two forces of nature, millions in danger and it's not over yet. >> that's right. we're looking right now at team coverage of both of these major storm systems. we'rewe're watching jose here o east coast and maria in the caribbean right now. it's the strongest storm to hit puerto rico in more than 80 years. there are reports that power has been knocked out to 100% of the island. officials say some areas could be in the dark for four to six months. the winds there topped 150 miles per hour when the storm made landfall. that's enough to tear roofs and steel doors off the buildings. 80% of the homes have been completely destroyed. they are asking president trump to declare the island a complete disaster zone. in g

one person is dead and several still missing. and how about jose? between the wind and rain and storm surge, there is a lot of water that pushed up on the jersey shore. one of the piers in belmar, guess what, it just got ripped up again from jose. doug, you've been looking at whether or not these two storms are going to have an interaction and whether it will impact us. any closer to figuring it out now? >> the answer is no. it's amazing that we're going to talk about these storms for the next seven days and that's when maria will be off our coastline and jose is not moving anywhere over the next five to six days. you can see where maria is right now. it's moving away from puerto rico. very good news there. they are still seeing very heavy

rainfall and flash flooding has been a huge concern. a lot of flooding into the island as we see the storm moving off towards the north and west. now, the storm itself, down to a category 3 hurricane, winds of 115 miles per hour. a category 3 hurricane. it's moving northwest at 12 miles an hour. so the island, a fairly mountainous island, was able to take a bite out of the strength of maria. take a look at the track here moving across portions of the bahamas but mostly east of the bahamas should not get hit on this track. notice where it is next monday. just off the coast of the carolinas. where does it go from here? because jose is already here. speaking of jose, there it is right there. i expect this similar satellite picture to be here with us for close to a week. we could have maria here and jose here. how do those two interact, i have a look at what may be happening in my forecast in the next couple of minutes. now to that dop

in mexico. i'm here at the live desk with erika gonzalez. lots of people are still being searched for and many have died. >> right. all of the first responders are out there. what we're hearing from the mexican president is every second counts to save lives of people under the rubble of buildings that were just toppled. president pena nieto says every second matters. a mexico city school has been partially flattened. crews and volunteers pulled at least 25 bodies, mostly children, from that school. dozens more remain missing. crews worked their way through concre concrete slabs as list of

accounted for. one volunteer managed to crawl into the crevices and made it into a classroom but once he got there, everybody inside was dead. we are getting new video this afternoon of more of the destruction. the video shows the devastation of a reliblg jous school gious city. volunteers are clearing debris. the foreign secretary told msnbc that the u.s. government is about to send in experts and machines to help with rescue and recovery efforts. that decision was made after president trump spoke with mexican president pena nieto. he has declared three days of national mourning in honor of the victims. >> it's ironic, this came on the 32nd anniversary of the deadliest earthquake that mexico has seen in its modern history, back in 1985, and some were doing some evacuation drills. >> right.

sirens. they never heard that this was happening. so the scenes have just been incredible to watch and we, of course, hope that there are more rescues that take place instead of the opposite of that. >> indeed. thank you, erika. we'll continue to follow this story. back to you, leon. >> all right, pat and erika. another woman has claimed forward saying a massage therapist violated her. news4 broke the story earlier this week. a woman claims she was sexually assaulted at massage envy and a second woman now says the same man also assaulted her. we're going through some new court documents right now and we'll update as soon as we learn more. first at 4:00, an alert for neighbors near the university of maryland. princerg

chief tracee wilkins is there. what have you learned about this? >> reporter: leon, there is a lot happening here about a block away from route 1 and the 4500 block of this road to lock their windows and doors. they have a lot of apartment houses like this one. i can tell you that prince george's county police are taking this very seriously. on september 16th, three incidents happened, including one break-in where items were stolen and two incidents, one where a man appeared at a woman's door. she screamed and he ran away and another one where there was a fourth degree sex assault inside of the apartment. a man groping a woman while she slept. and now we're finding out that a weekend before all of that, there was another incident when a man appeared at a woman's window and she screamed and scared him away as well. prince george's county police are saying that they don't have any i.d. or information for

what he looks like. they are asking those who live in the college park area to share the information with them and help them close out this case. this is one block away from route 1 here in the 4500 block of gilford road. police are asking people to be vigilant. tracee wilkins, back to you all in the studio. >> thank you, tracee, keep us posted. first at 4:00, from concussions to cancer, artificial turf fields have become a nightmare. now a new concern. new safety testing shows that turfs and rec centers are too hard. that means children are at an even higher risk of concussions and other injuries. >> i have three boys. i know how they play and what is cushioning

they shouldn't need safety gear just to go to recess. we're fortunate that they can play at the nearby playground but i don't know what is happening in other parts of the district where they may not have those options. >> the d.c. department of general services is planning to repair or replace all of the problem fields within the next few weeks. in the meantime, there are signs that have been posted warning of the dangers. and we are following a developing story in oklahoma city where police officers shot and killed a man who apparently was deaf. officers went to a home last night to investigate a hit-and-run incident. the man allegedly approached them with a metal pipe in his hands and did not obey their orders to drop it so they tased the man and then one of the officers opened fire. witnesses told investigators that they yelled to the police that "he can't hear you" before they shot him. protesters in st. louis, missouri, plan to take to the streets

police officer was found not guilty for killing a black man. coming up in the next half hour, we'll hear what listeners are saying about this. is manhattan big enough for both of them? former president barack obama delivered the keynote address at an event sponsored by the bill and melinda gates foundation. the president had an opening to blast the latest republican effort to repeal obamacare. meanwhile, president trump was meeting with international leaders. blayne alexander picks up the story from there. >> reporter: another day of u.n. diplomacy for president trump one day after calling the iran nuclear deal an embarrassment, he says he has made up his mind on whether to end it. >> i have decided. >> reporter: but would not say what that decision is. he said that the agreement should not be scrapped by,

stopped short by calling president trump out by name. here with palestinian leader mahmoud abbas, president trump sounding upbeat on middle east peace. >> who knows, stranger things have happened but i think we have a good chance. >> reporter: and after threatening to destroy north korea, today, a less ominous message. >> we must all stand together and be accountable in implementing u natnited nations sanctions and resolutions. >> reporter: a new push to repeal obamacare with the fight over pre-existing conditions once again center stage. >> so we're going to give flexibility to cover sick people but sick people will be covered. >> reporter: today, former president obama weighed in with rare comments on his namesake policy. >> people are alive today and that's progress. >> this is really an emergenc

>> reporter: while republican leaders say they hope to vote on this next week. and if republicans cannot pass this by the end of the fiscal year, that's next week, the number of votes they'll need goes up from 51 to 60, essentially making it impossible to pass. blayne alexander, nbc news, washington. >> thank you, blayne. a dire situation in puerto rico and the caribbean. hurricane maria wiping out buildings and flooding homes and it's now on a path northward. doug is tracking how the storm could interact with jose and how they could influence each other. plus, an unbelievable assignment, following donald trump for 500 days. nbc's katy tur joins us with her front row seat to the craziest campaign in american history. plus,

in . we're getting a better look at the damage done by hurricane maria so far. these are aerial pictures from the small island of dominica. buildings that served as shelters had their roofs ripped off. >> maria is responsible for seven deaths on the island. the storm is moving out of puerto rico and doug is going

have an update on what is coming up next in just a few minutes. >> katy, you're not reporting it, katy. there's something happening, katy. there's something happening, katy. >> nearly 4,000 tv reports, 500 days on the campaign trail and one very unconventional presidential candidate. nbc correspondent katy tur lived out of a suitcase for a year and a half covering the trump campaign and she's got quite a story to tell. katy decided to write a book. it's entitled "unbelievable: my crazy story to the most unbelievable campaign in history." >> katy, this book is getting a lot of attention right now. we saw that clip of president trump calling you out on the campaign trail. you got to see a side of him and we wonder

different behind the scenes with you. >> donald trump is who he is, both on stage and off. i think there are two aspects of the same personality. he could be quite aggressive and he could berate you off camera. i did an interview with him early on in july 2015, a long sit-down interview that was pretty contentious. when the cameras went off -- even contentious interviews i've done in the past, you shake hands and it's fine. he stood up and started screaming at me telling me that i could never be president. on the other hand, he would be very nice at times, too. there would be tense moments in the campaign but he would see me on his golf course in scotland and introduce me to his business associates and tell them what a great reporter i was before he caught himself smiling and said sometimes. he could be quite charming. he could go on the attack. he's somebody

think you see this every day when he's, you know, in the oval office or answering questions with reporters or at the u.n., he's somebody who wants to be liked and he'll try and charm you into liking him and if that doesn't work, he'll go on the attack. >> yeah. uh-huh. >> during the campaign, candidate trump really knew how to work the crowds and turn them against the media. and you write about how there were times when you yourself didn't really feel safe out there just doing your job. tell us about that. >> yeah. you know, and this is highly unusual. we didn't talk about it a lot during the campaign because we didn't want to call more attention to it. but nbc news hired armed security for the reporters who were covering trump, ex-secret servicemen and women mostly who had weapons on them, everywhere except for inside the rallies there there was uniformed current secret service members. but even in front of trump

towards the media. i got death threats after donald trump singled me out at rallies, specifically during the rally where he announced the muslim ban. people were threatening my life. and there was a concern -- remember, this didn't happen far after those journalists were killed in virginia, that somebody might take something out on a reporter who was just trying to do his or her job. >> you know, this election is going to be taught in colleges across the country for years to come. no doubt, katy. you're going to be quite a popular speaker on campuses in the years to come, that's for sure. good luck with the book. "unbelievable" is the book. great read. >> thank you guys so much. >> thank you. good to see you. we're turning now to this big story, this hurricane that has devastated puerto rico. i've never seen so much water other than hurricane harvey in houston just a few weeks ago. >>

up 1 to 2 feet of rain there. the difference between houston, it's a big bowl where it's going to sit. with puerto rico, it's all about flash flooding, coming down the mountainous country. it's bringing the water right on down into town. we'll see that devastation, i fear, over the next couple of days. you can see where the storm is and where it's been. this is an 18-hour loop now going back to yesterday just when it was south of st. croix. and you notice the eye here. you notice the very well-defined eye as it made its way out of dominica and out of the guadeloupe area. the eye was set off about 15 miles. they got a lot of damage but they didn't see the destruction that some of the other islands saw. puerto rico, the eye came right in. the eye evaporated very quickly. it was weakening when it made its way into puerto rico. they

there out of power. no more power out there in portions of puerto rico and they could be out for days, if not weeks. san juan just to the north and west of san juan, winds of 115 miles per hour moving west at 12. it's going to move east of the bahamas and then make a turn up the coast. next on sunday, 115-mile-an-hour category 3 and then weakens and gets shear interaction. after this, it runs into jose. let's talk about jose. here it is right here, to the south of boston, starting to give places like boston and nantucket and the cape rainfall. a lot of coastal beach erosion all the way from new york to the boston area, we're going to continue to see that. notice, this is not moving all that much and it's not going to. the track of this storm just has it sitting out there for days just to the south of the boston region. right now,

hour. it's a tropical storm but it's just going to sit there moving northeast at 8. watch this. this is through next monday. this is monday now. this is five days from now. that's going to be the interaction from maria and jose. what happens when maria moves up? some of the computer models bring jose into the u.s. east coast. that would be a good scenario. if jose went out to sea, maria would be a stronger storm. that could come into the east coast. that would be the worst-case scenario. the other scenario, neither one makes it in here. this is what i'm talking about. i'll explain this a little bit more coming up at 4:45. just the interaction and where i think these storm systems will go. for us, local weather, absolutely gorgeous. more like summer than fall. first day of fall on friday and look at that first weekend of fall. temperatures in the mid-to upper 80s. simply gorgeous weather and then we're tracking maria and jose next tuesday,

thursday, guys. a lot of time to watch this and we need it because we're not sure where this is going. >> summer is coming to an interesting end. >> and we want to see the hurricane season come to an end. >> absolutely. >> one day it will transport people in our region like nothing has ever transported them before. >> until we get to that day, it's a very controversial issue on hold. but not for much longer. work begins on a trail that thousands of people want back. and we've all seen it, a dog outside of a bar or restaurant. why dog owners are

i'm a lawyer, and i have clients, and i am proud to do what i do on behalf of my clients. narrator: the clients john adams and his team are so proud to work for? banks accused of money laundering. big corporations accused of defrauding taxpayers. and mortgage lenders accused of unfairly foreclosing on homes. now he wants to be attorney general. john adams: the best attorney general the powerful and well-connected can buy. i'm mark herring, candidate for attorney general, and i sponsored this ad. ralpand i sponsoredralph northam, canthis adfor governor narrator: ed gillespie says dr. ralph northam doesn't show up? dr. ralph northam was an army doctor and a volunteer medical director at a children's hospice.

requiring concussion standards for school sports. the smoking ban in restaurants. and dr. northam is working to connect veterans to good paying jobs in virginia. ed gillespie is a washington dc corporate lobbyist. he shows up for whoever pays him. it's one of the most popular trends for bars and restaurants, even coffee shops around here. maybe you noticed it. yappy hour. >> i posted about this on my facebook page. got a lot of interesting reaction. >> okay. >> it's a happy hour for dogs and dog owners but in many cases, it's illegal. >> news4's mark segraves has been sniffing around on this. he found the laws are different around the

where you are. some of the laws will be changing, mark? >> reporter: yes. as a matter of fact, since we started reporting on this this morning, there's been movement. when i talked to the d.c. department of health, they say it's against the law, the law is the law and that's that. moments ago i got an e-mail from the department of health saying that they are now going to review best practices. and that's because in neighboring jurisdictions, it's not against the law in some cases, like here at java shack this arlington. this is one of nine places that has a permit where you can legally sit down and break bread with your dog. you probably see the water bowls outside restaurants and coffee shops all over. many businesses want to encourage customers to bring their dogs. so much so that some restaurants and bars are actually hosting yappy hour. in some cases, dogs are part of the ambience, like this bar in northwest d.c.

health says it's against the law. and they've been telling establishments to keep the dogs out or face a $500 fine. >> i think it is a shackling of our small business owners. >> across the river in arlington, bars and restaurants can apply for an exemption and get a permit to allow dogs like they do at oz where they host regular yappy hours. restaurants can get a permit to allow four-legged campaign generals on their patios. so while it's illegal in washington, d.c., both the department of health says they are going to review their best practices in d.c. and a councilwoman will look at introducing emergency legislation to fix it. meanwhile, in arlington and washington county where it is legal, go to our nbc app and search for all of the restaurants where it is legal to

pat, back to you. >> mark, lots of pros and cons about this. we want you to weigh in on the nbc washington facebook page. should dogs be allowed at bars? that's their food. it's a pretty tight race. head to our facebook page and let us know what you think. hurricane maria causing a huge mess for billions of people this afternoon. what it's like on the ground in puerto rico. doug is tracking the path of the storm. plus, a city on edge. discontent over the police shooting and killing of a black man. how you're reacting and

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i'm erika gonzalez at the live desk. the special counsel into the russian meddling into our election is digging deep into communications in the white house. that includes president trump's private discussions. "the washington post" says that white house lawyers are working to turn over records and e-mails after requests from robert mueller. mueller wants information on the firing of national security adviser michael flynn and the firing of james comey. the paper says mueller is trying to figure out whether the president blocked fbi investigations of flynn and russian interference. at the live desk, i'm erika gonzalez.

maria throttles puerto rico. >> and we're getting a look at some of the destruction. buildings destroyed and trees down and debris everywhere. the entire island is without electricity and could be that way for months before it's restored. >> and what's really bad about that is they need electricity to run the pumps to get the water out, doug. >> yes. the water is a big deal. i've been looking at what is going on, waist-deep water in some areas. it came across st. croix again, the eye just down to the south making its way into southeastern puerto rico. this is where the eye made its fall onshore. winds gusted over 100 miles an hour but didn't get into the eyewall so that may have saved them a little bit but still dealing with incdi

damage. and we're seeing what is happening around san juan and we have not seen what has happened across the rest of the island. we have ray villeda with more. >> reporter: the rain is coming down and you can see some of the streets here and you can see on the level of water on the tires there. you can see that car right there, it's not going anywhere anytime soon. the hotels are closed and they are not letting anyone outside. as far as power, it's out for a lot of the city. in fact, look at that street light. you can see that the power is out and the street light is not working. people have electricity inside and there are more than 500

check, more than 11,000 people inside of the shelter as it destroys parts of puerto rico. reporting from san juan, i'm ray villeda, back to you. >> it's making its way out into the open waters now and may restrengthen. i'm going to take a closer look. >> all right, doug. more demonstrations expected in and around st. louis. there was a white police officer on trial for murder in the shooting death of a black man six years ago. troy johnson is here with today's walk around town. >> troy, as you know, these protesters are the latest expression in outrage because of the police shootings. >> people are tired o

this. we're talking about decades of concern overshootings like th s this. you have to go back long before philando castile and michael brown. now the outrage is sustained through social media so more people are paying attention and listeners say it really needs to change in this country. i spoke to the editor of the st. louis american, a newspaper that has been serving the black community since 1928 in st. louis in the thick of the protests in ferguson after michael brown's death. he says that protesters believe police have taken on a punitive role. >> we see police take on a punitive role and they are getting away with it

suspect is much less to be killed by a police officer or punished. this puts us in a conundrum that most white people are protected by the police and most black people are victimized by the police, which they mostly are. >> chris says that there is some good news from these ongoing protesters. it's coming from a diverse spectrum of people. it's not simply a white and black people. that's something that the listeners are happy to see because if one group is treated unequally, it's unjust for all people. >> meanwhile, we've also been following a shooting in this area that's raising a lot of questions. police shot and killed a 15-year-old boy outside of his home. yesterday, the prosecutor says that the shooting was justified because the officer felt justified. the young man's father says this was murder.

are hurting for this family and the loss of their child, certainly a lot of unanswered questions there. they are telling me this is another situation where they're concerned about the way that police respond to these incidents and they are saying that the question is are officers too quick to use lethal force? they assume, the people that i spoke to, that officers have other options to go to, pepper spray, tasers, et cetera, et cetera. and, of course, there's concern about people with mental health as well. one in five people in this country deal with mental health. hispanics and blacks often don't get the treatment that they need. they think police officers need to be more cognizant as well. >> much more training needed. >> more training needed. >> troy johnson, good to see you, man. take care. you know it's coming. we all know it's coming. flu season. a first look at whether we'll dodge a bullet this year or if we're in for a rough wint

ahead at 5:00, we're sweet 4k tv, mr. peterson. thanks. pretty psyched. did you get fios too? no. mr. peterson, fios is a 100% fiber optic-network. what does that mean? think about it. if you got an awesome new car you'd put the best gas in it, right. so why hook up your awesome technology to anything other than a fiber-optic network? i got to go. peterson. peterson's wife. counting on you guys. your internet deserves the 100% fiber-optic network. and now get our fastest internet ever

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♪ don't wait. you may want to get your flu shots sooner rather than later. australia has seen double the number of flu cases compared to last year. that's not a good sign for us here in the u.s. most people who have gotten sick are children between the ages of 5 and 9 and the elderly. doctors here are now urging americans to get vaccinated before the flu season begins. don't underestimate the power of washing your hands. well, one teacher proved it by conducting an experiment to show her students just how important it is. she used three-pieces of bread. she wore a plastic glove to put the first piece in a plastic bag. then she washeder

second piece of bread into the bag. she let all of the kids touch the third piece without washing their hands before putting the third piece in the bag and you can see the results. gross. really gross. >> you know, little boys that age probably think that's cool. >> little boys? >> yes, they think, hey, let me give that a try. >> really? that's disgusting. >> yes, it is. i'm not arguing with that. >> wash your hands! a storm so bad it has all of puerto rico in the dark right now. storm team 4 is keeping track of

there's work to be done. it's not going to be easy but there's grit inside of you. and if you need extra motivation the grad fund at strayer university can help push you forward. because up to your last year of classes could be on us. that's right. on us.

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the mexico city government tells us crews have rescued 52 people from the rubble of flattened buildings. it's killed more than 200 people and rescue efforts

frenetic pace. water just running through the streets in san juan. half of the city is flooded now. lauryn ricketts is tracking this for us. how much longer are we going to be talking about that one? >> at least a week. >> yeah. >> it really will be about a week before we figure out where the storms are going to go and how they are going to interact. >> yep. >> exactly. it's moving back into warmer waters and its exact track, four or five days, to be determined. >> this is a long loop here. look at the eye. extremely well-defined eye coming into the

you can see the eye coming right through southeastern portions of puerto rico and notice it moves right across the highlands there and now it's out over the open waters. we may see it strengthen again and it could become a category 3. right now it's down to a category 2. moving northwest at 12. this time yesterday, it was 175-mile-an-hour hurricane. you can see what the island itself did with the mountains down there. on friday, it's expected to be a 123-mile-an-hour category 3 and moving across the southeast coastline. just off the coast most likely here and then it's going to have an interaction with jose, a storm we've been talking about for two weeks. it looks like we'll talk about it for another week because it's not moving much at all. you see movement here and it's bringing rain and coastal

how are they going to interact. that is the big question. right now, we still don't know the answers to it. all of the computer models are giving us slightly different variations of what is happening. maria is down here. jose is here. watch what happens here. jose is a tropical storm. still sitting there. this is when the interaction takes place. what happens to the storm? this is the european model. they are together on monday. watch this storm race in. that's jose. that races inland. is that going to happen? some of the models take the storm and move it out and then they bring maria even closer to the shore. so, so many things could happen. this is why you have to keep it right here. we'll continue to keep you posted. speaking of the latest, let's go to the latest with lauryn ricketts. >> hurricane hunters have been flying through mission after mission. they got us data with the latest 5:00 p.m. update. if

show you the hurricane hunters' path. usually they have enough fuel for 14 hours. averaged 11 hours for a mission. they do not fly over top of the hurricane. some of the cloud tops go up 50,000 feet. they can only nfly up to 30,000 feet. they are coming back around and back into the hurricane to give us data for another update tonight. so join doug tonight at 11:00. all of the data that they want is at the bottom. they drop the parachute and it brings back data two seconds and we see models and this is a way to interpret the data and give us a confidence booster. most of the models continue to

watching. >> there is a cone of uncertainty. our weather has been phenomenal and it's 88 degrees on thursday and 86 on friday and first weekend of fall, hot. 88 on sunday. 10 degrees above average. staying that way on monday. there it is tracking jose, maria -- jose and maria next tuesday, wednesday and thursday. so much to watch. we'll be watching this every step of the way for you. follow us on facebook and on twitter. we'll continue to keep you posted. >> thank you, doug. >> sounds like a plan. new concerns about the synthetic turf on athletic fields across the area. >> jim and wendy

it for us. >> parents and safety advocates are worried after a dozen of artificial turf fields failed safety tests. >> this is a big issue if your kids play any sports, soccer or football. when we come up at 5:00, city leaders explain what is wrong and being done now to fix these problems. also, a teenager is missing. his family is worried he's in danger but police were able to find him quickly with the help of a drone. >> yeah. minutes away, news4 gets an inside look at how officers are using this new technology to keep people safe. this is pretty cool. it's going to become much more common. it's a busy afternoon with the earthquake and with the hurricane maria passing puerto rico. we'll have an update on all of that coming up in a few minutes at 5:00. >> i like that use of drones. better than delivering pizzas. >> it can find my car at the mall when i parked it somewhere and -- was it this door, over there? >> defel

the drone. >> see you guys in a bit. all right. tonight marks one of the holiest days of the jewish calendar, rosh hashanah. yom kippur starts next friday. loudoun county is searching for the biggest trees. the county is keeping a registry of the biggest trees and the county wants you to help. so when you find one, they say you should nominate it for the registry. this white cedar is 125 inches around. >> with everybody going out into the woods this fall, we wanted to see if they might find some trees that might be a champion tree to go on our list and maybe on the virginia state list. >> loudoun has an interactive map of the big tree lo

instructions for registering the monster in your backyard by searching trees in the nbc washington app. >> you have big trees? >> i have big trees. >> you do? >> i do. >> i don't. i have a big opportunity. >> okay. >> here's what it is. it's for redskins fans. heads up, guys, news4 is giving you a chance to win two tickets to the game at fedex field. >> what could possibly be better than that? >> having me as your date. you'll have stretch limo service and me, pat collins. >> now, the thing is, today is the last day to enter. just "like" us on facebook or on instagram to win a chance for a date to this sunday's game. >> it's going to be a good one. all right. making way for the purple line but not witho

>> yeah. when work is set to begin as runners a

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it will be next week before we start construction along the route of the purple line. >> that's right. trees along the north branch trail are the first things to go. hundreds of people use that trail every day. >> darcy spencer reports that a lot of them are not happy. >> reporter: the georgetown branch trail has been closed for weeks as contractors begin work on the light rail project. the signs are up that the trails are closed. no work is being done yet. a judge has allowed forestry clearing and other work to begin. opponents have voiced opposition to the plan and fought it in court but it appears that the project will move ahead barring some

but i'd rather them not do it. >> reporter: fencing has been placed along the trail designating a tree preservation area. opponents are concerned about the ones that won't be saved in closing the trail for years during construction, used by hundreds of people every day. the purple line website says the trail is being closer in construction for safety reasons. >> it's a terrible idea to close it. >> i'm not sure what the mentality is behind it. i don't see why we can't keep using the trail. >> reporter: the signs are up, trail closed, and there's fencing trying to keep people off. you can see someone tried to push down the fence so they can gain access to the trail. purple line transit partners is asking people to obey these signs and stay off the trail for their own safety. it's going to be an active construction zone. in bethesda, darcy spencer, news4. >> now at 5:00, hurricane maria

>> we have seen parts of buildings being blown off, debris strewn throughout the street, trees being toppled. >> the ferocious storm, one of the strongest ever to hit puerto rico. >> it's a race against time in mexico city. volunteers joining rescue workers digging through the rubble hoping to find survivors after that massive earthquake. >> they are are top stories. a pair of natural disasters and despair and destruction that they are leaving behind this evening. more on the search for the survivors in mexico in just a moment. >> first, we wanted to give you the latest on hurricane maria, which has knocked out power to all of the puerto rico, the entire island in the dark tonight. we want to get the latest on the next target. let's get the latest from doug kammerer. >> the next tar i

this is in the turks and caicos. they are fairly close but i don't think they'll get hit quite as hard as they did from hurricane irma. the storm itself, 18 hours away making its way into st. croix and into south portions, it's back over open waters. the latest advisory has shown that it's a category 2 storm and not just getting away from land and strengthen back and just off to the east of the southeast coastline as we move in to the day on sunday, monday and then into tuesday and that's where this could intersect and interact with jose bringing jose back onto shore. this is something that we'll watch very, very closely over the next couple of days, trying to get the track to load for you to see where it's heading. winds at 110 miles per hour. this is the track moving up toward