forecasters expect the system to stay over water with 45 mph (72 kph) winds for 36 hours and then head back inland east of Houston sometime Wednesday. The system will then head north and lose its tropical strength.

Before then, up to 20 more inches of rain could fall, National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini said Monday.

That means the flooding will get worse in the days ahead and the floodwaters will be slow to recede once Harvey finally moves on, the weather service said.

Sometime Tuesday or early Wednesday, parts of the Houston region will probably break the nearly 40-year-old U.S. record for the biggest rainfall from a tropical system — 48 inches, set by Tropical Storm Amelia in 1978 in Texas, meteorologists said.

The amount of water in Houston was so unprecedented that the weather service on Wednesday had to update the color charts on its official rainfall maps to indicate the heavier totals.

In Louisiana, the images of the devastation in Houston stirred up painful memories for many Hurricane Katrina survivors.

"It really evoked a lot of emotions and heartbreak for the people who are going through that now in Houston," Ray Gratia said as he picked up sandbags for his New Orleans home, which flooded during the 2005 hurricane.

In Washington, President Donald Trump's administration assured Congress that the $3 billion balance in the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster fund was enough to handle immediate needs, such as debris removal and temporary shelter for displaced residents. Trump plans to visit Texas today.

Harvey was the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in 13 years and the strongest to strike Texas since 1961's Hurricane Carla, the most powerful Texas hurricane on record.</s>Continuing with our coverage of the storm that's inundating Houston, we turn now to the response by state and local government. Ben Philpott from member station KUT is with us now from Austin. Ben, thanks so much for joining us.

MARTIN: Tell us more about what the state is doing to - what the state is doing to respond to this overwhelming natural disaster.

PHILPOTT: Yeah. Right now the state's got about 3,000 National and State Guard troops that have been activated to assist in recovery efforts. The governor, this afternoon, said that the state is essentially in both recovery and rescue efforts. When you go to places like Corpus Christi, as the storm's moved on, they're beginning recovery. And then, of course, you have Houston, where at the moment, it is all about rescue. They do also have like 20 helicopters in the air from the Coast Guard along with dozens of water rescue boats.

MARTIN: You know, obviously, the immediate need is rescuing people and taking care of people. But the question has to be asked if state and local governments were prepared for this and if they did the right things ahead of time. And there is, of course, the whole question of whether an evacuation should be - should have been ordered. What are they saying about that?

PHILPOTT: Yeah. Today, the governor said that this is just not the time to even talk about things like that. That it is about rescue. But Houston mayor, Sylvester Turner, also in a press conference today, you know, when talking about whether or not Houston and Harris County, which surrounds Houston, should have been evacuated earlier, he just said, you know, look, that just would not have worked. And here's what he had to say.

SYLVESTER TURNER: Look, Houston, Harris County - Harris County, got a lot of rain, a lot of flooding. When you combine Houston and Harris County, you literally cannot put 6.5 million people on the road. If you think the situation right now is bad, you give an order to evacuate, you are creating a nightmare.

PHILPOTT: And, you know, a lot of this comes from kind of lessons learned from Hurricane Rita, which hit in 2005. You know, more than 100 people died because of that hurricane. And the vast majority of those died during evacuation efforts. People got on the highways, got on the roads and could go nowhere. And then the storm came through and hit. So that's been in their mind this time when they've said, listen, we want people to just stay put.

MARTIN: Was there any logic as to which cities and counties ordered evacuations and which one didn't?

PHILPOTT: I think the local officials - because this, again, was something that was done by like a city-by-city decision, I think that they would say, yes, there was logic within their own city decisions, that they felt like either, you know, the storm would come in and then move through and everything, you know, would be fine.

Others inland - it's been really interesting. Corpus Christi did not have a mandatory evacuation. This city is right on the Gulf Coast. You know, 30, 40 miles inland towns, like Victoria, Texas, did have mandatory evacuations, you know, trying to move as many people out of the town as possibly could. But, you know, that was partially because of different rivers and creeks and streams that were coming through Victoria. So they wanted to make sure that their people were out.

MARTIN: So before we let you go, Ben - we only have about 45 seconds left. Some of the worst stories we're hearing today are from Houston. Is the local government there up to the task? What are you hearing about their response to this?

PHILPOTT: You know, they're are saying that, yes, they're doing everything they can. They have resources from, not just Texas and not just the federal government, but eight different states are offering - at least eight different states were offering to send in as much as they can to help. They are just asking people, again, to stay put. Call if it is absolutely necessary and it's an emergency, and they will get you out.

MARTIN: That is Ben Philpott of member station KUT in Austin, the state capital. Ben, thank you so much.
At least eight people have died in the American state of Texas with 30,000 residents in the city of Houston expected to seek temporary shelter.