HOUSTON (AP) — The Latest on Tropical Depression Harvey (all times local):

9:45 a.m.

One of the nation's largest convenience store chains plans to stop selling gasoline at about half of its 135 stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area, as it anticipates shortages due to refinery and pipeline shut-downs.

QuickTrip spokesman Mike Thornbrugh told The Associated Press on Thursday that the company will direct gasoline deliveries to half of its stores, and intends to have stores with gas in all parts of the metro area. All stores will remain open, though only half will have gasoline.

The company is enacting its plan after several major refineries and a key gasoline pipeline shut down after Harvey slammed into the Gulf Coast.

Oklahoma-based QuickTrip enacted a similar plan last year in metro Atlanta, where it has about 133 stores, when the Colonial Pipeline closed due to a leak in Alabama.

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9:35 a.m.

The Texas Department of Public Safety reports that more than 37,000 homes have sustained major damage and nearly 7,000 have been destroyed by Harvey and its flooding.

Those figures come from a daily damage estimate compiled from reports by local officials and the figures have been rising.

Harris County, which includes Houston, reports that nearly 30,000 homes suffered minor damage and nearly 12,000 have major damage. Jefferson County, which includes Port Arthur and Beaumont, reports that 5,500 homes were destroyed and 16,000 others sustained major damage in areas where officials have warned that flooding could continue for days.

The report says there has been $180 million in damage to public property across the affected Gulf Coast counties so far.

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9:30 a.m.

A Southeast Texas hospital is evacuating nearly 200 patients by air after the local water supply failed because of flooding from Harvey.

Baptist Beaumont Hospital spokeswoman Mary Poole said Thursday that Beaumont's main pumping station lost service so the hospital no longer has potable water.

Poole says access to the hospital is limited, so patients will be airlifted to other facilities.

She says the acute care hospital is working with HCA Healthcare to move patients to facilities that system has in the Houston suburb of Pasadena and elsewhere.

It's not known if Beaumont's other hospital, Christus St. Elizabeth, is being evacuated. A message left for an administrator was not immediately returned.

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9:15 a.m.

The U.S. Navy is sending two ships to provide humanitarian aid to areas affected by Harvey.

News outlets report that the amphibious assault ship USS Kearsarge and the dock landing ship USS Oak Hill are set to depart Virginia for the Gulf Coast on Thursday.

The ships can provide medical support and maritime security, among other things.

North Carolina, meanwhile, is sending five swift water rescue teams to help out. The state's Department of Public Safety says the teams can conduct a variety of rescues, including using small boats and other equipment to rescue people from flooded homes.

Harvey initially came ashore as a Category 4 hurricane in Texas on Friday, then went back out to sea and lingered off the coast as a tropical storm for days, inundating flood-prone Houston.

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8:35 a.m.

House Republican leaders have committed support for Harvey relief.

Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told lawmakers from Texas and Louisiana on a conference call that "we are with you."

The call Wednesday night included federal officials from the Department of Homeland Security. They say the full scope of damages might not be known for weeks or more.

No specific dollar figures or timing was discussed, according to a House GOP aide who requested anonymity to disclose details of the private conversation.

But there will likely be the need for immediate support — and McCarthy and other leaders made clear the House is prepared to act.

Congress returns next week from its August recess and a response to Harvey will be at the top of the agenda.

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By Associated Press reporter Erica Werner in Washington D.C.

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8:25 a.m.

Colonial Pipeline says it plans to shut down a key line that supplies gasoline to the South due to storm-related refinery shutdowns and Harvey's effect on its facilities west of Lake Charles, Louisiana.

The Georgia-based company said in a statement that it expects to shut off the line Thursday. The company had already closed down another line that transports primarily diesel and aviation fuels.

The pipeline provides nearly 40 percent of the South's gasoline.

In September 2016, a leak and gas spill in Alabama that closed the Colonial Pipeline led to days of empty gas station pumps and higher prices in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas.

The company didn't say how long it expects the closure to last, saying it will know more when workers can evaluate its facilities.

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7:50 a.m.

Local officials say explosions at a flooded Houston-area chemical plant produced no toxins, although federal authorities are describing the resulting plumes as "incredibly dangerous."

Assistant Harris County Fire Chief Bob Royall told a news conference Thursday that the explosions emitted 30- to 40-foot (9- to 12-meter) flames and black smoke.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said no toxins were released and that there's no danger to the community. He says sheriff's deputies who were hospitalized suffering from irritated eyes after the blasts have all been released.

But at a news conference in Washington, D.C. Thursday, FEMA administrator Brock Long said he considers plumes from the explosion "incredibly dangerous."

Gonzalez says he expects the fire to burn itself out.

This item has been altered to correct the spelling of Bob Royall's name. It had been misspelled as Rayall.

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6:20 a.m.

A Houston mother is warning people in the area to stay out of Harvey's floodwaters after her son was electrocuted while wading through the water to check on his sister's home.

Jodell Pasek says her 25-year-old son Andrew was unaware that a landscape light had electrified the water when he stepped into it Tuesday afternoon. She said he fell and grabbed a lamppost and told a friend who was with him to stay away because he was dying.

She says she's speaking out despite her grief to ensure her son didn't lose his life in vain.

Pasek lost her older son in a car accident in 1993. She tells KPRC-TV that she's pulling her strength from that experience.

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5:10 a.m.

Two explosions have been reported at a Houston-area chemical plant that lost power amid flooding from Harvey.

The Houston Chronicle says a statement from the company says the Harris County Emergency Operations Center reported two explosions and black smoke coming from the Arkema Inc. plant early Thursday.

In a tweet, the Harris County Sheriff's Office said a deputy was taken to the hospital after inhaling fumes. Nine other deputies drove themselves to the hospital as a precaution, the paper reported.

A spokeswoman for the plant in Crosby, Texas, said late Wednesday that the flooded facility had lost power and backup generators amid Harvey flooding, leaving it without refrigeration for chemicals that become volatile as the temperature rises.

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4:15 a.m.

Beaumont, Texas, has lost its water supply because of Harvey.

Officials there say the city has lost service from its main pump station due to rising waters of the Neches River caused by Harvey.

The pump station is along the river and draws water from it as a main source for the city's water system.

The officials added in their statement early Thursday that the city has also lost its secondary water source at the Loeb wells in Hardin County. They say there's no water supply for Beaumont's water system at this time.

They say they must wait until the water levels from Harvey recede before determining the extent of damage.

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1:20 a.m.

Major dangers for the U.S. Gulf Coast area loomed Wednesday with the threat of major flooding further east near the Texas-Louisiana line and an explosion at a Texas chemical plant as Harvey's floodwaters began receding in the Houston area after five days of torrential rain.

As the water receded, Houston's fire department said it would begin a block-by-block search Thursday of thousands of flooded homes. The confirmed death toll climbed to at least 31 on Wednesday, including six family members — four of them children — whose bodies were pulled Wednesday from a van that had been swept off a Houston bridge into a bayou.

Another crisis related to Harvey emerged at a chemical plant about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Houston. A spokeswoman for the Arkema Inc. plant in Crosby, Texas, said late Wednesday that the flooded facility had lost power and backup generators, leaving it without refrigeration for chemicals that become volatile as the temperature rises.

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