we are alive. mass transit continues to improve. army core of engineers are removing the blood water. they toured staten island and told residents they want to make sure the right resources are going to be provided. but they would like more rhetoric and more action. live in staten island. david lee, thank you. contractors who do business with the government and may cut jobs due to sequester were supposed to send out layoff notices today. the lawmakers charm the administration made other promises to firms as well.
to you. clearly this is the weather incident of unprecedented proportions. and it really remains so today. the people who lost power, 8 million in total, you know, 3 million in new jersey and the 1 million nearly on long island learned today they could wait 10 days to be reinsayed the reinstated. the only good news manhattan and brooklyn will wait four days. it take a look behind me at the water here at the base of the brooklyn battery tunnel which is the connector between new york and brooklyn. con ed and the army core of engineers have been here trying to get access because a the love the electrical that con ed needs to restore is now under water. you saw in the subways. you can see it here as well. communication. one quarter of all cell phone towers went down in 10 states. and finally, 16 million people a year use this tunnel just to get to and from. how do they get to work? limited subway service tomorrow, full bus service tomorrow, maybe things will start to pull together.
gets hurt in case things go terribly wrong. again mississippi and louisiana authorities are optimistic they can perform this operation without placing any homes or lives in deputy, heather. heather: jonathan, what about fatalities, what can you tell us about that? reporter: yeah, unfortunately the death toll has just been raised to four. there was an elderly couple discovered in a flooded home in plaquemines parish. this was the scene of a, a levee, not one of the army core of engineers levee but a small levee in a community. there was mandatory evacuation for that area but many residents decided to stay behind. the elderly couple among them. the other two fatalities involved with the storm were a truck driver who was, a tow truck driver hit by a falling tree and also a man who fell from a tree while helpp for the storm. so right now the official
continental u.s. so when mid america is dry the big river isn t so big and the giant barges are at risk of running aground. the coast guard is working wind straoe to assure that the impact is minimal. we have safety advisers in place. reporter: here is where the river level ultimately gets to your pocketbook. in normal time a tugboat could push one ton of cargo 616 miles for one gallon of diesel fuel. now with the river low they with push fewer barges, simply put it cost more to get things down the river. that river is an artery for everything from corn to fuel. freight is so much more expensive it s going to be passed on. i heard the other day where they are expecting food prices to go up 5 to 7% and this will be part of that increase. reporter: and today the water is just about two feet above the record lows of 1988. the good news is that the army core of engineers has been hard at work dredge and setting up infrastructure intending to
we are just getting the details of what caused whitney houston s death. as you know, she was found last month in the bathtub of her hotel room in beverly hills. let s go to kareen wynter who joins us live from los angeles. what can you tell us? hi, candy. what i can tell you, the final cause of death has been determined to be drowning from heart disease as well as cocaine. that s right. there was cocaine in whitney houston s system at the time she was found submerged in a bathtub at the beverly hilton hotel back in february the day before the grammy s. the toxicology report also showed while cocaine and other met tab beau lights were found in her system and contributed to her death, what s interesting, marijuana, xanax, the drug fl flexeril and benadryl, they were also found but we are told those weren t contributing factors. there was no trauma or foul play suspected. it us anticipated we could get a more detailed report regarding those toxicology findings in the next coup