Transcripts For WRC Today 20100207

thanksor joining us for this extended coverage. you are planning, though, to travel, you still need to be very careful, because the roads, even if they look as if they've been cleared, are very icy and some are continue to be snow-packed. >> a little bit like driving on an ice rink. >> yep. >> metro is running only underground train service today. metro bussuspended, flights he main canceled at reagan, but officials will make an assessment later this morning. dulles and dwi are open for very limited flight operations. you'll want to check with your airport before heading out to confirm your flight. >> and cleaning up's going to be made a whole lot more difficult this morning because of these very cold temperatures. >> meteorologist chuck bell is up in storm center 4. good morning, chuck. >> good morning, kimberly and joe. yes, indeed, cold, cold, and cold are the best three ways to describe your sunday after the blizzard. plenty of sunshine out there. that is going to help moderate things just a little bit. and once temperatures get above about 24, 25 degrees, that's when theoad crew chemicals really start to be able to become effective once again. where we are right now, road temperatures are in the teens and most of the chemicals don't work at temperatures that low. we'll have to have a little bit of time here before we get the sunshine and temperatures up to where things can start to improve a bit. nonetheless, a very cold start this morning. windchills are in the single digits across the area. the sun's up for now, goes down at 5:37. want to remind everybody of that. as soon as the sun goes down, everything instantaneously refreezes. high temperature today, staying below the freezing mark. this is what we call the end of the blizzard, joe and kimberly. this is from cynthia chapmbers. that's good old mackenzie out there in 26 inches of snow. he's like, i left that bone out here somewhere. >> doggone . >> the tail of the storm. >> enough! >> we could keep going. >> we could. that's what i'm afraid of. thanks very much. >> even though crews have been working around the clock to plow the roads, people are being advised to stay home and stay off the roads. >> joining us this morning with more is charlie with the maryland state highway administration. charlie, thanks one again for joining us. what can you tell us about progress for today? >> i just got an update from our chief engineer today. and what we're going to do is work on these lane drops. that's if a motorist is running down the street, there's three open lanes, and all of a sudden it drops down to two open lanes. we're going to work on that and then we'll try to get more lanes open and move over towards the ramps and acceleration areas. and by the end of the day, we're hoping to get some of the park and ride locations that will be transit served, so we can start to this ithink about the week ahead from a business standpoint, getting folk to and from the office. but what you said before is absolutely accurate, have folks stay home and let us get out ahead of this thing. >>ow much of a problem are abandoned cars for you this morni morning? >> it's not such an issue today. today, so far, so good. we're out doeng the snow clearing and trying to get rid of those lane drops. >> you mentioned clearing the ramps. one of the issues i noticed this morning coming in this morning was getting on a ramp, you'll be coming down the ramp, but this has wall of snow separating the ramp lanes from the main lanes and it's very hard to tell when to move over and if you do, you have to go over a ridge of snow to get on to the main lane. >> that's part of this operation. we'll be clearing that snow, actually, by removing it by l d loaders and removing it with dump trucks to get it down to a manageable level. >> charlie, sometimes motorists are encouraged to get out on the roads to move the chemicals around and heat up the roads. we're not at that point yet? >> well, you know, while that's true, we still want people to stay home today because the temperatures, as your meteorologists are saying, are still quite chilly out there, still quite cold. the pavement temperatures are in the teens and 20s. we do have specific types of ways to get salt grind down, that can take an enhanced down to zero levels that's sprayed on to the actual salt, which is effective in very, very cold temperatures, but right now we just need folks to stay off the road, let us get out there and get this thing under control. >> thanks very much, charlie with maryland state highway administration. thank you. >> thank you, sir. >> let's head out to prince george's county in maryland. derrick ward is live in college park with the latest tout there. >> reporter: we're seeing a bit of a piup in traffic here, but nothing like as normal here along our route 1. want to direct your attention out on to route 1 at this point. and as you just heard, it will be -- they'll have to wait for the temperature to rise a little more before they chemically treat this road. and who knows, hopefully, optimistically, you may even get down to pavement at some point. that's going to be wet pavement. and when the temperature drops, it's going to refreeze again. that will present some challenges for tomorrow. that may have some determination into when they actually treat a road like this. but i'm prompted to think about an old paul simon song, "slipped sliding away." that's more than likely the scene you'll have on the side streets. we passed a ramp into an apartment development here, a downgrade, and it was slick with ice. but we have been able to see cars come out of that driveway. so with some care, some prudent speed, and some real attention to your surroundings and your road surface, you can probably get around, but if you don't have to, don't. that's essentially it. there's a lot of treatment to be done on these roads and especially those side rds and they'll also be getting to some of those parking lots. they're looking forward now to preparing for tomorrow's morning commute. while some things will still be closed, a lot of businesses and people will be going to their job. so really, today is the day of clean up. we've seen some tow trucks come by with -- flatbed tow trucks with vehicles on them. some of those cars that were stuck since this snow started falling are now being dug out and taken away and repaired. there's still a lot of work to do on the roads. not a good time to have a lot of traffic. if you can help it, stay in, stay safe. >> thanks very much, derrick ward, reporting live. the heavy snow has caused several roofs to collapse around the d.c. area. a tree fell on the joshua temple church on sheriff road yesterday afternoon in northeast. the tree destroyed the church. the only thing left standing is the steeple. no one was inside the church when it collapsed and no one was injured. >> a hangar at dulles airport also collapsed. the metro airport authority and fairfax county fire department were called to the dulles jet center around 8:00 yesterday morning. four workers managed to get out before the collapse. the building is considered a total loss. the damage to fire private jets inside is not yet known. >> and getting around the d.c. metro area was treacherous for those who dared to venture out yestery. drivers who overestimated their cars' abilities found their wheels spinning. and even those who came out to rescue them, the tow trucks and the ambulances, some of them got stuck in all the piles of snow. from virginia to the district and maryland, officials are continuing to warn everyone to stay off the roads today. it could take all day before snowplows can clear safe paths. they say stay out of the way so those workers can do their work. and this morning, governor martin o'malley is asking marylanders to stay off the roads. they're warning they could be even worse today because of the freezing temperatures continue to ice over those roadways. jackie bensen joins us from gaithersburg. >> reporter: take a look over here. you can see that gentleman is actually widening that access road into the gaithersburg square shopping center. of course,ur next step in all of this is trying to get back to normal, trying to go back to the store, going back to the gcery store, back to the bed bath & beyond, where we want to go after being hunkered down more so many days. they started with a small path,. behind me, route 355, you can see a gentleman walking down the road there, there is not a lot of traffic at this point. it's picking up a little bit. we see mostly suvs and things like that, but it's still, at this time of the morning, sunday morning when people are starting to get out and about, you can see there are very few people on the roads and that is a good thing. one thing i do want to warn people about is that we are starting to see people coming out, particularly in suvs with a whole bunch of snow on the top of the car. you want to be very, very careful because once things get warmer, once your vehicle heats up, you can end up putting on your brakes at a stoplight and all that goes right on to your windshield or back on the to the windshield of a person behind you. make sure you get all of that snow off the top of your vehicle. reporting live in good faithersberg, jackie bensen, back to you. >> great advice. >> if you are walking around, wear a color like jackie's wearing. it really pops out. those dark colors are harder to see. we'll be right back. our coverage of the blizzard of 2010 continues now at 8:13. turning now to northern virginia, where some areas are buried beneath almost 3 feet of snow, the virginia national guard has put about 500 troops on active duty to help local emergency crews. news 4's julie carey is live in tyson's corner this morning with more. julie, have you seen any emergency vehicles goingp and down 123 behind you? >> reporter: not only have we not seen any emergency vehicles, we haven't seen many vehicles at all. i said at one point yesterday, i said, take a goo look, you'll never see the tyson's corner area this desolate, well, that is until today. because yesterday we had a parade of plow trucks running up and down the road. they're pretty muc finisheded now and very few people out. it has been really quiet here this morning. as you can see, chain bridge road behind me, in nice shape, two lanes open, even some of the turn lanes plowed off. mountains of snow by the side of the road that attest to that. you're probably seeing some videotape now of the activity going on this morning. the plows worked hard overnight and then the front-end loaders came in this morning and cleared out some of those turn lanes and moved some of the snow aside. so there is just mountains and mountains of snow out here. we've been hearing from vdot this morning that their focus today will continue to be on the interstates and on the primary roads, like chain bridge, like br braddock roads, those kind of place. don't expect to see anyone from v dot until torrow at the earliest on the side roads, and even then, one pass in, one pass out, just so people can maybe get headed out to the grocery stores. but they're certainly not going to see curb-to-curb plowing. and vdot also has to prepare whatever may be coming our way tuesday. if you're back live on me now, you can see a couple of big trucks heading down the road to another destination. but chain bridge in a good shape. obviously, the plow truck drivers have been the busiest through this storm. but very busy too, the virginia state police. we have some updated statistics from them. some really big numbers. across the commonwealth, beginning at midght on friday until about 6:00 this morning, virginia state police responded to 4,400 calls for service, 1,700 of those involved crashes, 1,700 involved disabled vehicles. busy, too, up here in the district around fairfax county. there were about 435 disabled vehicles out on the roadways during that time period and about 121 crashes. not too bad, i don't think, on that front, considering, you know, how bad the roads were. we reported on one fatal stocra but there have been no other fatalities sense this storm started. >> julie, yesterday you had a big warm hat on and you've dropped it today. but it's not warmer for you, is it? >> you know, it's not warmer today. i think i'm doing this to stay awake. you know, the snow was coming down on my head yesterday, so i had to stay dry. but now that it's dry, is kind of nice to unburden myself a little bit of all the wrap. we're doing o.kay. >> you're f from a cup of coffee. it's a long trek back to the hotel. >> it is. we're looking for our next cup of coffee now. julie carey live at tyson's corner. >> 17 degrees is a real waker-upper. >> that'll do it. >> looking for their next story, the next cup of coffee, a lot of the next things. it's time to move on to the next stuff people will have to worry abou one of the things i talked to the mid-atlantic aaa folks on friday. something that happens a lot is something they call suv over-confidence. and people forget that having four-wheel drive, no matter what kind of a car or truck it is, but specifically for people that have it on their suvs, four-wheel drive means four-wheel go, not four-wheel stop. a lot of times unless you get your 8,000-pound vehicle going, it takes longer to stop it. and with all the slipperiness on the roads out there, the best advice anyone can give is, a, stay home, but if you have to go out under some emergency basis, drive slowly. that's the only way to guarantee you'll be able to stop before you go on off the end of the road. be very careful out there today. nonetheless, the meltdown will begin shortly. i don't know that too much melting can gon at 17 degrees outside, even with the sunshine, plenty of chilly, cold, icy conditions for us on your sunday morning. temperatures have been hovering in the mid- to high teens in downtown washington. 17 at the airport right now, where we recorded 45.1 inches of snow for the winter season, our third greatest snowfall, winter snowfall on record. number two on the list, the 1995/'96 winter, only 0.9 of an inch ahead of us right now. and i think we have a very good chance of a inch of snow late tuesday night into wednesday morning. file that away as you deal with the 20-plus inches of snow nearly everyone has this morning. 33 inches in columbia, maryland. 20 in annapolis. 12 in hollywood. 30 in vanville up in the panhandle of west virginia. so an abundance of snow out there for today. it's not going to disappear, probably, most of it, for at least the next seven days. so if you make your snowman, pick a good name for him, because you're going to be looking at him for a long time. 18 now in downtown. 20 in quantico. 14 in hagerstown. windchills are remaining in the single digits. if you have to be outside to start the digging and shoveling process to get out of your walk or driveway, just be extra careful. dress in layers, like julie carey did. she's got plenty of layers on. doesn't have her hat on. once you get your body heat warmed up, you'll be all right. but a pretty chilly start with those windchills in the single digits. there goes our big storm, a big, ferocious storm going across the open waters of the atlantic ocean. in its wake, cold sunshine for today and tomorrow. we have two good days with sunshine around here as high pressure is in charge of our weather. nonetheless, with temperatures staying barely up to the freezing mark for high temperatures, not a whole lot of melting going on. today's highs, 25 to about 30 degrees. windchills will be in the single digits and teens most of the afternoon. perfect day to make a little ice storm stew or snowstorm chili, anything that will keep you warm. and if you know a friend or neighbor that's without power and can get it to them safely, bring them a hot bowl of chili. that's very neighborly. i have never turned away a bowl or plate of chili. >> our neighbors gave us spicy gumbo last night. it was wonderful. >> the best. that's great. good advice. >> and we are already beginning to hear about schoollosings for next week. loudoun county schools have been announced they will be closed monday and tuesday. alexandria city schools will also be closed on monday. we're sure to hear many more closures in the next 24 hours. >> one would suspect so. we also want t get another check of the roadways. we have john townsend from aaa on the phone with us. >> good morning, joe, good morning, kimberly. >> good morning to you. suv overconfidence, huh? >> that's true. and it's like what you've heard, people get too overly confident and the cars are top heavy, or the vehicles are top heavy, and they weigh about 8,000 pounds and are very difficult to stop in these type of treacherous conditions. >> what is your recommendation for people who do want to head out and drive in these kinds of conditions. is four-wheel drive going to be enough, or do you ever recommend chains anymore? >> yes. there are laws on the book governing snow chains and people should utilize them. but if you don't have them now, you can't get them. there was probably a run on those. but the most important thing is to drive slowly and drive in whatever track you find, and at this juncture, you may not find any. so drive slowly and don't be overly confident. >> one of the big fears in going out in this kind of weather, especially with these very low temperatures, if you do get stuck and say, run out of gas or something, you can be stuck in a very dangerous situation with the cold temperatures. what do you recommend that folks carry with them in their vehicles in case they should happen to run off the road or get stuck in a snowbank? >> well, one of the most important things to carry would be a snow shovel and ice scrapers and those types of things. and an emergency kit, which includes jumper cables in case your battery goes out. >> what about blankets and things to keep warm -- >> yes, blankets, warm clothing, food, water, a charged cell phone so you can call someone to extricate you. you have to be overly prepared. and this is the top of the line issue. you have to think about the fact that your life could be in jeopardy. you could put yourself into peril. so you have to be able to rescue yourself. and if your car is in a travel lane, then you need to walk away from the car, find a safe place, a safe haven to stay until someone comes to rescue you. so if you're stranded in that situation, you have to dress in layers, as you've been telling your viewers all morning. >> john, are you all keeping track of how few drivers are actually out on the roads? julie carey was just mentioning, it's rather amazing, on the one failed crash in southern virginia, that we know of, because of the storm so far. >> right. one in the last 24 hours. and in the first 24 hours of the storm, we had two fatal crashes in virginia and 1,000 people stranded on the side of the rods. the fact of the matter is, i think people are finally getting the message. and we hope this remains with them. but my fear is that with the sun shining bright today and people getting cabin fever, they may venture out. but i think we should wait, perhaps, another 24 hours or 48 hours if you have that type of leave to avoid going out on those highways. until they're totally cleared. >> just quickly, speaking on behalf of all of the motorists out there, what is your assessment of how the local governments have done clearing the roadways? >> i think they've done an excellent job. but the fact of the matter is, we're talking about 30 inches of snow in many places and it's going to take us days to dig out of this. i know the mayor of washington says that the city will be open tomorrow. that may be a distinct possibility. but there are other factors we'll have to consider too. the most important thing is, don't venture out i you don't have to. allow the road crews to clear the roads. >> all right. john townsend with aaa, as always, thank you for your time. >> thank you. great being with you guys. >> thanks very much. >> our coverage of the blizzard of 2010 continues right after this. color. collar. gischlar. welcome back to our coverage of the blizzard of 2010. >>and for more on the road conditions and any major trouble spots out there, let's go to jim russ and news 4 traffic network. >> joe, good morning. we're looking at a great variety of conditions out here. the traffic you see on the right side of the screen is going away from us. you can see those folks are driving on packed snow in that stretch. northbound, you see a fair amount of pavement available, going northbound toward the beltway. you can also see that there's a lot of snow left on the ramps there. that's the franconia springfield parkway, thatamp right in the middle of the screen. so a great variety of things out here. let me show you something else in maryland. this is 270 near river road. service road there still has a lot of snow and slush in it. looks like there's a clear lane along the left side of the outer loop. that's where people are gravitating toward. let's take you to the beltway at colesville road look at how the ramps are plowed into the beltway. very little merge lane. got someone backing up on that one ramp, maybe he can't get up that ramp, gotten back out on to the beltway. a lot of things out there that are going to catch you off guard. you can certainly move around if you have to get out there and go to work. but leave yourself a lot of extra time and have your wits about you and really try to look for what's ahead of you so you can decide whether you want to go through an intersection or pick an exit ramp because there might be enough snow on it that it will catch you off guard and slow you down. >> those vehicles seem to be moving pretty quickly out there too, don't they? >> they sure do. >> i would think you might want to slow down a little bit. >> you just saw dulles airport there. our check now on the airports. dulles is open for very limited flight operations, but reagan national remains closed until further notice. officials plan to make an assessment later this morning. and some passengers have been stranded at the airports. they have been trying to get flights out. joining us on the phone right now is one of those passengers, rob turman. he has been as reagan since friday. rob. thanks for joining us and tell us about your ordeal. >> yeah. well, i came here friday. i live in athens, virginia, so i'm 150 miles away and i wanted to make sure i couldn't get out of affton and get to d.c. then i hoped to get a flight out on friday. my flight was due to go out saturday. so i w hoping to get a flight out, but everything has pretty much been canceled by the time i got here friday at noon. >> rob, where have you been sleeping? >> i've been sleeping in the main terminal area. i haven't, of course, gotten into the security area, because i don't have a boarding pass yet. so i along with about 20 others, we've just been in the seating they have here and we have a good view of the airfield and the snow removal operations, but that's pretty much where we've been sleeping. >> war your plans? have they told you you can get a flight ow, or have your plans changed now and now all you want to do is get home? >> i'm going to florida. there's nothing stopping me from that. my flight got canceled today and i've got one for tomorrow morning, monday morning, and it looks like that's a go. >> rob, a tip for you. last time this happened and passengers were stranded around the holiday and they handed out those blue blankets and there were hundreds of people stranded, the chapel there at national airport, it's dark, it's quiet, and you can stretch out. so that's a tip i can remember from the holidays. you might want to clue the other 20 in on that, or enjoy it for yourself. >> now you tell me. >> i know! >> well, it sounds like you have one more night to go, so it might be a good place. >> one more night. >> rob, enjoy florida and thanks again for your reporting for us from national airport, where he says 20 passengers are stranded there. unfortunate situation. >> good luck to you, rob. >> yeah, good luck, rob. >> thanks. just a reminder, the severe weather poses a particular danger for eerly and home-bound individuals. officials all around the area are asking that residents check on your neighbors, especially in rural areas. also, check in on neighbors who haven't been seen or heard from and may need help. stay with us for continuing coverage of the blizzard of 2010. we'll be right back. host: could switching to geico really save you 15% or more on car insurance? host: did the waltons take way too long to say goodnight? mom: g'night john boy. g'night mary ellen. mary ellen: g'night mama. g'night erin. elizabeth: g'night john boy. jim bob: g'night grandpa. elizabeth: g'night ben. jim bob: elizabeth: g'night jim bob. jim bob: g'night everybody, grandpa: g'night everybody. jim bob: g'night daddy. vo: geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more. welcome back to our coverage of the blizzard of 2010. more than 100,000 area residents still are without power this morning. pepco reports the highest number of outages, more than 67,000, 69,000 people -- rather, customers, have no electricity. virginia dominion power reports more than 34,000 customers in the dark this morning and the cold. more than 4,200 customers with southern maryland electric cooperative or smeco have no power right now. more than 9,000 customers with northern virginia electric cooperative have no power. bg&e have more than 15,000 customers in the dark. turning now to northern virginia, where some areas are buried beneath almost three feet of snow. the virginia national guard has put about 500 troops on active duty to help local emergency crews. and news 4's julie carey is live in tyson's corner. i think that we're going first to derrick ward, who is in college park. derrick, are you with us? >> reporter: i'm with you. >> all right. so the birds are chirping, too bad sunny optimism isn't enough to melt all this snow. >> reporter: you know, we take what we can get at this time of year after this kind of storm. the sun is out and it's starting to warm things up a bit here. haven't seen much in the way of melted ice. that's still -- i think that's still a ways off, but the ice that is here a little bit slicker, if ice cane slicker than ice normally is. but when it's got that slight patina of water upon it, it is a little bit slicker. take a look out here at route 1. it's actually snow covered. it's been treated, plowed, and probably once the temperature rises a bit, the trucks will be back out to put some chemicals on that to knock a bit of that down even more. however, eventually, it's going to refreeze again. so could be some travel issues for tomorrow. . now the slow plows will be out and they've been out all day, for the better part of this morning. they've been work iing all nigh and we caught up with a plow driver who told us what the plan of action is for today. >> what we're doing now is making the roads wider. making a pass north and south and east and west and then we come back and widen the streets. we have two shifts which are - 12-hour shifts and i came on at 1:00 in the morning until 1:00 in the afternoon. the other shift do vice versa. as of right now, things are pretty good. a whole lot better than what it is. and thank god for the people who are not on the street, because everything's like a shutdown now. and that's better for us, for any man who's out here plowing. >> reporter: and we've taken a look at the beltway, earlier around that same time, you had one travel lane in each direction. one lane that was completely clear. the other planes, probably passable, but if you can, if you have to be out, it's good to stick to that one lane that's clear. of course, you're still being urged not to be out unless you absolutely have to, because as you heard, the plow drivers and other folks still have some work ahead of them to get these roads clear in anticipation of tomorrow's rush hour. on the side streets, residential streets, you're kind of on your own. it's going to be a while before they get to those, and with that thaw and refreezing, they could prove to be a ltle more treacherous tomorrow and later today than they actually were during the storm. careful caution is the order of the day if you're actually going out. live in college park. >> derrick, when the driver talks about a setdown, is he talking about the snowpack and that better to drive on? >> reporter: yeah, exactly. it gives you a bit more traction. we saw a car coming out of this gas station, which, by the way, is closed. when he stopped, his wheels locked up and he slid for a few feet. that's the kind of thing you will encounter. you may have traction, but nany kind of change, any kind of dynamic motion or braking or anything like that, it's going to be a little tricky. >> no surprises out on the road. thank you, derrick ward. >> derrick's been showing what it looks like out in college park. now let's go to charlie gisch r gischlar. what are you seeing now? what kind of progress have you seen since we get toward almost 9:00. >> we're still working on those lane drops, as we were discussing a little bit ago, as folks are going down the highway and there are three lanes and all of a sudden it goes down the two. that's a lane drop. that's what we'll be working on. the highways, the ramp system, the snow removal, and the park and ride that are transit served. . >> charlie, do you have numbers on the crashes on maryland roads because of the weather? >> that wouldn't be something that we would have. that would be more of a police issue if you wanted to get the most accurate number. >> how are your crews doing? they must be exhausted after working all these hours? >> absolutely. get some time built into them and get some shifts established, get some guys some rest on the highways. but they're still pumped up to get these roads open and clear and hopefully make the best of this situation as the temperatures begin to climb a little bit. >> and they're working 12-hour shifts, right? >> yeah. something like that. >> in the district, they have stopped the putting down snowmelt and sand and such. they said that yesterday. is that something, also, maryland has sort of set aside to reserve that until you can at least get down to near pavement? >> yeah. when you're in a plowing operation, when the snow is coming down like an inch an hour, it's more of a snow remol and pushing it off to the side, if you have snowplows right behind it, a truck that's putting out salt that's going to get plowed along with the snow. at this point, now, we're using the salt brine, the magnesium, wherever we're at, depending on the temperature. >> okay, charlie. thanks very much. proos appreciate it a lot. >> that was maryland. now let's turn to northern virginia, where the virginia national guard has put about 500 troops on active duty to help out local emergency crews. >> and news 4's julie carey is live right now in tyson's corner, where she's been all weekend long. hey, julie. >> reporter: hey. we're finally giving you a new view, though, i forgot to tell you that. this time, instead of looking towards vienna, we are varying the scene and looking towards mclane. it's so quiet out here. which is a good thing. and you can see the beltway in the distance, even the beltway, so lightly traveled right now, even though we know from vdot and from others they've gotten some of the lanes up there passable. and cain bridge road in wonderful shape here, down to just a snowpack at the bottom. but as derrick was saying, and we see it here too in that far left lane there, where they've scraped down a little more, more treacherous. there's some ice over there that's started to develop. so, you know, once people do start to venture out again, folks are going to have to be really careful. one touch of the brakes and folks will start sliding around. they don't have to worry about that today because there's so little traffic out. i saw a vdot truck up here, and he's been out looking at this intersection of international drive and chain bridge road, trying to mistake an assessment about just how much more snow they're going to have to push away to improve some of these sight lines. just another example. look at this service station right behind me and the mountain of snow there. the exit drive is just beyond that pile of snow. when people head back out tomorrow, you're not going to be able to see anything pulling out of there. so a lot of these businesses have a lot of work ahead of them before things are going to be made safe again. also, right behind me, the mall, tyson's, i've listened to their recording today. they say they're opening at 11:00, 11:00 to 7:00, but again, like yesterday, they were officially open yesterday, i think it was a ghost town in there. a lot of the retailers may choose not to open today. so we wouldn't advise anybody to come driving out this way today, but if people walk in, they might find a little activity in there. as you were saying yesterday, kimberly, at least the mall walkers can get a little workout in if they can make it to the mall. >> the only ones with a clear path. what about the hotel where you're staying, julie? was it busy, crowded? >> reporter: that's one thing, we're staying at a crown plaza across the street, they had 177 rooms filled during this storm. and when larry and i roll out at about 4:30 in the morning, so do all the plow drivers. a lot of the plow drivers are staying in the hotels. but even people who have to tend to business in this area. i met two women yesterday, there's a veterinary clinic yesterday, they're boarding animals yesterday, they had to stay over in the hotel and walk down so they could take care of the animals. there are a variety of people th are essential and needed in this area that have been staying in this hotel. it's been a busy place. >> essential personnel. >> hope they don't run out of food. when i covered a blizzard one year, the hotel ran out of a food. the trucks couldn't get there with the food supplies. >> that's almost as bad as running out of electricity. >> yeah. >> reporter: we were worried about that. we've been well fed. >> thanks a lot. get back to you a little bit later. let's go to chuck bell right now to get the latest on the forecast for the rest of the day and more snow that's headed our way. >> that's right, kimberly and joe. as you guys no, no news department runs without a steady strong of carbohydrates behind it. outside, we're off to a bright and sunny start, al be it, very, very cold out there. there's a lk at the north end of the runways at reagan national airport where they measured 17.8 inches of snow yesterday. the fourth largest snowfall in washington street. the second largest at reagan national itself. the largest storm at national airport was the presidents day storm of 1979. and other downtown locations measured more than that in years gone by. the the nickers backers storm, in 1922. those were measured in downtown washington. dulles international airport, 28.9 inches yesterday. that's their number one snowstorm of all-time. and bwi/thurgood marshall arable, that's number one all-time even when you compare to city of baltimore records. the only storm left with a bigger storm total than yesterday's for blar is also the nickerbacker storm, january, 1922. temperatures outside right now are in the mid- to upper teens to nearing in on 20 degrees. but the windchills, and this does not actually impact the ice, keep in mind, windchills only affect people. things that have moisture to evaporate off their skin. this will not ability the ability to thaw things out. a little bit of a breeze actually helps, because it allows the ice to evaporate even more quickly. nonetheless, a cold day today. temperatures staying below freezing with all the sunshine. and the minute the sun goes down, everything will start to refreeze very, very quickly. sun sets at 5:37 this afternoon and we'll be back down to 27 degrees by 6:00 this evening. be ready for a very massive refreeze again tonight and tomorrow night. >> did you catch the sunset yet? gosh, it was so beautiful. >> i got the sunset going right down over scott's circle looking northwest out on mass avenue and it was spectacular. >> even though freezing, still beautiful. >> sunny and all that snow toou there, just gorgeous. more than 100,000 area residents still remain without power this morning. pepco reports more than 67,000 of its customers have no electricity. dominion reports more than 34,000 customers in the dark this morning. more than 4,200 customers with smeco, the southern maryland electric cooperative, have no power right now. more than 9,000 customers with northern virginia electric cooperative have no electricity. and bg&e reports more than 15,000 customers in the dark. most of them in the baltimore area. >> andre frances with pepco is on the phone with us now. andre, it looks like from those numbers, you're getting thousands of people back online this morning. >> yes, ma'am, we are. >> and how is that going? can you tell us how successful this is going at this hour? >> well, right now, we're at about 69,000 out over the last 24 hours. we've restored a little over 90,000 customers. so we're definitely making some headway. we still are getting hindrances with the road conditions and getting to actual outage points, but we're working hard and trying to get it as safely and quickly back on as possible. >> andre, are you getting new reports of new outages, or just catching up from the last two days? >> i'm actually glad you asked that. yes, we are getting new reports, and one thing we always ask everybody when there's an outage is to unplug and turn off all your appliances, maybe leave one lamp on. what happens is, if your power is restored, all of those appliances come back at one point in time and they overload our circuits and lead to another outage. >> you can also have a fire in your house. >> definitely make sure your stove is off, in case it was off when you got the power outage, so when power comes back on, it's not a case of the stove ignites. >> that's very good advice. andre frances with pepco, thanks very much. >> thank you. >> we also have ken barker on the phone with us from dominion power. what's the situation with your folks? >> right now we have about 29,000 customers without service. we've got a big workforce that's going to be out today, both repairing outages and assessing so we can give very accurate restoration times. >> ken, earlier this morning, y'all said that people could call at 4:00 to find out what is e status for their neighborhood. when can they expect power to go back on. what is so magical about the 4:00 hour today? >> well, let me tell you what i would ask our customers to do. i would ask our customers to call into our 888-667-3000 number. if your power is going to be restored today, there will be a restoration time today. if they do not receive a time, it means that we are still out in a heavy assessment mode and we're going to finish that assessment mode up today and we will have those times and dates loaded overnight so that customers tomorrow morning, all customers, would have a restoration time and date. so, again, if customers call in, if they get a restoration time, that means the power will be restored today. >> are they getting those restoration times automated or will they be talking to someone on the phone? >> they can go into our automated machines without having to talk to somebody. >> by telephone? >> call 888-667-3000 number. >> okay. >> we done want to give out times until they're very accurate. >> right. and you know how eager people are to pinpoint that time. you can understand that. ken barker with dominion power. thank you for that. >> of nonot only eager, but peo are suffering. if you have no heat, the temperature gets very cool, very quickly, and it gets very uncomfortable. we wish them well and the workers that are getting that power restored well as well. we'll take a break now. we'll be back with more of our continuing coverage of the blizzard of 2010. stay with us. it's 8:51. welcome back to our special extended coverage of the blizzard of 2010. >> that's right. we're going to stay on the air until the last snowflake has melted. >> we are? >> that's what we're going to do. that's our plan. >> that's news to me. bui'll buckle in. i'm ready for the ride. >> absolutely right. how about until the next snowflake starts to fall? because that may not be -- >> that's a long time too. >> a long time, but not as long as people would like it to be. unfortunately, looks like our next chance for winter weather comes back into the area as we get into the tuesday night and wednesday morning time frame, everybody. be ready for it. old man winter, mother nature, whichever controlling mechanism you want to blame for all this, the jet stream, el nino, global warming, whatever it is, it's going to bring us another chance for snow as we get towards the middle parts of the week. so just sort of file that way as you're outside chipping and scraping and shoveling on your sunday and your monday. remember, there's more to come. there's -- see, this is the one nice thing about being the president. you probably don't have to shovel your own driveway, which would be a nice thing. imagine what a relaxation that would be, just to be able to go outside. i hope bo the dog i enjoying a delightfully snowy winter for bo's first winter here at the white house. he's gotten away with murder, lots of snow to run and play in. temperatures are on the cold side, no doubt about it, 17 degrees here at nbc 4 with a light northeasterly wind at 8 miles per hour, but that's not to lower the windchill down to 7 degrees. snowfall amounts around the area just from the storm over friday and saturday, it's added up to 17 inches. here you go, 26 inches in germantown. 20 inches in the boston area. 33 inches in columbia. a lot of people sent in some great pictures yesterday. this is my backyard right here. this is my grill. i'm not going to be doing any barbecuing anytime soon. out at my place, which is a very sheltered downtown terrace, i only got 15 inches of snow. as a snow lover, i got onef the lowest amounts because is such a sheltered location downtown. nevertheless, temperatures this morning are cold no matter where you live. the sunshine is going to start to help later on this afternoon with the meltdown process. but a lot of the road chemicals don't really work all that well until the temperatures get to above 22, 23 degrees. with the sunshine in, that will help a little bit. but still, temperatures now below the 20-degree mark here in town. look at how cold and dry it is, back up toward our north and weft. this is the dew point plot now. with that northwesterly wind flow, that's the direction our air is coming from. so this is cold, dry, arctic air that's in place. that's a very important part of our forecast for tonight and for tomorrow night, because high pressure moving in means very low wind speeds. relatively clear skies, and that dew point temperature is the temperature to which the air can drop, usually before condensation starts. but it's a good way to estimate low temperatures. with single-digit dew points, i think we'll have a lot of single-ing digit temperatures tomorrow morning, and again, possibly, some single digits on tuesday morning. high pressure moving on in. that's the quiet weather for today and for tomorrow. the next storm does start to take form during the day on tuesday. and by tuesday afternoon, out towards the shenandoah valley, we may have to worry about a little bit of mix of sleet or freezing rain, even here into the washington area. a little freeze/rain mix before it ends. for today, enjoy the sunshine. highs only 24 to 30 degrees. the seven-day forecast calls for a nice bit of sunshine around here as we get through the rest of the day and for tomorrow as well. tomorrow's high, up to a balmy 33 degrees. 35, but with the clouds coming back, quickly during the day on tuesday and by tuesday afternoon, might have a little mixed bag of wintry weather around here tuesday night with temperatures going below freezing, everything should end as snow wednesday morning, so hard to believe that everyone would appreciate something being more snow, but compared to the mixed bag of sleet or freezing rain and all that other mess, sometimes a crisp coating of snow on the end of everything helps to make it a little bit more tolerable out there. and another inch of snow puts us in second place for snowiest winter. >> i'm really sad you only got 15 inches. you really got gypped. >> seven weeks ago, yesterday, was the first blizzard, yesterday was the second blizzard, seven weeks from yesterday, the cherry blossoms will probably be out. >> that's nice to know, but i hate to burst your bubble about how few people in the washington area are involved in this snow blizzard competition. >> there's at least one. >> that's heading towards few. >> all right. >> thanks very much. >> let's talk now to kathy with metro. service today is limited, but there is some. kathy, can you tell us about that? >> sure we have underground service available on our rail system. trains are running at 46-minute intervals -- >> excuse the interruption. we're getting scripts passed to us, things are flowing. kathy, what is the major challenge for metro this morning? it's the clearingi inof the tra? tell us about that as well. >> our major problem is the ice that has built up because of the extremely low temperatures and i think everyone is dealing with that situation right now. so we are trying to clear ice as best as we can, and we're making some progress, but it's slow going. >> kathy, what can you tell us about the -- a lot of folks are probably going to try to make it into work tomorrow, even if they don't want to try to travel on the roads, they may head for metro. what are the conditions of the parking lots today and what kind of progress are you making on that? >> we do have crews working on our parking lots and all of our station entrances, but it's still dependent on -- the outside stations are independent on what progress was made with clearing the rails. >> and metro bus, not running today, but running emergency routes tomorrow? >> that is what it's going to be lookingike for tomorrow. we are monitoring both and we'll make a decision later this afternoon. >> when do you expect those decisions to be made, a, about aboveground, and b, about metro bus? what time can we expect that decision? >> it probably won't be until later this evening. we need to assess our progress as the day goes on and see what kind of progressing is made out on the main roads today. >> so later this evening being 5:00 or 6:00 or 9:00 or 10:00? >> can't guarantee a time. i know everybody wants to know and we'll get that word out as soon as we can. >> okay. a lot of work ahead. thanks very much, kathy with metro. >> now we've got mark brady on the line. mark is with -- do we know? >> prince george's county fire and rescue. mark, can you tell us what the situation is with prince george's county? >> good morning. our call volume is a lot lower today than it was yesterday. that's a credit to our road crews that are doing a fantastic job of clearing the roadways of the accumulated snow and i've got to give credit to our citizens and residents that for most part are staying off the roadways. but what we're seeing, as the day wears on and people are starting to wake up and it is a beautiful day outside with that bright sunshine, that there is an increase increased amount of traffic, both pedestrian and vehicle, on the roadways and they're intermingling with each other, which is an extremely