welcome back to our

continuing coverage of super storm sandy, and thank you for waking up very early with us. at this hour, numbers only tell part of the story. the storm is blamed for at least 10 deaths in the united states. more than 14,000 flights have been canceled. damage could reach $20 billion. >> and it has flooded several new york city subway tunnels, and much of the manhattan skyline is dark. >> just very odd to see. here in d.c., can you expect strong winds and heavy rain throughout the night. the federal government and many local governments and school systems will bound b closed tomorrow. for the latest, go to our website, wusa9.com. >> with this storm system, it

delivered something quite quiet different just a couple of hours west of d.c. we're talking snow and lots of it. counties in maryland, virginia, and west virginia all bracing for feet of the white stuff. >> reporter: the national weather service issued blizzard warnings for much of the appalachian mountains. west virginia's governor declared a state of emergency as the snow began to fall. >> we're getting ready for the winter storm, you know. >> reporter: the snowshoe mountain resort was one of the first to see the snow. 4 inches now could grow to 2 feet by tomorrow. some roads are treacherous already. >> our friend's car doesn't have the great est tires. they've been spinning around on the road one time, so i'm going to get them. >> reporter: you'll do better. you have 4-wheel drive.

>> yep. >> reporter: travis ray is with the department of transportation. >> there will be people after immediate night that will have to work. we have a dependable work force, but they're not ideal conditions. but we'll be out there to serve the public. >> reporter: the most critical problem may with be if the power goes out companies are warning the owl outages will be widespread as trees buckle under the snow and take out power lines. >> west virginia emergency officials say the next 24 hours will be the worst as far as snowfall there. >> and the national guard is on standbay, and the state has put extra road and power crews on alert. this has been one heck of a storm. we'll be right back. never look a howler monkey in the eye.

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welcome back. thank you for staying up with us or getting up with us. we'll check back in with debra. >> she's been out on the streets. debra, tell us more. >> reporter: okay, i will. we are driving on huntington avenue. pardon me if i don't look right at you as i'm driving. i'm trying to be safe here. i'll give you a tour of what we've been seeing. can you take a look on the right-hand side, jean? it looks like it's been open, and it's the 7-lech. that's one place that's open in this area, and that's probably it. let's also take a look here at this metro shopping center. this has been ground zero for everything that's been going on as far as firefighters, police, they've all been meeting here, and this is where they've been having their command center.

so we've been in this area all night. we're on air linton drive and fenwick terrace. and here's engine 37 right here from kingstown. you see a couple of these different vehicles here, fairfax county fire and rescue. the captain said people are under a mandatory rescue. they're not forcing people to get out, but they would like people to leave because of the fact that this area ends up flool flooding. there's one car on the road. as we keep on going, i will take tow fenwick drive. that's where we started our evening. we found out there's a mandatory evacuation there. we did see firefighter and police officers going door to door and making sure everyone is safe. we have the windshield wipers

on. the rain is picking up a bit from when we last did a live shot from about half an hour ago. and this is where jean's camera doesn't want to play nice with us, it gets dark. a lot of people heeded the call. and we're driving down here. we have no issues with the flooded roadway, which is exactly the problem they thought they would have. that's that's the good news. a lot of people did evacuate. the good thing is when they come back, they'll come back to their homes that hopefully don't have any flooded basements. it the least it's not the whole situation they thought they would have. we have this one couple that showed us where they had flooding last time. hopefully this time will be pa bit better. >> and you checked in with an

emergency center that is available for people in that area. and what about wind gusts? are you feeling those, or have they settled down? >> it's about about 3 to 4 hours ago, we were seeing wind gusts. this car was hard to hold onto. and it was hard to even see. it was pretty tough out there. i don't have any issue with the wind right now. the rain is a bit much sometimes, but the wind has died down a lot. >> thank you, debra for that and being with us all night long. >> and we're still in the critical time, by here's a familiar refrain now from our colleagues out in the field, where they're getting a sense that things are starting to sort of tamper down a bit. i know we need to be cautious about it. >> yeah, i think we said earlier about 9:00 that it

became obvious, but no 70 mile per hour winds overnight, but we will see the wind dying back down in the surface. and with all the rain, we have rainfall amounts from 3 to 7- inches. that's common in the area. even up to 40 will cause some problems. the good news, a wind gust at 26. we will take that and run to the book bank. 40 mile per hour wind gust in ocean city. and still 40 in pets and 36 in buffalo. and it's almost the case where the farther you are away from the center, and this is where the center is, the stronger the winds are. i think as the center moves off

to the north and west, we're look at another bout with some strong winds. think we'll see some winds above 50 once again tomorrow morning. in leesburg, a 37 mile per hour wind gust. and a 34 mile per hour wind gust in hage rstown. -- in hagerstown. so the wind fields again, the orange is not what you want to see. eventually, we think this will move off to the north and west and encompass the western part of the metro area, and up to our friends in pennsylvania. and by 10 a.m., you still see the orange hanging around, and

that finally lifts out during the afternoon. by 6 p.m., we still have a band, a pretty bake area of tropical storm force winds, and we can only take so much. even a 40-mile per hour wind by itself isn't so much. but it comes after winds that have been blowing for 1 to 2 day. that's a bit of a problem. the good news, by early wednesday morning, we will see the winds finally lift out, and by noon on halloween, we won't won't have any damagingen winds to worry about. maybe we can salvage halloween after all, if not, move it to saturday. we gain an hour this week. >> we like that plan. >> so they get two days off of school and halloween moved to the weekend. >> i think the kids will go crazy. >> we should do that for them. they've been cooped up. they need to get out.

>> ken is out in old alexandria. ken can be westbound it's good to see you warm and dry. >> reporter: are you guys talking about candy? i have something sweet for pup check this out. take a look up king street. nothing happened out here. everybody was prepared for sort of this doomsday storm to come along king street and rip into some of these storefronts, flood the area out, this is a notorious area for flooding, anybody who knows this area, you know that this is the first place to get filled with water any time a significant weather event comes alodge. thankfully, this was not the case. it's safe to say this part of

old alexandria came out unscathed. these are the markers that have been carve intootd cement here. that is an area that's no strange a tore flooding. these are what the markers are for. but it didn't even register on the very bottom one. this is good news for the people who live and work in this area. as we've seen with prior hurricane and storms, this area gets ripped apart when the water from the potomac river comes over the street. back to the candy talk, ladies. >> nobody is laughing if they have their power out right now, and it will take a while to get it back on.

serre chen brings us the late e. >> reporter: it's not good news, because the numbers continue to go up. i've been updating it on my twitter account. i want you to take note of the number right there been 521,000 people without power as of 1 a.m. look at this number, bg &e, 115. when you go to b g&e, it's gone up. it's jumped from 215 to 217. you see the outage maps all over the place, yellow and orange is something you don't want to see. and over on dominion power, the

numbers have dropped. so you see the varying responses. higher outages. so you know that some of these crews are able to do quick fixes if it's safe enough, and then as soon as they do that, there might be more outages happening. so we'll have to be patient when all is said and done. but those are the red and organize, yellow dots something you don't want to see. fairfax, fairfax city, arlington, alexandria, seeing the most of of the the outages. then i want to go to novec, and they are showing 24,646 outages there mainly in the monasses area, dale city, and

woodbridge, gainesville area. but the utilities are working very hard, and they'll have to figure out a safe time to get back to those restorations. >> we'll take a quick break and be back with more on other side of super storm sandy.

a serious topic, but let's have a little fun. christopher ber serks t has been monitoring our social media site, some of the pictures have been serious, but some have been fun. >> and now let's have her join us. >> reporter: we have so many great tools for everybody to join us with the storms, the outages within the numbers they need to call. if you go to our home page, wusa9.com, all the information

you need is there. once the sun starts coming you, and a you see the damage that's happened, that information will become vital. and if you happen to lose power, can you use our mobile site. you just type in m.wusa9.com, and you'll have all the information you need. many of you rode out the storm, and you had some companions with you as well, your animals. so we'll share those pictures with you. our first pictures comes to us from annapolis. this is elizabeth toe, her two cats, bo and addy, hunkering down together, protecting each other from the storm. and julian doyle checked this out. this is gizmo. he has his rain gear on,

checking it out. our next, you is evie, this beautiful cat like leave me alone, i want to go to sleep. our next one is my cousin's. this is rosie. he's she's all bundled up, protecting herself from the storm. and this is ward sigler. he tweeted this to me with and his dog butter is saying what storm? what storm? keep the pictures coming, especially once the sun comes up. we want to see what kind of damage sandy did to you. you can e-mail them to us at wusa at webproduction@wusa.com. >> i have a friend meg began, and her husband keith in virginia, they were all sleeping in the basement, and

for the first time, the cats and dogs, not exposed to each other, everybody's down in the basement. >> no. cats and dogs sleeping together? >> i'll have to find out. >> that's a headline right there. my dog say lover and a sleeper. so i don't think he'll change his routine at all. >> i think we got a little lucky here. >> so far. wind gusts are way down, except in winchester and out to the west. a 29-mile per hour wind gust at national. 36 in ocean city -- a 29 mile per hour wind gust at national. 36 in ocean city. mr. bernstein will be here shortly. great sandy stuff. >> okay. thank you for staying with us through all of this. >> the morning show will start

up again at 4 a.m. be safe out there. >> goodnight, everybody.