[captioning made possible by constellation energy group] captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> good afternoon. welcome to 11 news at noon. >> we want to go right to baltimore city, where the mayor is briefing everyone. >> will be closed. trash pickup will be postponed. please do not put out any trash this evening. i know that probably seems like common sense, but it needs to be said, please do not put out your trash this evening. if there are sustained winds that warrant mandatory travel restrictions, we will not hesitate to make that announcement. again, if we have sustained winds that warrant mandatory travel restrictions, we will not hesitate to make that announcement. stay tuned. any potential restrictions will not apply to any uniformed personnel, emergency vehicles,

hospital employees, or medical providers. potential travel restrictions will not apply to uniformed personnel, emergency vehicles, hospital employees, and medical providers. we will reach the point of this storm this evening where people will need to stay off the roads completely, hunkered down at home, and ride out the storm. do not under any circumstance. turnaround, do not drowned. the port of baltimore is closed and waterway traffic is restricted in and around the chesapeake bay. it is extremely likely that tens of thousands of citizens will lose power this evening. you should know that 911 and 311

are fully operational. the 911, again, is for emergencies only. fire and police assets have been deployed throughout the city. again, our fire and police assets are deployed to route the city. we are ready and able to respond to any incident. more than 2000 officers are working overnight, with the majority in uniform and on patrol. police special ops are deployed, with tactical units on standby. i have requested and received maryland national guard hum vees, strategically positioned across the city. the fire department has increased staffing around-the- clock.

swift water rescue, we hope we will not have to rescue it. we have units available to respond to route city. more than 350 firefighters and paramedics are staffing these units. more than 32 crews will be deployed this evening. baltimore housing staff has been deployed to public housing to monitor conditions throughout the storm. while we are asking residents to shelter in place, or hunker down, for those of you counting how many times i use that phrase, we have 34 emergency shelters opened in the event of critical need. code enforcement is on hand to check property overnight. drinking water facilities are operational.

backup generators have been checked and are operational as well. street sweepers are deployed today. it is difficult, with leaves still coming off the trees, but we are out there until it becomes too dangerous to do so. we all know that this is a very unpredictable storm and there will be real changes over the next few hours and days. for example, we expect sustained high winds for a long period of time, causing major power outages. because it will continue, it will take time before crews are able to clear debris from the roadway. focuses will be on safety first. every effort will be made to keep major roadways open, especially near our hospital infrastructure. the city will have predesignated routes for personnel and we are in touch with those hospitals. communicating those routes

directly to the hospital. we will work closely with the power to restore it as quickly as possible when it is safe for crews to go out. something i need to emphasize. our crews will not go out if it is too dangerous to do removal. that is why it is so important to have your emergency supplies in and. we are approaching that time where we have to hunker down and stay off the road. stay tuned for the most up-to- date information. i will open it up to questions. >> [inaudible] >> my emergency personnel are very creative.

whatever happens, we are prepared. any other questions? thank you so much for being here. i appreciate your keeping the public informed. this is an unpredictable storm. your cooperation is essential. i really appreciate your being here. >> that was mayor blake, updating everyone on where we stand in terms of city for paribas. >> 2000 officers working -- preparedness. >> 2000 officers working overnight. john is standing by. >> the storm is 250, 260 miles to the east, southeast of baltimore at this time. they have been talking about for a week how the storm is going to behave.

landfall coming sometime late tonight, early on tuesday. this thing may come on land in the evening hours this evening, throwing heavy rain bands now, coming in, the heaviest of them to the west of baltimore, out in frederick, west of washington, d.c. at this time. the rain around the center does not look that impressive, it is too far away to give a picture of the rain that is active. but there is plenty of rain coming in and we will continue to see what we have been getting for some time. how much rain to expect? rainfall will be somewhere around 4 inches to 8 inches. wind gusts are already up near 60 over the open waters of the atlantic's. 90 miles per hour winds at the center of the storm.

the storm is taking aim, as the track indicates, on the a atlantic coastline sometime after 8:00 tonight, with the storm moving rapidly to the northwest at this stage of the game. the forecast shows the eye of the storm coming tonight, based on this particular computer model there is still plenty of rain in the picture for us. at this stage the i lose to just over garrett county, or just over that, by noontime on tuesday. the rain has become a little bit spotty here. the rain starts to back off. not the wind, necessarily. snow out in far western maryland. garrett county is under a blizzard warning at this stage. tennis -- an interesting situation. blizzard warnings to the west with a hurricane approaching. we do not often see that.

of course, dealing with the aftermath of this storm, what is going on? >> not only preparing to deal with the aftermath, they are preparing to deal with it as it happens. around the room you can see a lot of activity as members of 45 different agencies, state and federal, here, trying to keep on top of things, making sure they have staff and resources in place, ready to move at a moment's notice. you have the department of transportation keeping an eye on bridges. as a matter of fact, when it comes to the bridges, keeping a very close eye on them. there are wind warnings on those bridges, the bay bridge, wind restrictions already. and the hearing bridge that connects southern maryland to virginia. when the wind gusts get up to 60, they will close the mall.

-- close them all. those shelters will have enough supplies, the red cross is on top of that, making sure they have food and supplies for the people who stop by. the national guard has been activated. they will be sent out to some 12 different jurisdictions. they need emergency personnel around. those are the kinds of things happening here. we hope to hear from the governor again at 2:00. we want to go down to lowell, down in ocean city, where they have seen quite a bit happening with this storm. what is the latest? >> -- shielded by the building, cutting down on the wind flow. 30 to 40 miles per hour, i want

to show you the big story in ocean city, which is the flooding. you can see the water that has come underneath these homes. certainly, flooding the first floors of these condominiums and townhouses just off the beach. we are seeing a definite storm surge associated with this storm. waves are anywhere from 9 feet to 13 feet. waves of further offshore, anywhere from 15 feet to 21 feet, breaking once again at about 9 feet to 13 feet as they come in to ocean city. as i said earlier, the big story is flooding. we attended a news conference earlier. the mayor and other emergency personnel, briefing the media on what is going on at ocean city at this point. first of all, there is flooding

all along the coastal highway. i want to repeat that, flooding all along the coastal highway. we are not only getting the surge coming over the dern -- the dunes, there is one coming off of the bayside as well, spilling over into coastal highway. if you go to my twitter account, you can see the pictures i took earlier as we were driving away. these pictures, you will not believe where the water is. 17th street and south is closed. there are other portions that are also closed. last night we learned that the rte. 50 bridge into the city was closed and remains closed. the rte. 90 bridge is open. however, there is flooding at the base want to get into ocean city. police are not letting traffic goes south.

they are making exceptions for media and emergency personnel. keep in mind, if someone is coming into the city for some reason, be prepared, you will only be able to go north once you come off the roof 90 bridge. we were driving out and about and noticed the flooding that you see here is anywhere from 1 feet to 3 feet deep in the upper sections of the city. i am talking about the 30's to up north. some of the areas are seeing more significant [no audio] >> unfortunately, that is inevitable when we have coverage like this. >> inevitable in deed. >> inevitable that schools will close tomorrow as we go through this list. >> do that. and a run the schools, baltimore county, kent county,

all closed tomorrow. >> while you still have power, go to wbaltv.com. we will have more and more as the day goes on. >> it is important that they are closed. the fewer people on the roads, the better. >> there were a lot of people out there. i could not believe it. >> we want to go to barry, who joins us live from annapolis. >> there is also the concern here about flooding. there has been minor flooding with a few road closures and a tree that hit a house. we were talking about that just a little while ago. that happened on maple road west. emergency crews went there and there was a family inside, but everyone was able to get out safely. that is what was happening in that location. of course, that was over by the

airport. there are some street closures that we need to tell you about. the first is that the prince george's county, anne arundel county line. minor role of closures include road, the herald harper area of crown seville, and the male avenue, those have been closed because of minor flooding. there is a shelter in annapolis at the annapolis high school. we checked on that earlier and were told 20 people went there, people that live in low-lying areas and decided to get to higher ground. the place is friendly to pets and is able to handle at least 1500 people. so, any others who need to get there can. they also have a phone number that you can call, 260-2211.

if you are an annapolis resident that needs a ride to the shelter, they will make sure that you get there. 410-260-2211. we are here, again, in the spot creek area. behind me is where the compromise street bridge is. we have been talking to different people about checking on their boats. many people have been making sure that those are secure. wbal television, 11 news. >> "days of our lives" will begin airing at 1:00 on our digital channel. more coverage of hurricane sandy, right after this.

proton >> storm coverage continues, the radar satellite commendation, here we are in baltimore, right there. the heavy rain has now moved to the west, out in washington county right now, west of the washington, d.c. suburbs at this

stage. do not be fooled, the center of the storm is a couple of miles away from us. the radar does not look as impressive out here. it is reaching the limits of what the radar can see, but the rain is coming and until the storm clears the area, we will have rain. but the heaviest will be as the storm is approaching. once it starts moving into pennsylvania, it will lose some steam. it is so powerful, we are kind of mincing words. it will be at the strongest when it comes in, but even as it weakens, it will be an exceptional storm. we have already had one and of rain here at the studio. let's take a look at -- there is right now, as i speak. 1 inch, just over 1 inch at the

inner harbor. there was a lot of rain yesterday. it was falling just to the east, they do not even give you a good example of what was falling and parts of the eastern shore yesterday. denton, 3.75 inches measured so far. gusts of 60 miles per hour at this point. again, the storm, at last check it was 90 miles per hour winds. gusts of 43, 44. the same at ocean city. those hurricane type winds are in effect for the bay until the storm comes in. here is the projected track. it loses the hurricane structure before it comes on shore. it does not lose strength, it just loses its technical aspects of what makes a hurricane a

hurricane, moving rapidly to the northwest. i suspect that it seems to be accelerating and might come in sooner than projections. we will wait for the 1:00 update to see. it is a huge storm coming in. regardless of whether it comes in more towards atlantic city, ocean city, or more towards this margin of error, it will affect us. the eye of the storm coming in at 9:00 this evening, as it is -- as it advances that is where the heaviest rain and strongest wind will be concentrated. tuesday the rain goes down. we still have snow out in west virginia and western maryland. today we are in the 50's with all that rain and wind.

tuesday, 40's, it will still be a windy day. wednesday we still have some lingering showers coming into the pictures. thursday, friday, saturday, it all looks dry. back to the 60's by the weekend. robb is in baltimore county right now. what is going on down there? >> we are getting if you wind gusts about every hour they get a bit stronger and stronger, but the good news is that behind me the water is going out. great news for the residence, as long as the water is being blown out, there is much less chance -- not a great chance of any flooding, which was one of the big problems with isabel. those are pretty good gusts of wind. larry, on over here, if you do

not mind. your legs are going to freeze. >> good one. >> once again, the wind is going out. but you just have to watch this storm, don't you? >> that is it. just keep your fingers crossed. >> i can see that most people got the boat out on friday or this weekend. >> yes, there is a public ramp down the street there and it was a zoo. a ton of boats. >> you have also done what everyone suggested, going through this before, there is nothing anywhere around here as everything has been taken inside. >> we have pretty much back and down the hatches. the wind is the biggest fear factor right now. just keeping things from flying. >> the wind has been picking up. >> it has. we felt a few wind gusts recently.

>> appreciate that. back to you guys in the nice, warm, dry studio. >> guilty that you have the only 80-year-old reporter out there. you should not feel bad at all. when aarp dots on the door, do not say a word. >> i feel the guilt all time. you are killing me. [laughter] >> someone give me -- give him a hot cocoa. >> this is a house that was destroyed. those pictures coming out are quite a sight. >> we will be seeing more of that, unfortunately. dave will be joining us live from kent island, where obviously the rain is coming down. what do you have there? >> a steady rain, measured against wind gusts, it has a stinging affect on your face. this is a marina, sometimes the wind just takes the water and

creates waves across the bay out in the narrows. a lot of these boats have been tied up and you will notice that the tide is not very high at the moment. the wind is coming from the north, like many places. the problem is that the direction of this storm is going to turn around and the next thing you know, some of that will be coming towards us. we have seen a lot of people tying up their boats. much of this stuff comes on tide. look at this wind gust. a steady rain, it is just miserable. there is a coastal flood warning in effect. the bay bridge does have wind restrictions in effect and there are military assets here to help people who might need it in an emergency.

>> there you go. >> a perfect time to bring in rob from bg&e. those winds are exactly what combines the power boat -- allows the power lines to come down. >> exactly, it helps to pull those trees down. >> what is the latest on power outages? >> 5100, not bad at all, but i would not get comfortable with that number. >> yesterday you were telling us, and i saw one of the trucks on the way in, you're doing something different with this storm, parking crews, so if there is that ability you will be able to jump in and out of repair mode? >> right. we are putting them on the streets to the extent that they can repair power. there is no sense in having a staging area where they cannot do anything.

customers, your viewers are willing to see these trucks at times sitting to protect themselves from the elements. once these passed through, they will go into action. to the extent that they can restore power, they will. it makes sense to try to stay as much as head of this as they can. -- head of this -- ahead of this as they can. as soon as the storm passes, we're talking about wednesday -- 25 miles per hour winds will continue unless the storm speedup -- we will go out to do a broad based assessment, taking us 38 hours. what is that, thursday? at that point we will put out our global estimated time of restoration, when we think we will be finished with the entire

operation. then we will look at the individual times in the feeders. as well as the individual house homeowner. we will be careful with those. we do not want to put out information that we cannot stand behind. it is like surgery. you can look at a patient and say it is going to take two days. open it up to see what is damaged, typically that is what extent restoration. >> you need to remind people, even if they feel the neighbor has called, they should still make a phone call. >> do not call the 410 #. that is probably the worst thing right now, that will clogged the phone lines. call the toll-free number. thank you, guys. >> of