Tom kierein is in for chuck. Swinging bands of heavy rain into the carolinas, southeastern virginia and right along the Eastern Shore and inland from delaware into now Southern Maryland, Northern Neck of virginia. Theyre getting bands of heavy rain. Right now, category 1 hurricane with 75 mile per hour winds, latest track bringing it ashore somewhere in this cone of possibility. That would be anywhere from near ocean city all of the way up to long island. This is the zone where it would be likely coming in and it does look like the position that 2 00 p. M. On monday is still going to be off the coast but does look like it could be coming inland, anywhere from ocean city to long island. That would be perhaps around sunset on monday, into monday evening. Strongest winds for us happening around dawn on tuesday. Right now, some of that heavy rain is falling, delaware and all these areas east of the bay and just to the east of the Northern Neck, creeping close to washington. We have a high wind warning for noon monday to 8 00 p. M. Tuesday, gusts to 60 throughout this entire region. Details on the forecast coming right up. Richard and angie. Tom, thank you. Several states of emergency are in effect along the midatlantic and the northeast coast. The governor of delaware ordered mandatory evacuations along some coastal areas. Sandy is threatening to spoil the fun for people in Rehoboth Beach. We want to bring you the latest information. What we know from emergency officials as of late last night was that they canceled all of todays activities for their annual sea witch festival, which brings thousands to Rehoboth Beach every year. This is our hotel this morning. The windows are boarded up, sandbags are lining many, many homes and hotels and the surf is starting to kick up this morning. Emergency officials are set to give us an update at about 10 00 this morning where we will get the latest on the system. But check out the surf behind me. You can see the waves that are definitely picking up. Again, waiting to hear the latest word on sandy from emergency officials here in Rehoboth Beach at 10 00 this morning. Well bring you much more coverage as the day continues. Angie, richard, back to you. Erica, have you noticed people have started evacuating or do you think that will happen later today . You know, richard, yesterday when we were at the stores, when we were at the Grocery Stores and the Hardware Stores stocking up on water and on plywood and generators, a lot of people were still almost i cautiously say this not taking it serious enough. A lot of people have decided to wait it out. There is a mandatory evacuation set in place by the delaware governor for anybody that lives within threequarter mile of the beach or the delaware bay. A lot people have said we are going to wait it out. We want to remind folks that what forecasters like our very own meteorologist tom kierein is saying, this is an unprecedented storm and much larger than anything we have experienced most recently, like irene. Richard . Erica, keep it safe out there. Today People Living in the district can pick up sandbags to protect their homes from flooding. D. C. s department of public works will hand out sandbags at the tacoma park center. D. C. Residents can stop by from 10 00 a. M. To 6 00 p. M. To pick up their sandbags. There is a fivebag limit per car. Throughout our area people are preparing for the worst, not only stocking up for the possibility of long Power Outages but in some neighborhoods theyre bracing for flooding. News 4s Jackie Bensen reports. Reporter in the huntington section of Fairfax County its a tense game of watching and waiting. This flyer was hand delivered to every home in the area which has been devastated regularly by flooding, warning residents to be prepared. As recently as august, residents of this neighborhood were pumping water out of their basements. Weve been preparing for a couple days. Reporter at twins Ace Hardware Store on main street in fairfax, you can tell what people need by looking at the empty spaces on the shelves. This space on the second floor held portable generators, almost unheard of for inside the beltway use a decade ago, they are now a hod commodity. After many found themselves in the dark for days after a summer storm, people say they are not taking chances. I bought batteries. The guy fixed this. I bought a battery so it didnt work. I have a lightbulb for that. Reporter this county executive says they hope to avoid the massive 911 failure during the summer storm. Im hopeful we wont have another incident like we did with the derecho storm. Ahead of sandys arrival, both dulles and Reagan National airports say they plan to remain open but are warning passengers to check with their airlines before coming to the airport. The Airport Authority says passengers should check their airline about flight delays, cancellations or adjustments to rebooking policies. They say they plan to use twitter to retweet any announcement from the major airlines. Airlines are letting many passengers make changes without paying a fee. Meantime, amtrak has canceled some of its service for today and tomorrow and some of those affected routes include d. C. Amtrak says more cancellations are possible and it is con tacking affected passengers offering them refiunds or vouchers. We have a link on our website, nbcwashington. Com. There are no changes to metro rail or bus service. That could change. The Transit Agency says with sustained winds, travel times could grow longer for trains in above ground areas. The storm could also slow down metro bus service. They are urging riders to sign up for metro alerts for updates by text or email. Well continue tracking sandy all morning long. We have complete coverage of Hurricane Sandy on nbcwashington. Com. There you can see the latest track and sign up to get breaking news and weather alerts. New this morning, people on west coast of canada are checking for damage after a strong earthquake hit in british columbia. A magnitude quake struck last night in the Queen Charlotte islands area. A 5. 8 magnitude aftershock hit several minutes later. Sirens went off there, warning people to evacuate to higher ground. A tsunami advisory is in effect for other parts of coastal oregon and northern california. Overnight, a small wave came ashore in craig, alaska. In less than two hours, thousands of runners will start pounding their way through the streets of arlington and d. C. For the 37th annual Marine Corps Marathon. Runners are actually going to theyre at the starting line right now. We want to take a look real quick at the map of the course. Many of the roads seen here are closed. There will be rolling closures throughout the morning. Right now parts of route 110, washington boulevard, wilson boulevard, the Memorial Bridge and madison drive are shut down. Coming up in 30 minutes well have a live report from that course. I know you ran into a couple road blocks on the way in. Yes. You made it here. Did i make it. Yes. Hopefully everyone can make it to the race today. The time right now is 6 80. The computer model shows sandy will likely make landfall north of the d. C. Region. Well take you live to the jersey shore to check out conditions there. Dont let your guard down here. Prepare for significant wind and rain. We can help you out. Download the wrc4 weather app. Ike leggett gaming generated one hundred and eighty. Million dollars for maryland schools. Question seven will double it. Rushern baker question seven will add table games and. A new casino, generating millions of dollars. Every year, without raising taxes. Leggett and audits will ensure the money goes. Where its supposed to. More jobs, and millions for schools. Baker question seven will be good for our kids. Our teachers, and our schools. Leggett keep maryland money in maryland. Baker please vote for question seven. Leggett vote for question seven. Would ban all abortions and contraception seemed a bit extreme. So i looked into it. Turns out, romney doesnt oppose contraception at all. In fact, he thinks abortion should be an option in cases of rape, incest, or to save a mothers life. This issues important to me, but im more concerned about the debt our children will be left with. I voted for president obama last time, but we just cant afford four more years. [ romney ] im mitt romney and i approve this message. We want to take you live to Rehoboth Beach where the tide is starting to rise. Its pretty misty. We just checked in with Erica Gonzalez. The winds are starting to pick up this way. We continue to track sandy, a storm thats killed 58 people in the caribbean. Theres Evacuation Orders posted for that area. Everyone wants to know, when is it going to get here . It will have impact from here to new england, and in parts of the midwest. Heavy rain, lots of wind and some snow. Lets get it broken down for you. Right now this is whats going on with sandy. There is a live view from our city camera showing just a few clouds over the washington monument. For the start of the race well have maybe a few sprinkles of light rain for the marathon this morning. As we do take a look at the latest satellite image of sandy, look at how huge it is. Its affecting the weather from new england to florida, a 2,000 mile wide area is being affected by this particular storm, interacting with a front coming into the ohio valley. Right now we are getting heavy downpours to the east of washington. Heres the latest track. Still a category 1 hurricane with 75 mileanhour winds. Tracking northeast today and on monday, taking a northwesterly turn, then late monday into early Tuesday Morning, coming ashore, midnight monday night into Tuesday Morning. Coming ashore anywhere from near ocean city all the way to new york city. It could come ashore anywhere in this zone and coming ashore is a strong, perhaps Tropical Storm by then probably wont be a hurricane. Our local radar showing a band of heavy rain across the maryland delaware border there and all the way stretching down toward near cambridge and then across the bay to the Northern Neck. This is slowly creeping off to the north and east, getting a few sprinkles north and west of washington right now. Now we could get 5 to 10 inches of rain from this system, all in these counties in green, including all of Northern Virginia, the district and just about all of maryland, parts of east and West Virginia. In addition, gusts to 60 miles an hour. All these counties in pink, noon monday to 8 00 p. M. On tuesday. That is when well have our heaviest winds. As we go forward by 6 00 a. M. Monday, winds will be around 20, 30 miles an hour. Then by 6 00 p. M. Monday, this airy in pink, the high wind zone coming in will have gusts of 40 to 60 miles an hour. The peak gusts 60 miles an hour may occur 2 00 a. M. On tuesday as well as into Tuesday Morning. Still having gusts prac s perha high. The wind gusts should die down as we get into tuesday evening and wednesday. Going forward, heres monday. By 6 00 a. M. , some of the heaviest rains coming in between midnight tonight and monday, 6 00 a. M. This area in blue is a zone of some snow in the mountains of West Virginia. Even the panhandle of West Virginia could get several inches of snow. Hour by hour, throughout the day today, a shower through noontime and a greater chance of showers with temperatures Holding Steady near 60 during the afternoon. Storm team 4 fourday forecast, beginning to move in monday, monday night and into Tuesday Morning and then things will settle down maybe with some still lingering showers on wednesday and for the dleenup and for the Long DurationPower Outages, thankfully well be drying out on thursday, friday and into saturday. Things will be settling down. But prepare for Long DurationPower Outages, unfortunately. Back with several frequent updates throughout the morning. Stay tuned. All right, tom, thanks. Next up is reporters notebook, a look at stories affecting your commune. Well be back in 15 minutes with more on Hurricane Sandy. Good morning. Welcome to reporters notebook. Im pat lawson muse. The news 4 iteam last week discovered an estimated 10,000 duple cat absentee ballots were sent to voters in montgomery and prince georges county. The reason, a postal coding order. Marylands board of elections resent those ballots. So even if you got two, you only siened in one. Because only one will count. Do you think a lot of Maryland Voters are likely to be confused this year . Are you confused . Well, they could be. We talk so much about Voter Suppression and voter shenanigans and both sides are arguing who should and shouldnt vote. This is a clearcut bureaucratic mistake. They sent the wrong things out. You would hope with enough information and enough discussion people will know what to do. Yeah, there will be some people who will be confused. I think confusion definitely. My point here, pat, is the fact that its been a year, most likely these people started this whole process, knowing the type of election they were going to have in november 2012. Knowing theres a high, intense president ial race along with all of the referendums you have in maryland. It seems to me the maryland board of elections should have had its act together a year ago so you wouldnt have this keepd of confusion. Yes, theres going to be a confusion. Number one, if you received a ballot and sent that in and received another ballot, youre going to question why am i getting this other ballot . According to the board of elections, the second ballot or the latest date will be the ballot that will be counted. But thats the point. You know, anybody listening to us right now on sunday morning should understand. Okay. Youve got two ballots. Send one of them in. One of them will get counted. Only one. Only one will get counted. I agree with you, it shouldnt happen but it did. I imagine theyll examine it. The reality is, send it in. Send it in. And it will count. There was another ballot issue in montgomery and prince georges counties. This involved a smaller number, handful of voters, got absentee ballots that did not include the second page which has the most controversial ballot issues. Question six and seven. Now, thats major. That one is really major. And this is what draws suspicion on the part of people who think that theres some hankypanky going on with the process of, i dont know how you correct that one to be honest. And you may see some legal action taken against the agency. Those voters are supposed to call and ask for another ballot. Yes. There you go. Theyre supposed to call. To me, this is very discouraging to the voters. Right. Im sorry. When you make mistakes you know, the board of elections, all over the country, should be so sophisticated in their operations that there is no question, no suspicion. But were finding this more and more. This is a perfect example as joe is saying, this is a perfect example of that. They have to look into it. Have an investigation. Who dropped the ball here . This is serious. This is the gambling initiative, probably. Gambling, question six, samesex marriage. Those are key issues that people have to have this information on and have to have a clear cut ballot. This messes up the whole system. We want to emphasize that governor omalley says there were only about 20 voters who got those. 20 voters . Are they sure . Only 20 . For only 20 well, you know, 20 votes can make a difference. Heres the answer to that. If theres only 20, then why do 20 have to call . Why cant you call the 20 . Right. Thats a good point. Get it out the way. First class mail. Thank you. Lets hope that happened. In virginia, the attorney general has agreed to investigate a Republican Party contract worker accused of tossing Voter Registration forms into a dumpster. Sheriffs in Rockingham County arrested colin small, being charged with voter fraud. And three congressional democrats, jerry conley, jim moran and bobby scott. The Justice Department is reviewing. Its interesting to me that small worked for a company known as pinpoint, a subsidiary of Strategic Allied consulting. That firm is already under investigation in florida. This company has come under fire in several areas. Serious charges against it in florida. The Republican Party has severed ties to it. Theyre doing that in West Virginia and colorado. Its an extraordinary turn of events. We are having a huge discussion over voter fraud and here is a company assigned to work for the party in identifying voters and doing the things they do. And evidence widespread allegations, serious allegations about their own hankypanky is coming up. News flash. The gentleman youre talking about whos under investigation is still doing work for the Republican Party in other states. Right. Number two, there should have been an immediate investigation and you shouldnt have to wait for the u. S. Attorney general, the Virginia Attorney general should have jumped in and done this and would have been, i wo