i spoke with mayor thomas leighton of wilkes-berry, pennsylvania where a mandatory evacuation order isdy in affect. mayor leighton, thanks for joining us. so you are still expecting the crest this evening. what's the situation right now? >> right now we're waiting for the river to crest at 41 feet. i believe we're at 38 feet. if you can see the bridge behind me, will you see how close it is from going over. but we're very confident in the dike system it will hold and we will be back in our homes on sunday. >> brown: that dike system is a levee system that i guess is relatively new. has it been tested at these kinds of heights? >> not at this kind of height, no, this will be a newecord for this dike, the levee system. but you know, we're very confident that we're going to be okay. >> brown: now how is the evacuation going so far? >> the evacuation, the city wilkes-berry went very smooth. we put our emergency operation in effect starting yesterday. we knew we were going to have to evac yalingt-- evacuate people in the low lying areas and we have done that we have he's great cooperation f

thomas leighton -- tim story from the national council of legislatures is our guest. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] host: washington monument closed indefinitely because of damage from the earthquake. 800 military trainers had to afghanistan by march. "the washington post" reports the program costs about $6 billion a year. later tonight gov. chris christie from the jersey will address an audience at the reagan library. the lecture will be titled "perspectives on leadership." you can see it live tonight on c-span at 9:00. he is being wooed by several to enter the 2012 me -- campaign. you may have thoughts about him and drew the raised or any of the gop candidates running for president for the first 45 minutes. specifically, we are interested in hearing from republicans on your thoughts. you can focus on them as a whole, you the focus on them specific. but we are interested in your thoughts on the current crop running for the presidency on the gop side. here is how you can call us this mor

joining us on the phone is thomas leighton, the president any delay in the federal and state government really affects the lives of our people. it affects their ways of getting back to work in their real jobs. , have had devastation in the surrounding communities and aid is needed from washington. host:, as your city received investments as far as disaster funds? >> the city itself with the infrastructure we have about $3 million in damage, some of the walls along the creeks collapsed and other infrastructure problems. we had to evacuate 20,000 people. and the surroundingere. it is a matter of helping each other get backth will need the m washington. guest: i just wanted to clarify, you had disasters essentially tied to of hurricane irene with the river flooding and then the remnants of what was tropical storm lee, right? >> that is correct. we got hit in a two-week period with irene and lee, just getting back to a normal way of life and then being hit with lee. guest:irene? >> yes. guest: how many roughly? give us aficials. now it is just what is being done at the you went st: what ? >