wow, those are some pretty incredible shots there from the chopper in new york city. that does it for a very snowy "cycle." snowed under in new england, under under underwhelmed in new york. it is tuesday, january 27th, and this is "now." >> the dangerous winter storm. >> parts of the northeast will still getting pummelled. >> this is a lot of drifting snow. >> all power has been lost on the island of nantucket. you can see the ocean has just moved right in. >> this whole yard was under water for about an hour and a half. >> there's a lot of people who are still going to suffer through the shoveling in the

single digit windchills. >> power is down. trees down. >> this is what happens when you combine 18 inches of snow and wind gusts of over 60 miles per hour. >> the blizzard of 2015 is no joke today. dropping 30 inches of snow and counting in hard hit areas west of boston. this snowplow stuck in a ditch is a stark reminder of how dangerous it remains out on the roads. boston is at a near standstill. snow is not expected to let up until tomorrow morning. on nantucket, high waves and winds of up to 78 miles per hour has resulted in in severe

flooding. the entire island has lost power. high tide is hitting right now. snowplow operators are struggling to keep up with the accumulation. while new york city snowfall fell short of predictions, that was not the case on long island. parts of suffolk county has two feet of snow. in bangor maine, the snow is still coming down. sounds like you guys are getting the worst of it. how is it up in massachusetts? >> reporter: it is now more than 24 hours and the snow is still coming down. just when you think it is starting to taper off, another band comes in. i will say this. it appears that people in boston are starting to get a little bit of cabin fever after being holed up in their homes the last couple of days. this is the boston common. obviously, one of the oldest public parks in america and a huge place where people cross

through on their way to work and home. a lot of people are crossing through the park now. if you look down to the right, a lot of people are hanging out around a playground down there. we have seen cross country skis snowboards snow showes, even a couple of bikes. a guy dressed up as a penguin and a banana that came by. what they're not doing is driving because the state of massachusetts is still under a driving ban for what they're calling nonessential personnel. the governor said actually over the last couple of days they have actually given out to several tickets to people who had no legitimate reason to be out on the roads during this driving ban, so that continues at this hour as most of the only vehicles on the road at this point are snowplows and they're just trying to catch up with this heavy snowfall. over 28 inches in boston.

over 30 west of here. >> joining me now is tom johnson. we know that maine was one of the last states to declare a state of emergency. tell us about how the storm is progressing up where you are. >> reporter: about two hours ago, we checked in at about 16 inches of snow. we have seen some heavier bands. look at the frozen tundra that is portland maine, right now. we're talking about 19 to 20 inches. some folks are actually out on the roadways. we can see one car here at the corner skidding along, trying to move. we told folks to stay home. mainers are a tough breed. they'll get out in this stuff.

there are some sightseers of course. standing at 20 we have a good chance to be in the top five at 22.8. here are the plows. they're going to be busy all night. >> tom johnson, thank you for the update. joining us from plainview, long island, new york is adam reese. how is it going for residents out there on the island? >> alex conditions here have improved significantly. no more wind. no more snow. the sun came out for a little bit sometime this afternoon. the people survived the brunt of the snow pretty well. they took the governor's advice. they heeded his addvice to say home. tonight is the clean up and the

roads. the temperature is dropping significantly now. my concern is the roads, black ice, icy roads. the best advice is to stay home, stay warm and stay safe, alex. >> joining me now is luke russert. trapped at laguardia for 12 14 hours at this point. how are you faring? how is the airport at this point? >> i've been here about 12 hours, ms. alex wagner. the airport is slowly but surely getting back up to speed. about an hour ago, there was a flight that arrived, an airline from ft. lauderdale. >> was that hailed with applause when that plane landed? >> yes, yes. >> were people excited? >> yes. there's also a flight from las vegas that seems to be on time. while most of them are cancelled

for today and late into the night and perhaps early into the morning, there are a few that are starting to move forward as normal. a few things we should mention. the reason why we have so many cancellations is the protective measures put in place by the airline companies really starting late last night, but also the road ban that the new york officials put forward. the subway ban. what was the by-product of that? all the people that run the airport, they weren't able to get into work today, so this airport really is a ghost town. they have started to trickle in a few hours ago, and they're getting up to snuff, but nowhere near the full amount of personnel needed to run a major united states airport. that's why we think flights will not be up to normal until tomorrow, mid afternoon at best. if you can't catch a flight and you are sick of it, we understand that amtrak has brought back some limited

service. that seems to be back in action for the most part. should be back up to normal tomorrow. that's something to look at. i have talked to a few passengers, alex. thankfully, only about 70 had to spend the night here. in the past we have seen horrific sort of all out almost "lord of the flies" moments where people are fighting over chargers and food and water. thankfully, that did not replicate itself. there will be a few people who have to spend the night this evening. some might have to wait until thursday. if you think you have had a tough day, be glad you're not going to see laguardia airport until thursday due to the blizzard. >> "lord of the flies" and laguardia, a couple of phrases you don't want to see in the same sentence. stay strong, my friend. joining us now is dominica

davis. >> this was monday's forecast. we were expecting the storm to sort of be closer about 50 miles west. that would push the moisture in further west, so what happened was 50 or 70 miles that jogged to the east. new england didn't change much for them. but for new york city and coastal new jersey we didn't see any of those blizzard warnings and we didn't get those blockbuster snow totals. we still did get snow and deteriorating conditions but it just wasn't what we had in new england. the brunt of new england, from rhode island all the way up to boston and maine, that's where this storm system was the worst with the track that we're looking at. now it is still going on this storm. here's a look at the very

impressive snow totals that we have. worcester, mass 26 inches. boston 21.5 inches. they still have a few more inches to go. we haven't topped off just yet. that snow will starlet to diminish tonight. we'll see light snow showers and we could even have a few light snow showers tomorrow as well. but then you look at new york and we're down to 8 inches, so that is a significant dropoff. it was a sharp cutoff out to the west with that storm. we still have blizzard warnings in effect from providence all the way up to maine. we'll see the winds come down, but we still will have blowing and drifting snow. we just won't have those whiteout conditions, which is certainly good. we still have moderate to heavy snow coming in through providence and boston and up through maine as well. they are getting in on some

heavier snow from portland all the way to bangor. that is certainly good news for massachusetts and rhode island because they need it. they've been getting pummelled, especially along the cape dealing not only the snow but the high tide and flooding. hurricane force winds this morning for much of the morning. so that is the latest alex. >> thank you. after the break, better safe than sorry. we will look at the political risks that come with predicting mother nature. plus the patriots go on offense over deflategate. all of that is ahead on "now."

the weather forecasters do the best they can, and we respond to the best information that we have but i do not criticize weather forecasters. i learned. >> while new england has seen the worst effects of this storm, new york and new jersey were largely spared leaving their politicians responding to charges of an overreaction. >> better safe than sorry. we had a consensus from the meteorologists across the board that this thing was going to be easily two feet. this is a better safe than sorry scenario. >> my sons would be we were listening to all of you. the fact is you were working off

the same information we were working off. i was being told as late as 9:00 last night that we're looking at 28 inch accumulations in most of new jersey. >> while governor chris christie and bill de blasio were hammered for previous storm responses, weather also brings up the thorny issue of cooperation between officials. >> we did not get a lot of advance notice. in that atmosphere, everyone was trying to make quick decisions and the right decisions, but we

look at each one of these and try and learn how we can better approach them in the future. >> we did not get a lot of advance notice or as translated in the tabloids i was frozen out figuratively speaking. guys the intrigue. de blasio was in the dark about cuomo's decision to close the subway service. cuomo's office is pushing back on this. you would think the governor would talk to the mayor and give him more than -- he found out 15 minutes before cuomo's office announced it. >> there was a press release out saying we could close this thing down, so be ready for it. i kind of feel like the mayor should hear from someone on staff and not the press release. you could probably put in a

phone call staff to staff. it is a huge decision and the mayor should know about it. >> to unpack the decisions made around this storm, in sympathy with the politicians, not a place i often find myself it is almost a no-win situation. you can't over prepare. you can't under prepare. >> i bet cuomo looks at this as a win at this point. if you over prepare, people say, oh, my commute was a hassle. if you under prepare, it is catastrophic. it seems with cuomo -- you think back to the ebola scare. he wants to look like he is taking every conceivable step to protect the public to err on the side of being very aggressive. he took a lot of flak for that

sort of in the press when they polled the question of cuomo's quarantine strategy. it was very popular. >> governor christie is still as aggressive and defensive as he has been. i was listening to all of you people. we were getting the same information. >> everyone is working off the same forecast. i actually think it was a good decision on the governors' part. i would rather have 12 hours without subways rather than 12 days of no subways. it is far better to be a little more cautious going in so i think it was a good decision. >> both christie and cuomo both have scandals boiling over in their state houses. i guess when it comes down to it, when what voters vote on and what their metric is for how

good a job the governor has done, does snow trump scandal? >> you look at christie and how he built his popularity in new jersey. we all look at sandy. a year and a half before sandy, there was another hurricane. get the hell off the beach is what he shouted at the camera. this guy is a take charge guy. i think the thing with politicians is when there is natural disasters or some sort of emergency in the state, at a raw political level, they're thinking rudy giuliani after 9/11. everybody in america saw rudy giuliani in a different light because he was showcased as a leader and not a partisan

leader. >> once it becomes about optics and not about necessity, something like closing down the subway system -- this stuff costs money. a single day of shut down in new york state costs $700 million. the people who are most hit in all of this are hourly workers, people at the bottom of the income ladder. there are repercussions. people are hurt economically. >> true. there's a certain annoying alpha male crisis politics thing going on here. it is just -- back when bloomberg was mayor, i don't recall this kind of behavior. >> because he was in the bahamas bahamas. >> very just the facts, straightforward. again, it is a big impact. it hurts wage earners more. people -- people working on the

third shift. the worst scenario is losing three to four days of subway service. >> which was at the root of all this. the atlantic writes about the 1888 blizzard of new york which was a whopper of a storm. mayors might distribute patronage and cut ribbons, but few voters expected much more. he issued a public statement after four days. it was a call for private property owners to help clear snow from their gutters four days later. >> what was the media situation in 1888? what were people going to do? there was no subway to get on no cars. something like this happens. everybody is on their smartphone

or computer or tv. there needs to be a response. if you go 20 minutes and you haven't heard from a public official my god, he's fallen down on the job. the snow is coming down. there's this imperative for political leaders to be seen constantly. i don't know if they're doing much. the mechanics of state government are taking care of this whole thing. >> when mayor de blasio reads something like that he's probably jealous. four days of silence, hunkered down in his mansion. always good to see you guys. you can catch "up" weekends at 8:00 a.m. the republican-led new american congress gets serious about suing the president. finally. that's next.

much of the east coast may be home from work today, but house republicans are hard at work doing the people's business in our nation's capital, and for them the people's business means benghazi. fresh off a campaign where they vowed to focus on jobs and the economy, today the house committee held its first hearing of the year. after over $14 million spent on investigations dozens of public hearings, and a report that found no wrong doing in the administration's response to the attacks, republican congressman tray goudy wants more. >> giving congress 10,000 pages of material out of 10,000

packagepages of the universe is good. >> house speaker john boehner told his caucus he is authorizingauthorize ing litigation. a coastal flood warning remains in effect from maine to connecticut. bowe bergdahl was welcomed home as an american hero but now he can be charged with desertion. that's next on "now."

eight months after his release, army sergeant bowe bergdahl the u.s. soldier held

cab captive by the taliban for five years, will be charged with desertion. those charges against bergdahl are based on allegations that he abandoned his remote post in afghanistan in june of 2009 to avoid hazardous duty or important service, which are grounds for desertion. the charges could be referred within a week though his punishment remains unknown. a court martial could lead to imprisonment, but defense and military officials say it is more likely that bergdahl will leave the army with a less than honorable discharge. this afternoon, however, the pentagon says no decision on charges has been made. joining me now is chief pentagon correspondent. give us more info on your sourcing of this. >> according to senior defense officials with direct knowledge of the investigation, it is likely that bergdahl will be charged with some lower level of

desertion. one in which he would be accused of abandoning his post to avoid either hazardous duty or a difficult or special assignment. the one thing they're sure of is that bergdahl did walk away. >> okay. i think we lost mick. i'm going to bring in a senior writer from "politico" and a senior washington correspondent. before we discuss this let me follow back up with mick. i think we have your audio back up. >> oh, i'm sorry. >> it's okay. continue on. >> sources indicate that bergdahl would be charged with a lesser form of desertion. everybody thinks desertion, oh, my good, you're going to spend your life in prison but the one they're talking about, the one where he would be accused of

leaving his post to avoid hazardous duty could carry a five-year prison time but it is likely that he would be given credit for the five years he spent in captivity. here at the pentagon today admiral john kirby stressed that no decisions have been made that the investigation continues into bergdahl's disappearance and whether he in fact should be charged, but according to the officials that we're talking to charges are likely sometime soon. again, john kirby emphasized this investigation is totally in the hands of general milly down there at ft. bragg and he has yet to make the final decision. >> thanks for the update. >> you bet. >> i want to bring back glen

thrush and e.j. dion. in terms of what this means for this administration at this particular moment when such attention is being paid to hostages and what we do and don't do to negotiate their release, how do you place this in perspective for the white house? >> back in june there were a lot of people who weren't out to make partisan points on this who said, look we have traded for our people before because there's a core principle we don't leave our people behind. if i can use the word -- we have traded for our guys in exchange for releasing people we saw or who actually were bad guys and we're not the only country that's done that. to be honest i hope we don't let politics get in the way of getting our people back. but the notion there might be a

problem here with sergeant bergdahl, questions raised about his service, those were there back then. i spoke with a retired general who i thought got it exactly right. there's a responsibility to those who serve their country and to their comrades but we get our people back and we shouldn't politicize this thing. i think an issue like this in this time always gets politicized. it is not a particularly good one to do that to. >> susan rice's response after bergdahl was freed, let's listen to what she said on abc last june. >> he served the united states with honor and distinction and we'll have the opportunity eventually to learn what has transpired in the past years, but what is most important now is his health and well-being, that he have the opportunity to recover in peace and security

and be reunited with his family. >> there was the rose garden event with bergdahl and his parents. now there are reports that he may be charged with desertion. there are a lot of questions here about what the house understood bowe bergdahl's career. >> when you take to all three sunday shows to some extent you are embracing and politicizing the decision. the white house put this on such a high priority in the summertime. the president's numbers weren't very good. i think they made a strategic decision that this was something they wanted to highlight. it would be much less of an

embarrassment if they hadn't gone on the sunday shows and brought his parents into the rose garden. >> the sunday shows, the rose garden ceremony with the president, is not maybe necessarily what you want to be doing. i think this has had a ripple effect. allen gross, the negotiation for his release got much more complicated because of the fire the white house was catching over bergdahl and the swirl of what he did or didn't do while he was in the military. then there's the ongoing question of kenji goto. this is an ongoing issue for not just our country, but around the world. >> right. i think at the time, by the way when i talked to general mcchrystal he wasn't wild about

the way the white house handled it. i think the administration almost certainly regrets some of the optics to put it gently around this. i think some of it also is do you do it under compulsion? because prisoner exchanges are one thing, but to respond you do this or else i don't think countries want to respond to that sort of extortion or literally hostage taking. my hunch is we don't respond directly like that. if we were simply negotiating something that was more like an exchange of prisoners, that would be quite different. >> the president has made clear a priority is closing gitmo. there have been men who are effectively innocent. getting them out of there gets more complicated because of situations like this.

>> yeah. that's exactly the point i was going to make. you have created a political dynamic where you have opened things up to people on the hill in both parties who might question some of these releases at gitmo. again, it also points out this de -- the white house in this case the national security adviser, wasn't getting the necessary information from the pentagon so she wouldn't embarrass herself on national tv. >> one would assume congressional republicans are not going to let this go quiet into the night. >> you wish they would. i wonder if bergdahl happened

under a republican president would we be seeing this exact response? i don't think so. >> worth pondering, nonetheless. thanks for your time. coming up the great willie goois joins me to discuss tom brady's comments about deflategate. that is just ahead.

if there wasn't enough potty humor already surrounding the deflategate football controversy, the nfl is looking into the bathroom habits of a patriots ball boy. yes, really. willie geist joins me to break it all down coming up next. yeah let's take a look at

stocks going into tomorrow. the dow falling 291 points. the s&p sliding by 27. the nasdaq tumbling by 90 points. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide.

it's the day we have all been waiting for. not super bowl sunday but media day tuesday. the exchange is usually a standard exercise in q and a, but this year much of the attention was on the last game. >> our team is focused on what is most important, which is this game. everything that we're dealing -- we dealt with a lot of ups and downs over the course of the season. in regards to what people have

said or thought about us as a team, us as individuals, we have focused on believing in one another and we can overcome with whatever has happened. >> robert kraft demanded an apology, an apology, to both tom brady and patriots bill belichick for their treatment during ballgazi. >> if they're able to determine that our organization tampered with the air pressure in the footballs, i would hope that the league would apologize to our entire team and in particular coach belichick and tom brady. >> the nfl has reportedly zeroed in on a patriots locker room

attendant who took all 24 footballs from the patriots locker room into a bathroom for 90 seconds before the start of the game. the plot thickens or in this case inflates. joining me now is cohost of "the today show" and "morning joe," willie geist. we have to get you on here some. >> it's good to see you. to quote my good friend marshawn lynch today, i'm just here so i won't get fined. five minutes of only that answer from marshawn. >> the seahawks have their strategy. the supposed video that the nfl has seized 90 seconds inside a bathroom with 24 footballs, what can you do? we wanted to find out. we have a football here. it is not a regulation football, but it should do a trick. we also have an air pump. we'll remove the needle and see

how much air, you willie geist, can get out of a football. not regulation. >> believe it or not. do we have a clock? >> do we have the clock? we do have the clock. >> i have just taken a duffle bag into a men's room. >> on your mark get set, go. you jam it in there. wow, this ball is deflating. wow! oh, my god. look. it is like literally total empty. in other words -- >> highly possible. >> highly possible. >> isn't it amazing that report

that has all these incredible details that we have a, quote, person of interest? in the real world, this is crazy. >> except in boston it is a huge story. >> it is a huge story. >> like you were pointing out. >> i just find "the globe" from yesterday morning in the green room. where should i hold this up? >> maybe there. camera two. i don't know i don't even know. >> it says scientists see belichick belichick's point that says professor belichick got it exactly right. remarkable. >> let's talk about bill belichick and tom brady and bob craft saying they may be owed an

apology. does this endear america to the patriots? >> if they are wrong about this, they are pretty bold. they came out and said absolutely not. not only have we not done anything wrong, you will apologize to us. you have tarnished our brand and this is on you. if they did do something knowingly, they have big wayhuevos. i don't want to speculate because i have no details about it. this happens with all players. quarterbacks like their balls a certain way. aaron rodgers likes his inflated. maybe 15 years ago he told a

manager take a little air out, it is easier for me to grip and throw. maybe he didn't on this day before this game say take the air out, but it is highly possible that the manager knows that this is the way tom brady likes to throw the football. it is hard to imagine a scenario where a manager is just going to deflate the ball. >> just go into the bathroom with 24 footballs because why not? in terms of roger goodell, who has not had a great year in terms of scandal at the nfl, it feels like their needs to be something that happens punitively from the nfl. there's finances, right? tom brady is worth a lot of money. the new england patriots are worth a lot of money for the franchise of football at large. >> another thing to think about is roger goodell and bob craft

are very good friends. a lot of people call bob craft the vice commissioner of the nfl. he's been through a lot this year. he probably learned from his mistake with ray rice. the punishment being too small is always a good way to lose. you're not going to lose by going big. they have to do something significant in this case. i don't know what that means because a fine $100,000 bob craft has that in his couch cushion. you take away a draft pick they have done that before. they know how to build a team. maybe suspend bill belichick for a couple of games or tom brady. we call it cheating. >> maybe tom brady will have to play one hand tied behind his back. >> and still be great.

>> don't throw that at me. i'm not going to be able to catch it. >> you're not the gronk to my brady. >> not this hour. nbc's willie geist. coming up, shelter from the storm. we're look at the effort to reach thousands of homeless men, women, and children during the blizzard. that's next.

some 29 million americans were in the path of the snowstorm that swept across the northeast last night. those most effected by the storm the regions tens of thousands of homeless and the people working to get them into shelters. advocates worked tirelessly on the city streets to convince homeless to take rides to shelters. there are no estimated yet, but last week more than 58,000 people, 25,000 children were

sleeping in city shelters. one quarter of the apartments are not used as primary residents. that's all for now. "the ed show" is coming up next. good evening americans, and welcome to "the ed show" live from detroit lakes, minnesota. we start tonight with important updates on the blizzard in the northeastern portion of the united states. blizzard warnings are still in effect from rhode island to the north coast of maine. state of emergencies are still in effect for massachusetts, new hampshire, rhode island and maine where snow is still falling. the storm is hitting new england the hardest. no doubt. in massachusetts, the blizzard lived up to its historic