. good morning. you're watching continuing coverage of storm sandy on 9 news now. it is 5:00 a.m. >> our sandy head lines at this hour, federal government, local government buildings and schools remain closed today. >> metro train and bus service is shut down this morning. we're waiting on a decision about later this afternoon. there are widespread power outages here and up and down the east coast. >> monica will have traffic in just a moment. first howard joins us for another look at the weather. what do you think? >> it's still going to be a rainy windy day. the wind warnings are now down to wind advisories. the snow is flowing

big time, especially above 2,000 and 3,000 feet. blizzard warnings there. >> i'll stay in the valley. i'm going to lay low. >> relevant ally. >> under the blizzard warnings for areas above 2,000 feet. skyline drive is going to be probably closed for a day or two. let's get you going with a look at your day planner this morning. it's still a wet day. we have, i think , power crews that will be able to get out later this morning. we have some wind, they're a little gusty now. you notice the general sustained wind speeds coming down to only about 20 miles an hour by 6:00 with gusts this afternoon of 30 to maybe 40 miles an hour. that's borderline for the guys getting in the bucket trucks. they want to get your power back on as quickly as possible, they want to get home to their families also. look at this big

circulation. mountain snow, snow in ohio and eastern kentucky this morning. underneath all of this, i'm just going to put this in motion -- well, it's tough to pick out an individual circulation. we have showers trying to move towards the east. we've got showers to the north not really moving. prince george's county, heavy bits of rain back and towards western charles county. montgomery county, a wet morning. we're dealing with all of these showers just scattered about. that's going to be the case. these heavier rains this morning with more shower ri type weather as we get into the afternoon. 22 wind gust in oakland, fredericks berg, winds are out of the south. along the bay a lot better than yesterday. had some gusts yesterday up to 70. this morning we're gusting about 20 to 25. let's check in with man --

with monica. she has the traffic. >> the big issues are going to be several things, leaves across the roadway, debris, maybe trees down, power outages effecting your signals light. you want to give yourself that extra time you're going to need to deal with the effects of sandy. also no public transportation this morning. metro is out, including buses as well. they're going to reassess the situation on tracks and on roads before they can get their service back up. metro access is going to be closed the whole day. you can get information on that on metro alerts. if you were planning to use vre, not today. of course they're open but you want to call ahead to make sure your flight is not canceled for airports. for road information call 511. to give non-emergency information call 311. let's take a look at some of your roadways. here's a live look at the beltway north of

town. let's take a look on the other side of town. if you're planning to head on 166, no issues to report. we'll go over to the northbound side of i-95, nice and light. by the way, route 1 is shut down in both directions at the fair fax county parkway. i'll be back with more, of course, within the broadcast. back to you guys. >> thank you . even before we fell the effects of sandy -- felt the effects of sandy it was pounding the west coast. >> chris tin joins us live with the latest. >> reporter: good morning. even though right now we're still feeling a little bit of wind and raining for the most part the board walk looking very good. the big issue is going to be how bad is the flooding on

the bay side. what a lot of emergency responders are saying this morning is that we're just not going to know until the sun comes up and we're able to get into this communities and see what the extent of that sort of flooding may be. here on the board walk, look at this beach. this time yesterday you could not walk out here. now you can see we've had a bit of beach erosion but nothing terrible. winds still crashing but not as close as big as they were with the last hurricane. again, you know, the biggest piece of that beach erosion we're seeing is just right down in here. when the winds were coming in they would crash down and sort of push this sand up underneath the board walk so there have these big huge holes really up and down the board walk. a lot of

clean up, a lot of beach rebuilding is going to need to be done here. for the most part along the board walk you can see all the lights still on. we have power. no polls blown down. really just minimal debris along the board walk. we have all this sand that stretches back to our hotel. nothing too terrible. i will say that we've got about 3,000 power outages being reported by delaware electric this morning. not nearly the extend we were thinking that -- or fearing that we might be seeing this time yesterday morning. in terms of what we're hearing in sort of the rest of the area, i think the hardest hit might be down over in ocean city this way and then of course all the devastation up north, atlantic city and new york city. what we're seeing here doesn't come close to comparing what people are going to have to wake up to up there. >> you told us earlier there

were still some driving restrictions down there. do you all have any sense of when those restrictions might be lifted? >> reporter: actually, yes. the governor said that he's going to be speaking later this morning, not sure exactly when, probably between 6:30 and 8:30. he's going to consider revoking that level 2 driving restriction, which has been in effect since 5:00 yesterday morning at which point folks might be able to come out. i will advise you if you have property or you're a home owner you might need to have some sort of utility bill, some proof you live here. we don't know yet as to when they're going to be lifting those mandatory evacuation orders and letting folks back in. in terms of the roadways, we had significant flooding, route 1 down to bethany beach, those roadways completely closed in water. i know some roads down in ocean

city are opening back up this morning. some roads, of course, here are clearing -- some of the water is clearing from those roadways. for now, those driving restrictions are still in place. we're hoping to get word from the governor later this morning as to when folks might be able to start driving here again. >> thank you very much. >> as those winds and rain move to shore, more than 5 million people lost power up and down the east coast. >> the gusts from sandy took down untold numbers of trees. this tree took out the edge of a home. here's a run down of the power outages in our area. >> i'm liking the trend this morning. we're seeing the numbers and i just want to show you because i've been tweeting it out since last night, we were 492,000. right now 471,000. over night it was well over half

a million. i just wanted to show you that trend. it's good news. at least some work is being done through out the evening. let's start out right now with bge. you can see the outage map right there in the yellow and orange. that means a high concentration of those power outages. right now they're seeing 213,353 out of their more than 1.2 million customers. they, by large, have the largest number of outages right now. moving onto doe minute owe doe dominion power, we have people in the dark, both in northern virginia with 116,430. a lot of red and yellow and orange.

lastly, pepco. good number here at 26,075. those numbers continue to decline. sometimeses they go down and back up in order to have the full restoration. we're hoping this morning those numbers continue to go down. >> we like that trending. >> yes . we're streaming this newscast live on our website at wusa9.com. you may be watching us even if you don't have power. >> here are some power outage safety tips. flashlights, turn off major appliances to avoid over loading the sir cutes -- circuits when the power is restored, keep your fridge doors closed. stay with us, we'll be right back.

welcome back. howard with you here at about 5:13 on this tuesday morning. we're still dealing with rain and winds and lots of it. up in frederick it's going to be 9 feet above flood stage. a quick look at the forecast. it's going to be a rainy start, not as windy. we're only in a wind advisory. look at those temperatures, only topping out in the mid 40s. showers this afternoon. back to you. >> thank you. while the worst of sandy's winds may have passed over night this could be a multiday event. >> the national weather service expecting the river to reach flood levelling tonight. jessica doyle is live along the water front in george town.

jessica. >> reporter: good morning to both of you. i'll show you the winds. their still chipping in georgetown. you can see the flags flowing. we're over by the sequio restaurant. we had massive flooding here in 20th 201 -- in 2011 because the flood walls wither not up. we could be seeing in george town the worst flooding in 16 years. it could be days before we know exactly what is going to happen here. let me direct your attention to the river. what we're seeing right now is a low tide. high tide comes today about 9:30. there's lots of degree -- -- debris in this water. it could be thursday or friday before we see the waters come rushing in.

all of this water also coming in from pennsylvania. we could be facing a very serious potential problem with flooding. national weather service is saying a ir -- areas that are most vulnerable is the george town water front, old town. definitely we're going to be keeping an eye on the water levels here. that debris, if it comes ashore, we're about 3 feet below this wall here, it could be a very messy situation in terms of stopping up storm drains. that could be a secondary problem that we're going to be watching. reporting live, back to you guys in the studio. >> all right. thank you. don't forget nearly all local government offices are shut down except for emergency services. >> garbage and recycling collections have been suspended

for this day, the second day. residential street sweeping and parking enforce. -- enforcement also suspended. it is coming up on 5:16. you're watching coverage of hurricane sandy. we'll be right back.

good morning. welcome back to 9 news now. it is 5:18 on this tuesday morning, the

morning after hurricane sandy, super storm, tropical storm. >> i'm just reading about flood warnings. >> matt was looking up, you have long island in common, how many outages? >> 80% of long island. >> they lost it at 5:30 yesterday afternoon. >> never happened before, not even close. >> we said mike is here and he's monitoring social networking. 600,000 in connecticut were without power monday. just amazing the impact of this storm. >> 250,000 in ma had a tan. -- manhattan. >> does it make you feel any boater? >> -- my better? >> it does. i'm glad whatever was with coming our way decided to skirt us, it wasn't a total trick. >> jessica doyle is reporting on the flooding that we're

talking about. the river up in frederick, it's going to crest near 23.5 feet later today. with that you could get the water approaching town. there's that park off of 80. it is low. that thing has got to be -- i mean, it would be the muddy high today. the point of rock, that is going to have some moderate flooding. near point of rocks 24 feet by early tomorrow evening. i got to read this and i get it right. let's tell you about what's happening now on our weather graphic. we have a day planner to share with you. we're talking about rain, moderate rain to even heavy still in spots this morning, becoming more shower y this afternoon.

only going to be in the low to mid 40s this afternoon with wind out of the southwest. very breezy this morning. probably gusting 30, 35, maybe 40 this afternoon. the trend is in the weakening phase at this point. we're not as concerned about it. we have some amazing wind gusts out of it. top -- thomas point up to 79 wind gusts. closer to the district 63. we've got reagan national 60. 65 mile an hour gusts in ranson. far western maryland flood warnings are up. this is a combination of flood warnings for generic street flooding that might be going on and then you have lots of rivers, streams, goose run,

those areas are also running high into virginia this morning. we know we have a lot of rain, some 4 to 8, 10, 11 inches of rain from the system. it continues to rain this morning. the heaviest rain, you'll see a few pockets of yellow on the new jersey, new york border, into southern pennsylvania, it looks like the heaviest stuff is over the metro. it's just kind of sitting and spinning just about on top of us right now. we're still dealing with moderate rain, dc, western and south western prince georges. west of 301, fair fax it's really coming down from 66 north. in montgomery county you see german town, poolsville, brunswick to myersville seeing heavier rain

showers. as these rains hit the blue, see what happens, they just enhance the rainfall this morning. heavy rain around upperville. up it's still coming down. somebody asked me about this whole on the map. there's no eye to this storm. it could be just a software issue. there's no conspiracy here. i didn't mention it, it's not a big deal. 36 in dek on the wind guests, 28 in andrews and 25 at the packs naefl air station. cambridge, 43, chilly. winchester 39. the know is flying and the wind chill is 18. wind chills will be a factor all day.

you need something to keep you dry and warm. we have some water hitting the camera glass there object -- on the outside. temperatures on the chilly side, 44 with moderate rain and breeze out of the south, southwest at 20 mile s an hour. the humidity 85%. snowfall, just want to quickly tell you we still have the blizzard warnings about 2,000 feet. they did drop them to south western virginia. we have had some reports in winter green. a going to -- it's going to be mt. mt. -- it's going to be mt. mountain a -- it's going to be in the mountains that gets hammered. if you need to travel there, just forget it. 46, windy this morning, especially showers and not as windy this afternoon. a shower or two tonight.

breezy storm, back in the mid 50s. dry thursday 57 towards friday 54. 65 by sunday. turn the clocks back saturday night. monday showers possible. it's 5:25. my tame -- my teenage son was already wanting to head out yesterday. people who do not have experience with dealing with road conditions like today may not want to head out. i know it's tough to stay at home. i told my son, you have to stay at home. flooding is going to be an issue today, especially if low lying areas. high standing water, i dealt with it on river road. i kind of scooting over to the center of the road to get around that. the best way to think of it is tirn around don't drown. that's the moto.

don't go through 2 feet of water, your car can be swept away. i've been looking around trying to see the road closures. in montgomery county, about 22 road closures, mostly secondary roads. it will effect your drive early this morning. let's go over to another camera shot. we'll go over to virginia, inbound i-66 where it is still raining heavily as you come in through fair fax county. i just got an update. there are about 75 roads closed in fair fax county. fort bell, route 1 is closed in both directions. let's go over to our last live look . no issues as you come in through shirley inside the beltway. the bay bridge remains closed. i'll be back with more in a few minutes.

>> thaun -- thank you very much. the winds and rain have cut off the coastal community. >> reporter: good afternoon va virginia's department of transportation cut off access to the river. while some people are enjoying the down time others didn't get across in time and are waiting to see their families. it's 5:27. we'll be back with more storm coverage right after this.

welcome back.

5:29 as we continue to track sandy an the after math here. we're looking at a cold, rainy start. temperatures won't recover much. winds still out there could be gusting 30 to 40 at times, especially this morning. highs in the mid 30s. showers into the afternoon. one place that often gets clots of storm damage is rock creek park. >> the nice trees that add to the green space can block roads when they come down. koem is life with details on problems she's found there. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. we've end kount countered a -- we've encountered a couple of trees down. we want to show you this video. it looks like it was one very large tall tree that kind of

splintered. that road is pretty much blocked. you can't get in and out of rock creek park. national park service said it is closed. bach drive remainsin -- beach drive remains closed. there's electricity in this neighborhood. we're not out of the woods just yet though. we have that high wind warning in place until tuesday night. officials are asking that if you do live around large trees to either seek lower levels or seek some shelter if you have one near by. right now we're seeing some wind come -- some rain come down, not too windy yet. again, a wind warning in place for the district until tuesday night. now another tree we want to show you, the ground is very sat rated here, is this one right off 17th street. we have a

puddle forming here. this tree came down. it looks like it was tied down before the storm. not a large treeful one car, -- not a large tree. we saw a pepco truck a few minutes ago. no word whether crews are going to start work this morning. fwok you. -- back to you. >> thank you. driving through my little stretch it was like just -- if i hunker down and a tree fell on my car it would be okay. no. >> i didn't see anything either. >> i was a little nefbs about -- nervous about it. the experts say the obesity rate coast took a 1-2 hunch. >> more than 5,000 flights were

canceled. some travels -- some traveled the fly out of other airports instead. stay with us, we'll be right back. nrz -- we'll be right back.

welcome back to our around the clock sandy coverage. mike is here. >> he lost his voice yesterday. >> but he's here. crazy guy. we want to take a look at our storm head lines. the winds and rain have knocked down power to 5 million people along the east coast. the flooding problems including here could last for several days. >> monica will have our traffic in just a minute. we start with howard and weather first because that's a big story and will be for quite a while. still wet and windy this morning. had some rain totals

that were punching 10 inches down in the northern neck of virginia. we've had rain totals at 9 inches plus. waiting to get our reports in this morning. i know it's got to be a lot of water. with all that water flooding is a real problem. i want to start off with a quick look at the flood warning map. the light green is the flood warning, the dark green is watches. point of rocks is high. up into frederick county, moderate, maybe major flooding there as we see the crest this afternoon somewhere around 8:00 tonight. that is way up. we got a lot of streams and creeks, goose run, dawsonville is high. just lots of and lots of water. even the costal flooding we still have that to go on with

high tides later this morning. that could be 2 to 4 feet above averages. 44 now with moderate rain. temperatures are ongoing only going to be low to mid 40s -- only going to be low to mid 40s today. this afternoon's gusts probably in that 30 to 35 range. with -- we will get better in the next couple of days. let's go to monica with traffic. if you're planning to head out the door early this morning be aware that you're going to need the extra time to deal with certain situations. you may find app road closure, high standing water, even flooding conditions, debris across the road, including a tree or even leaves effecting your drive. that's a lot of factors to consider this morning. metro rail and bus suspended this morning. they're going to assess the situation as the day processes and make sure the rail, the tracks are safe before they can start the train

service. buses, it depends on road conditions as well. there are some power outages. metro access will remain closed today. you can get information on metro alerts. local airports remain open but it's up to the airlines in terms of flights so call them in advance. for road information call 511 to give non-emergency information. we'll end with a quick look live outside, just at one road. if you've planning to head north of town on the beltway, that's what you should expect. i'll be back later. the strong est winds from this storm may have now passed us but we can still expect strong tide through out the entire day. >> that could have ongoing power problems. people in northwest washington got lucky after a huge tree fell. it

blocked the roadway, it only nicked one car and didn't take any power lines with it. the surrounding houses were able to keep their lights on. >> nu nooi -- nooi -- new york city look a harder hit than we did. the power company cut power to large parts of lower manhattan where surge waters were all in the subway stations. now let's look at the local power outage numbers. >> bear with me just one quick second as i get my ipad ready for all of that information. give me one second here. >> while you're taking that time we want to let people know that we're following another story out of new york city where we've been talking about the flood waters there. they're battling a 6 alarm fire in the breezy point section.

198 firefighters are working this 6 alarm fire that has destroyed 50 homes in the new york city area. you know this area. it is down. here it is , the video, down in the area where we're talking about the flooding. all the problems that have happened there, look at that. >> people know that's right on the water. that is unbelievable. >> that's 50 homes that are destroyed. basically these firefighters can do little more than let it go. the high winds are whipping those flames and creating more of a problem. >> those firefighters are not getting any help from mother nature. this one is going to be a long battle. >> at least two people have suffered minor injuries. sflsz -- >> we'll keep you posted. now low cal power outages. >> thank you for bearing with

me. there are widespread outages and you can see by this map here a lot of yellows and oranges. we don't like to see that. i will say that numbers have been declining. just to give you an idea, this is bge. they now have 206,000 plus people in the dark. at the height of it they were close to 300,0 00. a lot of progress over night, something we didn't think was going to happen. fortunately the storm has blown through so folks and crews can get on their way and get work done. we're moving onto dominion power. right now they're at 117,155 system wide. in northern virginia there's the bulk of it, 109,978, close to 110,000 in northern virginia. you can see the map. a lot fewer red dots but still you see a lot of yellows. in fairfax

city, fairfax, arlington, stuff you don't want to see. we want to see those colors reduced a lot more. hopefully in the next half hour we can bring that to you. pepco right now we're seeing 24,942 outages. a lot lower number than expected. i'm sure they are breathing a sigh of relief. still working very hard they say. most of the numbers are coming from the gaithersburg area. this is the green area, the zip code 20837. anyway, that just gives you an idea of some of the outages happening. again, in the oranges, gaithersburg and parts of dc, more of the heavy outages. 62,938, still a lot of

reds going on. that's mainly in the gainesville city area. oh still folks widespread damage and obviously trees down, power lines down. call the utility company, don't touch it and stay away from them. call them to give them the heads up. back to you guys. >> thank you. the power out outages are coming down. the mid atlantic took a beating. >> chris chris -- kristen fisher was getting pounded yesterday. how is it this morning? >> reporter: right now i'm standing in a hole. this hole was caused by all the waves coming in, crashing in and hitting the sand. this is just one hole of really hundreds. i mean, they stretch all the way up and down this entire length

of the board walk. this is just some of the stuff that's going to have to be cleaned up and repaired in the wake of hurricane sandy. the rest of the board walk and the rest of the beach looking really good this morning. you can see all this vegetation here that's designed to kind of sink in its roots and hold the sand in place, it did its job. all of the beach building they have been doing seemed to work. we took pounding after pounding for several hours yesterday. huge waves just crashing on this shore. the beach is still there. the only thing that got taking out was the fence that lines the beach. that's pretty standard up and down the board walk area. what i've been saying all morning is the big unknown is how bad is the flooding more inland and on the bay side of the beach. we haven't been able to see it.

it's been dark . we're waiting for daybreak to go out, start to venture into those neighborhoods to see how bad it is. for everybody else, we are still going 12 hours now on this mandatory no driving restriction. the governor said he's going to make a determination at 8:30 as to whether or not those driving restrictions are going to stick in place. i'm hearing some talk on twitter and soebl media -- and social media they will be lifted by news. that's going to depend what the governor says during his conference around 8:30 this morning. even though it may look normal it's not and you still need to stay inside. >> it seems as if the winds are also picking up behind you.

>> reporter: you noticed that. i was hope ing it wasn't true. yeah, the winds are picking up a little bit since i first got out here. although the rain has stopped. i can handle being cold and wet. it's the wet and cold together that's bad. let me tell you, it's a lot colder this morning than it was this time yesterday morning. it's really hard to believe that a huge tropical hurricane just moved through here. >> exactly. this morning he's she has her gloves on. >> thank heaven. sandy's e ffects are being felt into the country's midsection this morning. >> there are flood warnings out for the shores of lake michigan. snow is expected in eastern tennessee. power outages caused by the storm are reported as far as way as the state of maine. we'll be back with more storm coverage right after the break. stay with us.

. welcome back. howard with you here at 5:49. we're talking about the flooding concerns we have now. lots of flood warnings are up all over the place. a lot of these are for if streams, creeks and rivers that are high. we still have moderate rain occurring in many areas this morning. later today the river will crest above 9 to 10 feet today. around point of rocks we're watching that potentially very high today. on the petomic closer to home is jessica doyle. she's here with more. >> reporter: hi there. we're here at the george down town -- george town water front. things have gotten bad quickly. this is just an idea of the kind of debris floating in the river. it's only about a foot and a

half from jumping the bank. that is half a tree floating here at washington harbor. we're seeing massive amounts of debris collecting here. let me give you an idea of the time line. we're still neerl low tide. low tide was about an hour ago. we're approaching high tide in about 4 hours. on a typical day that would raise the water level 3 feet. we're only a foot and a half away from reaching the bank at this point and we still have 4 hours to go to high tide. howard, you've been talking about the massive amounts of rain. the national weather service is predicting the worst flooding situations in 16 years. here at the georgetown water front they understand something about flooding. i will take you back to april 2011. let me direct your attention to the flood walls. they were not in place when the river jumped the bank. these buildings sustained lots

of damage, millions of damage in -- millions in damage. they had 10 feet of water. we are buttoned uptight. we're going to continue to watch the river rise. 4 hours still until it hits high tide. we might not see the worse of it until this evening, thursday and friday. we're going to keep watching it for you. howard back to you in the studio. >> look sat -- look at some of these rain totals reported so far. i have someone in frederick county to tell owe about it when he gets up. there's bowie 5.2. in prince frederick 7.5.

in percellville 7.9. places could be approaching 9, 10 inch as well. all that water has to flow downstream to us. flooding is going to be an issue for a couple more days. we're seeing lighter showers on the eastern shore and into the mountains. the know -- snow is still flying ing especially above 3,000 feet. you're seeing the heavier showers just on top of us continuing. maybe not as much yellow on the maps as there was an hour ago, especially east of town. towards easton, it looks like you're getting a break finally. we're still deal being the moderate to heavy rain, es spiblly from areas ir --

especially from areas east. it's areas to the west, into fairfax now, a little bit of prince william, but the farn far northern tip of it had about 4.5 inches of rain. frederick you have scattered heavier showers there. we're talking about how much rain you got. you're still seeing it. finally it's a little lighter now. you can see more heavy rain during the over night period. wind not where they were. we had gusts over 70 miles an hour yesterday. gusting 41 in modern berg, that's our highest guest we have. -- gust we have. offshore where you start cresting, that bowie is

reporting gusts close to 40 stem cell. 41 is the temperatures, 43 in peters burg. temperatures most of them low to mid 40s. windchills, most of them in the mid 30s right now. you need something that's going to keep you dry and warm today. still raining out there. it's lyinger -- it's lighter that be it was last report. wind out of the south, southwest 17, gusting to 25. the wipter storm warnings and blizzard warnings still continue in the high country. they have been extended towards charlottesville, skyline drive area. that has been paired back now. we could pick up additional snowfall before this is done in the high country.

you know, it was october 29th last year we had our snow. today we're still going with the red alert, severe alert today because of the high wind and heavy rain this morning. 46 with rain turning to showers. tonight we'll drop into the upper 40s and low 40s. tomorrow can't rule out an isolated shower oh too, breezy 56. dry on thursday 57. friday doesn't look bad at all, 54. good weather by sunday. more showers monday. don't forget this weekend turn the clocks back because daylight savings time comes to an end. >> thank you very much. this morning residents in the huntington, virginia area are bracing for what is suppose to be the worse of flooding. >> fairfax county officials tell 9 news when the water gets to 9 feet that's when the streets will flood. that's expected to happen around 9:00 this morning. there are about

94 residence dentses who choose to -- residents who choose to stay and ride out the storm. we'll be back after the break, you're watching 9 news.

welcome back to 9 news. hurricane sandy strikes the new jersey coastline with 80 mile an hour winds and throws 13 feet of surge water at new