common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. ♪ my benjamin, he helped me with the countdown. "5 days, mom. 10 days, mom." i think after 30 days he got tired of counting! [ male announcer ] ask your doctor about chantix. over 7 million people have gotten a prescription. learn how you can save money and get terms and conditions at chantix.com. we are covering the big news from coast to coast. the top story today irene. now barely a tropical depression, but she left behind the havoc of a hurricane. here's some stats for you. 27 people have been killed. five to seven million don't have power. an estimated $7 billion in damage, but it is not over yet. the big near now, flooding. >> there it goes. there it goes.

>> that's a babbling brook normally behind me there, the water is just rageling. state officials have said the flooding is absolutely epic. >> this is pretty bad. i've never seen the harbor like this. >> the hurricane we expected to have. the tornado is really a shock to me. it happened out of nowhere. no warnings or anything. >> we are in the situation where we are having gusts of over 50 miles. that is project isle speed. >> this is transitioning into a flooding event. >> we knew about it 11:30 we made a mistake by staying. we couldn't go anywhere. we were stuck. >> on the outer banks these pictures of north carolina highway 29, the storm surge washed the road away in five places and left boats scattered on dry land. >> a lot of fallen trees. a lot of people without electricity. >> new york city firefighters had to rescue more than 60 people including three babies. >> when i looked out my heart

sank because all of a sudden the water was up to the level of the cars. >> the good news is the worst is over. we will soon move to restore and return mode. >> our thoughts and prayers are with those who lost loved ones and those whose lives have been affected by the storm. you need to know america will be with you in your hour of need. >> we have live team coverage today from the major flooding we are seeing right now up north motto the damage and clean up in north carolina. let's start with ron bloom in vermont. ron? >> reporter: well, this scene i am standing over the connecticut river which is on the rise up eight feet already and may come up several more feet. the flash flooding has cleared the towns, is crisis is not over. you can see all of the debris out here in the water. we've seen refrigerators, we've seen tires, propane tanks. somebody said they saw some dead livestock floating down earlier. rain saturday, light on sunday

morning. people said about noon yesterday it began a downpour, eight, nine inches then suddenly the wet stone river which cuts through town, it does flood some, but never like this, it surged on flat street, tore through businesses and came ripping down here. it was a scene that left many, many business owners out with pumps and shufls trying to clear the mud. there was one fatality ark boyfriend went out with her 20-year-old boyfriend to watch the creek rising it rose so fast it swept her away. right now officials are carefully watching some dams up river on the connecticut and worried that these waters could come up water. that is the prime concern now. all of this amazing to the residents of vermont. they are not a coastal state and yet they're feeling the very hardest brunt of this hurricane especially the day after irene. back to you. >> ron bloom there in vermont for us. ron, what are they saying about the power outages there?

>> we'll come back to ron in a moment. >> reporter: coming into this community i didn't see a lot -- there were a few generators. i didn't see a lot of power outages. driving up from rhode island there's 1/3 of a million people out. in massachusetts we saw businesses with closed signs. generators outside of homes and gas station and things like that. the power restoration could take up to a week for many eastern seaboard communities. >> 50,000 without power there. appreciate that. i'm going to talk with the lieutenant government of vermont about how his state's dealing with the flooding in a few moments here. let's take a live look. the right side of your screen is lumberton, new jersey. the right side fire island, new york. the left side is lumberton, new jersey, you can see the flooding that we've been talking about here. that particular area almost completely covered. right side there fire island. both live pictures, the damage on the right you can't really see from this particular vantage

point. we have a live report from fire island as well. floodwaters also rising in new jersey leading to some unexpected situations in pompton lakes. a house exploded. the town surrounded by three rivers saw some serious floodings. firefighters had to try to contain the flames from a boat. michelle franzen en route to manville, new jersey, she joins us now by phone. >> reporter: that's exactly what they're up against. we're also driving around in different neighborhoods. someone said pick your spot. there's flooding widespread in communities all throughout new jersey. some of it from just rivers overflowing their banks due to the rain fall, but it's also due to the run off at this point. many of the rivers including the one here in manville are not expected to crest for another 24 hours.

and the town here much of it has been evacuated it's inaccessible. you've got emergency crews that are doing their best either by boat to reach anyone else that may need help if they haven't evacuated already. or you've got people using helicopters over head to assess the situation from there. as you mentioned in pompton lakes that area there certainly many towns are submerged under water. you mentioned a fire early this morning. they are not through out of this yet. the next 24 to 48 hours will be critical for some neighborhoods in this northern part of new jersey as these rivers continue to crest. at some -- at one point, craig, the magnitude of this storm and the impact i should say on communities here in new jersey more than 800,000 people at the height of the storm were without power. crews are working very hard to

restore power. but they are still fating those challenges. many power lines may be downed by trees. there's still all of that water that's flooding the streets in the nearby town. >> michelle, governor christie asking people to stay at home. to stay inside. have you seen people heeding the governor's request? are you seeing a lot of folks out there sightseeing, if you will? >> reporter: there's a lot of people sightseeing. most of the areas that we've been through today including saturday brook and here in manville you've got locals who have not been evacuated from their homecoming down here, taking pictures what they can. there's a lot of people that are out in their cars driving, maybe running erands. some of them weren't able to travel into work today because of the transit systems are not up and fully running. or if they are, they're running a little bit slower than usual on this monday, the first day that the systems are back up, they're trying to get them ramped up again. a lot of people are out. it's a beautiful day.

so a lot of people, you know, that were tucked away over this past weekend and hunkering down with irene certainly want to get out. governor christie is asking people again to sort of limit yourself and take it easy because there's still a threat of trees and the ground is saturated. there's a lot of power lines that are still down in the area. they're telling people to be careful. >> michelle franzen on her way to manville, new jersey, for us. michelle, thank you. the big airports in northeast are now reopened to arriving and departing flights. the airlines are still cancelling flights and they warn that it may be days before things get back to normal. brian shackman is live at newark liberty international airport. coming from a guy who had a flight cancelled yesterday, i was on the first flight from roanoke, virginia, to lagarda this morning. it's been a long time since i've seen so many happy travelers.

>> reporter: pretty unbelievable. i'll get to those in a second. we had confirmation we had two flights leave here. they were correct in saying flights would open at noon. evening on the eastern seaboard is open to incoming and outbond flights. we spent some time with people who had to sleep on airport cots over the weekend. the frustration that you might imagine with people stuck here, we talked to one young woman from the uk, she sums it up pretty well. >> i sat out and it was like a little bit of wind. it's annoying to me the fact that they shut down everything. you've got to take precaution, haven't you? >> reporter: of course, that's the frustration. the storm was -- you don't want to see a bust, there was loss of life. the bomb line is they uns that precautions had to be taken. >> air travelers today what can they expect? >> reporter: it's actually people think just because it's a beautiful day that everything is just fine.

we already have at least 1500 cancellations across the eastern seaboard for flights for today on top of the 12,000 over the weekend. that's 13,000 plus. that's a new record here in the united states. in terms of airlines jetblue is the toughest one. 336 flights today cancelled. their hub is jfk. we did get an update. 3:30 p.m. eastern time is when they're going to try to be up running. in newark 380 flights cancelled for today. don't just call ahead, check online, check every avenue you can to get information. just because the airports are open doesn't mean your flight is going to take off. jetblue said they shipped 50 planes out of here for safety reasons and they've got to get the planes back to put some fannies in those seats. >> thank you, sir. appreciate that. want to show folks, we continue to get dramatic images and pictures in of what this storm has done. it may be very difficult to tell

from this vantage point, but there's a tennis court underneath all of that water and mud and debris as well. again, this is a live picture here fire island. again, tennis courts there completely submerged. you can see tennis court on the left there was spared by mother nature, but the tennis courts on the right completely covered. also want to take you back to vermont. you can see the debris. you can see a basketball, all sorts of stuff that is being carried away as that we heard here a few moments ago. that river still has yet to crest. we'll keep an eye on that. lots more to get to as well. millions of americans dealing with the aftereffects of hurricane irene, the flooding, the debris, the power outages. we're going to talk about how much money this sorm is going to cost. two years ago the lockerbie bomber was released from a scottish jail early because he had only three months to live,

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a libyan man convicted of the lockerbie bombing is on his death bod slipping in and out of consciousness. he was released two years ago from jail on compassionate grounds because he supposedly had only three months to live. we're live in tripoli, libya, this afternoon. craig, three months turned into two years at least. today we spoke with -- nbc news spoke with his son. he's in a coe mae and he doesn't

have any of the medicine that he had a week ago because their house was looted. we went to that house, it's in an upscale gated community here in tripoli. we didn't see any signs of looting. we didn't see any signs of war at all in that community. the streets were clean. there was no graffiti. it cast a shadow on the account that his son gave us. the brother also came out and said that he wouldn't be allowing any visitors in the home. there's been intense criticism from paerch families from pan am 103 that he was released in a life sentence. they think he's living in the lap of luxury, taken care of by the gadhafi government and they suspected he wasn't as sick as they said he was. >> at this point, do we know what will happen to him? >> reporter: well, there are a number of u.s. lawmakers that are asking the national

transitional council to extradite him back to answer some unanswered questions about what happened with man am 103. the leaders of the ntc say they won't extradite him. an extradition would be in their opinion tantamount to a betrayal of one of their country citizens. >> stephanie, thank you. a 23-year-old ohio bride to be remains missing this afternoon. vet ran investigators say they do not recall dealing with another case as mysterious as this one. cat lin martin disappeared two weeks ago from a suburb in cincinnati. she was last seen at her house, her car, her purse her keys were found, it be only thing missing her cell phone which has not been used since she vanished. this weekend nearly 100 volunteers searched a sixth time for martin. police checked security cameras and her come computer and cell phone records, so far nothing. kathy perry was the big winner at the video music awards

last night. beyonce stole the show with the big announcement that she is in fact pregnant. the singer showed off her baby bump and during the live performance she took off that live blazer and showed off the baby. jay-z her husband in the white t-shirt in the audience already looking like a pretty proud dad. back to irene now, the staggering economic toll which is still growing as rivers continue to rise in new england. we go live now. i've heard $7 billion tossed about so far. do we have any idea at this point what the financial impact of irene might be? >> people are still tallying the damage during the cleanup. four million homes without power. ten million businesses. but according to the folks at kin ekt analytics, they are look at $7 billion total. about $3 billion in insurance losses. remember with hurricanes one of the issues becomes wind versus flooding damage. flooding is not covered by the

carriers. biggest impacts were the storm hit ground down in north carolina about $1.5 billion. and then when you add up the combined damage and economic activity disruption in new jersey and new york that's about $4 billion total overall. that doesn't rank among the top ten most expensive hurricanes. of course, katrina is going to be the standard there at over $100 billion in damages from that. >> it really has been a tough year for natural disasters so far and again it's only september here. those devastating tornados in the midwest earlier this summer. how does this disaster compare financially? >> according to noaa, this is the tenth biggest, extreme weather event that has cost more than $2 3w8 in terms of economic losses. not the dead lirest by far. you talked about the tornados, those are the deadliest by far. this one ranks about second or third. we take a look at there.

the course of the midwest storms were huge. the one that included the joplin, missouri, storm in may about $7 billion. tornados in april were about $9. that's the biggest so far this year. you cannot discount the combination of the very hot weather, the drought and the wildfires that we have seen in the southwest and the southeast. that's about $5 billion and counting because skiet the fact that we have gotten pummelled with rain here on the east coast, they really need it there. >> thank you so much. want to show folks again, we've been showing you this afternoon just some of the images, a lot of the flooding that we've been talking about here. this is vermont. again, you can see all the junk that's in the connecticut river there just a host of stuff floating by.

again, that river has not crested just yet. there was water short time ago. there may be some trouble there. possibly a breach. we're looking into that. we will of course pass that information along as soon as you get it. the story today continues to be the power outages and what you're look at right now. a lot of communities dealing with flooding. here's a picture of east haven, connecticut, of course, two people died in the state of connecticut as a result of the -- irene. there was a man that was -- a man fell off a canoe in the flooded street. a fire killed a woman in connecticut. more than 700,000 people -- 700,000 were without power in connecticut at one point. vermont dealing with historic flooding right now from the remnants of irene. i'm going to talk with that state's lieutenant governor about the massive clean up effort in vermont. former vice president dick cheney's advice to rahm eemanuel

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visit exelonpatch.com to learn more. colin powell is not happy he's getting criticized in a new memoir by dick cheney. he's insisting it's a publicity stunt. >> it's okay to say you disagree. it's not okay to take these barbs. i think dick overshot the runway with that kind of comment. >> pretty tough talk from the general. he's talking about some of the details that came out in an exclusive interview with dick cheney. jamie, good afternoon. >> good morning, craig, known to be discreet, a man of few words, the book begins with a striking account of 9/11 and is filled with rev lace, criticism and a glimpse behind the curtain of

private confers and critical moments with the president who picked him, george w. bush. dick cheneyal tells some inside stories that may surprise people including this one about some advice he gave the obama administration during the transition. during the transition to the obama white house you apparently gave some very sage advice to the incoming chief of staff rahm emanuel, you told him -- >> well, we had a meeting con vealed by josh bolton our chief of staff of all the people that had previously held that job. at the meeting they asked each person to give a crucial piece of advice to rahm what was about to take over as president obama's chief of stachl. when they got to me i said make sure you've got your vice president under control, which got a great laugh. >> how do you think he did with joe biden?

>> well, i like joe. and we've got along fine over the years. we're very different kinds of people. >> but he's known for speaking out. >> he is about everything. >> what is it with you vice presidents? >> well, some do, some don't. each vice president's unique. each set of circumstances is unique. the relationship you have with the principal and so i'm reluctant to judge my colleagues and those who held the post before. you think you've got to cut him a little bit of slack. >> we'll have much more tonight including a look at one of those undisclosed locations that cheney became known for spending so much time at after 9/11. >> thank you. be sure to catch that full interview tonight.

""dateline."" hurricane irene may be an afterthought for many americans, but many are feeling the impact. also michele bachmann says the hurricane and last week's earthquake is a sign that god is not happy. what her campaign is saying about that. [ female announcer ] so you think your kids are getting enough vegetables? maybe not. v8 v-fusion juice gives them a full serving of vegetables plus a full serving of fruit. but it just tastes like fruit. [ male announcer ] get five dollars in money-saving coupons at v8juice.com.

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the landlocked state of vermont reeling from what so many have described as epic flooding. the state's dealt with an unusually wet year so far. fallen trees, downed power lines still a concern there. the floodling so bad in some places rescue teams can't get to stranded residents. phil scott is vermont's lieutenant governor, he joins me by phone right now. what can you tell the people, when can they expect the lights to come back on?

>> we're hearing reports it could be weeks before we're back to full power. some of the areas are quite remote. and that the damage is significant here in the state from all sectors. we're just really trying to assess and still under damage control at this point. >> weeks, not days, but weeks. >> that's right. could be weeks before everyone has power restored. >> what about the rivers there, what can you tell us about when they are expected to crest? >> there are some, a river which runs through into lake champlain has not crested at this point. it's still a lot of tributaries come into that river. probably in the next six hours. >> i understand that the past two days you also have lost several helicopter bridges in the state. >> that's right. we've had three covered bridges that we've lost.

of the three bridges that are at a loss, six total that we know of right now. that is just scratches the surface in terms of assessing having bridge inspectors come in to take a look and see what other bridges are there. there's 300, 400 road closures right now. the rail is the big unknown. we're traveling right now with the secretary of transportation and meeting up with congressman peter welch right near one of the historic bridges that is now lost. >> we've been seeing the video of one of the bridges. that video amazing to see. there's the video right there from bartonsville, vermont. that bridge has been there i believe you said more than a century washed away. nine retd cross shelters are open across the state. >> that's right. we had a number of people in the center of vermont area and

barrie he was over 100 people there last night. many mobile home parks that are being abandoned at this point. a lot of fuel oil tanks have turned over. so there's some environmental concerns obviously at this point and they're trying to rectify that and pump tanks as they can. >> state offices, they were closed today. how long do you guys anticipate keeping the state offices closed in vermont? >> i'm pretty sure i'll talk with the secretary of administration and the governor later on, but i'm pretty sure that we will be coming back on tomorrow. >> one person was killed. what can you tell us about that individual. how did that happen? >> actually, i just heard we had the unfortunate news that there's been a second confirmed death, a young child in the same area. and i'm not sure the details of

that, but it's in the will mington area as well. there was one yesterday that someone was looking at the river swelling and was consumed by the river. i'm not sure about the other one at this point. i'll get details later. >> two deaths there in vermont. lieutenant governor scott, thank you so much i appreciate your time. again, these are some live pictures here. we just heard from lieutenant governor phil scott there who's telling us we knew of the one confirmed death at the start of the hour. just telling us that a second death has been confirmed there as a result. a young child. also just found out the 50,000 people who are without power in that state lieutenant governor just saying those folks could be without power some of them for several weeks, not days, weeks. especially in some of the more remote areas of vermont. we'll continue of course to follow that situation throughout the hour. i want to go life to connecticut where two people were killed by

irene. some rivers are not expected to crest until tomorrow. plenty of damage along the shoreline. anne thompson joining us from east haven. good afternoon. >> reporter: hi, craig. 700,000 people here in connecticut are still without power. and they too could be without power for many days. including some of the residents here along cozy beach road in east haven. it is just a scene of absolute destruction. if you look down the beach here, you can see houses that have been moved off their foundation. some houses have toppled one another all because of the storm surge that came roaring in as irene hit connecticut yesterday. there was a deck where i'm standing. by sunday afternoon that deck is now in the yard of the house behind this one. there were french doors that opened up, glass french doors that opened up on to the deck. they're gone and above on the

second floor it's been left with no visible means of support. we're not going to stand under there because we're all a little worried that it could come tumbling down. all in all some 40 home ace long cozy beach road have been damaged. 25 of those the mayor says are considered a complete and total loss. all day long people have been coming back here. the people who live here to look and see what is left if there is anything to sol vaj. this neighborhood is a mix of summer residents and year round residents. but the storm didn't care. it hit everyone and everything. and people here are just heart broke as you can imagine. >> three rivers there in connecticut still at flood stage. anne, thank you so much. appreciate that report. to north carolina now, where irene made its first u.s. landfall back on saturday. seems like a long time ago. it's still in clean up mode in north carolina. residents and business owners are surveying the damage. a devastated community there on

the outer banks. that is where mark potter is standing by live for us. what's the latest there? >> reporter: as you can see, they are in clean up mode here. this is a restaurant, the sunset grill and raw bar. they got hit pretty hard by the storm. they're rebuilding and cleaning up. they say they're going to be back open by wednesday. the goal of everyone in this area is to try to get as many businesses open for labor day to try to recapture some of the tourist trade that they lost here at the very end of their very important summer season. a short time ago we talked with the owner of this restaurant about how the water here from the sound came over and washed over his deck. let's listen to what he had to say. >> we had our whole dining deck destroyed with the backside of the storm. it wasn't the front side that usually wreaks the havoc. winds took the deck and piled it up against the building. >> this area here right by his

restaurant is where they're trying to fix the road. some of the water came up and undercut the road. there's a more serious problem like this on the southern side of of the outer banks cutting off most of the outer banks from the cape hatterras area. there's a cut in the road, a breach. the only way to get there now is by ferry road. even tourists are allowed back in. they were allowed today. the businesses and residents could come back yesterday. everybody is hoping they're going to be able to have some semblance of a labor day holiday coming up. we did visit homes on the other side of the sound. they got hit pretty hard on the back end of the hurricane. many of those houses are built up on stilts. when you drive down the road here it's quite the dramatic pictures of the weather that you saw on saturday most of the homes are okay. there's not much damage in terms of wind. it's just the flood damage now that they're cleaning up from. they're cleaning up pretty

quickly. these people got knocked down a little bit. they're tough and coming back up quickly. >> mark potter, duck, north carolina. thank you. up and down the eastern seaboard residents rely on social media to gather information. facebook, twitter. state senator phil it'sburg took to twitter to send photos of this damage along the outer banks. that highway partially washed away by the storm surge. senator berger joining me now by phone. what are you hearing about the highway? >> my understanding is the d.o.t. has some survey crews out there today. they're trying to secure and understand what will need to be done in order to get the highway back. they're still assessing as far as i know. >> he tweeted some pictures of a devastated poultry farm in a floolded farm there as well. those pictures retweeted by a lot of folks. looks like you figured out how

to use social media to keep your constituents abreast. what's the general assembly saying to north carolina residents? >> what we're saying we appreciate the emergency workers that we have and the preparation that has taken place. we also understand that the folks that live in the eastern part of the state this is not anything new for them. they've dealt with these things before. the general assembly stands ready to do whatever is necessary in order to get our businesses back up and particularly or farms. we've seen a lot of damage, saw that yesterday with the agriculture secretary in the eastern part of the state. particularly our back crop. >> how extensive, i know that particular part of north carolina a lot of farms soybeans, tobacco, especially. how extensive is the damage to the crops right now? >> it's hard to tell with reference to the soybeans and the cotton i think time will

tell. and it's probably a bit spotty. worse in some places than others. but the tobacco crops that i saw yesterday i don't see where there's a lot of ability to salvage a lot of that and the agriculture secretary was concerned about that. we met with a number of farmers who also expressed a real concern about that. >> state senator phil berger of north carolina. thank you so much. appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> coming up here, the republican race for president being called the battle between arthur fonz really and richie cunningham. who's who? oh yeah, we're rashing. what? does he want to chew it? chew it? i don't know, do you want to chew it? no! wait, wrong website, that's a canine condition, sorry. what, did he say? he said you're going to be fine. let's finish this round. [ male announcer ] get everything you need for back to college,

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president obama unvalid his choice to replace one of his top economic advisors. early this morning he introduced alan kruger. he is currently a professor at princeton university. . tim pawlenty may have bowed out

of the race for president because his campaign was broke. sources tell the huffington post he spent so much money in iowa he had to get out after a third place finish. and michele bachmann suggesting irene was a message to politicians. >> i don't know how much god has to do to get the attention of the politicians. we had an earthquake. we've had a hurricane. he said are you going to start listening to me here? listen to the american people because the american people are roaring right now. because they know it needs to be done. >> her campaign now says that she made that comment in jest. turning to two big names in the gop race for president. they have something of an icy history. mitt romney and rick perry are something of political rivals. politico traced the rivalry back to 2006 when the governors were butting heads over a staffer. perry endorsed rudy juligiulianr

president last time around. good afternoon folks. we know these candidates are very different. perry hot and angry, romney cool and dispassionate. do gop primary voters want to nominate arthur fonzreli or richie cunningham? >> i think that rick per vi a better natural politician. he understands the concerns of a lot of the primary voters. he proved that in his last campaign. i think romney has a better sense of the bigger economic issues as a private business owner. someone who's created jobs in the private sector and probably has a better reach in other parts of the country. perry is a much more regional candidate. i think romney has a much more national appeal to him. >> rick perry rising in the

polls at this poll. so far romney's been the front runner. how concerned should mitt romney be at this snoint. >> he should be very concerned. it will be interesting to see at the debate coming up, whether or not or how is the better way to say it rick perry will chose to engage mitt romney. there are a couple of things here. romney has been a presidential candidate before. there's a lot people already know about him. this time he's stressing his business credentials. i think for a lot of people they made up their minds what they think about him. whereas rick perry has a fresh opportunity to try to introduce himself to voters. obviously that also means your detractors have a fresh opportunity to detract. i think that's part of per vi the new kid on the block. everybody likes the shining new thing he's that got. >> rick perry has not been afraid to make any statements. take a listen to this. >> it is a ponzi scheme for these young people. it is -- the idea that they're

working and paying into social security today and they're under the current program it's going to be there for them is a lie. it is a monstrous lie on this generation. and we can't do that to them. >> john, is that what gop primary voters want to hear? >> some do. i'm not sure if senior citizens want to hear it. they expect social security and i think for a republican candidate whoever the republican candidate is going to be, they can't say that they want to get rid of social security, that's not a good message. perry's got to message that better and talk about how we keep social security around for the long-term. some primary voters do think that social security is a ponzi scheme and that we should get rid of it. i think for perry and romney social security is one of the big -- entitlements are one of the big issues of the campaign. how do we get control of spending, entitlements. we've got to figure out a way to deal with that.

>> thank you, karen thank you so much both of you for joining us. >> thank you. natural disasters have been disasters for some presidents. how president obama weathered this particular storm. this particular storm. stay with us.e i took refuge frm the pollen that made me sneeze. but with 24-hour zyrtec®, i get prescription strength relief from my worst allergy symptoms. so lily and i are back on the road again. with zyrtec® i can love the air®.

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a live picture of vermont. again, you can see the debris there in the connecticut river. we heard at the top of our hour that that's been the case all day. just limbs and trash and all sorts of things. that river has not crested yet. that scene has become all too familiar in many communities up and down the eastern seaboard. earlier this morning president obama he's on top of the response from the aftermath of hurricane irene. let's hear what he said. >> as i said yesterday we're going to make sure that folks have all the support they need as they assess and repair the damage left by the storm. that's going to continue in the days ahead. >> kristen welker live at the

white house for us. kristen, the president cut his vacation short a few hours to come back to washington. some saying there was an overresponse to the storm. what's the white house saying about that? >> reporter: white house officials believe that the reaction was appropriate. look, this white house federal officials are very aware of what happened during hurricane katrina as we all remember president bush was widely criticized for his handling of hurricane katrina. we remember him flying over some of the disaster zone in air force one. craig, fugate, by the way, the fema administrator learned a lot during hurricane katrina. that's why they wanted to dispatch crews and emergency congresswomen before this storm even hit. remember this storm did cause a lot of damage more than 20 people were killed, caused billions of dollars worth of damage and there's still millions of people without pour. the white house feels as though the response was appropriate. just today we heard president obama saying there's more work to be done. take a listen.

>> it's going to take time to recover from the storm of this magnitude. the effects are being felt across much of the country including in new england and states like vermont where there's been an enormous amount of flooding. so our response continues, but i'm going to make sure that fema and other agencies are doing everything in their power to help people on the ground. >> craig, you may have noticed it was important that the white house to show that the president was working on this during the weekend. as you mentioned he came home from his vacation a day early. we saw some images of him this weekend including when he visited fema and spoke to folks there. also, there was really a bipartisan response. we saw governors, mayors coming out, getting ahead of this storm. we heard governor chris christie of new jersey telling people to get off the beaches. >> kristen welker from the white house. kristen, thank you.

that is all for me. thanks for watching. up next, "andrea mitchell reports," savannah guthrie is filling in today. craig, thank you. coming up next on "andrea mitchell reports," from power outages to historic flooding we're going to have teams live in the hardest hit areas as the clean up from hurricane irene begins. plus we're going to talk to vermont's governor. he just finished touring the damage in his state. we'll also talk about the economic impact from irene with an estimated price tag topping $7 billion. how will governments be able to clean uh-huh especially with all the budget issues. all those issues and more. andrea mitchell starts at the top of the hour. no, it was good because you told us so. the chevy model year wrap up. get in on our greatest model year yet. just announced -- celebrate labor day with an additional $500 bonus cash. with all other offers, including the all-star edition discount, that's a total value of $6,500. ♪

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and help stop further joint damage with humira. mitchell reports," the wrath of irene. at least 28 people are dead. more than four million without power. some damage estimates top $7 billion. and in the storm's wake today massive flooding from vermont to new jersey. where rivers are raging and still