on this sunday night, state of emergency. relentless rain after days of flooding in colorado, crippling the search-and-rescue effort, with hubs still unaccounted for. after the deal, on the eve of the u.n. inspectors report, the response to the u.s./russian plan to remove syria's chemical weapons. plus, the president has strong new words for iran. disaster at sea. the herculean effort about to begin to lift that huge cruise ship off its side. online bowling. using all this new technology the wrong way. the latest tragic case, a 12-year-old girl who took her own life after others apparently tormented her with texts and photos. and 50 years later marking a

tragic episode in our history. a turning point in this country's civil rights movement. >> from nbc news world headquarters in new york, this is nbc "nightly news" with lester holt. >> good evening. more rain, impassible roads, and crippled communications are making it extremely difficult to know exactly how many people are in jeopardy in the flooded and cut-off communities around boulder, colorado. with at least five people now confirmed dead and thousands already rescued, the weather today grounded what may be the largest airlift evacuation this country has seen since hurricane katrina. but it hasn't stopped the urgent around-the-clock effort on the ground that will account for more than a thousand who haven't been heard from, and to get people to safer ground before it's too late. joe fryer remains on the scene. where do things stand? >> reporter: good evening. a staggering 14,000 people in

colorado are currently evacuated from their homes, and with more rain today came more evacuations. like a sucker punch to this battered state, another round of heavy raynhamers colorado. more flooding forces longmont police to knock on door, warning neighbors to once again flee the place they evacuated a few days ago. >> we're inspecting the water around. >> reporter: so far the national guard has rescue more than 2100 people. today one helicopter took off hoping to rescue more, only to return minutes later because of the weather. while they're helpless in the air, fema teams are moving on the ground, using trucks who can plow through five feet of floodwater, they venture into hard to reach canyons, imploring residents to leave. >> if is one of their last chances to get out. if they need food, water, medicine, anything, they need to leave the area. they're telling us some of the roads it may be up to a year

before they are rebuilt. >> reporter: in boulder, a young couple, were killed after a mudslide swept their car off the road wednesday. >> it was just an absolute harrowing, harrowing day of just a living nightmare. >> reporter: more than a thousand are still unaccounted for, but authorities hope most are just stranded with no power and no way to communicate. however, in larimer county, a missing 80-year-old woman is now presumed dead. >> we do anticipate that there will be official fatalities. >> reporter: the tragedy already weighs heavily on the shcheriff >> how can we ever recover from this? i know exactly inch by inch, mile by mile, community by community. >> reporter: with so many roads and bridges washed away, inspection teams worry the damage. >> the things that worry us is what we can't see, what is down lower. that's what we're trying to evaluate. >> reporter: earlier reports suggest at least 30 state highway bridges are destroyed, at least 20 seriously damaged.

but tonight rebuilding seems hard to imagine with the rain that caused this mess making an encore appearance that no one wanted. the state hopes to put an initial dollar amount on the damage in the next couple days. as for the thousands now without a home, there are 26 shelters statewide to help keep them dry. lester? >> all right, joe, thanks. as you heard, more rain has complicated the relief effort. for an update, let's go to weather channel meteorologist mike seidel, also in boulder. mike, what can folks inspect in terms of rain or no rain? >> better weather ahead. today we had spots picking up another 1 to 2 inches of rain, lester. in locations already seen as much as a foot of rain in the past week. this caused more flash flooding across the foothills and more water rescues in metro denver. but good news. all this rain comes to an end by monday morning, and that will make the rescue, recovery and cleanup effort a whole lot easier for the long stretch of dry, sunny weather starting tomorrow through the rest of the week. >> and mike, as we're watching

this play out, i know there is the tropical weather now beginning to heat up as well. >> not in the u.s., but on the mexican coast tonight we have two systems battering the gulf coast and the pacific coastline. take a look first at hurricane ingrid. it's a 75 miles an hour hurricane, a category 1. it has produced as much as 18 inches of rain so far. that's before landfall. now landfall is forecast monday morning with only minor impacts in texas. then ingrid slows down and weakens over the mountains with more blinding rain and more flash floods and mud slides which will likely raise the death toll. the death toll in both area news over a dozen. on the pacific side, a weakening tropical storm manuel made landfall this afternoon. it's already doused acapulco with 14 inches of rain, and there is waist-deep water in the streets. it too will dump heavy rain on those mountains north of acapulco, with life-threatening conditions. lester, back at home the coast is clear on the u.s. coastline. no threats in the tropics for now. >> all right. a lot to watch as we begin a new week. mike seidel, thank you. now to the crisis in syria,

as reaction to this weekend's agreement between the u.s. and russia to remove syria's chemical weapons heated up today. nbc's kristen welker is at the white house with more for us. kristen? >> reporter: lester, good evening. today lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were skeptical about whether syria waste president bashar al assad will cooperate, and president obama defended what he said is an important first step and could eventually lead to a political settlement of the bloody civil war. this morning heated debate about the diplomatic deal which calls on syria to turn over all of its chemical weapons by the middle of next year. >> i think it's a loser, because i think it gave russia a position in the middle east which they haven't had since 1970. >> i think this agreement is a very positive step. >> we have been remiss. we have announced that we're doing something, but what we have done certainly have not been at the pace that should it be. >> this progress would not have been achieved without the threat of the use of a military strike

by president obama. >> reporter: in an interview taped friday before news of the deal, president obama argued the progress is significant. >> the distance that we've traveled over these couple of weeks is remarkable. >> reporter: and while some say the agreement emboldens russia -- >> this is a russian plan for russian interests. >> reporter: president obama tried to downplay the notion that this is a win for america's historic geopolitical foe. >> this is not the cold war. this is not a contest between the united states and russia. >> reporter: and mr. obama brushed aside the mounting criticism that his syria policy has been inept. >> i'm less concerned about style points. i'm much more concerned about getting the policy right. >> reporter: meanwhile overseas, secretary kerry thought to build up support among america's allies who have expressed skepticism, meeting first with israel's prime minister. kerry reassuring syria's neighbor the u.s. is prepared to act if assad doesn't comply. >> now, this will only be as effective as its implementation

will be. and president obama has made it clear that to accomplish that, the threat of force remains. >> reporter: for his part, president obama issued a stern warning to iran. developing nuclear weapons is a far bigger issue to the united states than chemical weapons. >> my suspicion is that the iranians recognize they shouldn't draw a lesson that we haven't struck to think we won't strike iran. >> reporter: assad's first test comes in a week. that is when he is scheduled to release a full accounting of his entire chemical weapons stockpile. lesser? >> kristen, thanks. and the report by u.n. inspectors about the syrian chemical attack is expected tomorrow. nbc's chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell has more on that for us tonight. andrea, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, lester. that u.n. inspection report is expected to be devastating for assad. no pointing guns, but evidence that the chemicals were delivered by artillery shell used only by the regime, not by the rebels.

tonight secretary of state kerry is in paris, trying to build support for the deal. in meetings tomorrow with the french, the british, the turkish and saudi foreign ministers. earlier today he was in israel where he gained cautious support, as kristen reported from prime minister netanyahu. but the agreement itself ironed out in around-the-clock talks in geneva for three days requires assad to disclose his weapons by friday. if he doesn't deliver, the enforcement is left up to the u.n., but none of that is spelled out, and russia has vetoed any use of force by the u.n. kerry's hope this could still lead to the long delayed political talks about how to end the civil war. and it does get the president off the hook for now from using force since he would likely have lost that vote in congress if it had been held beautiful it does elevate vladimir putin, who is now driving the policy and controlling the timetable. there are a lot of unintended consequences that can still play out, lester. >> all right. andrea mitchell tonight in our washington newsroom, thanks. 18 months after troops left iraq, that country is being consumed by violence once again.

today was no exception. at least 58 people were reported killed in a wave of car bombings and shootings. hundreds are being killed each week as sunni insurgents regain momentum. a surge of violence has killed more than 4,000 people since april. back in this country today is the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the u.s. financial crisis with the collapse of lehman brothers. president obama will mark the event with a major speech tomorrow. and late today news that one of the top candidates to become the next chairman of the federal reserve has withdrawn his name. our chief white house correspondent chuck todd has more on this for us. chuck? >> reporter: well, good evening, lester. ben bernanke, who is currently the federal reserve chair, his term runs out at the beginning of the year. at some point in the next several weeks it is expected the president will dominate a third candidate. the leading candidate for a long time had been larry summers, a

former treasury secretary in the clinton years, but a key economic adviser of the president. but over the last few weeks there has been a concerted campaign against larry summers from the president's left, from democrats, a democratic senator in the last 4 hours came out and in his withdrawaller, lester, larry admitted it was going to be a tough confirmation process, which is why he withdrew. now the leading candidate appears to be janet yellin. she is number two at the federal reserve there. if she does get nominated, it will be the first woman to ever hold the post. but two other candidates potentially, donald cone, a former number two at the federal reserve, and former treasure secretary tim geithner, who has always been the president's first choice to be federal reserve chair, but geithner has said no to him multiple times. >> chuck todd tonight, thank you. tomorrow in italy, all that attempt one of the great feats of engineering in recent years when salvage crews try to move a disabled cruise ship more than three football fields long from

its side to an upright position. the costa concordia" has been slumped on the coast 20 months ago. michelle kosinski is there tonight. michelle? >> reporter: hi, lester. this was the biggest cruise shipwreck ever. now it's the largest salvage operation of its kind. tonight crews are tightening 36 cables that will pull from the land around the bottom of the hull to the other side of the ship. just after dawn, they suspect to start rolling this thing upright. over the past year, the concordia wreck has become the base of an engineering marvel. the steep reef under water has been leveled with cement, ten-story floats installed around the outside, cables extended down around the ship's belly to be pulled from machines on land. if that sounds like a tall order for a mega vessel that carry in order than 4,000 people, itty's

head of civil protection rolled out the probability of this actually working. said 100%. making this happen, the american salvage company titan. >> you know what? we've -- this has been the most engineered salvage ever accomplished, ever done. and, you know, i'm also very confident. but i'm not going to put a percentage on it. there is always a risk of failure, structural failure. but it's probably going to be localized kinds of failures and not global kinds of failures, failures that would be catastrophic. >> reporter: that slow nervous roll will happen at about ten feet an hour, taking possibly 12 hours. a small scale practice went well, moving the ship a few centimeters off the rocks. >> tomorrow will be the day. >> reporter: the mayor himself helped rescue people that night after the crash that claimed 32 lives, including two americans. two victims have never been found. once the ship is upright and stable, that search can continue. and next week, the trial begins of captain frances chess schett.

you have to ask what is the worst case scenario here. salvagers say because of all the shoring up they've done and built in a 100% redundancy in terms of the load the operation can handle, they don't think there is any chance the hull will break apart. to them it's maybe some cables will malfunction, causing delays. lester? >> michelle kosinski in italy tonight, thanks. when nbc "nightly news" continues on this sunday, the changing face of cyberbullying, and how it may have driven a young girl to her death. and later, remembering a pivotal moment in civil rights history half a century later. clay. mom? come in here. come in where? welcome to my mom cave. wow. sit down. you need some campbell's chunky soup before today's big game, new chunky cheeseburger. mmm. i love cheeseburgers. i know you do.

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we're back with a wake-up call for parents whose kids are getting to that stage when the computer and the cell phone become a big part of their lives. experts say parents should be aware of possible online bullying, a problem highlighted once again this past week with the death of a young girl in florida. her mother says she was continuously bullied, not only at school, but through social media apps on her phone. we get the story tonight from nbc's charles hadlock. >> 12-year-old rebecca of lakeland, florida, lived in a tortured world online. no one knew until rebecca's mom saw the texts on her daughter's cell phone. >> they were saying mean things to her, telling her why don't you go kill yourself, you're ugly, you're stupid, nobody likes you. >> reporter: police believe the vicious texting conversations may have led her to change to a platform at this abandoned cement plant last week and jump to her death. >> i just can't believe she is gone. she was only 12.

>> reporter: making her one of the youngest children to apparently commit suicide after being bullied online. >> some of the juveniles have told us that rebecca was absolutely terrorized on social media by some girls. >> reporter: the abuse started more than a year ago. rebecca's mother pulled her out of school, closed her facebook page, and changed her cell phone number. >> the bullying continued by a group of female juveniles on different social media outlets such as kick, skqfm, instagram. >> there are a lot out there that ask you in a private way where you are user name to user name, and parents would have no idea that's going on. >> reporter: although most social media apps are not meant for kids under 13, experts say they've become a tool for kids to bully other kids. >> very easy for some cyberbullying to snowball, and everyone starts joining in and

group text messaging people. >> whether it's the parents of the bullier or the parents of the bullied, either way, parents need to pay attention what their kids are doing. >> reporter: an online tragedy with real world pain. charles hadlock, nbc news. and coming up next here tonight the woman who fought to protect her good name, all 35 letters of it. for his small business. can i get the smith contract, please? thank you. that's three new paper shredders. [ boris ] put 'em on my spark card. [ garth ] boris' small business earns 2% cash back on every purchase every day. great businesses deserve unlimited rewards. read back the chicken's testimony, please. "buk, buk, bukka!" [ male announcer ] get the spark business card from capital one and earn unlimited rewards. choose 2% cash back or double miles on every purchase every day. told you i'd get half. what's in your wallet?

vietnam in 1972. [ all ] fort benning, georgia in 1999.

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two times they met. both have super bowl dreams. we can tell you right now denver and peyton manning, big brother, are ahead. you want to listen closely to this next item. for the first time, some sounds from the outer limits. the sounds were fed back to earth from the voyager i spacecraft after it left our solar system about a year ago. nasa just released the recording and a top voyager scientist asked when we hear the recording, please recognize that this is an historic event. so let's play it again. you got that, right? historic, and you have to admit just a little creepy. back in our solar system, a small problem has finally been resolved for a woman with a big name. she is from hawaii, and her name is janice. the problem was only 34 of the 35 letters of her last name could fit on her drivers license, and there wasn't even room for her first name.

it became an issue when a traffic cop pulled her over. so janice complained to a local tv station, and now officials say they'll change the format of the license so janice's name, all of it, will fit. when we come back here tonight, marking a civil rights milestone 50 years later. the basics, you know. i got this. [thinking] is it that time? the son picks up the check? [thinking] i'm still working. he's retired. i hope he's saving. i hope he saved enough. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. whether you're just starting your 401(k) or you are ready for retirement, we'll help you get there. diarrhea, gas, bloating? yes! one phillips' colon health probiotic cap each day helps defend against these digestive issues... with three strains of good bacteria. [ phillips' lady ] live the regular life. phillips'.

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king jr.'s groundbreaking "i have a dream" speech, his dream of racial equality seemed dashed in one horrific act of hate. it was 50 years ago four black girls were murdered in the bombing of a birmingham, alabama church where today their lives were honored. here is nbc's sarah dalloff. >> reporter: bells ring out across a clear blue sky marking the moment a bomb ripped through the baptist church on another sunday five decades ago. inside five girls had stopped at the bathroom on their way to hear the day's sermon. carroll robinson, cynthia wesley, denise mcnair, addy mae collins was killed. her sister survived. >> i heard this loud sound, boom. and then it came in. >> reporter: the death of four girls simblized a terrible reality in birmingham.

violence against those who fought for equal rights was common. >> what murdered these four girls? the apathy and the complacency of many a negro who will sit down on their stools and do nothing and not engage in creative protest to get rid of this evil system. >> reporter: during the next two years, the nation saw the passage of key civil rights bills, and the end of segregation. a legacy of the four little girls lost. >> i've always been really touched by what happened here. once i became a parent, everything is just elevated. >> reporter: the same sunday school sermon planned for 50 years ago was given this morning. later, former secretary of state condoleezza rice, a birmingham native who was friends with denise mcnair spoke. >> it was terrifying for a child of 8, but i think really it must have been much more terrifying for the parents of birmingham to wonder if when they put their kids to sleep they were going to wake up. >> reporter: and a sculpture commemorating the four victims was unveiled. located in a park near the

church, it captures the moment right before the bombing. >> because of them, it's just opened up avenues and doors for us as a people. >> reporter: innocence and joy forever frozen in time. in birmingham, alabama sarah dahloff, nbc news. >> that's "nbc nightly news" for this sunday. nbc sunday night football is up. the 49ers against the seahawks. brian williams will be here tomorrow. i'm lester holt reporting from new york. for all of us here at nbc news, good night.

. centurylink eld in downtown seattle, where tonight the loudest stadium in the nfl promises to reach deafening levels as the seahawks renew their rivalry with the san francisco 49ers on "sunday night football." they call the crowd here the 12th man but it's the man under center on who has made the biggest difference as of late. quarterback russell wilson tying peyton manning rookie record with 26 touchdown passes and taking the seahawks to a playoff rin win and turning seattle for