Hurricane Harvey: Donald Trump says 'Texas can handle anything' as dams overflow, Houston deluged

President Donald Trump headed to Texas to confront the first major natural disaster, and biggest test yet, of his presidency as officials struggled to manage an unprecedented deluge delivered by Hurricane Harvey.

The mammoth storm dropped more than 15 trillion gallons of rain bringing catastrophic consequences to Houston, America's fourth biggest city where 6.8 million people live. More than 3,500 people were rescued by police, firefighters and National Guard troops as boat and helicopter searches continued.

Appearing at an emergency briefing at a fire station in nearby Corpus Christi, Mr Trump, wearing a "USA" baseball hat, said: "This was of epic proportion, nobody's ever seen anything like this. This is a special place, a special state."

Addressing first responders he added: "We want to do it better than ever before. We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now, as this is the way to do it. I won't say congratulations. We don't want to do that, we'll congratulate each other when it's all finished."

Mr Trumplater climbed up on a fire engine ladder to address a crowd and held aloft a Texan flag.

He said: "We love you, you are special, we are here to take care of you. It's going well.

"It's historic, it's epic, but I tell you, it happened in Texas and Texas can handle anything."

Greg Abbott, the Republican Governor of Texas, said Mr Trump was "a champion of Texas and a champion of helping us rebuild".

Damages were already estimated in the billions of dollars and rebuilding is expected to last beyond Mr Trump's current four-year term.

Around 17,000 people were in shelters, including 9,000 in a Houston convention centre intended to hold half as many.

Hundreds of roads were blocked by high water, Houston's two main airports were shut, and 6,000 prison inmates were evacuated.

The official death toll of nine was expected to rise. With 50 inches of rain in some places, and more expected, Houston police chief 

Art Acevedo said: "I'm really worried about how many bodies we're going to find."

Virginia Saldivar told the Associated Press she lost six members of her family, including four siblings aged six to 16, as they tried to escape in a van.

She said the children Daisy, Xavier, Dominic and Devy, perished along with two other adult relatives.

Houston's Office for Emergency Management was unable to confirm the presumed deaths.

Angela Sanchez, 34, told The Telegraph she and her husband and floated their three children to safety in a fridge freezer as the waters reached chest height. She said: "We ripped the door off the fridge and put the kids in it."

Her daughter Valencia, 16, added: “When we finally left my sister sat in the freezer part, my brother sat in the fridge part, and I sat in the middle."

The family were forced to leave two of their dogs behind. Mrs Sanchez said: "We put them on high ground and dumped all the food from the fridge out next to them so they could eat."

At the convention centre in Houston Iashia Nelson said she had been a victim of both Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, after moving from Louisiana to Texas.

She told CNN: "It took us 15 hours to get out of there from all that water. There were six families in the house. There was a window pane and I busted it with a hammer. I got the children out and we were on t he roof. I was so scared. One girl I knew drowned and she left behind two babies. It brought back all the memories (of Katrina)."

The Cajun Navy, a grassroots group formed after Katrina, use their boats to rescue people in Houston.

Flint Theriot, a member of the group described rescuing a family including a three-day old baby. He said: "The rain was filling our boats out so hard we couldn't bail them out. It was rough. People were getting really desperate."

Two reservoirs near Houston built to handle drainage water were beginning to overflow. Water was released to alleviate pressure on dams, which added to flooding.

Local officials also sent out a warning that a levee had breached and telling people to "GET OUT NOW!!"

Amid some reports of looting and armed robbery Mr Acevedo, the Houston police chief, said: "We are not going to tolerate people victimising our community. That's despicable. If you do it you won't see the sunlight any time soon."

Tuesday was the 12th anniversary of Katrina hitting the neighbouring state of Louisiana, killing 1,800 people.

The slow government response to that disaster was a hugely damaging blow to the administration of President George W. Bush.

Amid debate over whether his presence in Texas would divert resources Mr Trump avoided traveling to Houston itself.

Melania Trump, the first lady, raised eyebrows as she donned stiletto heels for the couple's departure from the White House, but on arrival in Texas she had changed into more suitable footwear.