i hand the baton over to my colleague, suzanne malveaux getting things under way in newsroom. >> and welcome back to "cnn newsroom." i'm suzanne malveaux. welcome international viewers. teams and correspondents covering this like no other network can. coverage of super storm sandy. talking about flood, fires, massive power outages result of sandy in the med lane exic. 21 people died in the united states from the storm. right now more than 7.5 million customers in 15 state have no electricity. according to early projections, damage from the storm between $10 billion and $20 billion. in new jersey, rescue crews plucking people off rooftops after a natural levee broke and flooded three towns in bergen.

queens new york, fire destroyed dozen homes, 50 burned to the ground, 30 were on fire. and head of the new york transit authority says the city subway system is facing the biggest disaster in its history, including flooded tunnels and power outages. a short time ago, we heard from new york mayor michael bloomberg. >> make mo no mistake, this is a d devastating storm, first ever experienced. first responders heroic job. they are conduct life saving search and rescue missions and we owe them an enormous debt and gratitude. >> new jersey, a natural berm, levee, near the town as given way, on the new jersey side next to teeterboro airport and several nearby communities including little ferry under water.

>> we've dispatched state and federally supported teams to assist in rescues and providing shelters to those in need. >> maggie lake has made her way there, at a shelter. talk about what you have seen. you've just arrived. how big is this facing that the the most coordinated not only bergen county officials, but the national guard, state police. people pouring in all morning being rescued from the area. i want to turn to a relative waiting for some of his people, family, trapped in that area, he didn't live there but who is there, and what are you most worried about? >> who is there? my parents, aunts, uncles, pregnant cousin due tomorrow. crazy. >> now, you're from that area. have they ever experienced anything like this? have you heard from them how nervous and scared are they?

>> parents say they're okay, they're on the top floor. cars are floating around. they were fine during irene. i want. i live across the river. they were -- they say they're fine but i said get observe here, i'll take you home. >> any word on when they will come out? are officials going for them in boats or trucks? do you know when they're going to arrive? >> looks staggered. i got one aunt and took her to a cousin's house. yeah, go outside, flag someone down. >> right. it's hard to get information. best of luck. this is the case. officials are doing the best they can but it's hard to keep tabs who is here, who is not. we see cars streaming in all the time as people go in. water here. there are towels, dry clothes. people are coming off trucks and boats with just the clothes on their back, maybe a small bag, some have no shoes. trying to get them as much as they need. officials on the teeterboro airport came over looking for someone saying we've got

supplies, we want to help you out and give you supplies. imagine officials more than happy to hear that. but these residents are absolutely shocked. not expecting this. this was not an evacuation zone. >> i can relate to your guest there, after hurricane katrina, what that is like to search for relatives. it takes days and days to figure out where folks are and sort it out. if this is search and rescue effort are we assuming people that they are trying to get to and find are okay, that they are alive, not injured, they are in fairly decent condition? >> yeah. the last we talked to executives here, from the county, no fatalities. they felt confident about that. of course until they get in there themselves and see we're not going to have final word. we're keeping fingers crossed. we do have a little bit of cell phone, it's spotty. there is no power. we were speaking to another woman before who said they had jet skis, that they stored for

the winter, her husband took it out. he was ferrying people around to dry land, coming back here. people coming in reporting who is left, neighbors that need help. that is helping. daylight's important. as you know, officials here scrambling to do house-to-house searches while they have light because there's no power in the area. >> thank you very much. we're learning now and cnn confirming update on the death toll from the super storm sandy now at 26 people who have perished here in the united states from this super storm. we are also watching a dangerous situation that is still existing in new york. a construction crane that is on top of a luxury skyscraper. it is dangling over west 57th street in manhattan. we've been watching this closely because this crane partially collapsed yesterday during high winds that they experienced during sandy and left this giant arm hanging over the street below. people worried about this. authorities closed the street.

evacuated this area, including a nearby hotel. the city's working with structural engineers to figure out what are they going to do about this? how are they going to secure the dangling crane. no disaster has ever hit new york subway system this hard. that is according to the charm of metropolitan transit authority who says the system is 108 years old. he has never seen devastation like this. seven tunnels under the east river flooded. the eastiv river crossings betwn manhattan and brooklyn. floodwater spilling out of elevator shaft. this is hoboken, new jersey. could take up four days to get the water out of the flooded tunnels. it's not going to recede on it's own. for vehicles that are going under the hudson river, lincoln tunnel is open but the holland tunnel closed. queens, new york, what is happening now in the

neighborhood of breezy point heartbreaking. at least, at least, 80 homes have burned to the ground. families, as you can imagine, devastated. they're no shock by all of this. deborah feyerick is there. deb, very quickly, if you can tell us how this happened in the first place and what are people doing today? >> i understand -- >> reporter: we're having a bit of trouble hearing you. hope you can hear us. we are joined by t.j. gillmartin. you came to check on your brother's house. tell us what you're seeing. >> total destruction. 100%, 110% destruction, everything. >> reporter: what does it look like when walking? >> nothing. there's one cluster of homes, every house along the side that's still up is damaged. everyone off the foundations. windows, houses sitting this way. >> reporter: when you heard that the damage was going to be severe here, did you have any

expectation of what was going to come? >> no. as i was walking back there, nice house, good house, could be fine. got to his block and one cluster of three blocks destroyed. every -- i mean nothing, nothing left. even the sidewalk is ripped up. >> reporter: the firefighters trying to fight the fires. you're a first responder ground zero. >> i'm a construction stewart building high-rises. these are my friends. we went lobbying to washington with. i walked up to the house, took a few pictures. e-mail them to my brother. >> reporter: thank you so much. >> thank you. >> reporter: and this is what's happening. people are trying to come back. we saw a number of folks who their homes were standing, suzanne. they were able to get a couple of things and get out. they were carrying bags, coolers, and they were just leaving. we spoke to one gentlemen, he

his wife and three young children weathered the storm. incredibly shaken. could not believe he had not listened to the warnings having lived through what he lived through. very shaky. some of the hopes look as if a sledgehammer was taken to the front of the homes, sides of the homingers, off the foundations, fronts are shattered. a community that's going to have to do a lot of rebuilding. >> all right. deb, we certainly wish them the very best. that is a very big, big job ahead there. we heard from the head of fema, director of fema, craig fugate, who is warning folks that this is not yet over. >> this is not over. we still have more weather to deal with. hopefully people will be able to stay safe until we get to the other side of the storm. [ male announcer ] new unisom natural nights.

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trying to restore lex trelectri. storm stretches across a dozen states and the nation's capital. alison kosik tracking power problems and allison, the number seems to grow by the hour. how many people are we talking about who don't have power? >> numbers are getting bigger by the hour. up to 7.5 million customers without power. this includes 15 states that includes -- that's up from 13 because 2 new states in the mix, ohio and south carolina. it's because the storm is so big, the wind covers the 1,000-mile swath. you're seeing other states included. new jersey, though, hit the hard effort. 2 million people are without power. no surprise there because sandy made landfall there. of course there's new york, hit hard. coned saying that it's the biggest storm related outage in its history. during the storm, we've got an idea how bad it was going to be. flashes of transformers blowing. at this point, much of lower manhattan without power. it's in low-lying areas where

all of the massive flooding happened. you know what? for some, it's worst-case scenario. look at one hospital here, nyu medical center, power went out, patients evacuated. some shelters here in new york city temporarily lost power but got the power going again. suzanne? >> we heard from the mayor earlier that there were shelters that lost power and fortunately had to restore due to backup generators. everybody's asking, when are they going to get power back? >> it's the magic question. if you're without power, you ask that every minute of the day. depends on what area you're in, how extensive the damage is. we heard from new york city mayor michael bloomberg. really is one of the city's two biggest challenges besides getting public transportation up and running is restoring power. you know, at this point, so many places were hit. most people are saying, it could be days before you see power

going back on. reality is, this is a process. you know, what has to be done, determination needs to be, who needs power on most first? you see crews, they go to hospitals and 911 centers, shelters, and water treatment facilities. go to the most important places first, they trickle on down to residential areas hit the hardist. some power restored in delaware, maryland, for a lot of the places, because a lot of steps taken before the storm hit, that could help things get back on line faster. we can only hope. >> yes. looking at pictures here. unbelievable how dangerous the situation can be when you've got downed power lines. this is in new jersey some of the pictures we're seeing. >> also why, if you start walking outside your house, you're in a lot of water, you can't see what's on the ground. you have to really be careful. you don't flknow what your foot

going to run into. >> thank you. could be millions of people in the storm's path that are stuck inside with no power. so we're going to find out how one is actually doing. george is one of our ireporters and he sent us a compelling video showing incredibly strong winds. this is along the hudson river outside his apartment. this is just yesterday. george is with us via skype, i believe. unbelievable when you look at what you were dealing with, the power of the wind and the force of that water. i understand that you're okay, you've got food, water, backup generator. but yesterday, you saw the hudson river rushing into your apartment building, is that right? >> yes, that is correct. i mean, it was unbelievable site. just watched the hudson rise and it rose quickly. when that storm surge came in around 7:00, it was a rush of water coming down second street which we live on between newport and exchange place, and it was

wild. all of a sudden we had a-to-race upstairs to the sixth floor where there's a common area. the water came into the lobby. now we're trapped in the apartment. >> i understand it was you and your fiancee, rushing to try to get to safety. what happened next? >> well, at that point they said we can't leave the building there was water in the lobby. so we -- we stayed on the sixth floor, a common area which is well above ground. and then some of the neighbors, we saw windows blown out. we were concerned whether or not to go upstairs for fear of the windows were to blow in, what do we do? >> what are you doing today? where are you now? how are you living? >> well, luckily, this building does have a backup generator. we actually are one of the fortunate folks that have power, which is good. we have been watching the news and just taking in all of the footage of all of the destruction. we can't believe what what we're seeing. it's unbelievable what happened. >> are you able to get out of

your building? has the water cleared from your lobby? >> no. we were told we cannot leave because so much water had gotten into the lobby that it's dangerous for us to go downstairs fear the wires, there could be electrical issues, they don't want us to go down there. stay put. elevators are not working. we're just hunkering down here in our apartment waiting for word when to leave. >> have they told you, any guidance when that might be? telling you hold on, wait as long as possible and then we'll get back to you? >> they said be patient, short staffed now. it's difficult for some of the staff people to get here. and we're just waiting for word. they made an announcement on the p.a. two hours ago and said please be patient. we'll give you further notice when you can leave. they told us, i think there's a curfew in jersey city, we're not allowed to go out. i can't confirm that. but they said stay inside. >> there is a curfew, as a

matter of fact, george. how much food do you have for how many days? >> we're set for foodwise. we're concerned how we're going to get to work. we saw pictures from the hoboken passage. my fiancee and i take the pass to work. we doesn't know when we're going to be able to get to work, if we're able. apparently the subway system and the pass is under watt. >> what do you do there? is your office up and running at this point? >> well, my company was nice and said to work remotely. they called it wireless professional. we actually are able to do work from home for now. but they said safety was first with my company and that was nice. they said that just be safe. and my boss has been checking up on us, be careful, be safe. he's been checking in on us pretty good. >> george, we'll be checking in with you on a regular basis if you don't mind. love your reports, pictures and clearly want to follow your

story, see how you are holding up there, as the days go on and hopefully you'll be able to get out. but get out safely. thanks, george. appreciate it. reporters everywhere along the storm's path. we've got you to help tell the story with ireport. take a look at what the storm did in dover, new jersey. ireporter there is in the house. heard the wind howling. went outside. this is what he found. the flooding from the jersey's long beach island. ireport documented scenes near his family summer home. we always want to get pictures, hear from you but want you to be safe as well. please don't put yourself at risk. go to cnn.com/ireport to see more or share your own story. [ male announcer ] citi turns 200 this year. in that time there've been some good days.

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>> a number of updates from new york here. this from fire island in new york. resident whose chose not

evacuate, surrounded by floodwater according to a suffolk county new york official told cnn about the condition that is taking place there. one of them saying mandatory evacuation as of 2:00 p.m. sunday. monday morning able to rescue 14 people from fire island. now 60 people stranded on fire island. what's going on, air surveillance taking place by the coast guard to see what is happening with residents to make sure they're safe. they don't have power. this happened after the mandatory evacuation. water supply also, we understand, is contaminated. not a good situation for those folks who decided to stay on fire island. certainly the hope is that they will be rescued shortly. we've also got more information, metropolitan transit authority, this is coming out of new york. they are restoring now mta's restoring limited bus service going to take place. this is starting 5:00 this

evening. fares are waived for the first time. according to official twitter account for the public transportation provider, all of this is happening 5:00 p.m. and again, restoring limits bus service in the city. if you need to get around, start as at 5:00. and if you still have any doubts that about super storm sandy's power, take a look. moment to look at this photo here. this is a huge tanker sitting on the shore of staten island. it moved. listen to wabc reporter describe what happened. >> this is a giant 160-foot, 700-ton tanker that was just picked up by the narrows and dumped here on front street. we are on front street in staten island. and if i show you this, you can see the water coming in, there's lower manhattan. and then we swing around to show brooklyn.

and this is the bridge. this tanker came from about a mile away from marina that has been chopped to bits. >> two tugboats called in to help remove the danker. the storm is causing chaos for flyers as well. transportation, new york area airports closed. laguardia, located in queens, not expected to open wednesday because of extensive damage. richard quest here, here, during this week of all weeks, you're here to explain if people should come, if they should go. >> airports, the crucial point to note, major airports, new york, kennedy, closed and likely to remain so for some time to come. let me show you at superscreen. you will see what i mean. this just makes the point as if you needed it to be made any

clearer. kennedy, laguardia, newark closed. serious delays elsewhere as a result of the effects. talking primarily about laguardia. this is why. anyone who knows the runways at laguardia, 14, 1331, they are the two runways of new york's premier, if you like, domestic airport. from 24 million passengers, though it doesn't rate in the top 50 globally, in the united states, this is one of the airports in the transit system. look how these runways are. they come in this way. this way. and of course this way. anybody who has flown into lagarde yo known this is a stomach churning left hand turn as you come over that way. and they are all around water. when they say extensionive damage, i'm guessing not only flooding on the run ways themselves which will be

serious, you don't want to land 100 tons of metal on dubious ground, but look at the pontoons of the airport. they are actually over water. and then, you have a change of color. then you have all of the navigation equipment outside the airport. this is why laguardia is probably going to be the most seriously affected of all of the runways, of all of the airports, for the time being. moving on, if i can just move there you can see nationally at the airport, still the picture in the united states, lots of traffic in the rest of country. boston is now starting to pick up again. traffic is now moving into boston. they have to get planes in before they get them out and that's a similar situation with washington dulles. a lack of traffic in those airports because what they do, of course, is when they know there's a hurricane coming, the airline flies the planes out. now they have to bring them back.

laguardia will not be operational, i'm guessing, for days. >> a lot of people stuck right where they are for days to come. >> absolutely. not only that, you and i have talked about this, amtrak's not running, greyhound's not running. it will pick up slowly. for the time being no one is going anywhere. >> you'll stick around here for a while, i imagine. live pictures here to bring you to watch. this is affiliate wabc. major flooding there. giving an update on rescues there. let's listen in. >> like i said, i was told on little ferry, we have a couple of thousand in this area. >> we'll let you get back to work. >> reporter: thanks for taking time to go with us live. this is a staging area for where they're waiting to get on those five-ton military vehicles and taken to the shelter.

they've been standing out there, some people in bare feet, some people with sandals and little shoes and they're waiting for about three hours to get on the military vehicle. you think, gee, they had this planned. but this is just such the magnitude of this, it's overwhelming. all of the agencies doing an incredible job trying to rescue people but that's a priority. get them out off the homes where they may be in danger, where there's health concern, get them to the staging area and get them to the shelter. the primary thing obviously getting people out of the homes. some are sick, some have asthma, lots of elderly people. >> sort of grabbed what valuables they thought they needed immediately i guess. >> absolutely. they were told this morning when rescuers arrived grab what you can, you get one bag, get out and get out now. >> thank you. we'll check back with you. >> now head down to the atlantic -- >> out of wabc, obviously,

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teams, reporters, corners covering the storm like no other network can. the very latest, at least 26 people have died in the united states from this storm. right now, more than 7.5 million customers in 15 states and district of columbia have no elect tris pitch according to early projects damage from the storm between $10 billion and $20 billion. this is adramatic story. one manhattan hospital, after the storm, the lower floors with more than ten feet of water, knocked out rooftop generators. officials at the medical center called emergency evacuation of all 260 patients. nurses carried newborn babies down dark hallways, in some cases using bags to pump air into fragile lungs by hand. sick adulted hauled out down 15 flights of stairs on to ambulances headed to other

hospitals. 9:00 in the morning 40 patients waiting to be taken out. the vice president for clinical affairs and affiliate at langoni medical center. i want to start off with you. andrew, explain the evacuation and the state of the patients now. are there patients at that hospital? >> well, first, let me tell you that all of the patients have been evacuated safely. let me, second, by telling you that, on days like today i cannot be more proud to be associated with nyu langoni medical center, people working throughout the night doing heroic things, fire department, police department, staff, physicians, medical students, extraordinary work doing incredible things, evacuating very quickly with really no lead time getting people into other hospitals. it was incredible work. i could not be more proud. >> andrew, have you maintained

contact with all of these patients? how are they doing? is everyone safe? >> i can tell you now everyone is safe. we know where all of our patients are located. they're at other facilities, some of our staff is at other facilities patients are safe. clearly, like the rest of the northeast, we're struggling with communication, at the medical center. our phones are down. our internet is down. but we do know where our patients are and working very hard to restore services. >> i want to bring in elizabeth to talk about some of the things that we have seen. it's extraordinary when you take a look at nicu, tiny babies and the fact that the nurse and practitioners and doctors who had to help them breathe while they got out of the building. explain how serious this was. >> right in medical terms it's called bagging. literally a nurse sit there's and pumps oxygen. it what a respirator were to do if there were electricity.

imagine the nicu on the 9th floor they had to walk down nine flights of stairs with a nurse bagging the baby all the way down, and bagging them before they started that track because they lost power. if we talk about what andrew said, not only are these folks heroes, this happened so quickly. i was told 7:00 night they had no water. by 7:45 more than ten feet of water. they had to move quickly to get patients out of there. >> a matter of people, heroic efforts getting through this or a little bit of luck involved here? sounds like it was precarious. >> nyu, they know they're on a river. i've been there. river's right there. they're aware things can be flooded. so they practice for this. they rehearse for this. i mean they know that this is a possibility. just to let you know how bad this was, there's an academic

building, no patients, and it was built three years ago specifically to withstand a terrible flood and it got more than ten feet of water. so even with a special foundation and all of that, even with that, it flooded. >> i want to ask you a question, clearly it's amazing what your staff was able to do. this is a hospital that was evacuated last year for irene. sandy was forecast to be even worse. was there a reason why they decided to ride it out this time or stay as long as they did? >> listen, there will be plenty of time to figure out what decisions were made and weren't made. i know for certain that nyu was prepare, we have generator all over the place. talking about a large massive complex, a safe complex, buildings are safe now. we're talking about 100-year storm with a river that rose beyond anyone's expectations and clearly, you know, a lot went

wrong. but a lot went right. the staff, as elizabeth pointed out, worked very hard. we drill for this, we train for this. and they did even better than that. and it's remarkable. now, it's important for me to let you all know that we are currently assessing our infrastructure, as you can imagine, with ten feet of water. there's a lot of damage to our infrastructure. we are assessing that infrastructure right now. we have a lot of patients who we treat in our blaner ambulatory . through both nearby the main campus and throughout the region, we are working very hard to restore those services. patients are trying to reach us now. they have appointments, they want to see us. we're doing everything we can to make make contact with them and restore services as quickly as we can. we rely on electronic medical recorder to treat patients. if we have no power we don't have the electronic record systems running. we're doing everything we can as

quickly as we can to restore services to get up and running from business as soon as possible. first order of priority evacuating patients. now it's in assessment stage. >> andrew ruben, really hats off to your staff. remarkable work, heroic work that they did to keep patients alive especially those babies. elizabeth, thank you for putting it all into context. quite an extraordinary thing that a lot of people did, to come together and make that happen. thanks again. appreciate it. besides flooding parts of northeast, sandy leaving a mark on the race to the white house. >> i don't give a damn about election day. it doesn't matter a lick to me at the moment. i've got bigger fish to fry than that and so do the people of the state of new jersey. >> checking in on the storm's impact on the presidential election.

to the presidential election now. president obama and mitt romney caught in the middle of the storm. both men have a tough balancing act, between the campaign and responding to the disaster. dana bash joining us d.c. the president, being president, in the white house, in the situation room, talking with governors and that's the power of being the incumbent. mitt romney's trying to stay relevant, holding events with relief groups in ohio. does it help, look like he's trying to be political? can he do anything at this point? >> well, let's start with the president. he's trying to look presidential. it's easy when he has that title. he canceled tomorrow's campaign events as well as today's. but he does have the benefit of incumbency.

he's using that benefit, big time. the white house released new photos of him getting a briefing inside the white house situation room. getting much imagery of obama in command. that's helpful when he can't be campaigning in battleground states. but let's be honest, suzanne. without the president in those battleground states, advertisements are flooding airwaves there. that's important to point out. mitt romney, you asked about that. he's on more of a political high wire with the storm. he wants to look empathetic, not political so he canceled his events sort of. what he did today is he had an event, a rally, to try to help with relief efforts in the very important state of ohio. check out what he said. >> we have heavy hearts, as you know, with all of the suffering going on in a major part of our country. a lot of people hurting this morning. they were hurting last night. the storm goes on. i've had the chance to speak with some of the governors in the affected areas. they've talked about a lot of people having a hard time.

>> reporter: this still allows mitt romney to get good press in this key battleground state and get ads up and running. i should mention also, the romney campaign announced he's going to resume campaign events tomorrow, he's going to be in florida and thursday state of virginia. >> what's interesting, we heard from chris christie earlier today, praising the president for the way he's been handling the storm. we know christie's one of romney's top supporters. what political impact does it have when you have one of romney's guys giving a pat on the back during this time? >> reporter: chris christie is known for candor. he doesn't give a damn about politic, not what he cares about right now. this kind of candor's generally served mitt romney well since christie's softened romney in certain times, humanized him in other times. the candor may have helped the president. listen to what christie told nbc this morning.

>> on the phone at midnight last night with the president personally. he hasek pedestriexpedited new disaster area. i was on the phone with fema 2:00 a.m. to answer questions they needed answered to get that designation. and the president has been outstanding in this. >> reporter: now it's not like new jersey's a battleground state but to have a high-profile republican praise the president and the federal response, that can't be going over well, at least that well, with romney headquarters in boston now. >> a week before the day that everybody goes out to vote. just the october surprise that nobody could ever suspect or imagine. dana, thank you. appreciate it. super storm sandy wreaking havoc across the northeast, leaving a lasting mark on the coast. >> it's like camping out. no electricity, no running water. no flushing toilets. tdd#: 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about low-cost investing.

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looking at what super storm sandy did to the boats on the coast of new england. this is the town of glaus ter, massachusetts, made famous by the 1991 halloween nor'easter, the perfect storm. chad shot the video and heavy winds batter the shore, did some damage. but things are looking okay there today. dramatic pictures there. super storm sandy, full impact, still unknown. stay with cnn for more on the storm. >> it's probably like a war zone. [ male announcer ] citi turns 200 this year.

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breaking news. update on the new york stock exchange. just learning it will open tomorrow, wednesday. the last time that you had the new york stock exchange close ford two days in a row due to weather back in 1888, a blizzard that happened back then. but now the new york stock exchange to reopen tomorrow. that is good news. captain of a submerged ship still missing. the hms boundty trying to escape monday but began take on water off the coast of north carolina. the crew, they abandoned ship and the coast guard called in to save them. >> were you nervous going in there? >> i was. i hadn't seen anything like this before. this is the first case that i had been into a hurricane. the waves were just sort of

tossed and this way and that way, 50-knot winds, visibility poor. >> first guy we pulled up was really happy. >> 14 crew members rescued by the coast guard. one person found dead. the captain unaccounted for. 180-foot ship built as a replica of the famous british ship used in 1962 hollywood movie "mutiny on the bounty." as we mentioned, more than 7 million customers are without power. this is across 13 states. >> short version is we got through it, and pretty much all plans worked.

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david letterman's live in-studio audience, not live this go round. city subway shut down and officials telling people to stay indoors. late night comedian forced to tape without a live crowd. here's how it went. >> ladies and gentlemen, we're in the middle of hurricane sandy. and we have no studio audience. but by god we do have quite a show for you tonight. thank you very much for joining us here in the ed sullivan shelter. i'm suzanne malveaux. continuing live coverage of super storm sandy. get right to it. super storm sandy taking a deadly and devastating toll on

the atlantic and northeast region. 26 deaths blamed on this storm. we are learning more about the destruction, also the stories of survival. rescue crews carried people to safety after a natural levee gave way. this is in bergen county, new jersey. in some cases folks had to be plucked from rooftops. atlantic city's famed boardwalk took a pounding. in new york, floodwater rushing into the city's subway system. the storm left 7.5 million customers without electricity in 15 states and d.c. our teams of reporters and correspondents, they are covering this story like no other network can. the very latest on the where storm is and where it's headed. start in new jersey. floodwaters overwhelmed towns in the northern part of the state. a natural urban berm or levee near the towns of moonachie and little ferry gave way. parts of the area are under at least four feet of water. >> in moonachie, little ferry

we've dispatched state and federally supported teams to assist in rescues and providing shelters to those in need. >> if you know the area, this is west of manhattan on the new jersey side, right next to the teeterboro airport. maggie lake, she has made her way there. she's outside a shelter. how are folks doing today? are they holding up all right? >> reporter: they are. they're saying, no doubt about it, they are just stunned and shocked about what happened. it's extraordinary. since we arrived at 9:00, there have been people getting off anything that moves basically, shuttle buses, national guard vehicles, sanitation equipment. anything that they can get in there to get these people out of there, they've been doing it all night through the middle of the night, and it's continued all day. i just spoke to the lieutenant in charge here, who said they will continue to do it until they feel they've reached everybody who need to be reached. they're going house to house. this is not a community that expected anything like this. they were not under evacuation.

they see minor flooding but nothing to this extentextent. the extraordinary thing, they were caught by surprise in the middle of the night when the power was out. we caught up with one elderly woman. listen to her story. >> actually in the water -- see the water coming in and took less than a half hour for it to be around two to three feet deep. by midnight starting to pour into our trailers. so we started -- we went up to where we have a recreation center ten floors up and we were all trying to get sleep or anything but nothing -- we couldn't sleep. we were all too nervous. at 5:00 in the morning, they pulled us out with a roll-off container. >> reporter: many people coming here with just the clothes on their back, some don't have shoes or sockses some had a

diaper bag. a lot of children looking for loves ones, concerned about a pregnant cousin due today. left her home for fear of flooding and went over tos moonachie. ems standing by here. they have supplies, water, dry clothes and they're trying to relocate those people either to family or to shelter to keep them overnight. many of them lost their cars. no way to get around. people here struggling for the most part staying calm. >> must be upsetting to imagine that your home is under water. you have no idea where people are, where folks are. has anybody from that shelter actually been tempted to go back into the neighborhood, talk about taking a group and trying to find their homes and loved ones? >> reporter: absolutely. suzanne, that's what officials here, concerned. anxious to get them out to those shelters. they do not want anyone going back in. they've been telling them all day that they're not able to

return for at least five days. not only concerned about the flooding clearly, any downed lines if power goes back on, but also the structure. whether safe to go in, whether structural sound to go in. they are going to have that blocked off. going to go closer later to see what damage is there in terms of flooding but concerned about that. urging people, please stay out. but as you can imagine, this came unexpected. people lost a lot of things on the first floor of the home. cars floating around. people on jet skis. this is the vehicle coming in all day long, full of people, little children, some of them open air vehicles. again coordinated effort by officials. using everything they can, everyone has had great things to say about the response of the state, in terms of getting the personnel here needed, but still much to be done. again, they'll go until they can tonight, suzanne. >> i assume, it's a search and rescue, they are looking for people who they believe are

alive, who are in fairly decent shape at this point, the day after the storm, is that right? >> reporter: that's right, suzanne. so far no fatalities. of course they going to be keeping a close eye on that fingers crossed, that remains the case. there was cell phone coverage, spotty, though the power out, some people able to make calls of cell phones. those that came out able to direct officials where remaining relatives, friends and neighbors were. we talked to one woman whose husband had two jet skis stored for the winter, he was out on them. he went around to houses taking neighbors to dry land, getting word out where people were located. in terms of that good luck on that front. >> maggie, we appreciate your reporting. seeing pictures of pets and assuming they're allowing pets at shelters which makes a huge difference between some who decide they're going to stay in their hopes and seek shelter. new pictures here, cnn video. this is out of falls church,

virginia, looking at damage there. trees down in that area. d.c. metro area, falls church. big trees hit the homes in the residential areas. a lot of power that is still out. and it's going to be a long time before they're able to actually remove much of that debris. they've got workers out there. they've got people in the community as well. but still dangerous situation as they try to get a lot of major trees and branches and get them off of the homes. very much unclear whether or not homes are able to be salvaged depending how much time they have, certainly know that in previous storms, hurricane katrina, water stays there or if the water subsides and homes remain as they are, mold will take over homes and they will not be able to be salvaged. that's one of the things working on trying to get debris out from around those homes and see if

they're going to be survivable and livable in the future. head to queens, new york. what is happening now in the neighborhood of breezy point, heartbreaking. if you look at this, 80 homes, they have burned to the ground. families, really in shock from all of this. i talked to deborah feyerick. she's been covering this, checking in with folks in the community, trying to get a sense of what has happened there, as well as emergency workers dealing with this, the fallout. >> reporter: we are joined by t.j. gillmartin, you came to check on your brother's house. tell us specifically what you're seeing. >> total destruction. 100%, 110% destruction everything. >> reporter: what does it look like when you're walking? >> nothing. one cluster of homes, every house along the side, it's still up, it's total -- is damaged. every one, off foundations, windows. houses sitting this way. >> reporter: when you heard the

damage was going to be severe, any expectation of what was going to come in. >> as i was walking back, i'm saying nice house, good house, good house, could be fine. got to his lot. one cluster of three blocks, destroyed. nothing, nothing left. even the sidewalk is ripped up. >> reporter: the firefighters trying to fight the fires. did you speak to them? you're a first responder ground zero. >> i'm a construction chop steward building high-rises. these are my friends we went lobbying to washington with. did i speak to anybody? no. i walked up to the house, took pictures, e-mail them to my brother. >> reporter: thank you so much. you know, this is what's happening. people are trying to come back. we saw a number of folks who whoses were standing, able to get a couple of things and get out. they were carrying bags. they were carrying coolers. and they were just leaving.

we spoke to one gentleman, he, his wife, three young children weathered the storm. incredibly shaken. could not believe that he had not listened to the warnings, having lived through what he lived through. shaky. you know some of the homes they look as if a sledgehammer was taken to front of the homes, the sides of the homes, off their foundations. the fronts are completely shattered. this is a community that's going to have to do a lot of rebuilding. >> we are now getting new figures of death toll. it is now raised to 29 people who have died in the united states due to this super storm sandy. we are also getting new tape in, this is feeding in now, wtvi out of atlantic city. first aerials of the boardwalk, of course the famous boardwalk, sections that were washed away. you can see the boats that are just tossed about there, the homes are right there on the

water. and just remnants of what the boardwalk used to be, as it just goes out into the water. 11,000 people spend the night in red cross shelters in that area. but this is one of the first aerials that we're seeing from the famous boardwalk out of atlantic city. ali velshi was in atlantic city last night and it was extraordinary to see just how quickly the water had risen and when he was doing those reports, got up one point to his waist. it really was a city that, for the most part, people hunkered down. he did not see a lot of people out on the streets. it was pretty much abandoned. in the light of day, you're just beginning to get a sense of the damage and devastation that that atlantic city area has experienced, particularly the boardwalk area, and the commercial area that was abandoned last night. for the most part, people stayed indoors or went to shershelters

evacuated. this is a portion of the boardwalk now destroyed and under water. in new york city almost 2 million people now without power. take a look at all of this. trees down in central park. central park, as you know, a beautiful, beautiful place. a lot of runners and folks who spend time there. it is just laden with trees. these are folks checking it out because it is such a different scene today as what we've seen before. the national weather service says that the storm surge in downtown manhattan hit a record high of almost 14 feet yesterday. chairman of the metropolitan transit authority says subway system 108 years old, never seen devastation like this before. seven tunnels under the east river now flooded. could take up to four days to get water out of the flooded tunnels. taking a quick look, drive through. michael bloomberg saying it's going to take a while to get all of the stuff back to normal. >> in addition to the lives we

lost, the damage we suffered across the city is clearly expensive, and it will not be repaired overnight. the two biggest challenges facing our city going forward are getting our mass transit system up and running and restoring power. this morning, we have begun the work of clearing and reopening bridges and roadways, both of which will take some time, and the best ways new yorkers can help us get this done quickly is stay off the roads. >> here what happens we are working on for this hour. rescuers have pulled hundreds of people from homes. we are now -- preparations are adequate ahead of the storm. we'll talk to the man who led the military response to hurricane katrina in new orleans. more than 7.5 million people are living without power today because of the massive storm. we're going to go live to virginia where tens of thousands are in the dark. and half of the city's hoboken, new jersey, flooded. we'll talk with the mayor about what folks are going through there. [ fishing rod casting line, marching band playing ]

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want to bring you a couple of updates here. the death toll now rising. 29 people have died from the storm in the united states. we are also watching new tape that is feeding in now. this is from wtvi, this is out of atlantic city, and these are some of the first aerials that we are seeing from the area. the dev station that occurred there, talking about a section of the famous boardwalk, the atlantic city boardwalk that washed away. and we are getting reports now from "the star ledger," 85% of the city was actually under water at monday morning's high tide. you can see what you're dealing and with there as the streets just absolutely abandoned. people were either inside their homes or evacuated. we saw the water rise dramatically about 8:30 at night last night, our alley val shi out on the streets and deserted

with exception of rescue crews that were trying to make sure that everything was okay and people were not out there. but it was absolutely devastating to atlantic city. and the boats that have washed up to the shore, the houses, boardwalk that has been partially collapsed and water that is just streamed into those homes. massive flooding. it is going to be unbelievable recovery effort as we take a look at aerial pictures. you can get the sense of the scope of just how massive this flooding has been to this community. and get the sense of how long the recovery effort is going to take. talking about many, many people impacted by the storm surge, by this super storm that has devastated many communities on the east coast. starting days before sandy hit, we heard about the dire warnings from public officials all along the east coast.

the stunning images of flood, wind damage in many cases, exactly what was predicted actually. but the question is, whether or not preparations were adequate, was the response going well? how is it going now? joined by retired lieutenant russell honore led the military response to hur katrina in new orleans. preaching about disaster preparedness. general honore, thank you. it's very good to see you. i can't help but think about the images from katrina, people looking for loved ones and trying to reach out, find out where are they, they don't know what's happened to their home. how do you think the federal response was this go around. >> i think the federal response was positioned and well, number one, by the president signing declarations before the storm. what that did was empowered fema, which has philosophy of

leaning forward, put supplies in place. most of those things will come in to play in the next 24 hours. the first hours are actually local mayors and governors prehave a lens to solve, the search and rescue. the federal assets are there to assist. the main thing is funding of the national guard and each governor has the authority to call whatever national guard, forces they need out to be positioned to support the first responders. so i think everything is going in the right direction. but suzanne the first phase is much about strategy and tactics. now we get into the hard part, logistics. what i see on television, i any the national guard's doing a great job. federal assets in backup from army north and northern command, federal assets standing by. you start seeing helicopters once the winds go below 40 miles an hour start to get a lot of helicopters moving around and that will happen in coming hours

once the wind goes down. >> wind expected to go down. talking about perhaps days, maybe thursday, friday in the in turn before they are able to get down there, what is the most important thing that needs to happen now? >> it will be continuing to send a message for neighbors to help neighbors. find out who around you is in worst shape than you are to save lives and that's the message they need to continue to go because there aren't enough first responders. every building flooded has to be enter by a search team to see if anybody's in the building and they have to go in the building to see if you didn't get a response when you knocked on the door. so that's two searches that's got to be done in every billing and every apartment that was evacuated. this is a biggist. >> we know that 11,000 people spent the night in shelters but a lot of cnn reporters and those out there talking to folks who

stayed in homes, hunkered down. is that the better strategy here than those who tried to get out and stuck in these shelters at this point? >> i think the concentration by the mayors, what we saw in many cases, was to evacuate certain areas of their city that they expected to flood. and i think, by and large, that happened. but there's always a certain percentage of people that do not evacuate. and i think that is what we're going to be dealing with where the bottom floor of the buildings got wet, to get those people out. now, look most of the people we're talking about people from a vulnerable population work organize poor people, elderly, disabled who may not have heard the warnings because they don't have cable and it's the end of the month, evacuation makes an economic impact. that's what we are faced with today. >> you have millions of people without power, freezing

temperatures, no way to get around transportation. what is the most important thing now for federal officials, local officials, to look and watch out for so people don't die? >> number one the big threat is hypothermia which you brought up, the temperature. this is how this storm is different than any storm of this size we've dealt with before. the second piece is, to have a balance between security and letting people get in and go collect on their neighbors and their relatives. many times, as you saw in new orleans, big emphasis on preventing looting. so the police want to shut everything down. my advice to these mayors, leave streets open. you do not have enough first responders to find every elderly person that might be shut up. leave streets open. let the neighbors and relatives go in and check because they know where their relatives are. >> all right. general russel honore, thank you

very much. >> good luck to the people. >> absolutely. need a little bit of luck as well. at least two people in maryland have died in the super storm but the nation's capital escaped most of the devastation. we're going to be live in d.c. next. endless shrimp is our most popular promotion at red lobster. there's so many choices, the guests love it! [ male announcer ] don't miss endless shrimp, just $14.99! try as much as you like, anyway you like. like new teriyaki grilled shrimp. offer ends soon!

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came in the basement first, uncontrollably it starts coming up to the first zblo. >> hearing directly super storm sandy's impact on the northeast. surveying the damage from super storm sandy. shut down tourist attracts, knocked out power to more than 22,000 customers. the washington metro area -- the metro, rather, plans to have bus and rail service running again within the next hour or so. bring in our chris lawrence, not far from d.c., in falls church, virginia. that's welcome news. that's quick to return from the metro service back to folks. how are people doing today? >> reporter: well, that's a big

help, suzanne, you lived in this area, you know how dependent they rely on public transportation but there's still a lot of problems. nothing probably says that better than this. standing in the middle of the road and this tree shows you what it's like on some roads and trying to get by. take a look here. we swing around, you can see it's knocked down some telephone poles in the area on the other side, power lines are down. a lot of folks in this area coming up to us, telling us, over the last hour, we don't have power. overall big picture in this area, still 140,000 people without power. some tens of thousands people have had their power restored. but here's the good news. magic number of 35, 35 miles per hour, the wind has to get below that for the crews to get up on some of the ladders to start fixing the power lean. we're almost at no wind at this point. that will happen fairly quickly. when you take a look at a tree like this, going to show you another one where the family

wasn't quite so lucky. a few miles away from here. we spoke with a family who last night the tree came down on top of their roof. dad was sitting there with his sons watching tv, hoping to ride out the storm. at 8:00 at night they hear a boom and literally the tree splits their roof in half, comes down into the attic. they ran out of there very quickly. today he's trying to put things in perspective. didn't have renter's insurance. they're taking a huge financial hit. but he's got to look at his boys and say my sons aren't in the hospital, we're okay, at least we'll walk away from this. >> chris, he's seeing the silver lining there. people don't realize that d.c. has a tremendous amount of trees, as well as falls church, where you are. it's a beautiful area but saturated with trees. and that makes it in situations like this pretty tough when you have a big storm like this. thank you very much.

appreciate it. into new jersey's governor calls the damage in his state unprecedented. >> devastation is unprecedented, like nothing we've ever seen reported before. >> you're watching these rescues as they happen. this is happening on little ferry new jersey. one ofrp the neighbors -- >> hundreds rescued. hundreds more. mmded aveeno has an oat formula, now proven to build a moisture reserve, so skin can replenish itself. that's healthy skin for life. only from aveeno. boring. boring. [ jack ] after lauren broke up with me, i went to the citi private pass page and decided to be...not boring. that's how i met marilyn... giada... really good. yes! [ jack ] ...and alicia.

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welcome back to "cnn newsroom." want to welcome international viewers around the world. people across the northeast, mid-atlantic taking stock from the damage of super storm sandy. they are covering the storm like no other network can. the very latest, the death toll from the storm has risen to 29 here in the united states. right now, more than 7.5 million customers in 15 states and d.c. have no electricity. according to some early projections damage from the storm between $10 billion and

$20 billion. rescue crews are at work across northeast today. they're in boats, wading through bone-chilling water to try to help folks. talking about mostly children, elderly, those who never expected sandy to push water into their houses. affiliate wabc caught up with one crew in new jersey this morning. >> reporter: water's very deep where they are. i'm trying to get an eyeball here on i think we have a little boy in that raft and i'm trying to see an elderly person i believe in the raft, that is in the foreground. what they're trying to do is transferring them to yet another boat. so those rafts can actually be ready to go back in and pull out more people in the area that's being flooded. we have a rescuer putting that little boy on his back. we'll push in here. there's a baby, i believe in his arms as well. you can see the little child in the red. >> yep. >> we see the little boy

clinging. >> breaks your heart to see anybody in this situation. these people are leaving with basically little more than shirts on their backs, not knowing when they're able to get back in their homes. i'm sure happy they're out of that situation. the governor was saying earlier they've set up shelters to teeterboro and other locations nearby. everybody's getting out, that's the good news about that situation in that home. >> for more information how you can help those impacted by sandy, cnn.com/impact. and what's being done it restore power to the 7.5 million people who have lost it? a lot of trucks with equipmentment that's being moved from state to state. ally bank. why they have a raise your rate cd. tonight our guest, thomas sargent. nobel laureate in economics, and one of the most cited economists in the world. professor sargent, can you tell me what cd rates will be in two years? no.

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super storm sandy wreaking havoc along the east coast. this was a street in the ocean city, maryland. now it looks like a shallow lake. power crews fanned out across the northeast and mid-atlantic, trying to restore electricity to millions left without power because of the super storm. an area that stretches across more than a dozen states and the nation's capital. alison kosik, i guess my family was lucky, i have people in virginia, maryland, d.c., they've held on to power, goes out, comes back on, they're okay. >> reporter: they were the lucky ones. 7.5 million customers they're in the dark. 7.5 million customers in 15 stat states. you see how far west it goes, as far west as ohio and south as

south carolina. the reason you're seeing outages of the area's so big the wind of the storm was huge. covered up 1,000-mile swath. new jersey hit the hardest because sandy made landfall there. 10 million customers are in the dark. new york, clearly hit pretty hard. coned the biggest storm-related outage in hoois its history. we had an idea of what was coming. watching coverage on cnn, we saw flashes of transformers blowing and lower manhattan is without power. low-lying areas here in the city where we saw the massive flooding. for some there was a worst-case scenario, power went out at nyu langone medical center. shelters in new york city lost power but it was eventually restored. >> we talked to officials at nyu hospital, they managed to get patients out of the hospital in time. people are asking the question, when is my power coming back on? how do they determine who gets

power restored first? >> finding out this is a process. we talked to several states and they need to figure out who needs power on the most. with the crews, they first get power back on in hospitals, 911 centers, shelters, water treatment facilities and work their way down to the residential areas that were hit the hard effort. the good news is, some pour's been restored in delaware and maryland. and you know, also helping that authorities were proactive before the storm hit. what they did they shut the electricity down ahead of time. but it could be a while before the power comes back on. mayor bloomberg says power could be out in new york city for two, three days. corey booker says it will be several days. get used to it. when you least expect it, you'll see the lights go on. >> celebration time. appreciate it. the national guard being called in to help rescue thousands of people in hoboken, new jersey. that is where more than half, half of the town is flooded.

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♪ oh what a relief it is! ♪ [ male announcer ] try new alka-seltzer plus severe allergy to treat allergy symptoms, plus sinus congestion, and pain. another city hit hard by super storm sandy, hoboken, new jersey. the mayor says half of the city was flooded. joining us by phone is dawn zimmer, she's the mayor of hoboken. mayor, thank you so much for joining us. first of all, i think it's unbelievable that there were no fatalities in your city. how was that even possible? >> well, we're so proud of, you know, how our emergency personnel and volunteers came together to protect our city. yeah, we have no serious injuries reported at this time and no deaths. we are so, so proud because it's been a very, very difficult situation, really. this has been historic flooding for the city of hoboken.

the hudson river literally came in and made hoboken an island unto itself. the hudson river breached. the city and south side, i, myself could see the water coming in over the new jersey transit, train yards and north side it came in, flooded north hudson sewage authority. we had to evacuate two fire stations, our municipal garage. we -- it's just been a really very difficult situation. our hospital was evacuated and also flooded. historic flooding throughout the city. 50%, i'd say 50% of our city's flooded. remains flooded. people are still in their homes you know. we're doing our best to try to you know thankfully the pump station did not get flooded. so that is pumping out. at this time we do not know what the exact time frame will be when literally the hudson river came in and filled hoboken, half of hoboken like a bathtub. that's the situation we're dealing with.

substations are flooded as well. so it will be until those waters recede, you know, much of hoboken will not be able to get power back because of the substations are flooded. so it's a severe situation. but our, again, emergency personnel's working around the clock and using whatever equipment we can. we used a payloader to get to some people. so it's been a real challenge but, again, we're so proud of the volunteers that came together, manning a phone center to answer people's questions and also the shelters, we've had run by volunteers as well. we're very -- it's very very but we're very proud of what's happening here in hoboken and the community spirit's coming out now. >> if i could interrupt for a moment here. you say that people are essentially hunkered down in homes, some places were evacuated. half of your town the city's under water now. how long do you think they have to stay from where they are, stay put with the food they

have, water they have, before they can get out of their homes? >> we hope we can get them out as soon as possible. again, i can't give an estimate because i don't -- i mean that pump station, i can say is pumping 75 million gallons a day, as we speak. but again, it's the whole hudson river that came in and consumed half of hoboken. waters appear to be receding but not as quickly as we'd like. there's no entrance to south hoboken. it's completely flooded. and north hoboken, also flooded. you can get in through the via duct but we're asking for only hoboken residents to get in, asking people don't drive in hoboken because we have no traffic signals now. there's people out walking around, major concern that is we've got live wires in several locations and they're in the floodwaters and we just don't know literally people could get seriously injured or possibly

electrocuted by being in some of the water. . it's a major concern. it's difficult to reach people in homes. cell phones have died. they have no access. they can't get out. i'm concerned they're walking out into the waters and we want to keep them face. that's our focus. we have asked the national guard to come in and hoping they'll be here soon. >> we're keeping track with you and how you are all doing there. it's an extraordinary story, the fact no major injuries or fatalities but a dire situation in hoboken, new jersey. super storm sandy, full impact, we really don't know. but we want to help. if you want to help as well, visit cnn.com/impact. one is for a clean, wedomestic energy future that puts us in control. our abundant natural gas is already saving us money, producing cleaner electricity, putting us to work here in america

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getting new pictures now.

this is breezy point. queens community in new york. and this is where at least 80 homes have been -- burned to the ground. it is just unbelievable when you take a look at that field, nothing but charred structures that remain there in this community. this is a place where more than 200 firefighters tried to put out these homes that were set on fire. a fire that jumped from home to home and spread with the strong winds that this community had experienced. there were three people who were injured from this. and the mayor, michael bloomberg, said the wints were so devastating that literally they were flames jumping from building to building. some of the structures are still standing. for the most part, within a very compact area, 80 homes had burned to the ground. this is something that was just devastating to so many people, the high winds making it more perilous as you head down the

electrical wires that were causing -- sparking a lot of fires. you can see there, looks like one of the residents who is looking at the remains of what is left in the morning light, it surprised and shocked a lot of people who couldn't imagine this would be the outcome of this storm, of wind and rain that you would have a massive fire event in this one community here. and by day break, emergency personnel and local volunteers, you can see, like this man here, just going through these streets and looking at the patches of flames and remains in this neighborhood. tremendous loss for that community. you have been looking at the catastrophic flooding as well that the heavy rains have caused. the super storm also dumping heavy wet snow in some places. we'll take a look at that next. wait for it... wait for it... [ dog ] you know, i just don't think i should have to wait for it!

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we're looking at new pictures. this is from breezy point, the queens community in new york. this is just unbelievable when you look at this. 80 homes, at least 80 homes burned to the ground. this was the outcome of fires that were set as the wind -- as the electricity was lost and wind jumped those flames from one home to another home in this tight, tightly packed community here. three people were injured and the mayor of new york, michael bloomberg, said it was so devastating because of those winds that were literally jumping from one building to the other and in the morning light, this was the six alarm fire. in the morning light, people returned. there were those looking at their homes, rescue personnel who were just looking at the charred remains of this community and really a shock to so many people who did not think that this could come from winds, from rain, from this super

storm, a massive fire. super storm sandy spawned a blizzard as well that could blanket parts of west virginia with as much as three feet of snow. pretty, but also dangerous. martin savage is in kingswood, west virginia, where you have the blizzard, high wind warnings, all at the same time. >> reporter: this is a real indication of just how powerful this storm system is. the hurricane that was sandy intrastruck the ea that struck the east coast of the united states is a blizzard here in the mountains of west virginia. the trees are bending in the wind. we have a high wind warning, we're under a blizzard warning and on top of that, i think we're also under the threat of a potential flood warning. all of that coming together in a trifecta. but the blizzard conditions are the ones they're worried about here and likely to last not only through today, but also possibly

through much of tomorrow. a dozen counties in the state are under the blizzard warning. this is that thick, thick heavy snow. it is hard to move, hard to walk, hard to plow, and just coming down by the bucket loads here. then on top of that, i can show you underneath here, see it is slush, that's making it extremely slick. so even when the plows can scrape off the snow, you're coming down to that, and it just is a real mess out here. on top of that, the power problems, and there are many of them, over 200,000 people without electricity in the state, a lot of that is due to not only the high winds, but of course now with the snow, hitting the trees, trees, in many cases have leaves on them being dragged down by the weight of the snow and pulling down the pyre lines on top of it. this is that nasty combination. very heavy wet snow, we had a foot, could be two feet or more in other