AUSTIN – Gov. Greg Abbott said he wasn’t in a position to confirm fatality numbers from Tropical Storm Harvey, but he provided plenty of other data about the response to the disaster at a Sunday briefing.

Abbott said that 3,000 state and national guard members are now deployed, along with 1,750 Texas Department of Public Safety officers in one hard hit area, 500 vehicles and 14 aircraft to deal with flooding, displaced residents and other emergencies.

“This is the strongest storm that Texas has had since 1961,” Abbott said, presumably referring to Hurricane Carla, which was second only to the Indianola hurricane of 1886 in the state’s recorded history. “This is a very large disaster.”

The storm that hit the Texas Gulf Coast on Friday as Hurricane Harvey left Corpus Christi without potable water, about 250 closed highways and 316,000 reported power outages, not including Houston, Abbott said, and state environmental officials are working in Corpus Christi to “help them get off boiling water.”

“One thing that we are dealing with here is, there’s basically is a triangle of ongoing rain…that stretches from the Corpus Christi area up to Travis County to over to Chambers County and then back to Corpus Christi,” said Abbott. “Parts of those regions will continue to receive incredibly heavy rain that will lead to even more flooding and more danger to Texans.

“Texans need to be prepared for more rainfall tonight: on occasion, very heavy rainfall. This likely is going to be an historic rainfall if not an all-time record…in certain regions.”

And, Abbott said, there will be places, “today,  tonight and tomorrow that will continue to have tornado action.”

Flanked by emergency officials, including a three star U.S. Coast Guard admiral, Abbott addressed journalists for the second consecutive day at the Texas Division of Emergency Management’s State Operations Center — SOC — in Austin.

U.S. Coast Guard Atlantic Area Commander Vice Adm. Karl Schultz took the microphone briefly, saying that eight Coast Guard helicopters were already at work, with eight more flying in to help with rescues.

“We’re pushing more boats into the water from all parts of the coast,” Schultz said. “Your Coast Guard is all in on this.”

Abbott said he’d talked to leaders from FEMA and Homeland Security leaders by telephone, and in Washington, D.C., Sarah Sanders, White House press secretary, said in a statement that President Trump will travel to Texas on Tuesday.

“We are coordinating logistics with state and local officials, and once details are finalized, we will let you know,” Sanders said.

 ABC News reported that Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on Sunday said that “an evacuation of Harris County, which is currently seeing ‘unprecedented’ flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, would have led to a far worse calamity for area residents.”

Turner said, according to ABC News, that “If you think the situation right now is bad, you give an order to evacuate, you are creating a nightmare. Especially when it’s not planned.”

The city has been hit by heavy flooding, and ABC reported three deaths in Harvey’s wake.

Turner, ABC reported, said “you cannot put in the city of Houston 2.3 million people on the road — that is dangerous. When you combine Houston and Harris county, you literally cannot put 6.5 million people on the road.”

Abbott downplayed questions about Turner’s decision not to evacuate, said he’d called Turner “several times” and “left messages,” on the telephone, adding that “we’ve moved beyond” whether there should have been an evacution.

“We’re going to provide you with the resources you need to save lives and rebuild those lives,” Abbott said he told Turner’s telephone.

John Austin covers the Texas Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach him at jaustin@cnhi.com.