who is in harm's way needs to prepare for the worst and pray for the best. >> let me assure you that we are not overreacting. we need to be ready >> if you live in one of these areas, spend time with precaution. >> battering the bahamas. in nasa, jim, what has the damage been there? >> reporter: candy, a little a little bit of palms here with high wind and strong rain. here in nassau, the main tourist areas, no damage or floods whatsoever. the power lines -- [inaudible] they are so confident that the tourist areas -- [inaudible] >> jim, i'm sorry. i'm going to have to interrupt you here. we have really bad -- i can't hear thaw well. from what i can tell, not that much damage where he is in nassau. we will get back to him we can e audio problem. the latest forecast from the national hurricane center says irene will approach the north carolina coast saturday. cnn meteorologist chad myers is here to fill in more of the details. chad, you and i have talked for a couple of nights now, and i keep asking you where is the storm going to go, and now i think the answer is everywhere. >> it is. it will be an approach of the north carolina coast, anywhere from wilmington, although that's far on the left side, to cape hatteras, although that's far on the right side. somewhere down the middle of that cone will be morehead city, atlantic beach. all day long this storm just ran through the bahamas and it wasn't very organized. it was a 100-mile-per-hour storm. it just didn't have its act together. well, now, on the very last couple of images, candy, the eye is back. and when the eye comes back, the storm begins to generate itself again. this storm is not going to be the potential category 4 according to the hurricane center that it once was due to today. it just didn't generate anything today. now, we do have some rain. we have some showers on the florida coast and we even had some airport, some cancellations out of miami and ft. lauderdale due to those squalls coming onshore. we are still seeing and that's all we're going to see are those big waves coming onshore in the atlantic. yesterday at this time, we talked about waiting for the turn. this is where the storm has been. here's irene. i'm just kind of smoothing it out for you. but you notice the last few hours, the turn is here. the turn that has been forecast for days is now here. the turn will continue. if you follow the track, that's how the american coastline goes, the turn, in fact, will be the worst-case scenario for this storm. directly over the outer banks. it won't slow down much over the outer banks, because really the outer banks there's a lot of water there. there's not much there there, there's not much land. and then you get past over virginia beach, a direct hit there. and along the coast, think about all the homes and all the property, the beautiful sea line that's along the coast, and the storm is going to eat it all up. it's going to just travel up along the coast, all the way up the jersey shore and all the way into new york city as about an 85-mile-per-hour storm. still, i know, it can go left, it can go right, but the cone is getting smaller now because the storm is getting closer. as it gets closer, the error is smaller and smaller, and an 85-mile-per-hour storm right over new york city for this weekend will cause a lot of flooffed i flooding and power outages that may not be fixed in a week or two, we'll have to keep watching it, candy. >> chad myers, we'll keep watching it with you, thanks so much. what are coastal residents doing to prepare for hurricane irene, and joining us is sheriff bill sawyer jr., thank you for joining us. can you describe the scene in areas around you? are people starting to leave or is it one of those things we always see, you go to a beach area or coastal area and people don't seem to be paying much attention? >> no. it is [ inaudible ] we're about 26 miles from the outer banks on the west side of pamlico sound. people are doing a lot of moving, people in the low-lying areas are getting their personal property up out of the way so it doesn't flood. see a lot of that going on today. a few people boarding up windows and stuff like that. that's what's been going on most of the day. >> we're hearing reports already of long lines of traffic in your state, presumably moving east to west. should people start moving now where you are? and it sounds like some of them are. >> i think so. i talked to a bunch of the older commercial -- and farmers in the area today, and when they're concerned, it's something to really be concerned about, and a bunch of the older fishermen and farmers in our area are really worried about this one. >> and as i understand it, you will have a voluntary evacuation down there starting tomorrow. >> that's right, ma'am. >> judging from what you're hearing from fishermen and from others who have seen storms come and go, is voluntary enough to get folks out of your region? >> i think it is. we have -- most of our tourists -- and we don't have a big tourist population right now. most of what we have are local people, and we've been through this several times, you know, our coastline gets hit seems like on a pretty regular basis, even though we haven't had one in several years. but i think people know what they're doing, they know what they're up against, and they're prepared. >> and for those who are not evacuating, who will stay in that region, certainly near the coast, if not on it, what do you recommend? what do you tell them to do in order to stay safe? >> well, of course, if they're in low-lying areas, and most of my county is in low-lying areas, go to a shelter, go to a family member who doesn't live in a low-lying area. get away from the low-lying areas. and most of the folks will. you have some that will stay and -- but most folks will get out of the low-lying areas. >> sheriff bill sawyer, you have a busy 24 hours ahead of you i know in pamlico county, thank you very much for taking the time for us from north carolina. >> all right. you take care. and god bless you. >> you, too. heading further north, the governor of maryland issued a state of emergency earlier today, and he joins us from baltimore. from what you see, governor, and thank you for joining us, i know it's a busy time. how worriy eied are you about t oncoming storm? i know you must be talking to weather forecasters as it specifically applies for maryland. >> we are concerned. we drill for a direct hit hurricane and that's the worst-case scenario and we do it every season. we've been very fortunate up to now. this is a very slow-moving and very dangerous and potentially dangerous hurricane. we're taking this very, very seriously. we're forwarding assets. we ordered an evacuation in conjunction with our partners. the mayor of ocean city. and so that has already begun. that's a mandatory evacuation. we've -- we are also evacuating some of the bay islands and some of the lower-lying areas as the gentleman in your prior interview said, we're encouraging our coastal residents to find a family member that you can hunker down with for the weekend. if you're in a low-lying area, find somebody that you love that's in a higher elevation, because this is potentially a very deadly and dangerous hurricane. >> and obviously you have different advice for ocean city, maryland, which is basically get out and get out now, than you do for, say, someone inland in bethesda. but this could potentially obviously come into d.c. and in bethesda which borders as you full well on washington, d.c., what are you telling residents that are not immediately on the coastline? >> well, what we're telling residents is they need to be prepared in their own family, in their own home to provide for themselves on their own for 72 hours. the ground is very saturated. the slow-moving storm has a lot of rain and a lot of wind. trees will be knocked over. power outages will happen, and people need to be prepared to be on their own for a 72-hour period of time. the breadth of this storm will range in our state all the way from frederick on the west to ocean city. so, this is a very large and wide storm that will be cutting a path of destruction, felled trees, felled power lines and the like. so, this is the time when we all need to be stronger together and take -- and also take special responsibility for the most vulnerable among us, whether it's elderly parents or neighbors that we know are vulnerable. >> basically for three days, maryland residents, wherever they are, need to be prepared to be on their own without power perhaps without water. >> absolutely. >> okay. >> that's what every family should be prepared to do regardless whether in this case a category 2 is coming right at ocean city, the eye of the hurricane, passing over ocean city, and there will be power outages, and unlike past instances, candy, where you can call on mutual aid from north and south, i mean, i've been in touch with my colleagues, beverly purdue is doing a great job and governor mcdonald in virginia and others. but, hey, this is going to be a wide storm and it's going to be pulling up all of the assets up and down the east coast to take care of people in their own states along the track of this hurricane. >> governor, you have a nuclear plant in calvert county, what are you doing special, if anything, to make sure that's protected? because as we know now looking at japan and fukushima, the problem there was the flooding. >> right. well, fortunately the elevation of that particular plant is fairly high on the bluffs of calvert cliffs there. it is always a concern of ours in the recent earthquake. it continued to function and functioned properly without any problems, and the elevation there is pretty high, and very immune from the sort of tidal surge that we'll have in the bay. having said that, other areas of the bay are not immune, and predicting the tidal surge in the bay is a very, very tricky business. it's a bit of a shallow bathtub, so as this hurricane comes up and pushes water up the bay, a lot of low-lying areas, especially in somerset, dorchester, even in annapolis and potentially in the city of baltimore will be very vulnerable to the tidal surge that comes with the hurricane, along with the winds and the felled power lines and everything else, so this is a very serious and potentially deadly storm. >> governor martin o'malley of maryland, like all the governors along the coast, be prepared to fend for yourself for a while, take care of yourself and your family and anyone in your neighborhood who might need some help. thank you so much, governor. >> mach, candy. more on irene on the program tonight, including one governor's warning that the hurricane is not a cry wolf syndrome. and libyan rebels act on a tip on where gadhafi may be hiding out. ♪ with diabetes, it's tough to keep life balanced. i don't always have time to eat like i should. and the more i focus on everything else, the less time i have to take care of me. that's why i like glucerna shakes. they have slowly digestible carbs to help minimize blood sugar spikes, which can help lower a1c. glucerna products help me keep everything balanced. 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[ male ] using clean american fuel is just a pipe dream. ♪ [ female announcer ] we're rolling away misperceptions about energy independence. did you know that today about a quarter of all new transit buses use clean, american natural gas? we have more natural gas than saudi arabia has oil. so how come we're not using it even more? start a conversation about using more natural gas vehicles in your community. officials along the east coast are going out of their way to persuade people to take this storm seriously. here's how new jersey governor chris christie put it this afternoon -- >> i've lived here my whole life, and i understand the cry wolf syndrome that you talked about before. probably participated in it once or twice myself when i wasn't in government. the fact is that this is not wup of those circumstances. >> with us now fema administrator craig fugate, mr. fugate, you just heard what chris christie had to say about this oncoming storm. a hurricane expert on the weather channel just said, and this is a quote, this storm has the makings of the hurricane of our lifetime for the mid-atlantic and the northeast. so, i know you have to walk the line between overreaction and underreaction, but is it that serious? >> well, i think it's important that people take steps to get ready. i mean, this is going to be a hard call. we know north carolina's going to probably get a landfall with a major hurricane, but along the i-95 corridor, you know, we're getting forecasts of that potential storm surge, heavy rains and damaging winds could impact a lot of folks, and i think really what we want people to do is take it serious. get ready. people still have time. the carolinas you are evacuating, but for a lot of other folks, you still have time to get ready, but you'll not have much more time. and getting prepared is the key part of this to reduce the impact of the storms particularly for life safety. >> let me get personal here. when you say get ready, i have a son in new york city, what does he do to get ready? >> first thing first go to the new york city office of emergency management web page and look in the information does he live in an evacuation zone. mayor bloomberg and his team were talking about it this morning, his folks in the evacuation zones need to be ready to evacuate and know where the bus pickup points will be and get in the right area. if the power goes out and if we lose water pressure or water goes out and that may be not just for hours, it could be for days. you may lose communication and you may have lose cell service. you need to have a battery-powered radio and the battery for your flashlights and the ability to charge the cell phone if you don't have power whether it's a hand crank, and this is how you get ready. go to ready.gov and the local emergency management websites to get ready. youed into ed to find out now, are you in an evacuation zone, and what to do if you lose power, lose water. maybe not be able to get out and get supplies for several days and what you need to have on hand to get through the first couple of days after the storm hits. >> the communications problem we had an experience in the earthquake the other day when it was just difficult to get a cell out of washington, d.c., to do any phone calling, where the text seemed to work fairly well. twitter was great. what can be done to alleviate that sort of thing? or should people just not rely that those cell phones are going to work in the instance of a storm this big hitting so many people. >> i think you just need to be prepared, not only can we have congestion on the systems, but with a lot of power outages we could have reduced capacity and that's one of the things that use alternatives. again, we saw people using social media and texting, they were able to sometimes get through the bottlenecks, but also remember that it may be difficult to call a lot of people, so do you have an out of the area contact that you can kind of use as your rally point or a facebook posting if you can do that to let people know you're okay versus trying to call everybody and talk to them individually. really want to reserve particularly the phone lines and cell service for the emergency calls, 911 calls and try to reduce the congestion. but that means ahead of time having a plan of how you're letting people know you're okay if the cells are out or if they're congested or if you have limited communications such things as, you know, text messaging or updating a social web page to let people know that. >> when you look at the broad area, mr. fugate, that could be affected, first by direct impact and then the things you're talking about, loss of power, loss of water supply, what worries you the most? >> well, i think, again, i'm breaking it down into the phase of the what we're going to see first, and that's going to be the impacts along coastal areas, to the evacuations and how many people comply with that. that's going to be key to reducing the loss of life and minimizing the impacts there. but then again, it's going to be how far inland do the winds go, how strong are they and how much rain we get. we are very concerned. this area particularly the northeast has had so much rain recently, even today we've had severe weather and flash flood advisories here in the d.c. metro area, so more storms impacting this area, we're afraid a lot of flooding, a lot of tree damage, a lot of power outages, pretty much anywhere on the i-95 corridor from as far south as the carolinas and on up to boston and maine. >> we have indeed, i can attest to the torrential rains we had today. i thought the hurricane was here. let me ask you about fema itself. you're talking about possible loss of water supply. is it fema's job to arrange for trucks full of fresh water to be sparked somewhere outside the storm zone to come in afterwards? what are you doing? >> that's some of what we're doing. we've already had equipment and supplies such as bottled water going into north carolina, ft. bragg. we also have resources going into the mid-atlantic and up into the new england states. one things we learned from hurricane katrina is the private sector does a lot of this, too, so we work very closely with a lot of the big box retailers so as they start moving supplies up into these areas, we're working to fill gaps and looking at that. the state and locals do a lot of this, yeah, we move the stuff ahead of time. we have generators, shelf stable meals. a lot of things we know we'll need, but this is the really key part. if people haven't done steps to get ready, it's going to be very hard to get to everybody in the first days after the storm. we want to focus on the most vulnerable members of the community, the young, the poor, the people that don't have the ability to get supplies and store them. the rest of us needed to did our part to be as ready as we can. >> okay. quickly now give me the name -- give me the website address people can go to see what they need to do to get ready for this or any other storm. >> for this or any other disaster, ready.gov, get your plan on your mobile phones, you can go to m.fema.gov and get it on go. >> craig fugate, you've got a busy couple days ahead of you, good luck. >> thank you. we wanted to share this tweet from fugate today, got a plan? got supplies? prepared to evacuate if ordered? good. you're in charge, not irene. next up i'll ask the head of one of the east coast's major power companies what his people are doing to prepare for irene. and you're looking live at wrightsville beach, north carolina, where the waves are getting bigger and the beach is empty. hey! you want that? you want a warm, super-delicious strawberry toaster strudel yeah but now i have nothing to eat sure you do. hey! you can have the pop tart! pillsbury toaster strudel. the one kids want to eat pillsbury toaster strudel. or creates another laptop bag or hires another employee, it's not just good for business -- it's good for the entire community. at bank of america, we know the impact that local businesses have on communities, so we're helping them with advice from local business experts and extending $18 billion in credit last year. that's how we're helping set opportunity in motion. [ male announcer ] if you're in a ford f-150 and you see this... it's the end of the road. the last hurrah. it's when ford's powertrain warranty ends. but in this ram truck, you've still got 39,999 miles to go. ♪ guts. glory. ram. ♪ literally millions of people from north carolina to maine could lose electric power, and what are power companies doing to make sure you won't be in the dark for days. with us joe wrigby the president and ceo of pepco, who has 2 million customers in delaware, the district of columbia, and new jersey. as a marylander, full disclosure, i'm one of your customers. >> good. >> is there any doubt as you watch this storm coming that this is going to cause large power outages whether it's in virginia, maryland, noew jersey or new york? >> no, candy, first, thanks for having me on. there is no doubt in our mind. this has been a big story for us really for the last three or four days. we actually began the preparation in the early part of the week, and we've been absolutely anticipating that this is going to hit us hard. it's going to hit us to varying degrees, probably less so here where we are, but more as you move to the east of our service territory over to atlantic city. we're anticipating with the kind of rain and sustained winds that we'll likely have serious damage and likely multiday outages. >> what do you do to prepare because you don't know which tree will fall on what wire or what poles will come down or what stations will get flooded, so what does the preparation consist of? >> it really falls in several categories, and you having me on tonight is one of these opportunities for us to communicate the seriousness of this and to remind customers what they can be doing to really take care of themselves if they get into an extended outage. beyond that, the most important thing for us to do is to maximize the resources that we can bring to bear to get to the areas that are impacted and restore the power as safely and as quickly as we can. let me just give you a perspective. here in the greater washington area, we now already have close to 1,000 line personnel here on the property ready to address this. that is significantly more than we've ever really had in the past. i can never recall us having this many personnel two days in advance of an event like this. now, we're still in the process of trying to secure more resources. >> now, are these people that you've brought in from other states that aren't being affected? these are people hired in. >> yes. >> when there are a number of power companies in charge of various places that may be hit to one degree or another, so are you in competition with one another in terms of, you know, we've got, quick, get to ohio and get our 800 people, otherwise new york will have them? >> well, i would say mostly no. to a little bit, yes. one of the great things about our industry is that we have a long-standing policy of what's called mutual assistance and all of us kind of share the responsibility to try to restore customers as quickly as we can. over the last several days, our utilities, other utilities in the region have participated in conference calls to secure resources from other parts of the country. we have resources already on the property from ohio, pennsylvania, and we have resources on the way now to assist us from the state of texas. as you get closer to the event itself, it can get a little bit crowded in terms of trying to get the resources which is why we've tried to be so proactive in getting our requests in right up front. >> i don't need to tell you that pepco customers have not always been pleased with pepco in the past. >> right. >> you all have been slammed pretty hard in recent storms. >> right. >> i think that people understand that big storms knock out power. >> right. >> i think what people don't understand is why the heck it takes so long. >> we're going to have about -- a period of about 12 hours of sustained winds that in the state of new jersey could get to 80 miles an hour. we have very strict osha regulations where we cannot be sending out our people to begin that restoration process until the winds have subsided to less than 35 miles an hour. so, we're going to go through a period here as we go through the event before we'll even be able to get out and begin the assessment and the restoration process. so, that's one of the reasons why on the front end of it, it seems like it takes a while. it also actually takes a while to do the assessment and get people out there. our goal is to get as many people on as fast and safely as we can. and that's the priority of our restoration. unfortunately there are situations where you have someone that's down at the end of that particular road that we're going to get to them kind of later in the process, but we totally understand that that's extremely frustrating, but i want you to know that we are maximizing our resources to be able to preclude that from happening to the greatest extent that we can. >> i know you know these figures, but for our listeners before i ask this last question, there was a study in a 2009 survey that showed that pepco customers experienced 70% more outages than customers of other big city utilities and they lasted longer, almost twice as long. so, what i'm wondering is why will this time be different than other times? >> well, i'm going to give you a couple reasons why i think it's going to be different. it's all the hard work we've done in the last 12 months to aggressively trim trees which is the try marry problem when we have when we have a weather event like this, we've been aggressively trimming trees in the greater washington area. so i think we'll have less than we otherwise would have. the other issue that will drive i think a better performance is the level of resources that i talked to you about a few minutes ago, and the fact that they're here already. we're not waiting for them to arrive. so, we're going to come at this as hard as we can and we'll work 24 hours a day to get the power back on for our customers. >> mr. wrigby, no one wishes you better luck than i do in the coming days. i know they will be long days. >> thank you. libya's rebels liberate a prison and find a u.s. journalist who disappeared months ago. masseuse, who cuddle up with your soreness and give out polar bear hugs. technology. 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[ male announcer ] they'll see you...before you see them. cops are cracking down on drinking and riding. drive sober, or get pulled over. two of the most important are energy security and economic growth. north america actually has one of the largest oil reserves in the world. a large part of that is oil sands. this resource has the ability to create hundreds of thousands of jobs. at our kearl project in canada, we'll be able to produce these oil sands with the same emissions as many other oils and that's a huge breakthrough. that's good for our country's energy security and our economy. tonight a senior u.s. military official with direct knowledge of the effort tells cnn the u.s. military is looking at options for delivering both humanitarian assistance to libya and helping with the return of refugees. late this afternoon the u.n. security council reached an agreement to release $1.5 billion in frozen libyan assets to help meet the country's humanitarian needs, all this despite intense fighting around tripoli, shelling by gadhafi loyalists destroyed three planes at the city's airport in the past 24 hours and gadhafi himself is still sending audio messages full of defiance. >> translator: do not leave tripoli for the rats. do not leave them. fight them. destroy them. you are the overwhelming majority. you have marched in millions. march with the same million, but fight this time. fill the streets and the fields. >> cnn's senior international correspondent nic robertson is in tripoli with the latest on the hunt for gadhafi. nic, i know you've been out on the streets all day in tripoli. at least back here we hear he's one place and it never seems to pan out. what's behind all these rumors and how can you decipher what seems to be a real tip and then just the general rumors that tend to go with war? >> reporter: i think one way that we try to gauge one of the rumors and what are the real tips is watching what the rebels do. that's an imperfect sense if you will, but when we came into town this afternoon, we met a rebel commander. he controlled the west of the city. he told us he'd heard that gadhafi was holed up in an apartment near his former palace compound. he had sent additional rebel forces to surround it. we went to take a look. it didn't pan out. it didn't seem to exist. then the rumor changed that, in fact, gadhafi was holed up into another neighborhood. we went there. it turned out to be just a family that people thought were loyal to gadhafi, and then when the rebels went in, there was no one there. so, it is rebels chasing rumors, almost chasing their tails. and it's very, very difficult to determine what is -- what is fact and what is fiction in these rumors, because so far most of them really these rumors are nothing more than that. there doesn't seem to be anything really that substantia substantiates. them. and it's perhaps a sale of this country at the moment, poor communication, intense suspicions, fear, the desire by the rebels to actually get gadhafi, and their need to take control of the country, candy. >> sure. and speaking of trying to decipher truth and fiction, we just heard that audio clip of moammar gadhafi, at least someone claiming to be him, it sounded like him, that very defiant saying there's millions of you who support me, take up arms. and while we are seeing this fighting around tripoli and the airport and in other places across the country, is there any doubt in anybody's mind there that gadhafi's days as a ruler are over? other than his mind. >> reporter: i don't think anybody doubts that. nobody -- well, exactly. and he has a very paranoid suspicious mind and he does seem to be cut off from reality, because everyone we're talking to and the expectation here is he's not going to come back. he can't come back. he's been overpowered. but are there places that he can hold out in? are there parts of the city? there are areas of the country? are there tribes that might stay loyal? the rebels have still got to go a long way before they get the whole of this country under their control, under their authority. right now if you go out on the -- checkpoints with young men with weapons, they're not -- as long as this hunt going to go on. how are the rebel authorities going to -- the national transitional council going to run this country in the way that a government would run a country. they have never done this before. so, their challenges are huge, and the biggest one really is right now is taking control of it all, and they're not there yet. far from it. >> nic robertson in tripoli for us tonight. thank you so much for being around. tripoli may be primarily in hands of rebels, but gadhafi's hometown of cert is still controlled by loyalists to the former leader. rebel forces in the eastern part of the country are trying to end that, and today they inched closer to the key city of ra ras lenouf, and that's where we find our fred pleitgen. what can you tell us about your day to day and what you saw? >> reporter: there was pretty intense fighting around the town, the rebels have actually now managed to take that. it's a very important town, because there's a key strategic oil and gas refinery there, actually the largest oil and gas refinery in libya, so it's a very, very important place. what the rebels are trying to do is get closer and closer to cert. they are quite aways away from cert, but they're fighting battles with gadhafi forces. there's a lot of exchange with pretty heavy fire, a lot of artillery and mortars being used and also rockets being used on the front line, so it seems as tripoli might be coming more and more under the control of the rebels, there is still a very hot war zone that is going on here in the center of the country as the rebels are trying to move on to cert. while they're doing this, they say they are also in negotiations with moammar gadhafi's tribe to try and get them to lay their arms down. however, they say so far, those negotiations don't seem to be going anywhere, candy? >> ras lanouf is home to major oil and gas refineries. do you have any idea how secure the refineries are? because we know certainly from the experience in iraq, sometimes the forces that are under fire tend to light up those oil places and ruin them for years to come. >> reporter: i can't hear them anymore. >> yeah. our fred pleitgen, we have lost him. always amazing to me that we can ever get them in the first place. but thank you very much tonight to fred pleitgen. despite the intense fighting in parts of libya, the rebels' political leaders, the national transition council, or ntc for short, is preparing to run the country and try to get libya's economy up and running again. you heard our nic robertson talking a bit about that. we've got a research fellow from the new american foundation, who travels to tripoli on wednesday with some of the rebels and he joins us now live. and thank you so much for being here. i have to tell you, i think nic pretty much laid out for me what the big questions are there. you spent a lot of time with the rebels, and i'm just wondering if you get a sense that they are ready to go from toppling a government to putting one together. >> well, they're technocrats with not much political skills. they're political dissidents and professors. few in libya can name a bunch of these people, let alone explain why they're admired, and not many of them are known in the west, and that's the problem that they're going to have moving forward, that they don't have the political experience and the respect in society that they're going to need to gain the trust of society. >> and when you talk to libyan citizens like not those in the ntc, but just citizens, do they know the names of the people that are currently on the council? do they know what the council's trying to do? i mean, how much knowledge is there just on the street? >> well, for the past five months, i've been asking libyans across eastern libya and today that same question, and basically what i've learned is everybody knows abdul jalil, he was a minister of justice under gadhafi, which means he's showed up in television broadcasts and in the print media, but after that it's very difficult for people to say who comes next, who are the other people on the ntc, and that's a big problem, and even with jalil, people say he's honest and he's a good guy, but they really can't explain why they really like this man. >> and this is a concern from the west, and i know since you've been there for so long, you can help us with this. is there any evidence that al qaeda or any other terrorist group are making any kind of inroads inside the chaos that is now libya? >> well, candy, as you know, islamists are a big, amorphous groups, we have caliphates and radical jihadist and then the muslim brotherhood and political islamists, and you have all those kind of people in libya. the strongest are the muslim brotherhood, they are the most organized and the most aid from abroad, and they're a big problem that the ntc will have to deal with and it's not at all clear that a secular government that is amenable to the united states and the western powers will emerge in the put, candy. >> and how horde is it for the ntc to get up and running so long as gadhafi's at large? >> well, basically the last three weeks have been a godsend to the ntc. it was facing a very difficult morale boost after the assassination of a rebel military leader on july 28th. however, now the question is, can they spread their power and influence here in the west? and it's not at all clear that they have that support in society that they had in the east. and that is something we're going to have to look forward to understand in the future. >> barack barfi, a fellow with the new american foundation. thank you very much for your expertise tonight. we appreciate it. "anderson cooper 360" is coming up at the top of the area, and as he has every day this week, anderson has showed up with a preview. >> i keep showing up. yeah, about 11 minutes from now we'll have the breaking news on "360," we've got the latest bulletin from the national weather service, it's out in a few minutes. we want to get an update on hurricane irene, it's a category 3 storm and we'll know if it holds at the top of the hour. the northeast coast holding its breath hoping it doesn't get worse. new york one of the cities in the crosshairs. this is what happened in 1938. there were a lot of deaths in new york. we'll speak with an expert who most dangerous, most expensive storm in recent u.s. history. also, 360 exclusive on libya. the woman instrumental in getting those 36 journalists out of the rixos hotel in tripoli. the producer negotiated with the guards. here's a little of what she told me about how she did it. >> we all felt that pressure on that last day, on wednesday that we have to get out of there no matter what. i just sat with him. i just sat on the floor and looked at him and said, we need to get out of here. i miss my family. i need to see my family. and i knew he was going through that, because he hadn't seen his family for days and he was telling me and other journalists about his five children, the youngest 3 years old. the fighting was going on across the city and he had no news of them because there was no phone lines or power. i think that was the turning point. he got all teary when i was telling him that i missed my family. he said, okay, let's try and get you out of here. >> video of her negotiating with one of the soldiers. remarkable what she did. we're seeing video of the early moments of that fire fight to take gadhafi's fire fight. take a look. more at the top of the hour, 8:00 p.m. eastern and again at 10:00 p.m. eastern. >> about 8 1/2 minutes from now, we'll be there anderson. what you need to be ready now for irene. 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[ male announcer ] they'll see you...before you see them. cops are cracking down on drinking and riding. drive sober, or get pulled over. you want that? you want a warm, super-delicious strawberry toaster strudel yeah but now i have nothing to eat sure you do. hey! you can have the pop tart! pillsbury toaster strudel. the one kids want to eat how far do you need to go if you were ordered to evacuate due to an event like hurricane irene. jay baker is a professor at florida state university. and an expert on hurricane preparedness. he joins us now from tallahassee. professor baker, thanks for being here. i think a lot of times people watch on tv and they say, i'm not evacuating, i'm not leaving my house. why don't people evacuate when they see the kind of dangerous flags put up, say, all along the coast? >> well, it's true, a fair number of people don't leave. and for the majority of them, it's because they don't think they need to. there are some people who don't leave because they have constraints that keep them from being able to leave. but most people don't leave either because they think the storm's not going to be strong enough to pose a significant threat to them, where they live, or they think their house is built well enough or is in a safe location. the problem is -- >> we are having our own share of troubles here tonight. it has nothing to do with hurricane irene. obviously we have lost professor baker. and we will apologize for that. hopefully we will be able to get him back at some time in the hour. we want to take you now, this is the presser from the folks putting together the martin luther king memorial celebration on sunday. this is a news conference. >> it will be moved to a date yet to be determined in september or october. we will announce those details as soon as they are available. for now, we want to make sure that you have this new information as soon as possible. there are so many individuals who worked tirelessly to dedicate the dream, and make this memorial a reality. we owe a special debt of gratitude of to the king family who are sitting with us here today, the foundation staff, our generous sponsors, especially the general motors foundation and chevrolet, and to you, the public. in the words of dr. king, we must accept the finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope. with that in mind, let's remember the spirit of the memorial, justice, democracy, hope and love. thank you. >> okay. the first major thing changing here, at least as far as the nation is concerned, as a result of irene, and that is that the opening, the dedication of the martin luther king jr. memorial was suppose the to take place on the mall this sunday, has been canceled because of hurricane irene. they will have it, they say, the dedication in september or october. i think i have on the phone with me roland martin. roland, this must have been an incredibly difficult decision to make, such a special day. it was supposed to coincide with the "i have a dream speech" on the mall. >> it was a very tough decision. i talked to harry johnson just yesterday, and the plan was to move forward. they actually were going to make the final decision about tomorrow afternoon. but it was clear that with the hurricane irene going from a category 1 to a 2, to a 3, that they had to make this call. literally, candy, folks are already planning to fly in, people are getting on buses. so they had to keep them safe. that's why this call was made. yeah very, very tough, after all the hard work that went into this weekend. >> well, you know, hopefully there will be some pretty weekends in september and ost and one of them will shine on the dedication of this memorial. i know you were to be the emcee for this occasion. i think there must be some personal disappointment for you. >> absolutely. look, there were 15 of us that started this. it really got this thing going, raising the $4 million as the seed money. we had more than 2,000 brothers from around the country. what is happening tomorrow, though, the alpha already planned a private dedication tomorrow, and that is still going forward. so we will have some kind of event taking place actually at