but first, matt gutman joins us from westmoreland county, pennsylvania. where golf ball size hail rained down. >> reporter: good morning. the roof of this house was off roof shingles thrown all over

mcmillen: well, i was actually born and raised in westmoreland county so i have been aware of the conditions in herminie all my life. herminie has declined, because for any type of business of any size to come in and create jobs, they need the infrastructure there, and in herminie, it's just not there. narrator: to address community frustrations, sewickley township, home of herminie, created a sewer authority board in 1998. it's comprised of residents and business owners who worked for almost a decade to get sewage infrastructure for the area. miller: we were novices. i don't think anybody in the township knew where to go. and we were frustrated at times. we thought we were right on the cusp of getting funding, and then, something happened and we didn't get it. yeah, we could go out and float a loan, and probably people would be looking at maybe $100 a month in sewage bills. so what you have to try to do is get enough funding to keep sewage rates at a reasonable rate so people can afford them. and that's been a real problem. without grant money, it can't be done. mcmillen: they were in line,

westmoreland -- >> yes? >> mind if i add to that? the current program, current federal -- the national flood insurance program does have funds allocated for mitigating property losses, including purchasing properties that are repetitive loss properties, and then the predisaster mitigation programs that fema has does allocate money as a percentage of the overall payments for disaster mitigation for just this purpose. i think our view would be that maybe fema has not been as aggressive as it could be in utilizie inine ining those fund certainly, we'd encourage congress mitigating those funds to achieve what's mentioned. you asked about the planning. i represent the reinsurance industry, and nearly all insurance companies and most state insurance plans like the california earthquake authority and others, do, in fact, plan for the outlier year, the severe loss infrequent year to buy reinsurance to protect them against that, and that's what we're recommending that the flood insurance program do as well. >> okay. talking about the repetiti

general westmoreland had called for more troops. a debate broke out, should we, shouldn't we, it went on for a long time. if we do escalate, how many troops? do we go over our troop caps? basically, for two months they argued it to death and, ultimately, johnson -- after news of this debate leaked to "the new york times," their great headlines about, you know, a secret escalation in the works, this kind of thing, and can johnson just said to heck with it. we'll just call for more peace talks. and this time they had them. so it wasn't that tet demoralized the united states, tet just demoralized lyndon johnson. and it wasn't that johnson lost middle america, middle america lost the president. and that's why tet was sacrificed. it wasn't just the press, it was mainly lyndon johnson. he gave up on himself. so the lessons, i guess, from tet that apply to today are things like don't give the enemy credit for having a better plan than they are. sometimes you'll see people today talk about terrorists like they're some kind of geniuses, long

westmoreland, for five minutes. mr. westmoreland: in october of 1890, four women linked by common lineage to heros of the american revolution, joined 18 others to start the daughters of the american revolution. they started a campaign to serve the cupry through preservation of american history. since its founding, they have expanded to nearly 3,000 chapters and over 850,000 members around the world. in the middle of the era rife with inequality for women, this organization flourished on a strong sense of pride for the men and women who fought to gain american independence. theirs is a rich history, filled with patriotism, self-sacrifice and dedication to education. for decades, the daughters of the american revolution have sponsored scholarships and supported schools for the underprivileged. their support has aided the preservation of dozens of historic locations around the country. their scholarships have provided thousands with the opportunity to attend institutes of higher education. their outreach programs recognize

. >>> residents in a westmoreland hill neighborhood are trapped after a mudslide trapped them. these are live pictures. the entire mountainside is across the road, including about seven 200-foot redwood trees. jade hernandez is at the end of the closed road and will join us in about a half an hour with pictures of the mudslide. >>> 7:05. in oakland overnight fire and sparks, right there. those force the chp to shut down the 23rd offramp from 880 this morning around 1:00. now, oakland firefighters quickly responded and put out the fire. we can tell you that 23rd avenue offramp is back open again this morning. pg&e crews in san francisco pulled an all-nighter. there's some video we shot a couple of hours ago. workers are still out there fixing a faulty electrical cable that caused an explosion in the very busy union square shopping center yesterday morning. that explosion blew a manhole cover 15 feet in the air. luckily, no one was hurt. >>> thed about's perjury trial resumes -- the barry bonds 'perjury trial resumes. and prosecutors will call jason giambi. he's expected to testi

westmoreland, for five minutes. mr. westmoreland: thank you, mr. speaker. i come before the house this morning with great sorrow but also with great honor to celebrate the life of lance corporal ramon johnson who answered his nations call -- nation's call of duty in 2007 after graduating in gicks. -- 2006. on october 13, 2010, he made the ultimate sacrifice. while serving his country and protecting his country and fellow service men -- servicemen abroad. he was killed while conducting combat operations in the hell mund province of afghanistan. -- helmund province of afghanistan. he was employed to afghanistan as part of the first battalion, eighth marine regiment, second marine division out of camp lejeune, north carolina. he leaves behind his mother, his father, a sister, a brother, who serves in the georgia national guard. he also leaves behind a nephew. ramon desired to become a united states marine from an early age. family members call ramon's spending hours playing military video games and watching the military channel when he was a teenager. ramon be

but first, matt gutman joins us from westmoreland county, pennsylvania. where golf ball size hail rained down. >> reporter: good morning. the roof of this house was off roof shingles thrown all over the place. it was 15 minutes of absolute terror which their entire neighborhood was reassembled. porches off the streets, houses absolutely flattened down this hill. >> oh, my god. if you can see that. >> reporter: with the funnel cloud hammering right towards them. >> the tornado right there. get in the school. >> reporter: one student caught it on his cell phone. >> all of a sudden, it disappeared. i looked around. it landed 50 feet in front of me. >> we don't get tornadoes here. >> reporter: in all, close to 330 reports of severe weather in 9 states. and amateur storm chasers were out in force, recording every crazy moment. here in pennsylvania, severe damage to dozens of homes, businesses, and two schools. the winds suck giant oaks right from the ground and tore through homes. >> i just totally freaked out. >> reporter: golf ball sized hail pelted five sta

westmoreland, to preside over the committee of the whole. the chair: the house is in the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for consideration of h.r. 836 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: a bill to rescind the unobligated funding for the mortgage relief program and to terminate the program. the chair: pursuant to the rule, the bill is considered as read the first time. the gentleman from texas, mr. hensarling, and the gentlewoman from california, ms. waters, each will control 30 minutes. . the chair recognizes the gentleman from texas. mr. hensarling: thank you, mr. chairman. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the chair: the gentleman may proceed. mr. hensarling: mr. chairman, the american people woke up several days ago to the very sad reality that this nation has just incurred its single largest monthly deficit in the history of the nation. $226 billion with the back of the envelope calculation roughly $2,500 for every household in just one month. mr. chairman, february is the shortest month of th

these are just a few of at least 30 homes that were damaged by a funnel cloud that skipped across westmoreland county and today the national weather service will be on-site to determine how this storm should be rated and whether or not that funnel cloud actually touched down. but for the people who live here, they say there's no doubt about it, matt. >> all right, in pennsylvania for us this morning, allison, thank you very much. >> pretty dramatic images. bhast in store today? al roker is up with more on these storms and a first look at the forecast. hey, al, good morning. >> thanks very much. this is a look back at where you can see these storms now moving through sparta, tennessee, greensburg, pennsylvania. and very powerful storms last night moving through, triggering off also some problems here in the northeast with snow. now, as we move out west, where they had a tornado reported in northern california, fourth tim got flood watches, surf advisories, winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories for there. as you can see, we've got another storm system coming on shore. there's anoth