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Rescue efforts continue in and around Houston

Posted at 6:29 PM, Aug 28, 2017
and last updated 2017-08-28 18:29:45-04

HOUSTON, Texas -- Harvey, now a tropical storm, continues to dump rain on southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana Monday.

More than 2,200 rescues have taken place in Houston so far, with 185 critical rescue requests pending as of Monday morning.

Rescuers are so busy that in some cases they're ferrying people to schools, parking lots, and other dry areas because they don't have time to get them to one of the city's shelters first.

So far 300,000 power outages have been reported because of Harvey, and the total damage estimate of the storm now sits at $40 billion.

The Houston Police Department says there have been a few reports of looting, but they're trying to stop that before it gets started.

"We've had four people that tried to loot and they were arrested," said Chief Art Acevedo of the Houston Police Department. "After these events, frequently -- especially once the natural disaster piece of it where there's active flooding going on -- folks move in from around other states and even other cities and other regions to come in and loot and create problems. So we will have plenty of resource and the one thing you can be assured that if you try to commit a criminal offense, especially try to take advantage of our citizens already been victimized enough by Mother Nature, you can be assured you'll be arrested."

On a positive note, Corpus Christi International Airport reopened this morning. Hurricane Harvey made landfall just 30 miles northeast of there on Friday night.