An oil refinery's lights illuminate rainfall as Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Friday, Aug. 25, 2017. Hurricane Harvey smashed into Texas late Friday, lashing a wide swath... (Associated Press) 
 
 CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — Hurricane Harvey settled over southeast Texas early Saturday, lashing the state's Gulf Coast with damaging winds and dumping torrents of rain over hundreds of miles of coastline that braced for what forecasters predicted would be life-threatening storm surges — basically walls of water moving inland. 
 
 The fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade made landfall Friday night about 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of Corpus Christi as a Category 4 storm with 130 mph (209 kph) winds. It gradually weakened over the next several hours and the National Hurricane Center said that by 5 a.m. Saturday Harvey was downgraded to a Category 1 — still sustaining winds of 90 mph (144 kph). It had already dumped more than 9 inches (228.6 millimeters) of rain in the South Texas city of Victoria and had knocked out power to more than 200,000 customers. 
 
 Harvey's approach sent tens of thousands of residents fleeing inland, hoping to escape the wrath of a menacing storm that threatens not only the coast but a wide swath of Texas that is home to oil refineries, chemical plants and dangerously flood-prone Houston, the nation's fourth-largest city. 
 
 No deaths were immediately confirmed in the hours after Harvey's arrival, but officials noted emergency crews couldn't get out in many places due to high winds. Melissa Munguia, deputy emergency management coordinator in Nueces County, which includes Corpus Christi, said early Saturday that it could be hours before crews could fully assess the damage in coastal communities. 
 
 Early reports did begin to emerge from Rockport, a coastal city of about 10,000 people that was directly in Harvey's path when it came ashore. Officials confirmed that the roof of Rockport's high school had partially caved in and that the community's historic downtown saw extensive damage. 
 
 Rockport City Manager Kevin Carruth told local media outlets that multiple people had been taken to the county's jail for assessment and treatment after the roof of a senior housing complex collapsed. KIII-TV reported that 10 people were treated there. 
 
 Earlier Friday, Rockport Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Rios had offered ominous advice, telling the station that those who chose to stay put rather than evacuate the area "should make some type of preparation to mark their arm with a Sharpie pen," implying doing so would make it easier for rescuers to identify them. 
 
 In Corpus Christi, the major city closest to the storm's center, wind whipped palm trees and stinging sheets of horizontal rain slapped against hotels and office buildings along the city's seawall as the storm made landfall. Boats bobbed violently in the marina. It was too dark to tell whether any boats had broken their moorings. 
 
 Fueled by warm Gulf of Mexico waters, Harvey grew rapidly, accelerating from a Category 1 early Friday morning to a Category 4 by evening. Its transformation from an unnamed storm to a life-threatening behemoth took only 56 hours, an incredibly fast intensification. 
 
 Harvey came ashore as 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. Based on the atmospheric pressure, Harvey ties for the 18th strongest hurricane on landfall in the U.S. since 1851 and ninth strongest in Texas. 
 
 A worst case scenario is that the hurricane could hug the coast for days and stay strong enough to remain a tropical storm. Forecasts call for as much as 30 inches (.76 meters) of rain to fall by next Wednesday, with some areas getting as much as 40 inches (1 meter), according to the hurricane center. Meanwhile, the storm surge could bring flooding of 6 to 12 feet (2 to 4 meters) to a coastal area that includes Matagorda Island and Port O'Connor. 
 
 Sometime early next week forecasters said it could go back into the warm Gulf of Mexico waters, which provide fuel, then turn back in for a potential second hit on what may be an already flooded Houston-Galveston area. 
 
 Before the storm arrived, home and business owners raced to nail plywood over windows and fill sandbags. Steady traffic filled the highways leaving Corpus Christi, but there were no apparent jams. In Houston, where mass evacuations can include changing major highways to a one-way vehicle flow, authorities left traffic patterns unchanged. 
 
 Just hours before the projected landfall, the governor and Houston leaders issued conflicting statements on evacuation. 
 
 After Gov. Greg Abbott urged more people to flee, Houston authorities told people to remain in their homes and recommended no widespread evacuations. 
 
 In a Friday press conference that addressed Houston officials' decision to not have a voluntary or mandatory evacuation, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said there might be a "greater danger" in having people who don't need to be evacuated on roads that could flood. 
 
 Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said that because the hurricane was not taking direct aim at Houston, the city's primary concern was heavy flooding. 
 
 "We are not having a hurricane," said Emmett, the top elected official for the county, which encompasses Houston. "We are having a rain event." 
 
 At a convenience store in Houston's Meyerland neighborhood, at least 12 cars lined up for fuel. Brent Borgstedte said this was the fourth gas station he had visited to try to fill up his son's car. The 55-year-old insurance agent shrugged off Harvey's risks. 
 
 "I don't think anybody is really that worried about it. I've lived here my whole life," he said. "I've been through several hurricanes." 
 
 Scientists warned that Harvey could swamp counties more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) inland and stir up dangerous surf as far away as Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, 700 miles (1,126 kilometers) from the projected landfall. 
 
 It may also spawn tornadoes. Even after weakening, the system might spin out into the Gulf and regain strength before hitting Houston a second time Wednesday as a tropical storm, forecasters said. 
 
 All seven Texas counties on the coast from Corpus Christi to the western end of Galveston Island ordered mandatory evacuations from low-lying areas. Four counties ordered full evacuations and warned there was no guarantee of rescue for people staying behind. 
 
 State officials said they had no count on how many people actually left their homes. 
 
 The storm posed the first major emergency management test of President Donald Trump's administration. The president was expected to receive briefings during the weekend at Camp David, and signed a federal disaster declaration for coastal counties Friday night. 
 
 The last Category 4 storm to hit the U.S. was Hurricane Charley in August 2004 in Florida. Superstorm Sandy, which pummeled New York and New Jersey in 2012, never had the high winds and had lost tropical status by the time it struck. But it was devastating without formally being called a major hurricane. 
 
 Harvey is the first significant hurricane to hit Texas since Ike in September 2008 brought winds of 110 mph (177 kph) to the Galveston and Houston areas, inflicting $22 billion in damage. 
 
 It's taking aim at the same vicinity as Carla, which had wind gusts estimated at 175 mph and inflicted more than $300 million in damage. The storm killed 34 people and forced about 250,000 people to evacuate. 
 
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 Associated Press writers Michael Graczyk, Juan Lozano and Nomaan Merchant in Houston; Seth Borenstein and Catherine Lucey in Washington; and Diana Heidgerd, Jamie Stengle, David Warren, Claudia Lauer and Terry Wallace in Dallas contributed to this report. ||||| (CNN) As Hurricane Harvey batters Texas , people in New Orleans are bracing for 10 inches of rain or more starting Sunday and continuing into early next week. 
 
 The daunting forecast comes just weeks after strong storms overwhelmed the city's unique drainage system , leading to flooding at a couple of hundred properties and exposing critical deficiencies among 100 large pumps that drain many neighborhoods. 
 
 Days later, a key turbine that helps generate an uncommon frequency of electricity needed to run the city's oldest, most powerful pumps caught fire, leaving just one of five power turbines in working order 
 
 Mayor Mitch Landrieu detailed the progress of the repairs Friday afternoon, saying he believes the drainage system could handle the predicted 5 to 10 inches of rain -- but he urged caution. 
 
 "While it is a fact the drainage capacity has improved since August 5, we remain in a state of diminished draining capacity," he said. "However, (if) this weather system strengthens and produces as much rainfall as the National Weather Service predicts, we could see some localized flooding, even if our drainage system was at full capacity." 
 
 Additionally, 24 high-water vehicles and 39 boats are strategically staged throughout the city, Landrieu said. Barricades have been placed in flood-prone areas to keep drivers from venturing into high waters, and free sandbags were available at fire stations throughout the city. 
 
 New Orleans remains under a state of emergency , which Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards declared in response to the flooding and the turbine failure in early August. 
 
 14 pumps still offline 
 
 Because of New Orleans' unusual topography -- with many areas below sea level and protected by levees -- pumps in every neighborhood must suck rainwater through storm drains and canals and push it into a nearby lake or other water bodies. In most other cities, gravity does that work. 
 
 Pumps that drain rainwater from New Orleans' streets are not the same pumps that the US Army Corps of Engineers built after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 as part of a $14 billion effort to fortify the city against tropical events . City-owned equipment did not figure into the deadly flooding during Katrina, which owed to the failure of federal levees, though some city pumps and other machinery were damaged in that flood. 
 
 Some city-owned equipment has been repaired or upgraded since Katrina -- sometimes at federal expense -- but local investment hasn't kept pace with the system's needs. 
 
 Of the 120 drainage pumps, 106 were in service, Landrieu said Friday. 
 
 Seven of those pumps were relatively small and located in newer sections of the city where flooding weeks ago was not a problem, according to the most recent records posted online Friday night by the city-owned Sewerage & Water Board . Another five were among the system's 20 so-called "constant duty" pumps, which are also small and work to clear the streets of runoff from lawn watering and other daily water usage. 
 
 The two major pumps that remained out of service were located at an enormous pump station in the city's Lakeview neighborhood. Without those pumps, the capacity of that station, which serves a heavily populated swath along the city's western edge and a large section of neighboring Jefferson Parish, remained reduced by about a quarter. 
 
 While the city's drainage system remains impaired, Landrieu has noted that even at its maximum design capacity, the pumps only can drain 1 inch of water in the first hour of a storm and a half-inch each subsequent hour. That means a deluge would predictably cause temporary localized flooding, an outcome most residents expect. 
 
 Heavy hitters take the reins 
 
 Much of the drainage capacity in the oldest part of New Orleans relies on power generated by the city. Some other pumps in that area -- and nearly all pumps elsewhere in the city -- run on power supplied by the local commercial provider, Entergy. But because overhead power lines tend to topple in high winds, city-generated and backup power sources are key to keeping drainage pumps running. 
 
 The New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board generates an unusual frequency of electricity needed to run the oldest and most powerful drainage pumps at a facility near the Mississippi River. 
 
 The city has cleaned 900 street-level catch basins , Landrieu said, since the flooding on August 5. Residents complained that debris clogging the drains exacerbated flooding. The city is now poised to fast-track routine maintenance of its 68,000 catch basins 
 
 And the mayor has installed a team of heavy hitters -- including Paul Rainwater, who led the Louisiana Recovery Authority after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005 -- to manage the city's drainage infrastructure on an emergency basis.
– Texas isn't the only state worried about Hurricane Harvey. Louisiana also is expected to get doused, and New Orleans in particular is bracing for flooding. The city could get 10 inches of rain starting Sunday, reports CNN. Complicating things is that New Orleans is still repairing its drainage system after it was overwhelmed by recent storms. Mayor Mitch Landrieu thinks the system should be able to handle the coming deluge, but if Harvey changes track and dumps more rain than expected, the situation could be dicey. As for Harvey's current progress, the National Hurricane Center downgraded it as of 5am Saturday to a Category 1 as it delivers winds of up to 90mph and heavy rain to southeast Texas, reports the AP. The city of Victoria, for instance, got more than 9 inches of rain, and more than 200,000 people were without power in the region. President Trump tweeted Saturday morning that federal authorities are keeping a close eye on it. "Closely monitoring #HurricaneHarvey from Camp David," he wrote. "We are leaving nothing to chance. City, State and Federal Govs. working great together!"