tonight on "nightline," uppercut. hurricane earl makes a beeline north for the vacation hot spots on the massachusetts coast, as one swimmer dies and one goetz missing in rough waters off new jersey. we're live with the latest on the storm that's not done yet. plus, can your labor day do this? we go inside one of the greatest barbecue shacks in the nation. a south carolina den of delicious, where people of every generation race and creed come together to chow down. and, plastic fantastic. they're the little bricks with the big pull on our imagination. the colorful lego block.

we go to denmark for the story of how lego built an empire brick by brick. >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," september 3rd, 2010. >> good evening. we begin tonight with earl, the strongest storm to threaten new england since hurricane bob killed 18 in 1991. so far the damage has not been as bad as feared though the storm claimed at least one life off the coast of new jersey. now, earl is headed for massachusetts, where the governor warns that the threat to the bub lick, including beach goers in popular holiday spots on cape cod remains serious. linsey davis is live for us tonight on the cape. a very wet linsey davis. linsey? >> reporter: good evening, cynthia. it's times like these where reporters like me are meant to

be pitied. standing out, taking a beating in all of this weather. but let's start with the good news, and this area that's been under a hurricane warning, it's now been downgraded to a tropical storm warning. now, for the most part today, it was overcast, it was misty, but relatively calm. but in the last hour, things have really changed drastically. the wind, the rain, the surf, all really picking up. and that's with earl still about 90 miles southeast of here. it's expected to hit this area in about two hours, and bringing with it 70-mile-per-hour winds. so, new england, not quite out of the woods just yet. wind, rain and power outages. earl's been having his way with the east coast for days now. even before the storm made its way to cape cod, sheila's nerves were already rattled. in her arms, she clings to hope that she's found a solution made out of plastic to keep earl from ravages her house.

why are you tar ching inside the house? >> it doesn't make sense, but for me, it's peace of mind that if the tree comes down i feel like i've done something. >> reporter: sheila is doing more than most in cape cod. sure, party supplies don't usually consist of duct tape, flashlights and lanterns, but doing this in honor of earl, the only guest who wasn't invited, but bound to show up anyway. >> the group that is here this weekend is planning to camp out in the downstairs bedrooms and the living room. >> reporter: so you guys are having a hurricane party? >> we certainly are. >> reporter: while earl's lost some of its thunder, it hasn't lost all of its punch. tropical storm warnings remain in effect along the massachusetts coast. so, what are you concerned about with your house? >> we haven't had a hurricane here in, a significant one since '91. i don't know what to expect. i'm concerned about the trees, i'm concerned about the storm

surge. i'm just -- i'm nervous in general. >> reporter: it had been a much stronger category 4 storm earlier in the week, with sustained winds topping 135 miles per hour. everyone who planned on enjoying labor day weekend in the cape won't be. hotels here have 50% occupancy. during a weekend where the population normally swells by 50,000. jordan was part of the 10% of people who left. >> i thought maybe with it, we got too many calls from relatives telling us to evacuate. >> reporter: while people here were evacuating, my colleague john berman spent time on long island, where people were racing toward the storm. >> so, you're in favor of the hurricane? >> i am, it stays just far enough away to be fun, but not be a big problem for us. >> reporter: hours ago, earl turned deadly. in new jersey, one swimmer was killed and another remains missing after being pulled in by strong rip tides.

>> for most normal human becomes, a hurricane coming is a time to go inside, get out of the way. for you, it's a time to? >> well, surf. yeah. i mean, for all of us. i think there's a lot of normal human becomes out here playing in the water. but yeah, it's dangerous. the rip tide is insane. >> is this really safe? >> if you know what you're doing, it's safe. but not completely. even here, the current is so hard that if you get a little too far out you can get shot out all the way out to sea in 30 seconds. >> reporter: north carolina was the first to realize the extend of earl's power. "nightline" followed mark and jess, hurricane chasers for hurricanetrack.com, as they captured images of earl from their state of the art storm chasing truck. they've been hurricane hunting for the last ten years, traveling right into the eye of the storm. >> we are getting pounded. storm surge is coming in right now. we are getting blasted right now.

>> reporter: for them, it's about getting the best pictures of the worst storms. >> this camera is streaming live, back live video and streaming that shot right there, and what it is showing is an angry ocean. we'll see what it catches. >> reporter: despite the flooded streets, damaged buildings and downed power lines, earl was far from the worst, which might have been a bit of a disappointment for them. but for the people on the cape, it would be a blessing. there's still a long night ahead. for "nightline," i'm linsey davis in chatham, massachusetts. >> stay safe, linsey. we'll track the storm throughout the night on abcnews.com and much more in the morning on "good morning america." when we come back, southern grub. we dig into one of the richest food traditions on earth. and that means more than just mind-bloefing barbecue. welcome to the world of lovaza, where nature meets science.

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the american south is a place where the grand your and weight of history is visible everywhere, from spanish moss to the plantation house. but nothing quite captured the regi region's complicated past like the local food. we want to introduce you now to a man who has made it his life's calling to seek understanding, meal by meal, bite by bite. sharyn alfonsi reports. ♪

>> this is red rice, what is that? >> reporter: this is john t. edge. >> some beans. >> lima beans? >> yes, ma'am. >> reporter: and behind all that charm and draw is a clear mission. >> our food matters. our food comes with a really distinctive, sometimes troubling but ultimately triumphant back story. that's what makes it matter to me. >> ribs, greens. >> reporter: john t. runs something like the southern food ways alliance. he travels around the south to places like bertha's in north charleston, south carolina, collecting recipes and stories, because he thinks that the food, and the eating, can some how heal the deep racial scars still in the landscape here. >> food allows us to get at the big stuff in the south. look at this, learn this back story and learning that back story, i think we can bridge

race and class gaps. that's what i'm in it for. >> reporter: it's from african slaves, he says, that southerners learned the thing that makes southern cooking great. recipes that got passed down through generations of grinding poverty, through the civil war, the dust bowl and the depression. the then miraculously left us with this. why does it matter that places like this exist? >> if you want to understand this place, you want to understand kind of what great things have come out of the south, you hold up certain in evidence. and i would argue that if you want to see a great product of the bi-racial south, you hold up this food and you say, we made this together, black and white. allows you to tell stories about this region and talk about race and class and all that stuff, but in a way that's not threatening. we're just talking about food. >> reporter: this is the side of the highway business right here. scott's barbecue. hemingway, south carolina. >> i think for southerners, food is our common bond.

and, you know, the bi-racial community that calls bertha's home, that calls scott's home, that's the community i claim, you know? that multiracial south. and i think that, you know, food is great, but food is also an excu excuse. >> this is what we're aiming for right here. get this done all over the pig. >> reporter: rodney scott, king of the wood-cook eed whole hog. he and his family have been in the pits for generations and have kept the cookery historically honest. why do you choose this place as one of your kind of favorite places? >> the family. you know, rodney scott, his momma, his daddy, they're permanents in this place. and the story of rodney, like, you know, everybody talks about sourcing their food locally. rodney sources his wood locally. he chops down a tree. that tree fuels the pit on which

he cooks the pigs. so the pigs come from the three counties surrounding here. and the barbecue is crazy good. i travel around a lot to eat and i travel around a lot to learn and i love being in one place eating one food and learning the back story on one people. you can almost read this plate and know where you are without even stepping back to look at the place surrounding you. >> it's like a meeting place for everybody to come, you know? they come in to get the barbecue and barbecue is kind of like a word for togetherness. no matter where you see a barbecue or grill smoking, you seal people gathering, even if they don't know who it is. hey is that free, can we buy it? barbecue kind of pulls everybody together, all cultures, all ages, all races, everybody coming together when you say barbecue. >> reporter: the smoke billowing out of scott's, a beacon, a sign. >> everything here is well worn. everything here is well used. everything here is settled.

watermelons on the porch because somebody's been growing watermelons and wants to sell them. this is seating, you know? salvaged from a church. it's honest. >> reporter: you use that word a lot, honest. >> yeah. >> reporter: what do mean by that? >> i think honest means, these people set out to cook food, best way they know. using their talents and relying upon the traditions of their fore bearers, and i think that's an honest way to cook. and that's what i respect. >> reporter: people if they are coming here, they're not just driving by, they're coming -- >> they come here because they're here to lay hands on the past. to kind of commune with barbecue culture past. and this is the place to do it. >> reporter: the place where everyone has a seat at the table. >> hey. let me have the barbecue sandwich. >> reporter: and why is that important to the south kind of moving forward? >> we have this burden of the past upon us. we'll deal with that history. we're looking for opportunities,

places to deal with that history. and i think one great place to deal with that, to sit across from our fellow man is a barbecue restaurant. >> reporter: more than church, more than -- >> church is so segregated. you know, barbecue restaurants aren't. great food brings us together. i think there's hope in barbecue. i think there's hope in low country soul food places. >> reporter: that sounds a little bah unanimous has to me. >> sure, but you sit down and, you know, who has come through this restaurant in the short time we've been here? >> reporter: everyone. >> fancy pants cars and busted up low riders. everyone comes for the food and then experiences the fellowship and hopefully sees this south that i envision and hopefully sees a better south in that place. i think it's possible. >> reporter: i'm sharyn alfonsi for "nightline" in south carolina. >> the beauty of barbecue, where food and history merge. when we come back, we

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with cynthia mcfadden. >> for many kids, you may have one of them, play time now means turning on a computer or television and trying to get to the next level of a favorite video game. so, what's really the hottest times out there? well, the answer might surprise you. it's that little interlocking plastic bricks that have delight sod many kids for generations. remember legos? a danish word meaning "play well."

nick watt tells us why lego is stacking up again. >> reporter: every day, millimeters of dismembers torsos, heads and legs roll off the production lines in a little danish town called billund. legoland castle dominating the skyland. one in four people here work for lego. there's an international airport, one of only two in the whole country, bait because of lego. and there's a lego museum that every knew employee must visit. >> what we see here is our history. >> reporter: and there's something called an ideas house, where in 1955, they invented the brick we know today. in '62, by the way, they invented the wheel. >> it's a part of life. it's a part of daily life for children. they grow up with the lego bricks. >> reporter: there is lego, lego everywhere.

it's quasi-religious. there are 62 bricks for every human being on this planet. there are more lego men on earth than americans. 2 million lego pieces are born every hour. yep, this is my head made out of lego, complete are receding hairline and massive children. now, this proves one thing. that you can make pretty much anything out of lego. but just five years ago, this iconic brand looked finished. founded during the great depression of the 1930s by a struggling carpenter, who made toys to survive, lego seemed to have fallen out of fashion. christensen's deessential dents had lost their way.

lego had dealts of nearly $1 billion, sales slumped 40% in just two years. then, a gthis guy was handed th reigns. when you took over, lego was almost dead. >> right. >> reporter: former management consultant fired 1,000 people and streamlined production. they used to make 13,000 different pieces. now they make just 6,000. >> lady over there is actually filling in the last packs of lego. >> reporter: he sold lego land to a company that actually knows how to run a theme park. popular lines, many of them aimed at girls, were discontinued. >> when we were struggling, i was thinking, i don't know where the lego brick is part of the future. >> reporter: but he figured even in an age of tv and video games, kids still want to play with their hands. lego has moved away from the purer simpler lego i remember

from my youth. these days, lego men carry guns. there's more fighting and it seems more instructions. >> you can build the high tech lego agents car. >> reporter: i felt that lego let my imagination run wild -- >> it's in your hands to help solve the great mystery. >> reporter: now kids are told how to create an indiana jones fight scene. by doing that you are imposing some limits or directions on the child's creative play. >> i don't think it limits their imagination. i think it shows them, here's another place, and what i find, when i see children playing, is certainly there's a pirate ship sailing straight into a star wars base and i say, hang on, you can't do that. and they say, why? >> you want a piece of him? get in line! >> reporter: now, there are

tie-ins with video games and spin offs from popular culture to grab kids' tension there's star wars lego. >> armed to attack. >> reporter: there's harry potter lego. >> welcome to a wondrous world. >> reporter: there's spongebob squarepants lego. >> if you're not competitive, well, children will go somewhere else. they're quite disloyal in that sense. >> reporter: sure, kids are cute, but they're fickle. >> what our research tells us that normally they will spend 15 minutes or less on any toy they get. >> reporter: period? >> period. >> reporter: hip young things like will are charged with dreechling up new products to hook the digital generation. >> i was a huge lego fan as a child. i loved lego. but i didn't think of it as a job. >> reporter: it is now. will gets paid for coming up with stuff like atlantic. an 8-year-old kid may be able to do your job better than you. >> ah, possibly, but -- i try

not to think about that. >> reporter: by the way, it's not just for kids. afols, or adult fans of lego, are big. apparently accounting for up to 10% of sales. there's even a magazine. arthur, a grownup, made the taj mahal. affol danielle built this sweet french looking house. anyway, after the rock bottom of 2004, lego gradually began to make a bit of money again. then, something extraordinary happened. in 2008, as recession deepened, as toy sales in the u.s. fell by 5%, lego sales in america climbed an astonishing 38%. the brick was back. >> one of the reasons is that parents see this as a good investment. it's not seen as sort of the so-called wasteful society of buying it away and throwing it away. >> reporter: perhaps. it is a gift that keeps on giving. can you make pretty much

anything out of lego. even a second-rate "nightline" correspondent. i'm nick watt for "nightline" in billund, denmark. >> or a first-rate one. nick watt. when we come back, the jobs report, and that's the subject of tonight's closing argument. but first, here's jimmy kimmel with what's coming up next on abc. >> jimmy: thanks, tonight, sharon osborn, music from truth and salvage savage company. [ male announcer ] nature is unique... ...authentic... ...pure... and also delicious. ♪ like nature valley. granola bars made with crunchy oats and pure honey. because natural is not only good, it also tastes good. nature valley -- 100% natural.

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how'd you do that? do what? it tastes too good to be fiber. you ma it taste like chocolate. it has 35% of your daily value of fiber. do it again. turn it into sometng tasty. this guy's doing magic. there's chocolate chips in here w. hod you do that? right! tasty fiber, that's a good one! ok, umm...read her mind. what's she thinking? that's right! i'm not thinking anything!