Single digit windchills. Power is down. Trees down. This is what happens when you combine 18 inches of snow and wind gusts of over 60 Miles Per Hour. The blizzard of 2015 is no joke today. Dropping 30 inches of snow and counting in hard hit areas west of boston. This snowplow stuck in a ditch is a stark reminder of how dangerous it remains out on the roads. Boston is at a near standstill. Snow is not expected to let up until tomorrow morning. On nantucket, high waves and winds of up to 78 Miles Per Hour has resulted in in severe flooding. The entire island has lost power. High tide is hitting right now. Snowplow operators are struggling to keep up with the accumulation. While new york city snowfall fell short of predictions, that was not the case on long island. Parts of Suffolk County has two feet of snow. In bangor maine, the snow is still coming down. Sounds like you guys are getting the worst of it. How is it up in massachusetts . Reporter it is now more than 24 hours and the snow is still coming down. Just when you think it is starting to taper off, another band comes in. I will say this. It appears that people in boston are starting to get a little bit of cabin fever after being holed up in their homes the last couple of days. This is the boston common. Obviously, one of the oldest public parks in america and a huge place where people cross through on their way to work and home. A lot of people are crossing through the park now. If you look down to the right, a lot of people are hanging out around a playground down there. We have seen Cross Country skis snowboards snow showes, even a couple of bikes. A guy dressed up as a penguin and a banana that came by. What theyre not doing is driving because the state of massachusetts is still under a driving ban for what theyre calling nonessential personnel. The governor said actually over the last couple of days they have actually given out to several tickets to people who had no legitimate reason to be out on the roads during this driving ban, so that continues at this hour as most of the only vehicles on the road at this point are snowplows and theyre just trying to catch up with this heavy snowfall. Over 28 inches in boston. Over 30 west of here. Joining me now is tom johnson. We know that maine was one of the last states to declare a state of emergency. Tell us about how the storm is progressing up where you are. Reporter about two hours ago, we checked in at about 16 inches of snow. We have seen some heavier bands. Look at the frozen tundra that is portland maine, right now. Were talking about 19 to 20 inches. Some folks are actually out on the roadways. We can see one car here at the corner skidding along, trying to move. We told folks to stay home. Mainers are a tough breed. Theyll get out in this stuff. There are some sightseers of course. Standing at 20 we have a good chance to be in the top five at 22. 8. Here are the plows. Theyre going to be busy all night. Tom johnson, thank you for the update. Joining us from plainview, long island, new york is adam reese. How is it going for residents out there on the island . Alex conditions here have improved significantly. No more wind. No more snow. The sun came out for a little bit sometime this afternoon. The people survived the brunt of the snow pretty well. They took the governors advice. They heeded his addvice to say home. Tonight is the clean up and the roads. The temperature is dropping significantly now. My concern is the roads, black ice, icy roads. The best advice is to stay home, stay warm and stay safe, alex. Joining me now is luke russert. Trapped at laguardia for 12 14 hours at this point. How are you faring . How is the airport at this point . Ive been here about 12 hours, ms. Alex wagner. The airport is slowly but surely getting back up to speed. About an hour ago, there was a flight that arrived, an airline from ft. Lauderdale. Was that hailed with applause when that plane landed . Yes, yes. Were people excited . Yes. Theres also a flight from las vegas that seems to be on time. While most of them are cancelled for today and late into the night and perhaps early into the morning, there are a few that are starting to move forward as normal. A few things we should mention. The reason why we have so many cancellations is the protective measures put in place by the Airline Companies really starting late last night, but also the road ban that the new york officials put forward. The subway ban. What was the byproduct of that . All the people that run the airport, they werent able to get into work today, so this airport really is a ghost town. They have started to trickle in a few hours ago, and theyre getting up to snuff, but nowhere near the full amount of personnel needed to run a major United States airport. Thats why we think flights will not be up to normal until tomorrow, mid afternoon at best. If you cant catch a flight and you are sick of it, we understand that amtrak has brought back some limited service. That seems to be back in action for the most part. Should be back up to normal tomorrow. Thats something to look at. I have talked to a few passengers, alex. Thankfully, only about 70 had to spend the night here. In the past we have seen horrific sort of all out almost lord of the flies moments where people are fighting over chargers and food and water. Thankfully, that did not replicate itself. There will be a few people who have to spend the night this evening. Some might have to wait until thursday. If you think you have had a tough day, be glad youre not going to see Laguardia Airport until thursday due to the blizzard. Lord of the flies and laguardia, a couple of phrases you dont want to see in the same sentence. Stay strong, my friend. Joining us now is dominica davis. This was mondays forecast. We were expecting the storm to sort of be closer about 50 miles west. That would push the moisture in further west, so what happened was 50 or 70 miles that jogged to the east. New england didnt change much for them. But for new york city and coastal new jersey we didnt see any of those blizzard warnings and we didnt get those blockbuster snow totals. We still did get snow and deteriorating conditions but it just wasnt what we had in new england. The brunt of new england, from rhode island all the way up to boston and maine, thats where this storm system was the worst with the track that were looking at. Now it is still going on this storm. Heres a look at the very impressive snow totals that we have. Worcester, mass 26 inches. Boston 21. 5 inches. They still have a few more inches to go. We havent topped off just yet. That snow will starlet to diminish tonight. Well see light snow showers and we could even have a few light snow showers tomorrow as well. But then you look at new york and were down to 8 inches, so that is a significant dropoff. It was a sharp cutoff out to the west with that storm. We still have blizzard warnings in effect from providence all the way up to maine. Well see the winds come down, but we still will have blowing and drifting snow. We just wont have those whiteout conditions, which is certainly good. We still have moderate to heavy snow coming in through providence and boston and up through maine as well. They are getting in on some heavier snow from portland all the way to bangor. That is certainly good news for massachusetts and rhode island because they need it. Theyve been getting pummelled, especially along the cape dealing not only the snow but the high tide and flooding. Hurricane force winds this morning for much of the morning. So that is the latest alex. Thank you. After the break, better safe than sorry. We will look at the political risks that come with predicting mother nature. Plus the patriots go on offense over deflategate. All of that is ahead on now. The weather forecasters do the best they can, and we respond to the best information that we have but i do not criticize weather forecasters. I learned. While new england has seen the worst effects of this storm, new york and new jersey were largely spared leaving their politicians responding to charges of an overreaction. Better safe than sorry. We had a consensus from the meteorologists across the board that this thing was going to be easily two feet. This is a better safe than sorry scenario. My sons would be we were listening to all of you. The fact is you were working off the same information we were working off. I was being told as late as 9 00 last night that were looking at 28 inch accumulations in most of new jersey. While governor Chris Christie and bill de blasio were hammered for previous storm responses, weather also brings up the thorny issue of cooperation between officials. We did not get a lot of advance notice. In that atmosphere, everyone was trying to make quick decisions and the right decisions, but we look at each one of these and try and learn how we can better approach them in the future. We did not get a lot of advance notice or as translated in the tabloids i was frozen out figuratively speaking. Guys the intrigue. De blasio was in the dark about cuomos decision to close the subway service. Cuomos office is pushing back on this. You would think the governor would talk to the mayor and give him more than he found out 15 minutes before cuomos office announced it. There was a press release out saying we could close this thing down, so be ready for it. I kind of feel like the mayor should hear from someone on staff and not the press release. You could probably put in a phone call staff to staff. It is a huge decision and the mayor should know about it. To unpack the decisions made around this storm, in sympathy with the politicians, not a place i often find myself it is almost a nowin situation. You cant over prepare. You cant under prepare. I bet cuomo looks at this as a win at this point. If you over prepare, people say, oh, my commute was a hassle. If you under prepare, it is catastrophic. It seems with cuomo you think back to the ebola scare. He wants to look like he is taking every conceivable step to protect the public to err on the side of being very aggressive. He took a lot of flak for that sort of in the press when they polled the question of cuomos quarantine strategy. It was very popular. Governor christie is still as aggressive and defensive as he has been. I was listening to all of you people. We were getting the same information. Everyone is working off the same forecast. I actually think it was a good decision on the governors part. I would rather have 12 hours without subways rather than 12 days of no subways. It is far better to be a little more cautious going in so i think it was a good decision. Both christie and cuomo both have scandals boiling over in their state houses. I guess when it comes down to it, when what voters vote on and what their metric is for how good a job the governor has done, does snow trump scandal . You look at christie and how he built his popularity in new jersey. We all look at sandy. A year and a half before sandy, there was another hurricane. Get the hell off the beach is what he shouted at the camera. This guy is a take charge guy. I think the thing with politicians is when there is natural disasters or some sort of emergency in the state, at a raw political level, theyre thinking Rudy Giuliani after 9 11. Everybody in america saw Rudy Giuliani in a different light because he was showcased as a leader and not a partisan leader. Once it becomes about optics and not about necessity, Something Like closing down the subway system this stuff costs money. A single day of shut down in new york state costs 700 million. The people who are most hit in all of this are hourly workers, people at the bottom of the income ladder. There are repercussions. People are hurt economically. True. Theres a certain annoying alpha male crisis politics thing going on here. It is just back when bloomberg was mayor, i dont recall this kind of behavior. Because he was in the bahamas bahamas. Very just the facts, straightforward. Again, it is a big impact. It hurts wage earners more. People people working on the third shift. The worst scenario is losing three to four days of subway service. Which was at the root of all this. The atlantic writes about the 1888 blizzard of new york which was a whopper of a storm. Mayors might distribute patronage and cut ribbons, but few voters expected much more. He issued a Public Statement after four days. It was a call for private Property Owners to help clear snow from their gutters four days later. What was the media situation in 1888 . What were people going to do . There was no subway to get on no cars. Something like this happens. Everybody is on their smartphone or computer or tv. There needs to be a response. If you go 20 minutes and you havent heard from a public official my god, hes fallen down on the job. The snow is coming down. Theres this imperative for political leaders to be seen constantly. I dont know if theyre doing much. The mechanics of State Government are taking care of this whole thing. When mayor de blasio reads Something Like that hes probably jealous. Four days of silence, hunkered down in his mansion. Always good to see you guys. You can catch up weekends at 8 00 a. M. The republicanled new American Congress gets serious about suing the president. Finally. Thats next. Much of the east coast may be home from work today, but House Republicans are hard at work doing the peoples business in our nations capital, and for them the peoples business means benghazi. Fresh off a campaign where they vowed to focus on jobs and the economy, today the House Committee held its first hearing of the year. After over 14 million spent on investigations dozens of public hearings, and a report that found no wrong doing in the administrations response to the attacks, republican congressman tray goudy wants more. Giving congress 10,000 pages of material out of 10,000 packagepages of the universe is good. House Speaker John Boehner told his caucus he is authorizingauthorize ing litigation. A coastal Flood Warning remains in effect from maine to connecticut. Bowe bergdahl was welcomed home as an American Hero but now he can be charged with desertion. Thats next on now. Eight months after his release, Army SergeantBowe Bergdahl the u. S. Soldier held cab captive by the taliban for five years, will be charged with desertion. Those charges against bergdahl are based on allegations that he abandoned his remote post in afghanistan in june of 2009 to avoid hazardous duty or important service, which are grounds for desertion. The charges could be referred within a week though his punishment remains unknown. A Court Martial could lead to imprisonment, but defense and military Officials Say it is more likely that bergdahl will leave the army with a less than honorable discharge. This afternoon, however, the pentagon says no decision on charges has been made. Joining me now is chief pentagon correspondent. Give us more info on your sourcing of this. According to Senior Defense officials with direct knowledge of the investigation, it is likely that bergdahl will be charged with some lower level of desertion. One in which he would be accused of abandoning his post to avoid either hazardous duty or a difficult or special assignment. The one thing theyre sure of is that bergdahl did walk away. Okay. I think we lost mick. Im going to bring in a Senior Writer from politico and a senior washington correspondent. Before we discuss this let me follow back up with mick. I think we have your audio back up. Oh, im sorry. Its okay. Continue on. Sources indicate that bergdahl would be charged with a lesser form of desertion. Everybody thinks desertion, oh, my good, youre going to spend your life in prison but the one theyre talking about, the one where he would be accused of leaving his post to avoid hazardous duty could carry a fiveyear prison time but it is likely that he would be given credit for the five years he spent in captivity. Here at the pentagon today admiral john kirby stressed that no decisions have been made that the Investigation Continues into bergdahls disappearance and whether he in fact should be charged, but according to the officials that were talking to charges are likely sometime soon. Again, john kirby emphasized this investigation is totally in the hands of general milly down there at ft. Bragg and he has yet to make the final decision. Thanks for the update. You bet. I want to bring back glen thrush and e. J. Dion. In terms of what this means for this administration at this particular moment when such attention is being paid to hostages and what we do and dont do to negotiate their release, how do you place this in perspective for the white house . Back in june there were a lot of people who werent out to make partisan points on this who said, look we have traded for our people before because theres a core principle we dont leave our people behind. If i can use the word we have traded for our guys in exchange for releasing people we saw or who actually were bad guys and were not the only country thats done that. To be honest i hope we dont let politics get in the way of getting our people back. But the notion there might be a problem here with sergeant bergdahl, questions raised about his service, those were there back then. I spoke with a retired general who i thought got it exactly right. Theres a responsibility to those who serve their country and to their comrades but we get our people back and we shouldnt politicize this thing. I think an issue like this in this time always gets politicized. It is not a particularly good one to do that to. Susan rices response after bergdahl was freed, lets listen to what she said on abc last june. He served the United States with honor and distinction and well have the opportunity eventually to learn what has transpired in the past years, but what is most important now is his health and wellbeing, that he have the opportunity to recover in peace and security and be reunited with his family. There was the rose garden event with bergdahl and his parents. Now there are reports that he may be charged with desertion. There are a lot of questions here about what the house underst