florence is a powerful storm and could it change the landscape in coastal communities. folks are bracing for what's ahead. >> tonight we have team coveragm as we out the potential path and the impact that it could have here. >> let's start now with doug and lawrence standing by. >> this storm is really increasing, going from a tropical storm yesterday morning to now ay v strong category 4 hurricane. 140-mile-an-hour winds. and the u.s. east coast definitely in the cross hairs. >>absolutely. we've got nothing to slow it down or to really weaken it quite a bit. it will only intensify as we go to the next couple days. >> impacts for our region, too. let's showou where the storm is. still well away from the coast. we have a couple ds to prepare. they've started evacuations into portions of thend carolinas into parts of virginia. hurricane florence now a category 4 hurricane.

take a look at the latest advisory that just came out.ou 140-mile-per winds moving to the west northwest. bermuda making its way into the thst northwest. looking farther n in toward the carolinas as a category 4 hurricane. this is nothing to play with at all and a lot of you, people are asking, if the evacuation order is given, do tdy n to go? once they move inland, this will stall out. look at the cone of uncertainty fr our area into south carolina. anywhere in here, the big threat is rain and flooding. we have coastal flood warnings in effect. this is from what we've seen. astal flooding along the tome. to along the chesapeake bay. if youed flo last night, you'll flood againtonight. much more on this storm and what

to expect in our area. all right. thank you. we'll see you shortly. buying groceries, gassing up the cars, evacuation orders are in place as we get ready for florence later this week. jay? >> reporter: right now, clear skies. we've got calm breeze, it is perfect, to be real honest. those conditions will change dramatically. now is the time for so many hundreds of thousands in the potential strike zone to get prepared. ly the beginning of the week, it will go down h quickly. beach side things are just about perfect right now. >> it has been beautiful the last few days. >> reporter: the situaon along e south atlantic shoreline is expected to change dramatically. >> the forecast places north carolina in the bull's-eye of hurricaneflorence. the storm is rapidly getting er

stro >> reporter: florence is a monster, a major hurricane, visible frome. sp churning in the atlantic, gathering strength and pushing toward thecoach. >> there is a serious threat from dangerous winds, dangerous coasta storm surg and dangerous riverine floodingca d by high amounts of precipitation. >> reporter: hundreds of thousands in the strike zone are getting ready. there's been a run oner gors and everything else needed to ride out the storm. >> i've got flashlights and tons of gallons of water. i'm ready. >> reporter: worrying, waiting and watching as florence closes in. now, evacuation orders already in place in the outer banks. that area will expand tomorrow. the governor of south carolina wants the entire coastline of at state cleared out by

tomorrow evening. florence expected to make landfall sometime late thursday into friy morning. >> all right. meantime.l in the >> thank you. keep us posted. as we mentioned, the governor ordered manner to evacuations ta get for florence' arrival. the evacuations again tomorrow morning. both virginia and maryland hav declared states of emergency. >> reporter: the maryland governor larry hogan has that can the lates of local officials to declare a state of emergency. we are prepari for the potential of his, to catastrophic and life threatening flooding in maryland. >> reporter: the dominion power crews are getting ready for whatever comes our way. specially overhead crews. they're getting special equipment kits for quick power

restorations. >> we are making sure that all of our offices are fully staffed, moving resources and equipment to the offices that we're anticipating will have the greatest impact. >> the normalidal flooding on the potomac like alexandria could be even more of a roprobl. thed saturated, too, and that will add more. >> reporter: people who know the local waterways say they're ady. >> we prepare for storms. we prepare for operating vesss. we hav run calls in moving water outside of storm conditions. even if you're inland in low lying areas, high standing water an pose hazard. remember, you cannot tell how deep it is from the surface so don't take it ghy. >> it only takes a few inches from swiftly moving water to push a person down, move a vehicle. that's a real possibility with the amount of rain we've had and

the amount of rain that's anticipated. >> reporter: we've seen things are getting serious with some evacuation orders tomorrow. we expect to hear more. one possibility is the deployment o gthe floode south of constitution should it come to that. jim handily is heading there now. he'll have live coverage to tell us how things are going. now, we turn to the turmoil in the white house. of thea wake-up from one most well known journalists. bob wdward has beewriting

books books about presidents. he wrote a book. >> i've never seen an instance when the president is so tached from the reality of what is going on. >> president trump responded in real-time. blayne alexander joins us. a reporter: we certainly saw lot from president trump on twitter. one of those tweets, he said his white house is a ll-oiled machine. something he's. before. but of course the book paints d veferent picture. on the eve of that book'sre ase, they're going head to head over who is telling the trutul. >> push back from the podiumor >> repr: the white house hoing its first briefing. sarah sanders addressing the new book "fear" which speaks of a

tim ittuous white house through un sources. >> it seems incredibly reckless for a book t mak such outrageous claims, to not even take the time get a $10 fact checker to verify. >> reporter: this mo woodward taking a hit at the president. >> this is a war on truth by him. >> reporter: and defending his reporting on "today." >> why should people trust you? >> the incidents are not anonymous. >> reporter: president trump apparently watching, pointing to that question from savannah and calling woodward a lia caught cold. sanders calling out an anonymous senior administration official who wrote a critical "new york times" op-ed questioning the president's fness for office. >> i would rather take actual on record account from people who are here, who have been working in this building. not disgruntled employees who

refu to put their name on things. >> reporter: the flood of denials continuing as she suggests it could be a national rity issue for the justice department to look into. as president trump suggested. nbc news, washington. >> a maryland senator is looking for answers from the goverr and the state's marc system. as the i-team showedus , the federal government has repeatedly warned of concern. >> he says his letter isn't jusi about m a deadline. it is a matter of public safety. congress says it waso enstall new technology aecade ago. it has been b pushingack repeatedly. now it isee and a half months away. >> the tion's railroads are scrambling to enforce positive

train control. it comnicates wirelessly to prevent collisions. the system can slow or stop a train automaticory if it is going too fast for conditions e ich it says could h prevented crash after deadly crash. >> we need to make sure when a passenger gets on a train, they know they'll get to their decembestinat safely. >> they took note with the government sent thr warni letters saying marc is not only in danger of missing the december 31 deadline, it is not even expectedo meet what is required for a extension. amtrak owns the line and says it may not let peopln it. >> that would cause a big problem. >> with you maryland's transit administrator says that will not happen, that smark on track td have it tes and up and running by the end of the year despite theederal railroad administration thinking

otherwise. >> we will certainly do our best to you know marc to move in the right direction is that address safety concerns as quickly as possible so we can avoid inconvenience to passengers. >> reporter: it hand said how much money it would be. in an interviewhis summer, the governor told news4 he would look into all of this. his officeeqid notst for a statement today. nbc i-teamll right. thank you. coming up next, new clues on the eve of the d.c. mansion murder trial and the key players who could take stand. caught onape but still on the streets. why this man'sctions could be putting thousands oft you a risk. and it looked like a scene from a horror movie but it was all too real for one family. see what it took to get r of the thousands of bats. the potential impt.

bracing for impact. we look live at the beach in north carolina. it looks pretty calm at this moment but people are being told to pac up and leave as hurricane florence gets closer every moment. this storm could lead to serious flooding in our area.

over the past week somebody has been going around the streets of d.c. and opening up fire hydrants. it may seem like a pra but i could be putting thousands of us at risk. now the latest incident forced a road closure and sent water flooding into a grocery store. >> take a look at this cell ph te video froms morning at sixth and h streets. so much water at such high pressure, the d.c. police had to close down theet st and this isn't the first time it's happened in this neighborhood. >> a full blast of the water would have been dangerous for anyone in the area. a it was issue for traffic. and then we don't knowf this same individual has been hitting other hydrants but there's been a flash of these and we're concerned. >> six fire hydrants in five differen locations across

northeast d.c. have been illegally opened. here's aing that one person tweeted. police are investigating. they don't knowe if same suspect is responsible and they don't know the etive. ire department says it is putting the public at risk. >>ould it easily be tens of thousands of gallons. the impact is if there is a fire nearby, there's less water pressure. >> reporter: in fact, it raced down sixth street into the jumped ground parkingare and it went into thece g store. there have been reports in other parts of district of a man going private homes and churches and turning on their outdoor water spigots and leaving them running. news4. >> metro riders may have to pay more when there's a special event like theourth of july.

they are talking about peak fares. it is a way toec roup the cost of service without calling on the federal government for more money. more about the weather and the impact hurricane florence could have. this is quite a seriousstorm. we get warnings all the time but this one is t.differ >> this is very much like hurricane isabel which hit in 2003. this takes a track fairly similar to isabel, and some models have that. we saw six feet flooding. thousands of trees down. that was in our area and that came onshore. soe have to watch this very closely. if it stays farther to the south, we'll be a little better off. right now we have to prepare for

the worst. right now, 140-mile-an-hourry cate buzz saw of a storm. just to the south of bermuda,n you see just how far off the coast it is. it is only moving at 13 miles an hour. quef ti we have time on prepare. now, 140-mile-an-hour winds. pressure down to 939 millibars. that an extremely strong storm and this has been dropping all day today. actually come close to ate ry 5. it is 156-mile-an-hour. possibly weakening close to landfall. again, a tremendous wind

associating with this. this i 24 hours. this is 24 hours. this is 24hours. ortice, it is stalling out. not just north carolina but all the way into the . mid-atlant some with 10 to 20 inches of rain in our area. especially tard the shen dougha valley. this is area it is supposed to inland. we'll see just what kind of anp it has. this is what happened with isabel. the winds came right up the chesapeake bay. we've got today. i and thanot even from the hurricane. that's from the rain and the winds. from gordon. the easterly flow helping to produce flooding. we will see it again.

we'll hav a live report at 7:00. it is going to be big a thing we talk about. 61 in leesburg. that will lead to a chance for showers with a high of 81. tracking florence. into saturday, into sunday, into monday. possibly all the way to the middle of next week. we'll be talng about this storm. it will feel like we never talk about it. thank you.

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the vatican is preparing to address claims that pope francis covered up sexual abuse allegations against cardinal theodore mccarrick. they saide knew about the claims against the former archbishop of washington but allowed him to serve as a cardinalanyway. mccarrick resigned in june under nlegations. >> to the stunning but not really sudden fall from grace for the cbs executive. he stepped down as the chairman and ceo. his depart you came hours after dhe new yorker reported a sec wave of accusations from six ore women who accused him of allegations from sexual assault to harassment. back in july, the new yorker published the first article in which six women accused him of a pattern of misconduct that goes back fordecades.

pbs officials say any severance package w withheld until all the investigations are complete. new reaction to that controversy surrounding penalties against serena williams at the u.s. open last night. in case you missed it,ers what happened. williams was penalized for coaching from the stands, throwing her racket and enentually g a game penalty after a third violation. >> you're a thief. >> williams says none of her male counter parts have ever been tated so harshly. slot of them agree with her. >> i james blake and andy roddick, two former american players said i did much worse and i never ham a taken away from me. mcenroe in the 90s, he was so bad and having so many tantrums.

>> today the winner said on the "today" show, they plays for t washington castles, she said she was conflicted after that match. she was hpy thathe won but she was sad because of that controversy that clouded the moment. still ahead on news4 at 6: , much more coverage of hurricane florence as the category storm prepares to take aim at the carolinas. plus, a closer look at the key players and the legal strategy in the d.c. mansion case goes on trial.nd a touching remember the you'd in the wake of the 9/11 terror attack. an

another hive look at wrightville beach, north carolina, as coastal communities ne and down the east coast brace for hurrica florence. both maryland and virginia have already declared states of virginia. >> looks are deceiving. that could bring even more rain to our already saturated region. check out the scene along gw parkway today. >> crews had to help people. >> how bad will it get? >> weaw in it annapolis too.

down annapolis flooded and that's from just the normal flow. we're tracking hurricane floyd. a very strong category 4 hurricane. continuing to strengthen, may even become a category 5 before possibly weakening. the biggest impact around the north carolina,outh carolina border, all the way into portions of virginia and norfolk. gcould really hit very hard from the storm. or us, it is more of a rain maker. more of alood threat. i'll have the latest coming up in 10 to 15 minutes. >> more than three years after a wealthy businessman, his wife, their young son and the housekeeper were tied up,rt ed and killed inside their

northwest d.c. home, the sole suspect, daron wint, is aut to go o trial. opening statements scheduled for tomorrow. now a look at what to expect ahead. talk to us about the key players whotou exp to see testifying. >> sure. we know that it is possible we could hearing from a lot of wint. his sister, his brother, that was said to us in open court a couple days ago when the prosecution ran down a list of the potential jurors would be hearing from,anting to know that they knew any of these individuals. we knew we could be hearing from the assistant, jordan he is known to have driven savopoulos around. he is the guy who delivered the ransom money just hours before

the family wkilled. the house was set on fire and then of course, asou see, the housekeeper of 20 years, the surviving housekeeper for the family. and she was there t night that sava received the phone call from his wifskg him to come back to the house and then of course, thas when the family was held hostage. and then lastly we will be hearing from the forensic experts who collected evidence from the scene. >> so what are you hearing about se strategy? bothes of the case. >> we know the defense will be using a defense that says my climate didn't do it it was someone else. in open court noton ago, the defense asked the judge if they could use te.s defe the judge had to evaluate and it had to see if the evidence that the defense presented to try to use this defense wasredible

ough and the judge said yes, you can use this defense. so they are going to alle that someone else did the crime. notaron wint. and the prosecution, they'll tie it back to the house. there was dna on daron wint. a lot of people refer to it as the pizza case. that dna is certainly strongen ev that they have but as news4 has reported, over the st couple of days, there have been questions surrounding the way that evidence was collected from the home so it will be interesting to see how i all maze out. >> before the trial gets e predicting y that it will be a long one. >> absolutely. we're looking at a two-month trial. the judge said i courtust last week that jurors can expect to be on ts until november 5th. and then at that point, tha is when they'll have time deliberate whether wt is guilty or not. >> that's remarkable to forecast

from the outset. that it will be that long. >> absolutely. a lot of evidence to get to. >> we're glad you'll be covering it. we home you'll stay with us on news4 for the extended coverage includingur 30-men special from some of the top criminal minds. to go our app and search mansion murders. tomorrow will mk 17ears since the september 11 attacks. tributes will be held across thr co to remember those killed that day. some tributes already taking shape including this one along the arlington skyline. along route 110, the remembrances don't end there. no more now on how one tsa officer is honoring a fallen >> hd and his kindine go arofficer. to work each day. they're helping protect people while also honoring a life well

lived. >> beautiful dog. we have to go out to new york to meet the family of the man he was name after. >> howard the dog is name for george howard who ran toward the twin towers and never came home. >> just the fact that he carries on the legacy of a fallen here over is very cool. he was very dedicated to pun service and loved his job. >> he began his job because of 9/11. he was on a night headed to new york and had to land in pennsylvan. >> couldn't believe there are people like that in the world who would h tryt innocent people. i felt a need to be involved to able to help prevent it. >> soon after he joined the tsa and he and howard have been friends ever since. recently they went to new york toee mt the family. and as they carry on a legacy of saving lives, tomrow will mark

another year since september 11th. >> there are people out there that would still like to do things like that today. >> reporter: an rea nbc 4. today is worldwide suicide prevention daay it surprise to you hear that 800,000 people around the world die by suicide every year. on friday, rapper mac miller died ilos angeles of an apparently drug overdose. it is noter clear whe it was intentional. but suicide is expected. earlier this year is world was shocked by the suicide of kate spade and anthony oturdaine. they struggled with depression. if you're in need there is help available. right now we are in the cale be the storm.

we're live with the final preparations as hurricane florence inches closer and closer to the carolinas. plus, unwant guests hiding in the walls of this family's home. they share their story and swhw they share their story and swhw it took as your home becomes more connected, you need fios to keep up and fios is the 100% fiber-optic network... which means you get phenomenal capacity for your tech. and nest smart home devices plus the fastest internet available,

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virgeria's gr knew ordering evacuations in the south eastern part of state starting tomorrow morning. >> you can check out the view cefrom the station above us. kerry sanders is monitoring the conditions. >> necessary carolina beach in north carolina with the final preparations there. >> reporter: p bple areeding

up and trying to get their supplies in order and many people on theoast a heading inland. mandatory ecuations at cape hatteras. imaginer to evacuations along the il187 of coastline. as you noted, the mandatoryac tions in portions of virginia which go into effect tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. one of the bigge problems when you have the evacuations is the tmaffic nie. at least in south carolina, they decided to take interstate 26 and take wha is th westbound lane but take eastbound and turn in it reverse like many of the roads in washington during rush hour where you can go that ct din. the authorities believe the best thing for people to do is prepare.

all right. much more tonig on "nbc nightly news." doug, flooding is the biggest concern f us, isn't it? >> it is the chance for heavy rain and flooding that could last for days. possibly towarn our reg as we head toward thed. weeken much more on this and the impacts that we can expect. our consumer team that you need

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it's hard to find perfect t home an you want a money pit. >> that's right. a local consumer group revealed many could ninvestigators misse things. >> they put a dozen local home inspectors to e test. watching undercover to see if they could test 28 problems lurking inside a home. this, a three bedroom single family nome arlington. washington consumers checked for a month. >> we either identified or created 28 problems. we decided these too obvious. >> posing as potential home buyers, they hired 12 home

inspectors to see if they would darche 28 problems inside and outside the house. >> an outlet didn't work. a light fixture didn't work. there was a big leak you know the kitchen sink. >> and wood rot, the results according to checkbook, astonishing. >> a few of our inspectors failed to note blatant obvious water damage on the ceiling in the living room. we created this leak under the kitchen sink. if they had run the water for more than a few seconds, they would have caught it. some some missed this backed up sink and the loose shingles. >> the industry standard is no, they dome to have check every outlet or raise and lower every window. no, they don't check the chimneys. that's for a different group. then what were we paying them for? >> check book said only three raised the ladder to check the roof. five didn't inspect window ac units and only six tested to see

if the windows even worked. as far as cost on average, checkbook paid $540 per inspection. news4 is working for you on what you sbhng hiring a home inspector. make sure the inspector is licensed. d.c. does not require a license. ask the inspector for previous reports. did he take pictures and detailed notes? ask what happens if something important is missed. participate in the home inspecs. ask questions, point out issues and make sure they arely cle reported in your report. so this is a commatitive et and a lot of buyers choose not to do an inspection to give themdg an and save time. but buying a home without it can be a bad idea. so do your homework. when you buy your hole, have an inspecto already linedup. ratings of more than 200 home inspectors right here in our

region. search home inspectors. >> make sure they have a license. i'm guessing the ones hadce es. >> do your homework earlier. you want to see the detailed reports. don't forget they don't have to do everything. you s at 5:00, the bat story. things get missed. they can't go behind walls. they can't do a lot of things. >> you get one chance. find your person beforeseou start h hunting. good advice. thank you. we turn to an alarming discovery inside a fredericksburg home. hundreds of bats living inside this house. take a welcome. do you see that? ho have had with her family over the summer.

she said there were so many bats it was like the walls wer alive. >> i gave birth june 4th and the bats arrived the week that i brought my baby home. learning later they were giving birth as ewell. dult females were having babies in our walls. >> see, they needed an inspector on their house. they installed one way tooks in the home which let the bs fly out but not back in and they sealed it up so hopefully they can't come back. >> let's hope not.>> wow! >> we're in for some wet days ahead. it is going to last a while. it has been so wet. it is one of the wettest years we've ever had to this point. now we're talkih a hurricane making its way here. that's when we normallyet heavy rain here. this one is no different and we could see a lot of rain as we

make our way into the weekend. all because o hurnl florence. you can see the buzz saw of a monster of a hurricane.y a categ 4 hurricane. it is really coming into its own over the last 24 hos. it was a tropical storm yesterday and then to a category 1. we have plenty of time, plenty of time on prepare. it takes longer to evacuate the outer banks but they're already starting to do so. there is some squins tconsisten. winds at 140 miles an hour. becoming a depression quick will

you. it was flying. right toward our west. and pt stillduced a lot of rain but it was out of here. this one may stick raung forth e, four, five, six days. it will stall. wherer it stalls, that's where we'll see the heaviest rainfall. it is not the wind from the storm. however, down along the eastern coast of the carolinas, major wind damage. storm surge flooding will be extremely high. maybe up to ten feet storm surge. and inland floodin for everybody. that's the biggest concern including for our area. we've seen flooding. we've had a persist tenonshore flow. you add theri hne flores win winds, not alling the potomac to empty out. you have flooding in every one of the rivers in our region. we saw with isabel, six feet of

water in down baltimore.et that's sng we could see if this scenario plays out. th you add in six to ten inches of rain. that's why the flooding is the biggest impact. it is the inland flooding. the coastal flood warnings. this is not for florence. this is for what we've already got. anne arundel county saint mary's county, all under coastal flood warnings. now the next coupledays, temperatures starting to regain. tracking florence late thursday into friday, saturday, singlun, monday, maybe tuesday. this will be a long duration this will be a long duration event and we'll be all

this will be a long duration event and we'll be all (music throughout)

undefeated. >> yes. >> i don't know what to >>y. i'll give it to you. the cone of uncertainty. >> you're not bringing us into this. >> no dancingn the set while i'm doing this. the old pro bowl quarterback in the offseason, add an mvp running back in pre season, and a player returning if a broken legtrick. the redskins did it in arizona. to be sure, there was more to the win against cardinals. but they were front and center, worth dancingaround alex smith, two touchdowns including one to chrisps thomon. i think the broke leg looks okay. thompson and adrian peterson combine for224 total yards. where to begin? we'll leave that to stana moss. >> win for the first time und

ach jay gruden. what was your takeaway? >> i think it was just looming around the idea of coming here and conducting the offense like in the past, san francisco, kansas city. he orchestrated it down thefi d. second half, you want to see a little more. as a wide receiver, you would say, take it away from chris ompson, adrian peterson, the combination, the dynamic duo, thunder a line. chris thompson looked outstanding. being able to get down hill. designed to allow the offensive lineoo lk so much better. lookingin outstandg in that corner. it minds me of it.

there were a lot ofit pes to takeaway from the game. >>reaching to the choir. here i d.c., we're walking on that sunshine. in. thatn doesn't m browns won. they feel good. the game was tied. in overtime. he's rattled. he has the interception. i can't believe >> it's progress. >> no. they're so happy. he is upset because they didn't win. >> the 43-yar field goa attempt blocked. and he said we're undefeated.

>> i can't figure out how this rotates. hey, just ask the nationals. all this wild weather can throw sports world into a cone of uncertainty. postponements. the rain pushed theal f round of the championship into a frenzy. things not too dry. tiger woods wearing his red shirt. this is good woods gets it there. tiger tied for sixth. justin rhodes. need that to win, right? sudden death playoff. keegan bradley got it.

>> wearing his red. >> we'll

tonight, the monster storm taking aim at the east coast. hurricane florence rapidly strengthentog potentially catastrophic category four. states of emergency declared, mandatory evacuations for the whole south carolina coast. >> people, we need to prepare. we urge you to do that. >> reporter: where and when could it hit? al roker is tracking the threat. dramatic new veo om right after a police officer fatally shot a neighbor in an apartment mixup. the charges she now faces. another media duitan out over sexual misconct allegations. eshow cbs' les moonv could way with a $120 million payday.