>> anne thompson in venice, louisiana. anne, thank you for that. >>> it happened last night in the skies over kansas, and it happened without warning. a united airlines flight bound for los angeles hit some very bad air. turbulence so severe some passengers became airborne in the cabin. more than two dozen were injured and the pilot had to make an unscheduled landing. the ntsb is now investigating. our own kristen welker has more on what happened and why. >> reporter: by all accounts united airlines flight 967 was terrifying for the 255 passengers and ten crew members on board. >> i thought the plane was going to crash. >> reporter: the boeing 777 took off from washington dulles airport at 5:27 p.m. headed for los angeles. the pilot flew around a line of thunderstorms, but hit turbulence over the midwest. all of the sudden passengers say there was a violent drop. >> it felt like i had gone down an elevator shaft and hit the bottom and came back up. >> the bottom fell out. people hit the ceiling. it was pretty bad. >> report

that story is where we begin here tonight with our own anne thompson in venice, louisiana. anne, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. this is a big vote of confidence for the sealing cap and bp and good news for the people here in the gulf who could be in the crosshairs of this storm. boom, the gulf's symbol of defense, is hauled away this morning at mexico beach on florida's panhandle. put out to protect, it can become a danger if picked up and pushed inland in a tropical storm or worse. >> i want to make sure that the boom that is out there is there to protect and not to harm the environment. >> reporter: along the coast, what stays gets tied down and there is plenty of it. some 3.4 million feet of boom have been laid. that translates to about 650 miles, enough to stretch all the way from chicago, illinois, to little rock, arkansas. at the bottom of the gulf, the sealing cap holds back the oil as it has for the past week. now with monitoring and systems in place to respond to leaks and bubbles, the government today said bp can keep the cap closed. even if the re

nbc's anne thompson is watching developments for us in venice, louisiana. anne? >> reporter: good evening, lester. officials here think they can handle whatever bonnie would bring, in part because they had a dress rehearsal, of sorts, with hurricane alex, but they are taking no chances. today, there was not a minute to waste along louisiana's oil-weary coast. tugboats pushed barges loaded down with boom and equipment up the mississippi river. on shore, crews readied supplies to be transported out of the path of the storm. seeing their protection move, some local officials criticized the strategy, but the leader of the federal response says the plan is rooted in his hurricane katrina experience. >> i'm still haunted by the specter of flying in over new orleans on the 5th -- 6th of september as a principal federal official and looking down at new orleans to a parking lot full of buses that were flooded and not used for evacuation because they were not moved in time. >> reporter: venice, louisiana's southernmost town, is at sea level. the risk here, storm surge and

we begin our reporting tonight with our chief environmental affairs correspondent, anne thompson, in venice, louisiana, again this evening. anne, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. it's been a tense 24 hours for bp engineers and government scientists who have disagreed on how extensively to monitor that cap at the bottom of the sea and just what the test results mean. but tonight they agree that this test will go forward for another 24 hours. what was a picture of hope is now a mystery at the bottom of the sea. the government says almost two miles from the troubled well head there is a seepage on the ocean floor, just one of several problems discovered during the test. >> we do know that there is some seepage around the base of the blowout preventer in terms of gas bubbles coming up. that's what we're focusing on now. it does not appear to be at this point a consequential problem. >> reporter: there's also a leak from the bottom of the new cap. issues that taken together aren't enough to stop the test, but casts doubts on the ability to keep the well plugged in until the

anne thompson in venice, louisiana. anne, thanks. >>> with the current sensitivity about oil, a spill in michigan is getting a lot of attention. a leaking pipeline that sent oil into a creek that feeds the kalamazoo river. booms have been deployed an estimated 848,000 gallons of oil have already escaped. trails of oil sheen can be seen all the way down the river, far from the bulk of the spill. it's coming from a 30-inch pipe that runs from indiana to on tear ya, owned by a canadian company. it carries 8 million gallons a day. officials say they don't know what caused the pipe to start leaking yesterday. >>> now to california, where there's been an open display of outrage in a suburb of los angeles. one of many cities and towns struggling to make ends meet in this recession by slashing their budget and cutting services. the people of bell, california want to know what their manager was doing making almost twice what the president of the united states makes. nbc's george lewis reports from bell, california, on new investi

>> anne thompson starting us off from louisiana tonight. anne, thanks. >>> a related story in a way. the new british prime minister david cameron is on his first official trip to washington, and front and center today, were questions about bp having to do with libya and not louisiana, specifically, it's possible involvement in the release of the terrorist bomber behind the pan am 103 lockerbie disaster. our chief white house correspondent chuck todd with us from the north lawn tonight. good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. the so-called special relationship between the united states and great britain has been tested of late thanks to the actions by a company formally known as british petroleum. david cameron addressed those controversies at a joint press conference today with president obama. >> i completely understand the anger that exists right across america. the oil spill in the gulf of mexico is a catastrophe. let us not confuse the oil spill with the libyan bomber. >> reporter: and yet cameron was peppered with questions abou

so we have two reports tonight beginning with anne thompson in venice, louisiana. anne, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. the only thing people here fear more than oil coming is bp and the coast guard taking their equipment and going. that was the topic of a meeting in new orleans today described as frank and passionate. it is the backbone of the shoreline cleanup and an economic lifeline for out-of-work fishermen. today, national incident commander thad allen told louisiana officials the vessels of opportunity program will be downsized once the well is killed. how contentious was that issue today with the parish presidents? >> i don't think it's contentious so much as it's very complex. i hate to use downsize. i think rightsize is more -- we need to adjust the vessels of opportunity, all of the resources to what the requirement is. >> reporter: there are thousands of boats in the program. now that bp's well is capped, the mission will move from response to recovery. parish presidents fear retreat. >> we're going to hold their feet to the fire to make

we want to begin again tonight with our chief environmental affairs correspondent anne thompson in venice, louisiana. anne, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. you know, even though this is the day that the people here along the gulf have waited some three months for, reaction is muted tonight because people here are hoping that it's when this test stops that the oil is still not flowing. on day 87, the oil stopped, if only temporarily. bp closed all the valves on its new sealing cap at 3:25 eastern time this afternoon. at last giving a moment's relief to so many people along the gulf coast devastated economically and emotionally by the spill. >> it's finally an end to the groundhog day of waking up and it being the same and oil still spilling. >> we're just happy. finally there is an end in sight. finally a light at tend of the tunnel. >> reporter: bp isn't celebrating just yet. >> we have to manage our expectations. it's possible if the pressures are low that we'll have to reinitiate the flow and capture it. >> reporter: at the white house, president obama was every bit as c

we begin with a progress report tonight from our own anne thompson in venice, louisiana, once again. anne, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. the tests will go on for at least a few more hours tonight as engineers and scientists try to figure out what those pressure readings inside the sealing cap really mean. you can see the difference on the surface above the damaged well. the flames of the "discoverer enterprise" and "q4000" are out. no ship is collecting oil because, for a second day, the crude is not flowing. but there are concerns. >> i think we're to a point where there is enough uncertainty regarding what the meaning of the pressure is that we're seeing that we need to have due diligence moving forward and we need to be careful not to do any harm. >> reporter: after 24 hours, the pressure level is 6,700 pounds per square inch, an inconclusive reading that could mean so much oil has already flowed out that the pressure is lower than expected or there is a leak underground. president obama today praised the containment but warned it is not the ultimate fix. >> we wo

our own anne thompson has covered this virtually from day one. she's in venice harbor, louisiana, tonight. anne, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. as crews zero in on finally killing that well, the people who live around the venice marina here are not looking backward to the first 100 days but instead are looking forward to the next 100 and worry their plight could soon be forgotten. bright orange blotches mar the gulf coast on this, the 100th day. from the air, the oil is now tougher to spot. federal officials say they see only light bands and very little crude east of mobile bay, alabama. they promise they won't move a skimmer or piece of boom for now. >> we are keeping all of our response assets online until this well is killed. >> reporter: it's what happens after that that worries plaquemines parish president billy nungesser. >> we're worried that we are going to be caught with our pants down. that they're going to leave here, that the coast guard is going to allow them to pull the assets out of the parish. >> reporter: over the

anne thompson in venice, louisiana bringing us up-to-date there.d news about bonnie being downgraded is in a they may be able to keep some of the ships out at the leak site throughout h this event. the last ships to move out of the leak site would be the ships that control those remotely operated vehicles. those are the vehicles that have the cameras that allow to us see what's going on down at the bottom of the gulf. now, they have been monitoring that capped well and the well is going to stay capped even if they have to pull all the ships out. they have something called hydro phones that they have placed down there. they're actually recording devices and they will be able to hear if there are any kind of disruptionses in the well, any kind of tremors or surges that would indicate there are problems with the well. however, they don't get those in real time. they would actually after the event happened would have to go down and retrieve to see what has happened. so the other thing they hope to do is do some aerial surveillance of the site as longs

>> anne thompson this morning. anne, thanks. >>> today the president will sign that new financial overhaul bill that's aimed at preventing another market meltdown. he says the bill includes the strongest consumer financial protections in history. >>> health experts are urging the fda to stop endorsing the drug avastin for treating breast cancer. this after recent studies failed to show any benefits for breast cancer patients. >>> and take a look at what happened tuesday when a fox got his head stuck in a chain link fence in california. lucky for him, it happened near an ice cream store and there was a man willing to spoon feed him both ice cream and milk, so the fox was eventually able to free himself and an animal control officer said he was sure it's the cherry garcia that gave the fox the strength. look at that. i i mean, ah! there you go. it is cute. 7:18. let's go back to matt and meredith. >> i'm going to go stick my head in a fence. it's hot here today. get a little ice cream. well, you know? look! >> mr. rok

nbc's chief environmental affairs correspondent ann te thompson's in venice, louisiana, with the latest. anne, good morning. >> reporter: good morning, matt. the cap and this well are not passing the test with flying colors. there are some problems but none serious enough for officials to want to open that cap and have oil flowing into the gulf again. for three months these are the sights that have sickened gulf coast residents and the nation. oil polluting some of the most unique coastline and beautiful beaches in the world. the out-of-control well that spewed the oil remains te temporarily capped on the gulf floor, but there are signs of trouble. nearly two miles from the well head there is seepage of oil and gas on the ocean floor, but officials don't believe it's connected to the latest test. >> i think there is some natural seepage out there both of oil and natural gas and the question is trying to separate what we are seeing from what would be normally expected out there. >> reporter: there is also a leak at the bottom of the new sealing cap and bubbles at the base of the blow-out

. >>> todnbc's anne thompson is i venice, louisiana. good morning, anne. >> reporter: good morning. families who made their livings off the waters are still out of work. the oil is still washes ashore and the cleanup is still slow, hot and tedious work. there is fresh oil on the sandbar west of south pass near the mouth of the mississippi river, a new onslaught stirred up by the winds of one-time tropical storm bonnie. >> it's more of a liquid form. before it was more solid tar balls and now it's like a patty. >> reporter: the oil is elusive, playing hide and seek in the gulf currents and it is breaking up, making it harder to spot from the air and more time consumer to clean on the sand. though no new oil has spewed from the troubled well for some 12 days, mike frenett says there is plenty still in the gulf. >> it just doesn't disappear. it's down below. the currents are working it. depending on the wave action it will pop up. i don't know how long it will do that, but it's going to be quite some time. >> reporter: the economic pain of the spill is evident in a long line of familie

. >> let's begin with the latest on all of this, anne thompson has been in the gulf region since the start of the disaster and she's in venice, louisiana with more. good morning to you. >> good morning. bp says it's building pressure inside that well and that's what it wants to do, and those remoteremot remotely operated vehicles show no signs of trouble on the ocean floor. but bp, the coast guard nor the people here are ready to declare victory just yet. it is a sight some along the gulf coast wondered if they would ever see. the spill cam showing no oil coming out of bp's damaged well. >> we're just happy finally there's an end in sight. finally a light at the end of the tubl. >> reporter: that glimpse of hope happened 3:25 eastern thursday afternoon when a repeatrepeat ly operated vehicle shut the final valve. >> we'll have to reinitiate the flow. >> high pressure is what engineers want. it means the well is intact. if the pressure is low, it could mean there's a leak in the well, and the oil is going elsewhere. the test is scheduled to run through saturday. with all the caveats,