>>right now, fire crews are

knocking down hot spots after a ssive fire damages apartments y county. we're live on the scene there. and new this midday, police confirm the identity of e body found in a park as t search intensifies for that ssing girl. leadin candidates in the democratic race for d.c. mayor. goodmornineryog, ev. welcome to ns 4 miay. i'm barbara harrison. it's tuesday, april 1st. we begin wh a developing story in rockville. fire crews are ming progress on a huge fire that broke outt a devepment under construction. this morning, the flames have subsidedbut the damage has been done. this fire broke out iercle very ady gre road and i-270. news 4's megan mcgrath is live this morning and has the latest for us. >> rorter: this fire broke out a little before 4:00 this morning. hos later, we still have firefighters he putting water

on some of the hot spots that ared up. you can see them up there on that water truck. that's jusone of the companies on the scene. also spraying water ther ladder ere on the roof line. and th we've gotnother truck here with wt appears to be some investigators, getting a bird's-eye view, looking down on the building to see what started all of this. good news here is that this building, this apartment cr cot yet opened. they were slated to open in the wes. so, nobody was inside when this haened. but the big question is, what stted it all? >> engine726. >> reporter: the flames lit up the sky, giving off an onge glow. >> that's the sriest thing i have ever seen in my life. >> reporter: referred to as building g in the gables upper rock development. it's three acres in size. >> i wok up to >> reporter:essi lives in the building across the

street. >> the fe was huge and the orange glow was shining into my wiow andoke me up. >> reporter: and it was quite a rude awakening. >> that's when th smoke staed coming towards our building. >> reporter: flames shooting along the entire length of the roof. >> i looked outhe window and th had like a blue tinge to them. r aaftehile i had to leave the apartment becse the smoke was coming in >> translator: building, still under construction, but nearly complete. the fire is a huge setback. >> working on it for six months now. and it's hard to believe the thingas completely covered like that. >> reporr: hose lines zigzagged across surrounding streets well into the morning and trucks d access to the parking garage. people trying to leave for wor weren't going anywhere. >> the place is blocked by the truck. we can't get out of the garage. so there's only one way out of e garage. >> you saw from that video how intense this fire was.

you can also see here live just how close some of the surrounding buildings are. fortunately, they were able to keep the fire to the one ilding. there was no spread t any of the other apartments in the surrounding buildings, bause those were, occupied. there were people, tenan inside. no one had yet moved into this , building. but they are goi to be here for a good part of the day, keepingn eye on things, making sure we don't have flare-s.[ barbara, back to you. >> thank you, megan. police are out in kennel worth park looki for any sign of relisha rudd. the body police found yesterday wathat of 51-year-old khalil m. they are scouring over evidence from that crime scene hoping to find something tt leadshem to rudd. angie goff is live at kennelworth park with the la

latest. angie? >> reporter: we want to show you what's happening right now. take a look toy left. police have blocked off the entrance to kennelworth park once again. right above that hill we have the kadetcadets, searching, a s that's intensified, looking for relisha one day after pice found the body of the one m who they thought could lead to r resha. searches all morning long and we've watched fbi agents mark some o this area. this, one day after the shocking discovery of khalil tatum's body in a shed in the park. he apparently killed himself. so far, no sign othe little girl. relisha was last seen alive wit h ago. tatum bought contractor size garbage bags. this point, he can't red out that tam possibly killed the girl a disposed of the dy in the woods or water of

this park. he was wanted already for the murder of his fe, her body found in a prince grge's hotel. the one reason that d.c. pole said they came here to begin with, and that is finding relishrudd. at this point they' cling it a recovery mission but are holding on to hopewill find the. barbara? >> thank you, angie. and taking a lookutside got a beautiful day here in washington. storm team 4 meteorologist tom kierein joins us with his first forecast. good morning. >> good morning, barbara. clouds have been moving in for from the west. sprinkles of rain that are moving tough the mountains of west virginia and heading off to the east. those areas of rai may be into theetro area aft noontime. right w just a spnkles, down to peters a temperatures out ahead of that are getting milder. right now in the low 50s around the metro near 50 degrees north and west. mid 50s to our south,

frericksburg, culpeper. sprinkles out of the mountains at around 50 degrees. we'll see sprinkles moving in. mi pattern continues in toward the weekend. 30-day outlook for april. that's coming up in a few minutes. back to you, barbara. >> tom, thank you. news 4's aaron gilchrist live for us at news sk. >> the medic examiner updating us on the number of people confirmed there in washington state. that number has risen to 27. search crews have started to go through this mudsle area again today. it's been more than two -- more th a week or so since tde initi. they're now confirming 27 deaths. 22 people still accounted for at this point, including fr children, as search entirety ofy loing for more looking for more people who may have been victims of this massive mudslide in washington

ste. that's the latest from the live desk. barbara, back to you. d.c. resents are voting in the democratic primary. several races on the ballo the race for mayor is the big priz melia mollet is live in washington and h that. >> rorter: goomorning. the polls opened four hours ago. pretty much erywhere we've stopped it's been a prett steady stream of voters. take a lookehind mehere. you can see all different volunteers. th is how it looks wherever you stop this moing. we were with bowser and then mayor gray cast his ballot. of course, they are the leadg candidates for mayor. right now the two of them in a fairly tight race. the excitement at la lle ementary paable, loud. mayor vincent gray dancing with volunteers a

logo on the side played music. and muriel bows supporters chting. the two are necknd neck, showing bowser with 28% of the vote, mayor gray with 26%. part of gray's challenge with voters is the oning investigion into his 2010 campaign. >> if i was him, i would b a little worried. >> tooany problems behind him. >> reporter: gray says he's confident. >> of course i expect to win. and i expect to be able to be all or this city as ie been in past elections, the sam kind of thing i've don before. >> reporter: the campaign pushing a last-mine sea of a very long day. >> this ishe first time i've seen it like this for mor because last time it wasn't like this. >> reporter: the line started early, council woman bowser arrived to cheers and hugs, headed inside to cast her ballot

with voters big andbservers small. >> re dents are frustrated with the mayor's office and are going to come out and te. >> reporter: mayor gray meantime in northwest, jack evans cast his ballot while another challenger, tommy wells, put in his vote in eastern market with eight democratic candidates in the race for mayor,he winner will face council member david cattania in november. >> ie been living in the district all my life. therefore, i really want to see the district continue to grow. >> reporter: now the polls close at 8:00 tonight. mayor gray telling me heill swrough 10 to5 polling places and muriel bowser says she pla to make eight stops all together. >> four mayoral candidates are on the ballot. we'll be keeping a close eye on

the d.c. council races as well. there will be a new council member in ward six, replacing tommy wells, candidates facing off there are charles allen and darryl thompson. ward one, council member jim graham is facinghallenge from communications consultant briann deux. you can finishedore out mout every candidate by going to nbcwashington.com. search d.c. votes. we'll post resultsonight a they come in so you can be the first to know whe a race has beendecided. marylanders and others have a little more time to sign up for coverage under the healthcare law. take a look at what happens next. > plus the cherry blossom festival is in full spring. find out if the cter traction is on track t

i'm j-a-n-e and i have copd. i'm d-a-v-e and i have copd. i'm k-a-t-e and i have copd, but i don't want my breathing problems to get w my volunteering. that's why i asked mdoctor about b-r-e-o. once-daily breo ellipta helps inease airflow from the lung for a full 24 hours. and breo helps reduce symptom flare-ups th last several days and require oral steroids, antibiotics, or hospital stay. breo is not for asthma breo contains a type of medicine at increases risof deathn people with asthma. it is not known this sk is increased in copd.

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lague d with problems since its rollout. if you started enrollment but didn't finish the process, you can sign up april. the maryland health connection website slowed to a fall yesterday as people rush to sig up. lawmakers are also expected to vote today to create a new health exchange before november oining us to talk abouthe health care enrollment and more, mark editor at nbc and welcome again mark. >> hey, good morning, barbar >> this -- 7, -000 7 million snedp now. we are not going to hear so much banter, so much argument from -- from the republicans about the health care law? >> barbar if you were living in the state that's having a mid term election, you'll see plenty of tv ads on the healthcare law

and plenty of anecdotes. the best day the administrn has had since the law was passed and certainly since the enrollment started october 1st. the numbers, 7 million, the administration i have 7 million enrolled on the exchanges. good news for the administration, there isn another badews headline that we know about that's ge coming up until the fall, when those premiums for 2014 are supposedo be in formula. and sowhile, it does seem on the near-term horizon, the white house can breathe a sigh of relief. >> let's talk about election day, primary day here in washington. we've got two front-runners. what doe the current mayor -- is there anything he can do to move himself ahead at this point? >> get his people to tn out to vote. the most fascinating thing about our nbc 4 mayor's pollats th vincent gray has the enthusim on his side, the more committed voters. that's his sect to success.

muriel bowser, her secret to success is keeping on the momentumhe's been having and convince the people w are supporting some of the other candidates maybe to back her and se her as the soul challenger to vince gray. >> so, we are pretty much in a dead he? >> i think it's fascinating. i can see either situaon turn out. it's going to be a great thing to watch tonight. >> we'll be watching a the way up until the polls close and th so. >> and then analyzing the next day. >> a right. bye, barbara. >> for more on mark and the rest of the nbc political news team, check out first read on nbcnews.com. and let's see, what are we doing next? here. yes, he is with a look at -- oh, look atthat, t cherry blossoms at the tidal basin are still on track to reach peak bom next week. ees will be at their best on april 8th through the 12th. the peak bloom is when 70% of the blossoms are opened. they usually last for several days. cool, calm weather can extend the period but rainy, windy

weather could srten it. tom is here, he is, to tell us which can expect over the next few days. tom? >> great blossomweather. if the blossoms don't come out in this kind of weather, they're never coming out. i think they will,y later this week, start popping out. 90 years ago today washington looked like this, though. we were bied under 5.5" of snow, no fooling. the april fool's storm of 1924. not this year, though ooks like this. this photo of magnolias bursting t yesterday inorthwest washington. post your photos to my faceok page and twitter. this beautifulagnolia tree un and behind that, you can see as well.hia beginning to show starting to look like spring. we do have hig clouds moving in from thewest. a live view from the sky watcher camera showing these clouds producing a