>> massive amounts of moisture. critical now. [ no audio ] >> the main thing is that you -- . ♪ ♪ >> this is 9 news now. [ no audio ]

>> let's review. sounds, sights. sandbags important to have or not? >> i would say they are. i mean, take the chance, put the sandbags up, not lose your property. >> and they're free. >> yes, absolutely free. >> king street overlooking the potomac is no stranger to looking like venice. many hoping post-sandy high tides won't be as punishing as isabel was. others posed for photo ops or had their interviews interrupted. >> we parked up the hill. oh, no. oh, no. i know, that was a bad decision. >> oh. >> reporter: to this woman, carrying and intending to wear full body plastic bags, the sign was merely a suggestion. she was going to cross come hell or high water literally. >> why so important to see

that? >> studio 50. curiosity. that's all. >> reporter: yeah, you know what, curiosity did for the cat. but let's talk about some more good news. there is a little bit more good news, because there were about 10,000 people without power. they've cut that in half. that's a little bit after bright spot there tonight. we're live in old town, debra alfarone, 9 news. >> thank you, debra. let's go to ryan dean. he's along the monocacy river where one day later flooding does remain the great concern. ryan? >> reporter: that's right. right now the monocacy river is at 22 feet. 7 feet above flood stage, the highest level since 1996. it's flooded this road here and also the park to the left of me. >> reporter: the flooding is not historic but residents wanted to capture history. >> never. we've been traveling around all day looking at the different rivers and see seeing how high they were. >> reporter: super storm

sandycaused the river to spill out of its bank and put a county park underwater. >> i'm hoping people who live by the river are okay with houses. i'm a nature lover so i think it's amazing to see nature work. >> reporter: a few miles away, the river unfortunate near a historic landmark, the gambrel mill. according to the national water service, if the water would have reached 30 feet that would have filled the second floor of this building which happened twice in the 1970s, including 1972 from hurricane agnes. >> check these pictures out. two men had to be rescued from the monocacy river when their i hope inflatable raft overturned. that is the latest. i'm ryan dean, 9 news. >> thank you, ryan. check out those pictures. >> that could be major flooding

up there. not historic, as you mentioned, but major flooding. now we actually have now information on when it's going to crest. it was originally going to crest tomorrow night, and now tomorrow morning. >> before we get to that let's talk about the carnival pride in the chesapeake bay. sky 9 out over the scene. that cruise ship left baltimore on sunday and was supposed to head to the bahamas, but the captain was worried about the weather, decided to drop anchor. it will move on to the vacation spot once conditions get better. many places on the potomac have not yet crested. >> here's the deal. the forecasts have changed a little bit. let me start with the monocacy, still a major event. they've had worse but pretty major. flood stage is 13. crest now is going to be almost22 feet. that's going to crest at 2:00 a.m. tomorrow morning. early tomorrow morning. originally it was going to be 8:00 this evening. we're anticipating major flooding for them. the potomac, point of rocks not

too bad. flood stage 16 feet. cresting 5 feet above flood stage 8:00 p.m. tomorrow. that will be minor flooding. work our way down the potomac to wisconsin avenue in georgetown. flood stage 6 feet. cresting 2 1/2 feet above. but still moderate flooding expected. that is 2:00 a.m. on thursday. so it takes awhile for all the water to drain down the potomac and actually cause the flooding. here's the radar picture. we'll come back and talk about more snow falling in the mountains of west virginia and in maryland. we'll talk about if we'll see any sunshine tomorrow. >> so as we said at the top of this newscast, new jersey is where sandy came ashore and wreaked havoc. beaches washed away, homes and roads destroyed. we dispatched bruce johnson to the county where there is a mandatory curfew. as bruce tells us, that did not stop people in search of one precious resource. >> reporter: we want to show you some more fallout from hurricane sandy. 95% of the people who live in this county don't have power.

for as far as the eye can see, these cars are lined up. they're breaking curfew. they're lined up because they need gasoline and this is the only place along the garden state park way where they can get it. this sow know co-- sonoco station here. >> i've been waiting 3 hours. whole time on the park way people have been trying to cut in. i'm happy the police are out there. >> reporter: bell march flooded out, this completely flooded out. >> dodging everything, taking my life in my hands, crossing 36 totry to get in. >> i got my son pushing the car in. >> back up. hold your foot on that brake. >> reporter: a 7-month-old who's formerly -- we've got to do -- i've never seen anything like this. it's very, i don't want to say, but it's got a very similar like 9/11. >> this isn't just a one day event but nobody knows how long this is going to take. you probably already know, president obama, he's going to be here in the area sometime

tomorrow. this is bruce johnson reporting for 9 news. back to you guys. >> thanks, bruce. new yorkers, they've seen it all, right? not this. this is a live picture of just some of the damage caused by sandy. new york city took a punch to the gut. a storm surge that sent a 14- foot wall of water crashing into lower manhattan. not just flooded streets and buildings, flooded tunnels and subway lines. winds so fierce they ripped the front right off a building in manhattan and they fueled a ferocious fire in breezy point queens. 80 homes reduced to ashes. a power plant exploding. lights out to a quarter million people. and to one of the most famous skylines in the world. tonight, new york is starting to get back on its feet. those floodwaters are receding. most bridges in and out of the big apple are back open. and full bus service resumes tomorrow in manhattan. but the subway still days from reopening. and tens of thousands of homes and businesses still with no

lights. the death toll in new york city at least 18. that crane that nearly came down in the wind? mayor bloomberg says it's stable for now and crews will have to put up another crane to bring that one down. >> for now, the crane still dangles over west 57. you can see it there behind me. normally this is one of the busiest streets in manhattan. that whole area out of commission. if you're looking for a met for for this storm, new york, this is it. >> there are still thousands of residents in nearby northern virginia in the dark tonight. no power. dave owens is in arlington with the folks there trying to deal with the inconvenience as best they can. we know it is just awful when the lights go out and don't come back on. >> reporter: yeah, derek, also frustrating especially when you're told it will be five days before you get the electrical power back on. also frustrating when you don' have power and right across the way, your neighbors do.

it's been a long 24 hours without power. >> there was an explosion last night, a boom sound. boom. >> reporter: these families are getting by as best they can. this emergency generator providing light but not much else. >> it's cold inside. there's no heat. >> reporter: it's the frustration of power outages here in northern virginia. on one side, you've got light. on the other side of the parking lot, absolute darkness. and one tenant who's fed up. >> it's tough. it's tough. >> reporter: he's distressed the fact his complex lacks an emergency generator. he says the apartment building across the way has two. >> it's dark in here. >> it's really dark. >> reporter: it's a tough go. buckingham village experienced a similar facility this summer when high winds knocked down trees and took out power. frustrating then, frustrating now, especially considering his neighbors never lost power the

entire weekend. >> i just feel like i was actually anticipating the light going off, and it didn't. and now i'm like, these people next door, they don't have power, and it's cold. >> reporter: yeah, it's cold out here, no doubt about it. dominion power says 36,000-plus here in northern virginia still without power. those folks back there in those dark windows, they're some of them. we're live out here in northern virginia. back to you in the studio. >> all right, dave owens, we thank you for that. guess what, the numbers are even worse than you just suggested. we just checked. there are still 155,000 people without power this evening. dominion does have 40,000 of those dark customers. pepco has 2500. bge has 112,000. you want to know the latest outage numbers? go to our website, wusa9.com. well in the state of maryland, a man died when a tree fell on his house last night in pasadena. he was the only local man to die in that sort of accident this time around. but he was far from the

onlycasualty. tonight our own bruce leshan was courageous enough to let a camera roll when a falling tree hit unexpectedly close to home. >> reporter: i covered a lot of tragedies as a reporter. i've covered a lot of trees down on people's homes, but this time it literally came home, literally happened to me. you can see the guys up there working, trying to put a tarp on my bedroom right now with this huge tulip poplar on top of my house. so this is my bedroom, and you can see the tree right here came right through the attic, collapsed the trusses right through the ceiling. and this is my bed. and my wife was actually lying in bed just a half an hour earlier, watching tv. luckily, she had gotten up and gone down into the basement to go to sleep with my daughter

down in the basement. my son was right down below this. my son, noah, was down here in the family room when it hit. >> and what did it sound like? >> it sounded like, almost like a deep rumbling sound, almost like an earthquake was coming and even shaking the foundation of the house. >> it was really loud? >> it was so loud. >> i mean, did you know right away what it was? >> well, at first, because i was almost asleep, and it woke me up, and i just jumped off the couch, and i ran -- like ran downstairs. so i had no idea what it was. it was just a loud crashing sound. >> look at that tree. and i mean, the main thing is that you weren't there. bruce leshan. our hearts are broken, too. here's a quick and easy way you can help the hurricane

victims. just like the wusa 9 on facebook and for every one of those we will donate a dollar to the red cross sandy relief fund. election only a week away. how did sandy derail plans for last minute campaigning for both sides? we'll have that. plus three separate bombings in northern virginia and police say they're all the work of one person. the latest on this bizarre series of crimes.

>> a trio of bombings in northern virginia has investigators pretty busy tonight. the first one in fredericksburg early this morning, less than two hours later two more in stafford county. our ken molestina reports on the series of blasts all believed to be connected. >> reporter: police and fire investigators in fredericksburg responded to the 3100 block of normandy street at 4:00 in the morning on tuesday. >> we thought it was a gas explosion or something. then we found out it was a bomb. >> reporter: a pipe bomb had been thrown through the window of this house. >> single female who lives alone, said she was awakened to a loud noise and came out of her bedroom and her house was filled with smoke. >> reporter: shortly after it happened again in neighboring stafford county, inside a kings grant subdivision. then a third pipe bomb blast,

this time inside a country ridge subdivision. according to neighbors in published reports the common denominator at least two of the houses hit they are or were homes of the law enforcement officers. a stafford county deputy lived at this house but moved out a year and a half ago. >> reporter: no one was hurt in the attacks. they're not giving a theory as to why the homes were targeted. all they say is they're related and no one has been arrested. in northern virginia, ken molestina, 9 news. a week from today is election day 2012. but super storm sandy forced both presidential candidates off the campaign trail this week. president obama visiting red cross headquarters in d.c. this afternoon and talking about the response tots big storm. >> my message to the federal government, no bureaucracy, no red tape, get resources where they're needed as fast as possible, as hard as possible, and for the duration. >> working to put the recovery

effort ahead of the impending election, the president cancelled tomorrow's campaign stop in ohio. instead he'll take a look at that storm damage and thank the first responders in new jersey. meantime republican challenger mitt romney was in ohio today collecting money and relief supplies for those storm victims. >> i appreciate your generosity. it's part of the american spirit, the american way to give to people who are in need. and your generosity this morning touches my heart. >> former president bill clinton is expected to campaign in six battleground states for president obama, leading up to election day. governor romney expects to make a swing through florida tomorrow. just a reminder, the early voting resumes tomorrow in washington, d.c. and in maryland, and the hours have been extended from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. to try to make up for some of the time that was lost. anita? >> let's check out this new snow video we just got out of garrett county, maryland. the remnants of sandy collided with a cold front and this was the result. more than two feet fell in

parts of garrett. there could be even more overnight. topper, you've told us again and again, western maryland completely different. >> they were under a blizzard warning. they were warned, but we didn't talk too much about it because we had our own problems here. now we can show you video. i actually have a picture of you drop a plumb line down into west virginia, and you get into the canadian valley a little further in the snowshoe. here's the picture they sent from snowshoe. they had 22 inches today. probably another 6 to 10 before it's all said and done. see the drift there? they were kind of front loading the snow out there. that's pretty amazing, the front load snow in october. not out of the question for those folks. it may end up being west virginia's biggest snow if they get 30 inches. we'll keep you posted. right now we are looking, michael and son weather cam, and we're looking at temperatures on the chilly side. 42. winds out of the southwest at 6. it is counterintuitive to have temperatures this cool and

have southwest winds. it brought down its own pool of cold air. dew point, 38. we're not going to fall too much further. look at the sigh chronic -- cycloneic flow of this thing. it snowed all the way down into the smokies in tennessee and north carolina today. it will continue to snow in beckly and up into garrett county and down into timberline, it looks like through tonight, through tomorrow and possibly tomorrow night. for us, a couple of leftover showers rolling through tonight. then we'll have a couple of showers roll through tomorrow, but most of the commute will be dry. 6:30 in the morning, clouds. some peeks of the sundown towards southern maryland. snow continues in garrett county. by lunchtime, showers out toward culpeper. i would leave the umbrella at home tomorrow and bring a jacket. a little bit on the cool side tomorrow. 7:00 tomorrow, clouds return, and then by 11:00, just about this time tomorrow night, more clouds and, yes, more snow for our friends out in deep creek

and oakland, maryland. so a cold start. i would think a jacket would be required for you and for the kids as well. just a couple of showers tomorrow. not a bunch of activity. still a little bit on the breezy side, by 10 to 15. for tonight, overnight, mostly cloudy, breezy cold. shower possible. mountain snows continue. lows 36 to 42. winds southwest at 10 to 15. next three days, we'll keep our 9 weather alert yellow tomorrow primarily for river flooding. a couple of showers, 54. cool on thursday, 55. more sunshine on friday, but still kind of cool. 52. next seven days, weekend's in pretty good shape. upper 50s on saturday. turn your clocks black. we gain an hour over the weekend. upper showers on sunday. more showers on monday. 9 news will return after this,

>> hey, we've got some sports to talk about actually. the nba season got underway tonight. the miami heat enjoyed their ring presentation in florida while two teams hoping to be there one day soon. the wizards visiting cleveland tonight without john wall on the floor. this year's third overall pick making his lizards debut. lizards on the break, a.j. price to bradley who buries the triple. 8 points for the rookie tonight, not a great night. irving, no such problems. 11 of 20 from the field. 29 points last season. rookie of the year. cavs up 2. cleveland pulled away late. thompson with the dunk. wizards lose their season opener 94-84. major league baseball handed out golden glove awards tonight which honors the

league's best players at each position and adam laroche walked away with the first of his career. his teammate, desmond, was a final i see at his position short sop. there's still some high school football to be played with sandy gone. we need your help on choosing the game of the week. here are the choices. the poll is up. we'll be back with more on 9 news.

♪ ♪ >> and that's our broadcast for tonight. we thank you for staying up with us. take you through this whole sandy adventure. >> that's right. our morning team starts on 9 news early again tomorrow, 4:00 a.m. letterman is next. >> good night.