lives have been lost, power descripted, homes and businesses damaged or destroyed, but as tropical storm irene spins into

canada, millions in america's southeast corner are thankful it wasn't much worse. >> and hurricane irene first made landfall yesterday and northern new england, where the brunt of the storm just left they'll remember irene for the rain. 16 inches or more in some spots. with tidal surges battering beaches, inundating roads and bridges and in cases whole communitiesants more than 4 million are without electricity today. from florida to connecticut 19 deaths blamed on irene. among them an 11-year-old boy killed by a falling tree. president obama spoke to the nation late this afternoon. he said the storm may be ending, but the impact of irene is ongoing. >> i do want to underscore that the impacts of this storm will be felt for some time. and the recovery effort will last for weeks or longer. power may be out for days in some areas, and we will support our state and local partners in

every way that we can as they work it restore power in those areas. so i'm going to make sure that dhs and fema and other federal agencies are doing everything in their power to help folks on the ground. >> over the next two hours we will show what you those folks are having to deal with. we're going to start with the latest facts and figures from cnn's chad myers in hurricane headquarters. chad, irene's leaving even faster than it came. right? >> exactly. almost up to 30 miles per hour now. screaming on up into southern canada right there. i'm looking at all the new warnings coming out. as soon as we know and we think, oh, that warning noor county is going to expire at 6:45, at 6:44 the weather says they can't expire. completely out of their banks. the flash flooding, going up quickly. going down quickly. a few counties now, because the rain essentially slowed down. had you talk about flooding, whether the river, creek, stream

or something out of its banks, literally almost, almost every county, from maine down to southern new jersey, some type of flood warning or flash flood warning in effect for the rest of the night. and that's happening, because the rain is still coming down. take a look at some of these numbers. just isn't 24 hours. newark had 7.89 inches of rainfall from this storm, and they had 13 inches of rain for the month of september -- august before then. burlington at 7.45 earths of rainfall just from the storm alone. it is still moving away. there are still some very gusty winds, though. this is going to be the problem for tonight. knocking down some power lines probably and some trees. there are still west-northwest winds coming into the city. jfk just had a wind gust of 58 miles per hour and newark 61 miles per hour. all of these trees are sitting in saturated mud, and these

roots, some of them, won't be able to handle it and the treeless fall over. if you are planning to go out tonight at all, i recommend do you one thing. you go to a website called traffic.com. because this is just new york city proper, and every little red dot here, every little red dot has something wrong. flooding, trees down, lanes blo blocked. whatever. if you don't have to go out tonight, the city is not ready for you to come back yet. maybe tomorrow. maybe the afternoon, whatever. right now especially with night falling and water still running over roadways, it is not time to go become to the city yet. >> thanks, chad very much. i've covered a lot of flooding, but that flash flooding is absolutely the scariest. so fast. as chad said, irene is not done yet. we're going to hear from new jersey governor chris christie. he'll give us the latest on that situation, very hard hit.

he will take to the podium. we'll bring it to you live as soon as it happens. meantime, slaervermont has n a big hit. the governor joins us now on the telephone. governor what is the situation in your state right now? >> well, we're being absolutely pummeled in the state of vermont. irene is dumping huge loads of water on us. we virtually have flooding from the southern end of the state to it northern end. it's now running up to the northern end of the state. virtually the entire state is impacted. we have over 100 roads closed. extraordinary washouts of bridges, roads, homes. one loss of what we believe to be a loss of life. we're still hopeful that a young woman was standing next to the river in wilmington and last seen by her boyfriend floating down the river. we haven't been able to locate her, or her body. so we're just really in tough shape up here as so many others

are doing what the states are. >> and we understand from your office of emergency management. we were told that high water vehicles are being used to get into these areas to help those folk folks who could use some of that help. how is that going? >> the national guard is doing an extraordinary job. small communities. don't forget we're a small, mountainous rural state and, therefore, when we get downfalls of six, seven, eight inches of rain in a short period of time, we have very few large -- it's an exit problem. what hits at the top of the mountains and ends up at the larger rivers that haven't crested yet. we have gotten our high water vehicles into some of the communities. we've had trouble getting them into some locations, but we have our hands full, but the men and women uniform are doing an

extraordinary job. >> do you feel you didn't get the proper information from the weather reports? or is it just one of those things? >> just one of those things. we had great information. we've been preparing for days. the only good news, we didn't get the high winds we were anticipating but we knew we were in for a lot of water. the projections for weather were quite accurate. the storm track eed a little farther west. we knew we were in trouble a couple days ago and were preparing. this storm is carrying so much water. it's not like anything we've seen before and like so many other states we're just under water an trying our best to get beam to safety, get them away from our raging rivers and trying to deal with minimizing any loss of life or injury. as it clears out, tomorrow we'll start assessing damage and the rest. we're just trying to keep people safe and the other governors join me in sending this message.

stay home. stay buttoned up. don't ge out now. don't go out too soon. it's -- lots of things happens when you drive into standing water and didn't realize how deep it was. when you hit downed power line, still juice running through them. there's still a lot ahead of us in vermont and north new england and we're urging people to say put, stay safe and only go out to reach tout a vulnerable maybe or someone who needs your heb. >> the weather report got it right. why not evacuate jt why didn't you evacuate your residents? >> evacuate the whole state. it's not the real world. >> not the whole state but those in most risk? >> the problem with vermont, all of our -- in the lowlands. our population centers are located near rivers and streams, and, you know, you just can't get away from it in a little state like vermont. we are a state of mountains with rivers flowing through them, and

it's not like a western state or some of the big southern states where you have huge areas of dry land. we just don't have that here in vermont which abuts new hampshire. >> what do you need? >> a lot of power lines are down. we brought in crews from around the country and are dealing with that pretty effectively. really, our challenge right now is simply getting to people who are in trouble and need help. we're doing a pretty good job of it, but, frankly, we're stretching our resources. >> art. governor, we appreciate your time and we certainly wish you the best of luck getting to those folk whose need help there in vermont. thank you very much for your time. >> look at that video. it's mesmerizing to see that water. >> the power of it. >> yeah. irene hit parts of new jersey particularly hard. the storm killed two people. a woman whose car was swept away by floodwaters and a firefighter

attempting a water rescue. cnn's poppy harlow is in milburn, new jersey, where the river overflowed its banks today, poppy? >> reporter: absolutely. astonishing to see that, martin. let me take out my peer piece. the river, just like the chateau, came over, interest crested about 2:00 a.m. in the morning and flowed over all of these businesses. talk about what you experienced here. obviously, cleanup mode. you said you can't afford to be out of business for very long. what has this been like for you? what happened somewhere. >> it's been a nightmare. it's like floyd all over again. it's really a shame. you know, the mud was like two inches, three inches deep in here. i have to check out my ovens now and make sure they're running. i know the burners have to get drained out and stuff. you know, i've got to get back in business. >> reporter: take us into the kitchen. as we go there, guys, all the

business owners that i talked to here tell me this is just like ten years ago. hurricane floyd, that was 1999. a little over ten year ago. that was actually worse. the only thing it wasn't as bad as hurricane floyd when it literally flooded to ceilings? >> floyd came in, flied was 16 feet of water in the store. all of my equipment was up against the doors. they broke the doors, the windows, everything. the station in the back, there was nothing left. >> reporter: obviously, your big bagel oven is gone right now. >> the bagel oven is right here. we have to make sure it's running. >> reporter: it's out of service. gone in that sense right now. when did you figure out that your store had really been decimated? when did you realize? did you come down in the middle of the night? >> i really didn't know until i got here about quarter to 5:00 in the morning. had to way of getting here and i knew i was in trouble. >> reporter: what do you need in terms of help?

in this economy, you can't afford to stay out of business a long time, right somewhere. >> no, you can't. i still have ten feet of water in the basement. i need that pumped out. i need a lot of stuff. i got to get back into business. >> reporter: a lot of business oesers are worried flood insurance might not cover basements. >> let's hope so. i shflood insurance. we didn't have it with floyd tornado it really hurt us a lot. hopefully insurances will be nice. >> reporter: i'm sure a battle with insurance companies. >> i don't know. >> reporter: guys, one thing to tell you, this entire town in melbourne, new jersey, not in a valley -- the big river contaminated. anyone who wants to drink water, eat food, they have to boil the water. that's hurting people. we don't go out to eat. don't know what to eat. can't necessarily drink anything at home and that's a big challenge. >> right. i'm looking to open up in a couple of days but i need the

water to settle and everything be fine before i can do that. it's a water bagel. >> reporter: that's true. bob, let you get back to it. thank you very much. appreciate it. >> very welcome. >> guys, back to you. we'll continue to report live here all night. >> thanks, poppy. nice to see bob retand his sense of humor. >> certainly has. trains, plane, bridge, roadways all came to a standstill. >> in two minutes, all the travel updates you need for your monday morning commute. [ oswald ] there's a lot of discussion going on about the development of natural gas, whether it can be done safely and responsibly. at exxonmobil we know the answer is yes. when we design any well, the groundwater's protected by multiple layers of steel and cement. most wells are over a mile and a half deep so there's a tremendous amount of protective rock between the fracking operation and the groundwater. natural gas is critical to our future. at exxonmobil we recognize the challenges and how important it is

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[♪...] >> male announcer: now, for a limited time, your companion flies free, plus save up to 65%. call 1-800-sandals. conditions apply. the good news is the worst is over and we will soon move to restore and return mode. the transportation nightmare is almost over, but monday could be pretty rough for some commuters. flights, trains and subways shut down all over the east coast in preparation for irene, but we have good news for you travelers out there. new york area airports will be reopening tomorrow morning. newark and jfk plan to open again at 6:00 a.m. eastern. laguardia will open an hour later at 7:00 eastern according to the faa. the new york city subway system is expected to start running

again tomorrow afternoon, and the 1259 staten island ferry and tunnel rye opened. more good news. flights out of philadelphia and washington have also started up again. now that the worst of what's currently tropical storm irene has passed over the new york area, the evacuation order lifted and some city bus, back on it's streets. cnn is live in new york by the hudson river with more on how things are improving. carmen? >> reporter: hey there, martin and randi. here's 9 thing. they're trying to get things up and running but it takes time. this is a very big system. some buss in new york city are running right now. still no subways running in new york city at all. a lot of this has to do with the flooding we saw earlier today. you know, i'm down at battery park. you see the winds still blowing. water, very rough beheeind me. an extra high tide. with that storm surge the water

basically came up to where i'm standing. not much of damage here. 's in other parts of the city significant damage and flooding. i want to show you video from one of our cnn ireporters here. this is video of the bronx river parkway. take a look at that. both lanes under water completely. david schilling shot this video from yonkers. think about it. this is what some of the roads looked like when you have to make your commute in here tomorrow morning. it's going to be a tough one. that's if you're driving. if you're on the subway, you're pretty much out of luck. i mean, think about what that's going to be like. a mass transit system that's serves millions of people every day, to and from this city, still shut down with lots of people trying to get to work. i can tell you, getting a taxi tomorrow is going to be very tough. you know, that one piece of good news you were talking about earlier. the airports opening up tomorrow morning. that's good news. they need mass transit, too, to

get people to and from the airport and get equipment in place. the other good piece of news you mentioned while ago, we have video. incredible when you think about it. the staten island ferry up and running again, in a harbor that is as rough as this one is, after a hurricane just came through with its storm surge, the staten island ferry, back up and running. martin and randi, back to you. >> signs of hope. you just described what sounds like a commuting nightmare there, carter and are they telling people here what you should do? delay your approach to town or hold off coming in monday? >> reporter: you're on your own. you know? that's basically what it is. you're on your own. you've got to go for a cab. you got to the go for a towne car ow you got drive in somehow. a lot of people i've talked to down here say that work is being very flexible. some people are allowing them to telecommute into work. a lot of people plan to walk to

work tomorrow, and walking to work. even if you have to walk 30 blocks, it's better than trying to flag down a cab. >> yeah. >> i'm with you on that one. i tried that. you're absolutely right. >> hard to get a cab on a good day in new york. appreciate it. >> reporter: on a good day. it's going to be very hard. north carolina's outer banks took such a hard hit, some areas are only accessible by helicopter. >> cnn's brian todd back from a flight with the national guard and those pictures and the latest from that area will be up right after this quick break. [ carrie ] i remember my very first year as a teacher, setting that goal to become a principal. but, i have to support my family, so how do i go back to school? university of phoenix made it doable. a lot of my instructors were principals in my district. i wouldn't be where i am without that degree. my name is dr. carrie buck. i helped turn an at-risk school into an award winning school,

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more i mazing im-- amazing images. keep those coming. thank you very much. we want to remind you, new jersey's governor chris christie should be joining us. we will have that press conference for you as soon as it happens. meanwhile, president obama his director of homeland security and the fema director all spoke with reporters today at the white house. >> the president was pleased with the government's response so far. presidents up a say that. talk more about the storm's response and recovery effort with retired general and cnn contribut contributor honere. should he be happy? >> the easy part. the hard work is about to happen. when you think about the millions of people without power. when you go from preparedness an evacuation to recovery, the hard

work is in recovery, because the reality is, people are going to wake up the next few days. they're going it talk to their insurance company. and small businesses are going to fig aure out, insurance will raise, rent's going up. 40% of small businesses fail after a disaster. if it got wet and the equipment got destroyed, this is going to be a significant impact on people trying to recover at a time that when we're faced with economic challenges. >> you certainly know about economic challenges, recovery and flooding having been in charge there in the aftermath of hurricane katrina. talk to us a little about what needs to be happening right now. you saw those pictures in vermont of the flooded waters there. they didn't evacuate. we see flooding in new york. although they seem to be getting back on track, and many other areas. what should those cities and states be doing? >> we've got a significant search and rescue that's got to continue and a sustainment of life. my concern right now is all the

leadership is very proactive in the evacuation and giving orders. right now they need to give orders on who needs to stay home. if they don't set those priorities. now many will back off and let the commercial -- let the economy go to work. the problem is, the very thing that they need to get power, open roads, will be a hindrance when thousands and thousands -- millions of people in this case -- head into work. in a very concentrated area. this is going to be an issue tomorrow while people were happy with the evacuation and the preparedness, a lot of frustration is going to start tomorrow, because folks have an expectation to be able to go to the office, where government needs to be encouraging businesses, or use emergency powers to keep some businesses closed. non-essentials. >> i thought about that when i was listens to mayor blockberg.

city offi -- mayor bloomberg. maybe they should delay one day because of just what you said. >> city offices closed. schooled opened? schools closed. some buses open, some closed. some roads open. major chaos. people will are a lot more frustrated after the storm than during it. particularly those that didn't take direct tach to their home and they have power. they need to stay home and take care of the kids and the elderly people and be able to vol near the shelters to take care's people who have evacuated. it's a little premature to send everybody on their own tomorrow. >> what about fema? how long does it take fema to fully close and event like this? >> up to five years. >> five years? >> that's what history shows. his is a long, deliberate process, negotiated process. when you look at everything. when you get to the mitigation phase. things that might be done to try to control water, try to raise

some of the houses and try to improve bridging and a lot of claims made for a lot of infrastructure that was just at the end of its life span anyhow and people will be asking fema and the federal government pay for that wow. general russell honere. thank you. >> he's right about that. frustration will set in. we are coming up on the half hour, and we want to bring you up to speed on all the latest on this storm. >> after a quick break we'll recap everything, plus chad myers joins us with the latest on where the waters are stell rising. and a reminder, at 9:00 tonight, dr. sanjay gupta and former president bill clinton will explore the signs, tests and lifestyle changes that could result in the very last heart attack. it's a special "cnn presents." catch it tonight at 9:00 right here on cnn. we'll be right back. called biofilm? a resir biofilm germs are strong enough to survive daily brushing.

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from pennsylvania, my puppy -- i'm concerned about my puppy. it's definitely raining more because it's 5:00 now. back to you. >> a very bright future. >> we need to hire that girl. she's concerned about her puppy and the rain. very sweet. the storm may be over. the impact is not. the recovery has barely started. irene left most of the eastern

u.s. under water or in the dark, worse. power out to homes and businesses and 19 deaths blame and irene in seven states. new york city is heing evacuees return and planning to open airports tomorrow. limited bus service resumes this afternoon. don't count on the subways for some time. the flooding in vermont, one official, martin. >> it's awful. and the wert ater is pretty muc everywhere. president obama spoke late this afternoon and said the feds will stay on the case for weeks to come. let's check in with cnn's chad myers for the latest on irene's whereabouts. flooding was something to see. >> truly was. the rain stopped that doesn't mean the runoff stopped. this entire area had too much rain in august to start with. look like a foot of rain just about everywhere. all the ground was completely saturated. now you put more rain on top and some wind and trees are falling down left and right. even people twittering, tweaking

me claiming all the rotted trees in their neighborhoods are just falling down without even any wind at all now. it just -- the ground is so saturated, it has no holding ability whatsoever. flash flooding across most of vermont up into northern new hampshire as well. parts of maine, some reports of maine, almost one-third the entire state without pow are at this point and big time flash flooding here. west of boston. the berkshire mountains, significant flooding earlier. i'll change this out. show you the rain moved away. look at this graphic right there. that's just not flash flooding. that's all flooding. rivers that aren't flashing meaning they're not going up in one hour and down in one hour. almost every county from maine down through almost boston down into new jersey. some place there has flooding going on's at this point in time. now, the storm's wind is starting to slow down for the most part. although i just saw a wind gust

to 48 miles per newark and 45 add jfk. the storm is spinning like this where most of the southerly wind coming into nova scotia into the bay of fundy, the wind's coming down across lake an te ontario e catskills, where most of the cree tries are falling with wind gusts at 50 miles per hour. guys? >> thanks chad very much. thousands of people who didn't evacuate part of north carolina's outer banks are cut off from the mainland. the national guard did an aerial tour with some 2,500 people stayed behind. brian todd was on that flight and joins us live from kinston, north carolina. brian, what did you see up there? >> reporter: well, marty, we just came back from hatteras island. the only way to get there, by helicopter. we took off in two helicopters

from the north carolina national guard. doing a damage assessment, and a recon mission out there. what we saw, incredible. you're right. thousands of people, about 2,500 to be exact, cut off from the rest of the world. they ignored the governor's mandatory evacation order to get out. that order issued earlier in the week, well before the hurricane got here. they ignored it, wanted to stay and now are cut off. the reason, highway 12 which leads north-south into hatteras island. the part that connects it to other islands in the outer banks which connects to the bridges to the mainland, that highway, completely decimated. washed over. not just washed over. it looks like an earthquake this. it's completely chopped up. the storm and storm surge completely chopped up the road. now it's not just flooded. the ocean is now washing over it. ocean currents are washing ober that road. it is in very bad shape and there are downed power lines out there. i don't think that road will get up to speed maybe for a couple

of weeks at least, and some of the local citizens agreed when we walked around to assess it. these people may be cut off for a while. they'll send in an emergency ferry we're told that may not get out there until tomorrow. people were told toll have enough food and supplies for three days and the people we talked to out there said they did have that, but they took a real chance in riding this out. they dodged a bullet, looks like we didn't see any reports of serious injr.ies out there, but right now these people are very, very isolated, marty. >> so, i understand there's a delay here. what is the plan of action, then? prepare the roads or simply get everyone out of there? >> reporter: well, i talked to a national guard official about that before we left, and he told me that unless there are distress called from hatteras isla island, people in distress with serious injuries they will not send rescue teams to get them

off. the people on the island seem to be in good shape. they have food for a couple of days. maybe in the interim, you'll see a ferry. they expect that to get out there by tomorrow. that's slow process and with 2,500 people stranded to get enough food and supplies to last them what may take a couple of weeks to build back this highway, that's kind of a tough row to hoe. >> right. we know this is always a vulnerable area. i'm wondering, has this happened before? >> reporter: not that i know of, marty, and the people said they hadn't seen anything like it before. given that, they have ridden out hurricane 3, one guy rode out a category 4. hard to imagine. that places is very vulnerable. people have not seen this before, flooded roads and neighborhoods and now the roads cut off. it is a new situation for them, and they hope to be able to kind

of outlast the isolation. >> all right. cnn's brian todd out there, and, yeah, those folks have a tough road to hoe, as you just pointed out. it's going to be a long wait for them. >> 2,500 people or so trapped there now. long island was one of the hardest-hit areas in new york, at least. >> a short time ago governor cuomo made a surprise appearance there at long beach. cnn's susan candiotti caught up with him and will join us live in two minutes to the share some of that conversation. >> on the creeks of the island. you can see -- there is an incredibly high tide.

the worst of irenepassed over new york, but the cleanup, that can take a while. susan candiotti is in long beach. susan, what's it's damage like there? >> reporter: well, there is at least one thing that long islanders can enjoy tonight. that's a beautiful sunset you can make out over my shoulder, but they are still getting bits of rain and it must have pretty high wind gusts, some probably reaching tropical storm force as a lot of people are out and about tonight. fortunately -- well, or unfortunately -- to things came true. there is flooding. however, it is mainly localized

flooding. nothing major according to official, but there are plenty of power outages and that is unfortunate. to give you a quick look around, a lot of people are getting ot and about surveying damage up close. in long beach, 0 a barrier island 25 miles east of manhattan. people are up on the boardwalk 15 feet above sea level. for example, this hotel, in fact, where we were staying and a lot of reporter was staying as well, got flooded on the first floor, below sea level. pumping the water out and sweeping out the mud. that appears to be the worst of the damage in this particular area, but as we said, localized flooding through much of long island and a lot of power outages about, well, more than 400,000 customers are in the dark tonight. >> and, susan, i understand that -- it's randi here. you had a chance to speak with governor cuomo while he chris itted long peach earlier and managed to get a one-on-one with

him. what did he telly? >> reporter: he surprised a lot of locals, showing up, looking at the damage. many thanks him for the preparation by the state. we asked, do you think the next time people will wond whether authorities are asking them to overprepare? his answer, i don't think so. this is his response. >> don't underestimate the damage that has been done here. and this will go on for days, literally. so i think it was very prudent that we did what we did, and it would have been worse if we hadn't. >> reporter: but there is economic damage throughout the state. he said about a million customer, throughout the state are without power, as you probably have heard by now. there's still tallying up of the rest of the damage and are grateful they're getting help from the federal government and fema to help clean up this mess. he did say there is horrendous

flooding, but not in this area. in other parts of the state. so a lot of cleanup work, of course, is left to do. back to you, randi and marty. >> seiusan, trying to estimate e commute tomorrow. a lot of people saying they're going to go to work? >> reporter: yeah. they're planning on going back to work, but others who have a bit of a cleanup to do of course, won't be. what, of course, is going to be one -- how soon will transportation be up? -- that's going to be the main hitch. a car, it has not been all that difficult to get around here. aside from dodging some trees that are down, of course, some wires, and, of course, a lot of linesmen are out trying to get those out of the way tonight. >> yeah. still, beautiful sunset. thanks very much. beautiful -- beautiful imagery to see at the end of a bad storm. >> oh, yes. thanks, susan. in one state nearly every community was affected as irene tore through today. >> cnn's kate bolduan is live in rhode island where water concerns have everyone on alert

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we're going to take you straight to new jersey now where governor chris christie is speaking. >> -- told us that he thought it was about a foot to a foot and a half of beach ierosion, that cae may county officials related that things went very well with cape may. they were happy that we did the evacuation that we did, and they have some work in cape may. they were happy that we did the evacuation that we did, and they have some work to do to get things ready, especially on the power side for the rest of this coming week and weekend, but they are looking forward to having folks come back to cape may county this week and weekend to complete their summer vacations. we then traveled up to atlantic county, met with atlantic county officials led by the county

executive danny levenson, talked also there about the evacuation of atlantic county. the county executive is convinced lives were saved, the fact we evacuated the towns in atlantic county that we did, and we then, after leaving atlantic county, took a tour of the entire coastline from atlantic county all the way up to sandy hook. what we noticed was that clearly some beach erosion has occurred. some worse than others in various places along the shore, but the good news is we didn't see any type of visible destruction to homes along the beach. that was encouraging to see that many had prepared and protected their homes, either through hurricane shutters or through plywood. we then traveled across the sent of the state where you see a lot

of flooding. and entire roads taken out and unpassable. the rail system unpassable. due to flooding. and so while the initial conserve for everybody was about the shore communities, as i've been saying for a couple days now, the aftermath is really going to be a concern about the rest of the state where we have some significant flooding. shelters, we had 50,000 people sheltered now in 53 different shelters. our goal after the storm, get them back home as soon as possible. by the end of the night, state shelters will be basically empty. that's an incredible tribute to folks at human services under jen velez and commissioner simpson for providing all the transportation to get people home tonight and in mars county,

20 buses supplied to bring people home. at this time everyone staying at mennen is on their way home. rowan university, 400 people staying at the university are also on their way home tonight. rutgers university, buses head to the university slightly delayed because of the flooding at roads i talked about in the central part of the state. however, at this time over 600 people staying at two locations on campus all on their way home. and the mental disability center, arriving at woodbein to return evacuees to the u es. 90% of the people were these facilities were from atlantic county. they'll have transport home once they get to atlantic county. we have reports from the american red cross there is still approximately 5,000 new jerseyens in shelters this evening, mostly locally run. we'll have an update by midnight

at the folks who will be overnighting at those shelters. the storms vnz pired into a flooding event, the hurricane is over but we have serious things to deal with. rain estimates range from 3 to 12 inches depending where you are in the state. no surprise we're concerned about major flooding. it appears we're going to see roar levels. several rivers are already flooding or will begin to flood tonight. the delaware river, rancocus creek could flood tomorrow and could remain at flood stage for several days or the entire week. of concern is potential record flooding in the river basin. the tributaries are expected to result in substantial floods in that region. river continues to rise rapidly. state police and the national guard are bringing in special rescue equipment and vehicles to help had assist the situation. the delaware river at the state

capital and new hope lambertville is expected to approach major flood stage tomorrow morning and gradually subside though remain at above-normal levels probably through tuesday. we're prepare for what this means for shelter and transportation and infrastructure and our positions with our urban search and rescue teams are coordinating with local oems to deal with their areas of concern. there is also some areas of evacuation now. i'll give you a list of towns with area evacuations. this does not mean that the entire town has been evacuated -- just areas. patterson, pmt omton lakes, manville, bound broom, fairfield, belleville, maple wood, old bridge, monroe, stockton, lambertville, lincoln park, and cliff side park. if you're in one of these areas i want to encourage you to listen and abide by what your emergency managers are telling you. this is serious and severe flooding can not be taken lightly and in fact it can

worsen rapidly. flash floods are one of the things that killed a young woman in salem county during the morning. flash floods can happen very quickly, as the name denotes. so please, don't think that this crisis is over just because the storm has passed. if your emergency managers in your municipalities tell you are you in a dangerous area, then please evacuate the area. the county municipalities have been doing a very good job of communicating all of this to people about flooding and timing and the american red cross and county shelters that have been opening in preparation for the hurricane are remaining at the ready to receive an influx of evacuees due to this flooding. also our two state shelters at men nan and at rutgers will continue to be ready if needed for overflow facilities. call 211 to find out where your

local shelter is. call 211 to find out where your local shelter is. if you're unsure, then leave your home for a safer place. tomorrow is going to be a very difficult day. let me start off by saying, if you don't have to go to work tomorrow, don't go to work tomorrow. traveling around the state is going to be incredibly difficult. now dot is fully mobilized to try to improve this situation, but there's no place to go with the water, everybody. if we chart to pump all the water out, we have no place to pump it to. every place across new jersey is in difficult shape with all the water that we got. so let me review quickly again. we opened the parkway southbound at 1:00 today. traffic is flowing again on the parkway southbound south of exit 98. however between 91 and 98 there is still closure in both

directions because of extreme flooding. we have detours set up that will get you back on the parkway in either direction but you should expect that it is going to take you some time. it is going to be congested. let's keep our cool and not lose our temper. we're going to just have to deal with it. and speaking of not losing your temper, as of 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning tolls will be reinstated. for those of you who have been driving and enjoying toll-free driving on the tollway, that's over. it goes back into effect at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow. there will be additional road closures beyond the 300 roads we previously talked about. interstate 80, 280, route 17, route 23, all have partial or complete closures that require detours. with regard to tomorrow's commute, as i said, if you don't need to go to work tomorrow, and you're driving, don't go to work tomorrow. tomorrow's going to be a very difficult day to travel around the state of new jersey. in addition to that for those of you who are new jersey transit

riders, not going to be a good day tomorrow either. system is flooded all over the state. in fact, we're going to take some additional time to get the system back up and running. in part, because of the flooding, and in part because of a series of down trees that are on tracks and are forcing us to have to deal with that first before we can put the system fully back in place. so tomorrow new jersey transit, all transit service will be suspended. ironically, except for the atlantic city rail line, the hudson, bergen, light rail and river line will operate but only on a weekend schedule. so a reduced schedule. bus service is expected to operate on a modified weekday schedule with fewer trips operating during peak periods on the same routes. so tomorrow's going to be very difficult from a new jersey transit perspective, bus or rail. we hope to have that better by tuesday, but again, part of this is literally there's no place to

go with all the water that we've gotten. path trains for those of you who take the path going into manhattan, path trains will begin regular service tomorrow morning at 4:00 a.m. newark airport will be open at 6:00 a.m. for arrivals and noon for departures. for those of you who use jfk airport, the schedule will be the same. laguardia will be open for arrivals and departures at 7:00 a.m. so that's newark at 6:00 a.m. for arrivals and noon for departures. same for jfk but for laguardia, they'll be open for arrivals and departures at 7:00 a.m. as i said earlier today, i really want to thank the folks who are standing behind me for the extraordinary work that they've done over the last number of days being here. lieutenant governor and i are very, very appreciative of what they did and have done and will continue to do as we work together on these issues. i also want to thank the people

in the state. they once again renewed my confidence in them. i want to make one thing really clear. for those folks who will now say, well, there wasn't abject destruction up and down the coastline, therefore we shouldn't have left -- let me tell you, those type of second-guessers will not be tolerated. the fact is that by moving a million people off the jersey shore, we saved lives. and there can't really be any debate about that. and so my job as governor first and foremost is to protect the lives of the people who we serve and we accomplished that goal first and foremost. we're going to learn a lot from this storm. it is only the beginning of hurricane season. i hope we don't have to go through something like this again but if we do we'll be having after-action meetings with all of the different agencies involved to figure out what we did right and what we could do better. but, we met our main mission, which was to preserve the life of the people who live in this state and for all those people

who we did evacuate, who didn't leave on their own but needed to be taken places because they couldn't, think about this -- they're all back at home tonight. i think that's a pretty extraordinary accomplishment. it is one of the things that i said to the folks at rutgers yesterday. i said, just sleep here tonight, ride out the storm and we'll do the best we can to get you home as soon as possible. well, i don't know if they expected to be home tonight, but they are and i'm glad that we were able to get that done. questions. >> governor, will state workers will expected to show up for duty tomorrow? >> state workers are expected to show up for duty. beth? >> governor, there seemed to be some confusion earlier at a news conference whether or not a firefighter had died. can you clarify that? >> you know, just got bad information. i got briefed. folks who briefed me had bad information. i repeated the bad information. i apologizefy