. hello. thank you for joining us. i'm jc hayward. needless to say, maryland governor martin o'malley and virginia governor bob mcdonnell are getting ready for sandy. they have both declared states of emergency ahead of the storm. so far sandy has claimed 21 lives. 11 deaths occurred in cuba, 9 in haiti, 1 in jamaica.

sandy is expected to merge with other weather systems creating a rare super storm along the east coast. people who know what it's like when a storm hits this area have been going to the stores. they're paying $800 to $1200 for a generator. for many people the philosophy is be better safe than sorry considering what happened when the derecho hit us back in june. >> this impending storm has me nervous. i decided to invest in a generator. i lost power several times, lost food. had totally out the refrigerator and just not going to do it this time around. >> flashlight, batteries and equipment to clean out gutters and drains is on hi demand adds pepco -- high demand and pepco is on high alert calling all hands on deck near and far.

>> we're holding calls to basically plan for holding contractors that are currently working on our system in place so they're ready and available immediately to help with restoration efforts if we need them. >> pepco is going to hold a press conference at 1:00 this afternoon. they'll discuss what they're doing to prepare for hurricane sandy. we will bring you that press conference live whether it happens. also bge has issued a statement saying that its customers should be prepared for, quote, hundreds of thousands of potential out willings -- outages if this storm turns into our direction. prince george's county public works is doing all that it can to make sure that they're ready for the effects of hurricane sandy. this morning during the annual dry run in preparation for the winter season, crews made sure that the area would be ready for sandy. >> our drivers and our staff while they were out on the roadway running their routes

and doing their inspections to also check storm drains to make sure they were cleared of debris and leaves and things like that. look for low lying branches or limbs from trees, have them addressed. we've been working cooperatively with the utility company. >> susan also says that prince george's county has been preparing for this event for the last several days. she says residents should register for notify me prince george's county for up to date information on what to avoid in the county and how to get help for flooding and down trees and also for nonemergencies they're asking that you call 311. howard has been very busy. tell us the latest. >> looks more and more likely we're going to get a hit from sandy as she heads here for the weekend. want to start out showing you where she is right now.

when you look at the satellite presentation, it's clearly not as impressive looking as it was a couple days ago when it had winds strong category 2. now it's a category 1 with winds 830 miles an hour sustained -- 80 miles an hour sustained to a hundred moving off to the north. you don't get that feel it's impressive looking but it's still a hurricane. got low level circulation. we've got rain and winds eating southeast florida. gusts to a hundred. pressure has come up to 970 millibars. we think it will come up ath -- up a little bit more as it makes the trip north parallelling the u.s. coast. stop the clock sunday morning. still have it at 80 miles an hour. may be 75. maybe falling to tropical storm strength but as it transitions to something tropical to somethg we call extra tropical like a nor'easter you might see in the wintertime, that's probably what it might maintain or even strengthen again. 80 miles an hour monday morning at 8:00. then the track, the center of the track now is taking it on the west side of the delaware

bay. this would be devastating with the flooding up the bay, southern new jersey. for us rain and wind and plenty of it because here we are tuesday morning and it will take another day until it gets northwest of harrisburg. we're actually going to start to feel the effects of this i think by sunday evening, sunday night. we could have two daitz of tropical storm -- days of tropical storm conditions. the forecast models are consistent. i want to show you the spread. we have some models going toward ocean city, others long island. then you see the loop de loop. this will be around for a while. great damage potential unfortunately monday and tuesday. this goes till wednesday now. halloween. so this could be around a while. you see today, we've got the cloudy skies. expecting a little sun later on, highs in the low 70s. take your preparations now. you have time today and tomorrow. clear the gutters, the downspouts, secure lawn furniture, garbage cans, that sort of thing. get ready. monday and tuesday could be really rough around here. i'll have the complete forecast

in a few minutes. first, want to check in with our weekend meteorologist. we know you have lots of questions. he's conducting -- she's conducting a web chat. >> we have you covered from all angles. i'm hosting a live web chat. if you have any specific questions about what the storm is forecast to do. so i can give you information about what the current forecast is and what that might mean for you. specifics on is there the potential for tropical storm force winds. is there the potential for tree damage, that kind of thing. people are asking questions about that and then a couple of people who are a little bit more highly informed on how we do the forecasting have been asking about the model data and the model trend. so that's really interesting. i'll be here for at least the next half-hour or so. so make sure you log on to wusa9.com and you'll see the link right there on the home page. back to you.

>> thanks, erica. she's got great information. check her out. by the way, we've got a great weather app you can get for yourself. all you have to do is text sandy to 25543. well send you the link to download the wusa weather app. we're not the only ones preparing for hurricane sandy. florida and states up and down the east coast are telling their residents to batten down the hatches as sandy barrels towards them. danielle nottingham has more. >> reporter: hurricane sandy is kicking up powerful waves and pounding piers along the atlantic coast. even experienced surfers know it's dangerous to go in the water. >> it can pull you all the way down. >> reporter: high winds and heavy rain knocked out power at this hotel in vero beach. what are you going to do for the rest of the day? >> i'm going to stand outside for a couple of hours. >> reporter: even though the

weather is nasty today in florida, people here are being fared the worst this off shore hurricane has to offer. forecasters say residents in the northeast may not be as lucky. the storm is expected to move north and collide with two other systems. one bringing rain from the west. another bringing arctic air from the north. meteorologists are warning that a monster hybrid storm could hit the east coast right before halloween. >> this is going to be a very large storm. coastal flooding is a major concern and well inland the high elevations, we could be looking at a lot of snow gliew power companies as far north as connecticut are preping for outages. >> getting our resources ready, making sure the people are ready. >> reporter: new jersey which took a big hit from irene last year is expected to bear the worst of sandy. the massive storm is expected to make landfall there late sunday and stick around for three days. danielle nottingham, cbs news,

vero beach, florida. >> of course wusa9 is tracking hurricane sandy on twitter and also on the web. just log on to wusa9.com/sandy. you'll find the hurricane tracker as well as multiple satellite views. dat justice department is re-- today the justice department is reviewing a request from virginia democratic law maketories launch a mull city state -- mull multistate investigation into voter registration fraud. this comes one week after an employee at a public firm was arrested for destroying voter applications. we have the latest now from fairfax county. >> reporter: congressman jim moran and two other democratic congressmen from virginia are asking the department of justice to investigate a firm hired by the republican pay. strategic allied consulting and its subsid dear pin-point. the website has said it has never tolerated even minimal violations of election law when

registering voters, but it's already facing more than 200 allegations of voter registration fraud in florida, arizona, and colorado. in a letter to attorney general eric holder, congressman moran, jerry connolly say the number of allegations in a put pal of locations would seem to suggest something more than a few bad apples. they have already severed ties with strategic allied consulting. but the fafax county democratic committee says staffers from that firm are still operating at six republican victory offices in virginia, including one up in this office building in springfield and another out in sterling. the chairman of fairfax county democrats calls it outrageous that the republicans would continue to employ people who have ties to this kind of criminal activity. so far neither the republican party of virginia nor the department of justice returned our requests for comment.

in fairfax coty, kristin fisher, 9news now. when we come back, i'm going to be one on one with maryland's lieutenant governor anthony brown. we're going to talk about the state of emergency that is already in place for maryland.

we told you that officials in the metropolitan area are getting ready for hurricane sandy. in fact, virginia and maryland have already issued a state of emergency. i'm delighted to have the lieutenant governor of maryland here with me anthony brown to talk exactly what does this mean. >> thanks for having me on. yes, the governor did declare a state of emergency and basically by declaring a state of emergency, it positions us well with the federal government to the extent that if we need to request assistance from the federal government, whether the assistance is in the aftermath

or the recovery but it's important to declare it now. more importantly as you're covering this incident, to let marylanders and virginians know that a severe weather is on the way to the area. >> what should residents do? >> the first thing they should do is not only looking at your website but they can also go to maryland. we've got a lot of information about how to prepare for this type of storm. whether to buy provisions at the grocery store, safety provisions in terms of not burning certain oil lamps indoors, how to properly use generators if and when the power goes out. >> the generators can create problems for many people because they try to use them in garages and they shouldn't. it should be outside. >> often we see carbon monoxide poisoning as a result. so we ask people to go to the website so you can look at safety tips and other preparations that would be

helpful during sandy's coming through. >> i want to let our viewers know we're going to you have linked to our website wusa9.com so they can get that information, go directly to your link. this is going to be according to howard a very big storm, and it's going to leave some damage. >> sure. it's likely to leave some damage, likely to leave a lot of flooding. there's a full moon that will be october 29. that will add to it. we expect school closings on monday and perhaps on tuesday. early voting in maryland begins on saturday so we do ask people to early vote on saturday. it will probably impact early voting on monday and tuesday so stay tuned for early voting closures and perhaps maybe extended hours on wednesday. so a lot of this is in flux so we ask your listeners to stay tuned to your website or ours so they know they have the best information. >> again go to wusa9.com. we're going to have maryland's link to your website so that you'll be able to get the latest information on our

website. thank you, lieutenant governor. >> thank you. >> now let's go back to howard and get more details on the forecast. howard? >> yeah, jc. still not expecting land fall till maybe tuesday. we'll show you the wind field that could be here starting even by monday. we go to break with a look at the weather at miami beach right now we're -- where we're looking at some rain. they've had gusts 30, 40 miles an hour but they're getting a glancing blow. full forecast when 9news now returns.

welcome back. howard bernstein with you and the latest on sandy. still a hurricane. not looking as good as it was yesterday which is you would think a good sign but meteorologically this thing has a lot going for t even though it doesn't look as good. still a hurricane. we've got winds on this at 80 miles an hour, sustained around the center, gusting to 100 in the northern bahamas moving off to the north at about 6 miles an hour. it is going to continue north and then go northeast. would you think that's a good sign pulling away from the coast. unfortunately it's got a blocking high. trough of low pressure out to the west, cold air coming in. warmth here. everything is going to come together to more of this -- morph this into low pressure. monday morning it's east of hatteras. looks like it could make landfall near the delaware bay by tuesday morning. then track through northeastern maryland, south central pennsylvania in toward wednesday morning. this should be a long duration rain event, winds likely

causing trees down, flooding, power outages. get prepared. if this track doesn't change over the weekend, it's going to be big time trouble around here early next week. here's the windfield. the yellow would be tropical storm force winds 30 miles an hour or more. orange would be almost 60 miles an hour and red is hurricane force. we're showing you this because it looks like we could get the damaging winds potentially on the outer banks by sunday evening. sunday night into monday morning, we'll get tropical storm force winds. this will not make landfall till tuesday morning and even wednesday be nearby. we could have 36 to 48 hours of tropical storm force winds affecting the area. maybe even near hurricane force winds along the coast. you combine that with rains which makes the ground soggy, the roots are not held in as well. i'm not liking this setup at all. 68 degrees this afternoon. your day planner, some sunshine breaking out this afternoon. low 70s. kind of like yesterday. east winds 5 to 10 miles an hour. we head into tonight. clouds return, mid-60s by 9:00. we'll dip into the 50s to near

60 for lows overnight. you can see the clouds stuck over most of us. we've seen breaks over by the coast and south central virginia. the clouds outside are thinning. we've got some temperatures in the 60s, upper 60s in annapolis. 70s at the patuxent river naval air station. our weather watchers down in the northern neck. still got some clouds there with 64 in win chetioner and 6 -- winchester and 63 in cumberland. we have time to take the preparations the next couple of daitz. you can see the clouds -- days. you can see the clouds breaking up. east, northeast winds at 7 and humidity 78%. the big picture, cold air is in place. here's the cold front, that line there. this is radar and satellite of sandy. you can see the bands of rain coming back into eastern and southeastern florida. this thing is going to come up here. it will join forces with some of the energy and that frontal energy and some of the cold air and that's why we've been talking about what could be an epic storm here early next week. here's the future cast.

clouds roll back tonight. maybe a patch of fog. tomorrow stays generally cloudy. could have showers in the mountains and also well south of us here in the afternoon. but tomorrow night, a couple of showers south and east. marine corps marathon sunday. looks like it could be raining in the 50s. then the heavier rains sunday night. the wind starts to increase and there is sandy. look at this by almost midnight. maybe some snow starting to fall even in the mountains out west. so the forecast today, 71. some late sun, 50s tonight. tomorrow you can still do things. isolated shower, 67. breezy and wet sunday, 59. then monday and tuesday could be very wet, very windy and chilly. highs around 50. we're going to the kitchen when 9news now at noon returns. stick around.

dame' one on one with one of my favorites.

-- today i'm one on one with one of my favorites. when a storm comes, i always like comfort food. wildfire has great comfort food. they have this chopped salad that's absolutely delicious. but look at the pies. they're homemade. this month they're featuring pumpkin. >> everybody loves their pumpkin pie. we have one of the best in the dmv. i can guarantee you that. that's a chocolate peanut butter tort. we also have our pumpkin bread pudding with pumpkin spice, whipped cream on top, golden raisins, delicious, to die for. >> doesn't that make you feel good just listening to him and the storm isn't even here. today we're going to focus on our vegetables. i like brussel sprouts. >> i love them as well, very simple, easy to make. there's a bunch of recipes out there that you could come up with or look online or what not. >> how are you going to prepare

them? good very simple. butter, a little chicken stock to glaze them. >> chicken stock? >> chicken stock to glaze. >> oh, wow. >> salt and pepper. these are beautiful. look how nice and green they are. >> they are. i tasted them once. they're crunchy. what did you do? >> i blanched them. boiling water with salt. salt holds the green on the vegetable. >> okay. >> saute them very, very hot saute panel. we go in there. music to the ears right there. >> look at that. you've been using this pan a few times. >> just a couple times. >> i mean, my goodness. look at that pan. that's a good pan. you saute them. i couldn't do that. i would have to take a spoon. >> two, three minutes. then we're going to deglaze with some chicken stock. then butter. then pretty much double. salt and pepper -- much done.

salt and pepper. >> i used to call them baby cabbages. edie ishaq at wildfire at tysons gallery ya. we'll have the latest on hurricane sandy throughout the weekend. we'll be there covering the storm fl. you'll get -- storm. you'll get all the information on our website. come back and visit us at 5:00. have a great day.