miles an hour. as he says he applied the full emergency brake just moments before the crash. the train was traveling over 100 miles an hour. that is "all in" for this evening, the rachel maddow show starts now. >> good evening, it's great to have you there, man. great reporting. >> thanks to you at home for staying with us the next hour. this orange box is called an event data recorder when there's a transportation accident, that is the thing that usually holds the answers. or at least some of them about what went wrong. we tend to call this thing a black box. as you see, it is floresuorescent orange. they want to be able to find it more easily in the case of a wreck. airplanes are typically equipped with data recorders like this but the one you see here is a locomotive data recorder. it's a similar piece of equipment, but this is the kind that's installed on trains that specific one is the locomotive data reporter that was pulled

from amtrak train 188 today. traveling from d.c. to new york at this time last night, when it suddenly derailed and crashed while rounding a curve on its way out of philadelphia. seven people confirmed dead at this point, more than 200 people injured. as to what happened and why. what we've learned substantively about the derailment has largely come from that data recorder. investigators confirming that the recorder indicates in a the train at the time of the derailment was traveling at more than 100 miles an hour through that curve. more than twice the posted speed limit for that stretch of track. ntsb officials say the train reached a peak speed of 106 miles per hour the train's engineer according to the data on this recorder tried to apply the brakes in the very last few seconds before the derailment and the crash. hitting the brakes when it was going 106, the train was only slowed down to about 102 miles

an hour before the data recorder stopped recording. apparently because the train at that point derailed and crashed. nbc news tonight has been able to confirm the identity of the train's engineer the locomotive engineer is the person driving the train, the conductor is the person who's in the passenger compartment of the train mostly and overseaing the other staff that interacts with passengers. the engineer is the person driving the train. he's been identify edied as an amtrak employee who is believed to live in new york city. he was brought to the police station last night, he declined to give a statement to philadelphia law enforcement officials before he left the station along with his lawyer federal investigators have been on scene at the site of the

derailment. they recovered a forward facing video camera that is facing the front of the train. both were sent to amtrak headquarters in nearby wilmington delaware to have their data downloaded. after going to the amtrak headquarters first, they were sent to the ntsb lab in d.c. for further analysis. investigators also removed some pieces of the track. you can see here on this flatbed, pieces of the track that appear to have been relevant to the incident last night. the segments of track were hauled away by truck today, moved to a secure location where they will be analyzed by federal investigators, the locomotive to the engine and a number of the derailed passenger cars are being removed to a secure location we are told tonight that one of the amtrak passenger cars has already been removed from the site when the

sun rose today, last night in our initial coverage we had lights from helicopters and flashlights and news cameras, but we couldn't really get a whole sense of the damage. when the sun rose today, we can see all seven car ss. the engine derailed one of the difficult questions that remains even at this hour is whether all the people on board that train have been found. the death toll from this accident as i said it stands at seven people tonight opinion at least eight more people are in critical condition. as the day has gone on a number of people killed in this accident have been identified by their families or employers. local officials have stopped short by saying the search for more victims is over.

sniffer dogs have been brought in to comb the scene. the question remains, whether this is now just a full on investigation into what went wrong in this crash, or whether this is still an active search and recovery mission, if not a search and rescue mission. joining us now is the mayor of philadelphia, michael nutter. mayor nutter it's been a long and difficult 24 hours for you, thank you very much for being with us. >> sure thank you, rachel. >> you've been very good letting people know the status of the investigation investigation. is this still a recovery operation? are you confident the cars have been searched all the victims have been found.

>> we are in a search and recovery mode. we want to make sure we have accounted for all of the people that may have been on that train, as i think you were trying to indicate in your earlier segment, a number of people bought tickets, that does not necessarily mean that all of those individuals actually were on the train, we're trying to sort through all of that data and information using the amtrak manifest of customers, and people who bought tickets, versus the folks that we served and transported last night. with incredible support by the philadelphia fire department police department, ems personnel, septa, mass transit organization. there was a massive life saving operation last night. unfortunately, we did lose seven americans and for that we are deeply sorry. >> in terms of the operations,

do you have anything you need? is there anything else you need in terms of support or logistics is there more that you need that you don't have? >> we have all the resources that we need and we did get those -- what we call light cannons. we had to make sure the scene was secure and stable. that the train had cooled down and it was safe to have personnel at that part of the site but governor wolf has been here two nights in a row. we've had numerous members of congress both from the house and senate, the true bipartisan response to all of this we have an incredible array of public servants and agencies local, state and federal working in partnership. we have all the resources we need, but we're going to continue the search and rescue.

we can be sure that we have accounted for every person we think may have been on that train. >> in terms of why this happened? do we know if the locomotive engineer who's driving the train, do we know if he has spoken with investigators, if investigators have had the access to him that they want to have to him -- do we know -- he's got a key role in explaining what happened here do we know what position he's at with regard to the investigation now? >> all i can tell you about the engineer is that he was injured, he was in the engine compartment. the video shows them separated from the rest of the train. he was injured but treated for his injuries. he then -- police did interview him. and he was released. i don't know what he said quite

honestly what he may have said is, i don't want to say anything. and at that point we have to let the person go. as the investigation moves on that situation may change but at this point in time i know that the ntsb and possibly other agencies at some point will want to talk with him, and hopefully he will cooperate. >> the ntsb process is a slow scientific and deliberate one, it's part of the reason they speak with authority when they pronounce a cause when something like this happens. is it your feeling that everybody, including yourself should wait until the ntsb has completed everything all together. do you think it would be safe to say what happened here and why, and who is at fault if someone clearly is at fault? >> the first is as you said the ntsb is the best at what they do, everyone respects their work the thoroughness of their

work, and it does take some time what we have experienced, they were on the ground about 4:00 or 5:00 a.m. this morning, 12 hours later they were putting out some very important factual information as a result of getting information from their event recorders or the black box. what was the speed of the train? what was the rating for speed at that curve. and talking about the ptc system and the like. that information came out pretty quickly, but the ntsb personnel indicated, and the board member on the ground they'll have a series of releases of information. we certainly want to have more information before any judgment. there are just some facts here. if you are going 106 miles an hour on a 50 mile an hour rated curve, you have to figure something bad is going to happen and is a contributing

factor to the devastation we saw and the loss of lives and all the injuries. we don't know exactly what else was going on i don't know what was going on with the engineer did something else happen in the engine compartment, and all of those other question ss remain to be answered. hundreds of people injured and traumatized by a horrific accident that clearly could have resulted in even greater loss of life. it's amazing that more than 200 people were able to walk away from that train accident last night. again, the graphic pictures that you have on your newscast viewers can appreciate that it was very difficult for those passengers and they were still able, most of them to walk away. >> philadelphia mayor, michael nutter, thank you for your time. take good care of yourself through this mr. mayor.

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there's specific news tonight not just on what went wrong in philadelphia, there's specific news about why this train crash wasn't prevented even though we know exactly how to prevent that kind of crash. we've also got other news coming up from outside this philadelphia story. there's a lot to come tonight. stay with us.

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i will warn you on this subject i'm having a feeling. fair warning. here it goes. in september of 2008 the city of los angeles had its worst train accident ever, it was in l.a., this was some of the nbc news national coverage at the time of that accident. watch. >> the metro link commuter train may have been carrying as many as 350 passengers and it left los angeles less than an hour earlier, when it slammed into a freight train in chatsworth. this passenger was all the way in the back of the last car. people were flying i was flying. thank god i did not have a table in front of me i flew into my friend's lap. >> those in the first car were not as fortunate. >> you can actually see the

metro link engine pushed inside of the passenger car. it must have been a very traumatic crash. >> friends and relatives rushed to local hospitals. some learning their loved ones were lost. >> one of my uncles is really injured. >> there's no word yet how or why this happened except to note the obvious. there is only one track here and horribly both trains were on it. >> both trains were on the one track. what happened in that metro link commuter train crash in l.a. in 2008, what happened there was human error. the engineer who was operating that commuter train missed a signal. the train was operating the way it should have the signaling system was operating the way it should have. there was nothing wrong with any part of the rail system there was something wrong with the engineer.

the engineer was on his cell phone, he was texting. because he was on his cell phone texting, he missed that signal that was telling him there was another train on the track ahead and he should not proceed down that track. he missed the signal and that train he was driving, smashed on the freight train and 25 people were killed 25 people killed including the metro link engineer who was on his cell phone. 25 fatalities, a huge number of fatalities, right? more than 100 people injured badly enough to be taken to the hospital it was the worst rail incident in l.a. history, we know why it happened. that was september 2008 by the following month, congress actually stepped up and did something to try to stop something like that from happening ever again. within five weeks of that crash, congress passed this act. it mandated that all rail lines

in the u.s. would have to get just slightly more modern not like, you know hydrogen powered cars and jet packs and futuristically hypermodern stuff, just some basic systematic safety upgrades that would take advantage of the fact that we are now a society that has things like computing machines and gps. this is not the most high-tech stuff. what they mandated for the u.s. rail system is something called positive train control. a very basic avoidance system that reduces stupid operator error or a train conductor having a heart attack at the engine. it reduces the chance that something unfortunate but human and predictable like that could result in a train derailment or train collision. basically, positive train control is a system that monitors speed limits and track signals, it signals to the train

engineer, if the train seems to have not noticed a signal or if the train is speeding right? if the train engineer doesn't respond to that signal positive train control can override the human. override that locomotive engineer and automatically slow the train down or stop the train by remote control. this sort of system does require equipment upgrades to trains, putting a lot of basic train infrastructure on the grid. it requires some gps technology. this is not like learning to live on mars right? this is basic kind of atari level computerized safety systems for america's trains and they passed that law five weeks after that terrible metro link crash in 2008 that killed 28 people in l.a. they set this cushy deadline of more than 7 years for our country to put this system in

place. it's the end of this year, december 31 2015. and you know the rail industry like every industry they don't like being told what to do they've been lobbying hard to push that deadline back even further. 7 years is too fast for them to implement that basic system nationwide, they want more time more years, they have found a lot of sympathetic years in congress. even if congress doesn't extend it, if the existing 2015 deadline holds, the existing 2015 deadline was still too late for these poor people. this is a metro north commuter train crash that happened december 1st 2013. i remembered that date i didn't have to look it up today. one of the people who died in that train crash was a sound engineer who worked here at the "today" show he was on the train that morning coming to work early, because he was going to be helping set up the

broadcast for the delivery of the big rockefeller center christmas tree we get delivered here. he worked at the today slow for 20 years, he was one of four people killed that morning in that train crash. it's a miracle that you more than four people didn't die. unlike the l.a. crash that had happened five years earlier, this one was one train crashing it didn't hit anything. it was one train derailment there are erie similarities between that metro north crash and what happened in philly. the train was the same size in l.a. and philly. it's a single train that doesn't appear to have hit anything else. but the trains derailed. both of these derailments happened on sharp curves in the tracks. the metro north crash happened

just north of manhattan at a curve in the river, it's called spiten ivel it's technically in the bronx. a lot more people could have been killed in that crash, the aren't tracks curve is because of how close the rail line gets to the river there. when that train derailed those cars -- see the water at the bottom of your screen. those cars went spilling toward the river. had they gone into the river, we may not just have seen blunt force trauma. we may have also seen drownings. both the metro north train and amtrak crash was on a sharp curve, in both of those cases we had trains traveling alone on a sharp curve and conclusively in the case of the metro north

crash of 2013 and at least preliminarily, it appears that the cause was the same. it appears that what caused the derailment was the train traveling at a very high rate of speed into a sharp curve. we do not yet know why that happened last night in philadelphia in this derailment that claimed seven lives already and may have claimed more. the ntsb determined that the aren't train engineer was speeding at more than 80 miles an hour going into that 30 mile an hour curve was because the train engineer was tired. he wasn't necessarily completely asleep. he told investigators he was zoning out. he was the guy who had sleep apnea, so he didn't sleep well ever. he had gotten up at 3:30 that morning for his shift. he self-described the problem, he said he basically zoned out

with his hand on the throttle he was going 80 heading into that 30 mile an hour curve, and more than 100 people were sent to the hospital and four people lost their lives. metro north had said they would eventually get around to installing this positive train control system. they were working on it the positive train control system would have overridden him zoning out on the tracks and slowed the train down. they were working on it they were going to get that in place. this crash happened in 2013. the deadline wasn't until the end of 2015 well so what was the rush. the ntsb concluded in that crash, had the positive train control system been in feekt on that december morning in 2013 when the rockefeller center christmas tree was being delivered, had that system been hurried up and put into effect that train crash would have never happened and those people would not have died.

>> contributing to the accident was the absence of positive train control or ptc. all of these deaths and injuries were preventable. it would have prevented this derailment by automatically applying the brakes even when the engineer did not. the ntsb has called for the implementation of ptc. thankfully congress has mandated the use of this technology by the end of next year. thank you, congress. >> thank you, congress. but no rush. we are really good at investigating these kinds of disasters when they happen we find out why they happen and we then find out what would have presaented them from happening. positive train control, this little safety system we know how to do it would have prevented that metro link crash in los angeles. it would have prevented this fatal commuter train crash in massachusetts. it would have prevented that metro north crash just north of

manhattan. if it bears out that what happened last night in philadelphia is that for some reason heading into that 50 mile an hour curve, the train was being driven at over 100 miles an hour and the brakes were applied way too late only three seconds before the derailment flung those cars off the rails. it would have saved all of those lives in philadelphia. but the system's not in place yet. >> amtrak had been slowly getting that system in piece, getting the funding together. they have positive train control along some of the track. but not everywhere, not philly not where the train crash happened last night, all of those people died. >> it is not installed for this area where the accident occurred, where the derailment occurred. that type of a system we call 2

a positive train control system. that type of system is designed to enforce the civil speed to keep the train below its maximum speed. and so we have called for positive train control for many many years, it's on our most wanted list congress has mandated that it be installed by the end of this year, so we are very key on positive train control. we feel that had such a system been installed, this accident would not have occurred. >> had the system been installed, this accident would not have occurred. this is not a mystery, and this is also not hard, this is not rocket science. this is not desalon ating the ocean. this is something we know how to do. we've done it in patches. we also know that we need to do it. it's no mystery here but because what we need to do is something that we need to do

concerning our nation's infrastructure honestly as a nation, we can't be bothered to get stuff like this done. it's almost like our political system is designed to fail our infrastructure. i mean the people american people left, right and center want infrastructure investment. it's where we all agree that we should invest more in our infrastructure, we ought to upgrade our basic national infrastructure, especially around transportation, whether that's roads, bridges, highways trains airports whatever americans would like to see that stuff taken care of and improved, it seems like a core government function we would all like to work. it benefits us all, politicians don't like voting for it. especially in cases like this rail safety stuff, where there are corporate interests who want it not to happen. on this positive train control thing, industry's been complaining for years, even the

seven-year rollout was far too quick for them. they're pushing in congress to not have to put the system in place until the year 2020. what's the rush? and it happens on all these issues, yesterday just hours before the amtrak derailment the american petroleum institute sued to block new safety rules for oil trains specifically. they want more years before they have to retrofit unsafe cars that are being used to transport crude oil around the country. they want more time to deal with that, because the status quo is okay with them. it would require them to have an electronic braking system. it's not that different a safety concept than the whole positive a train control thing than rail more broadly. the people who make money shipping oil by rail would prefer to do it as cheaply as possible. they're suing to not have to do it they don't mind things the way they are now, despite the occasional apocalyptic fireball

don't rush them what's the hurry? the american people are voting with their feet people want to ride the train, amtrak ridership has been going up and up and up setting a new ridership record every year since the year 2000. even as an amtrak fan, i can tell you, the service has been getting worse, less on time more expensive with each passing year, because the system is starved of funds and not getting any younger, and is a complicated moving piece of infrastructure, and we keep not investing and fixing it but americans want to be able to travel this way, because we need this form of travel as a country. we just do. there's a reason every other can't in the world has this too, and mostly has it better. you need to be able to travel by train. just in the northeast corridor. for 2015 you need about $2.8 billion in terms of capital maintenance, they got about a billion dollar less than that this year to operate. today in the house, hours after

this fatal amtrak derailment in philly which the ntsb says could have been prevented with these safety improvements we haven't gotten around to hours after that crash today, an appropriations committee in the house, voted to cut funding for amtrak because they don't like voting for things like amtrak. there's no military about this disaster in l.a. there's no mystery about this disaster in new york. there's no mystery about this disaster in philadelphia and what caused all of those lives in all of those places there will be no mystery about the next one that happens, just like this. we know what we need to do it's just our government won't make it happen. one last thought on this when we heard today first from anonymous sources that the speed of that train heading into the curve was over 100 miles an hour there was this collective gasp, a horrified recognition among americans that that speed

must have been what caused the crash, we're still awaiting the full investigation, the final results, when we heard today this idea of the train going over 100 miles an hour down the tracks through northeast philly we almost intrinsically knew as americans that that spelled catastrophe, that something was wrong with that 100 miles per hour? 106 miles per hour? clearly that was the problem, we knew it. between the cities of barcelona and madrid the average train speed is 154 miles per hour. trains between tokyo and asaka go 200 miles an hour. for us the richest, most powerful nation on earth, the average train speed on our northeast corridor which is our show piece for our high speed trains, our average speed is 68 miles per hour. we know if you go over 100 miles an hour that will mean the engine and passenger cars will

end up flying off the rails and crumbling like soda cans and people will die, we can't handle that kind of speed here we are a great nation that has allowed the world class infrastructure that our grandparents built to erode and suffer and starve to the point that it is decrepit and deadly. this is a failure of governance. this is on congress's head. the 100% electric e-golf. and the 45 highway mpg tdi clean diesel. and last but not least the high performance gti. looks like we're gonna need a bigger podium. the volkswagen golf family. motor trend's 2015 "cars" of the year. i love making sunday dinners. but when my back hurt, cooking all day... forget about it.

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if you're going 106 miles an hour on a 50 mile an hour rated curve, you have to figure something bad is going to happen. and is at least a contributing factor to the devastation we saw, and the loss of lives and all the injuries. >> michael nutter speaking on this show saying speed in this case was at least a contributing factor to the devastation we're seeing tonight in philadelphia. joining us now is tom costello who's in philly thanks for being with us. >> the mayor really kind of changed his tune over the last 90 minutes or so, earlier this evening, he said the engineer had to be an idiot, he said the behavior was very risky and completely inappropriate. he really laid it down. he blasted the engineer and then i witnessed what happened what happened was the ntsb board member pulled him aside and

said, you can't go down this road yet you cannot be already judging the engineer you can't be -- the entire scene of the judicial process here we don't know if this engineer had a medical issue or there was something else going on that may have contributed to the crash. we don't know if there's a mechanical issue. you saw the mayor become much more circumspect when he did the interview with you, i interviewed him, he was much more low key, he really changed his tune. clearly as he said to me emotions are very high people are concerned about this train's speed. >> ntsb is clear, and they feel like they have a clear factual basis to say that they know that -- they know what the speed of the train was, they can say the speed of the train was inappropriate for that section of track. they have no reason to speculate as to the cause for the speed. as to why the train was going

that fast. >> i covered the ntsb for 11 years. they don't speculate. they will lay out the facts as they have them when they have them they're very transparent in that regard. if the public at large wants to draw conclusions, that's up to the public at large. the ntsb simply gathers information, releases fak you'll information as it has it but then ultimately it goes down this very methodical and scientific path that could take weeks, months or in some cases even more than a year there's a very famous case about 18 to 20 years ago. and they thought they understand what the cause was, only to learn the engineer was diabetic he couldn't see colors and wasn't seeing the change in the signals, but nobody knew that he was diabetic he didn't tell anybody, his doctors didn't even know he was an engineer it wasn't until they found the diabetic medicine did they

realize what was the cause, so sometimes it's not what you see right up front. >> in terms of all the investigation goes forward. talking to the engineer will be a key part of the investigation. he will be part of the way they investigate this. the ntsb saying they haven't spoken to him yet. is it unusual they haven't talked to him yet? >> here's what's a little bit unusual. we are -- we heard from law enforcement sources they haven't been able to get an indepth interview there seems to be a little bit of gray, wig emroom in there. we're not sure if they have a very casual conversation with him at the hospital. it's not unusual to wait a day or two, after the -- to get the emotions to settle down he may want to consult with his attorney or union represent, you sit down at your union rep's

office and you have the formal interview with the ntsb. keep in mind the ntsb's investigation is not criminal it is simply to figure out what happened, and try to ensure that something like this doesn't happen again. >> tom costello that's very clarifying. thanks for helping us understand that. we appreciate it. bring your vision for the future to life. for more than 145 years, pacific life has been helping families achieve life-long financial security with innovative tools and strategies. talk to a financial advisor to protect your family and plan today. pacific life. the power to help you succeed. my feet felt so heavy at the end of the day. they used to get really tired.

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this has been a jam packed news day, we're going to have the latest coming up on some of the days other stories, other than philly. a report of a vote late in the day by congress that went under the radar. we'll have that story coming up. as well as the latest on the ground in philly. including the city's head of emergency management. she's here live in a moment. bring us those who want to feel well rested and ready to enjoy the morning ahead. aleve pm. the first to combine a sleep aid... plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. for pain relief that can last until the am. so you... you... and you, can be a morning person again. aleve pm, for a better am.

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covered three bodies on the wrecked train, and two bodies from nearby. people who had been thrown from the train. one of the critically injured patients who had been taken to temple university hospital succumbed to his injuries. they discovered another body on the train, it brought the confirmed death toll from the train 7. this man was a senior vice president at wells fargo, jim gaines, justen zemzer a young midshipman at the u.s. naval academy, he was heading back home to queens new york where he was from. also rachel jacobs who was ceo of a tech company. around 200 people were treated at philadelphia hospitals since the derailment temple university in philly admitted the most people last night, they

admitted 54 people last night, 23 of those 54 are still being treated now, including eight people who are currently lists in critical condition at temple. >> i was startled to hear almost everyone had rib fractures. the rib fractures tell me they rattled around in the train cars a lot, to get a lot of rib fractures. >> how would you characterize this as a test. did it work out okay? >> yes, it did. i was pleased, things came together last night very well, in a few hours, the trauma team the doctors and nurses that trained to do this responded wonderfully, i think it was a test, and i think we passed it. >> the chief medical officer at temple university hospital the hospital that's handled the lion's share of these injuries. joining us now is samantha phillips director of emergency management for the city of

philadelphia. her office has been coordinating the city's response to the derailment last night. thank you for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> it's now almost exactly 24 hours since the since last night. thank you so much for being with us. >> thanks for having me. >> it's now almost exactly 24 hours since the crash. what right now is the most pressing thing that your office is working on right now? >> we're actually starting to demode a little bit. and so we're trying to get back into normal operation to the extent possible. we are still finalizing some reconciliation of the person data, so working with our hospital community, certainly amtrak on trainman fest information, tracking where we sent patients and then of course working on family assistance center operations with amtrak. >> how large is that problem? how many people are in a status right now where you don't know where they are or if, in fact, they were on the train?

>> i'm happy to say that the problem has reduced greatly throughout the day. we've had a lot of luck in matching these data sources. we do still have a few sources that we're working and making sure everyone is safely accounted for. those who haven't called into amtrak's 1-800 number. that's 1-800-523-9101. we want to make sure we hear from everybody if you're safe and with your loved ones. please let us know so we can move on and make sure we have everybody accounted for. >> not to press you too much but are we talking about a ballpark, a hundred people or more than that a dozen people or less than that? >> no. it's far less. we're sort of in the sort of high single digits low double digits at this point just doing some final counting of people. >> i have to ask, last night after the train derailed after it started to become clear how

big of an incident this was, how did your office alert local hospitals that they were about to receive dozens of patients maybe even hundreds of patients people seeking treatments all at once. logistically, did you have a plan for how something like that worked? >> yeah. we had a couple of plans that we had to implement last night. coincidentally we've been in the process of finalizing the city's mass casualty plan and monday we did a workshop and exercise for that plan. we were really well prepared for something that happened tuesday evening. we do many things work onen with our fire department provide notification to hospitals. once you see you have an incident the size we saw on tuesday night, it's really just about kind of launching the system getting as many resources and services as possible. it's always easy to stand things down and recall things. but we wanted to make sure we had everything on scene to deal with and ended up being hundreds of people that needed some

support. >> samantha philips, people watching you and others in philadelphia responding that there are kids all over the country thinking maybe i want to be a director of emergency management at a city some day watching you do some crucial work at this time. thanks for your work and thanks for helping us understand. >> thanks very much. >> more ahead, stay with us. otection. nexium level protection.

obviously, today's news dominated by the philadelphia amtrak crash. but a couple of things to get you up to date in terms of what

else is going on in the news. we've had eye is all day today in texas where large swaths of that state are flooded and flooding as rain continues to lash texas. parts of texas got as much as 10 inches of rain over a three-hour period. that was in one section of houston today. officials in north texas have decided to release water from some texas lakes in order to avoid breaching dams on those bodies of water trying to avoid catastrophic flooding from breached infrastructure there. national weather service issuing flash flood warnings for portions of texas all across that state. we're going to keep you posted on further developments as we keep watching that. in political news today, in washington late today, house republicans succeeded in passing their latest abortion ban. that was an almost 100% party line vote. they passed in the bill a ban to ban abortions nationwide federally after 20 weeks of pregnancy. it was a vote of 241-184.

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per hour before the data recorder stopped recording because of the derailment and the crash. an ntsb official said today this accident could have been prevented with a system called positive train control could have been in place. that system is required by law everywhere in the u.s. by the end of this year but it wasn't in place yet at the site of this crash tonight. congress is giving railroads even more time before they have to put that system in place even though it's known now that it would save lives, including likely the lives lost last night. that does it for us. thanks very much for being with us tonight. we'll see you tomorrow. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. >> complete chaos is what survivors are saying they experienced last night when that amtrak train went off the rails in northeast philadelphia. we now know who was driving that train, but we don't know why i was driving so fast. >> our whole city is mourning. >> the train disaster here in