And as floodwaters from Hurricane Harvey, now a tropical storm, continue to rise across southeast Texas and neighboring Louisiana, officials expect that still thousands more evacuees will need to be sheltered in the days to come. FEMA administrator Brock Long put the disaster into perspective with a single line during the presser: “We are going to be here for several years helping you guys recover.” The federal emergency agency said earlier today that more than 5,500 people already are in shelters, and it expects that number to reach 30,000 eventually. Vice President Mike Pence told KTRH the federal government has shipped out more than 1.2 million meals and a million liters of water. A state of disaster has already been declared in 30 counties by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, “We need to recognize that there’s going to be a new normal — a new and different normal for this entire region.” He noted that the entire 12,000-strong Texas National Guard has been deployed. Long expects as many as 50 counties in Texas to be affected in some form by the storm's floodwaters, a situation that he says has demanded the agency "help bolster the efforts to do swift water rescue, search and rescue over a huge county jurisdiction." Some 15-25 inches of rainfall are expected in southwest Louisiana, and President Trump declared an emergency in the state on Monday morning. Even when the rain is gone, dangers will persist, said National Weather Service Director Louis Uccellini, because “the flooding will be very slow to recede.”
The entire Texas National Guard is activated by Texas Governor Greg Abbott for search and rescue operations, as weather forecasters stated that Harvey would move back over the Gulf of Mexico and restrengthen.