Transcripts For WRC Today 20110828 : vimarsana.com

good morning, everyone. welcome to a special edition of today on this sunday morning. i m matt lauer. i m ann curry. if you look at the wind speed alone, but it is still considered very dangerous because you have to take into account that the storm surge could be as high as eight feet and to new york city and the surrounding area, that is home to millions of peeople. high tide in new york city five minutes from right now. i think it is supposed to get here at 8:06. here is the latest on this storm. irene made landfall earlier this morning in new jersey. the storm, as i mentioned, responsible for at least ten deaths. athu amentiong them, two children. no indication on when they ll get that lectricity back. al roker is about 30 miles to the east of where we are in rockefeller plaza. he is there along the boardwalk in long beach with a friend. al, good morning to you. yeah, good morning, matt. this is paul gillespie. he is the chief of the life guards in charge of that building and we watched it just wash off its foundation. you know what, there is a tremendous of good things that went on in that building and i hate to see it go like this. a lot of history. and you re worried, you think you ll be able to save it? i don t know. this happened way back in the 80s when we had a hurricane here and it floated down to magnolia boulevard and then they brought it back and set it back on its foundation. if it stays like that, we might have a chance to save it. what other damage have you heard about, paul? basically, it s a lot of flooding, heavy wind. i was driving around the streets here. a lot of the roads are impassable, you know. so, we re just going to hopefully this will stay up here and we can salvage it because we re just at the last week of the summer here. it s very ironic. have you ever seen it this bad before? i would just say before i think 85 when gloria was here it was just like this, very bad. but you can see the water is going under the boardwalk here under the streets. i haven t seen broadway like this ever. really? yes. you never thought you would see the ocean on broadway. right. i know you want to get down there and take a look at the damage, chief, thanks so much. we appreciate it. matt, that gives you an idea we re just a little bit past high tide right now and the water is just rushing out and it s making its way into this vacant lot and then moving on and it looks like there s some homes across the way, a row of homes across the way and it looks like they re getting some flooding now because there s a lot of water in front of their garages. so, there s going to be some problems. you can see right there, it s really coming through now. the water is breaching and we re getting, we re getting a lot of activity as far as flooding is concerned here in long beach. the good news is, we don t seem to be, the rain here, at least, isn t so bad. in fact, it s probably a little worse as you move inland. we re looking for anywhere from 10 to 15 inches of rain. this is the wettest month ever in the history of new york city. 17.3 inches of rain. and it looked like that breaks the record from september of 1982. we have mudslides along the new york freeway and river flood warnings throughout connecticut, massachusetts, new york, new jersey, rhode island. so, again, as this system makes its way upward, we re expecting the center of the storm over new york at about 9:30. that s a little bit less than an hour and a half from now. in the meantime, the storm surge continues to push in, high tide continuing to make its way into the lower harbor of new york and then later on into connecticut. we re not quite out of the woods yet. once the system moves to the north, all the north-facing beaches along the north shore of long island and the bays and long island sound, they re going to have to be dealing with this, as well, matt. your guest just mentioned, this could be the day the ocean meets the bay. a lot of coastal areas deal with that dilemma. how far is the bay from where you re standing right now? it s about half a mile. it s possible that that could happen. i mean, the flooding is really just getting started now. you know, when you, when you were with us earlier, you could see those sand berms. those are all gone. let me stop this police officer, officer, so, any word on the flooding? pardon. still going on for now. how bad? right now the ocean is about to meet the bay. the ocean is meeting the bay? where is that at? right here. how far is the bay from here? quarter mile. thank you, officer. matt, the bay is a quarter mile from here and it is now meeting the ocean has met the bay just about two blocks down from here. all right, al, thank you very much. we appreciate it. al roker on long beach on new york s long island this morning. ann? peter alexander has made his way to coney island, brooklyn, this morning to tell us what s happening there. you still have some wind to contend with there. yeah. we just, ann, spoke to bill karins our meteorologist and right now we re getting the worst of it. sustained winds of 30 to 35 miles per hour and we had gusts to 60 miles per hour. as i was speaking to them, they clocked one at 51 miles per hour. right now, as we speak, this is high tide. but pan the camera this direction off to the ocean and you get a big sense of just how angry and how boiling these seas are right now. what s uncomfortable for us right now is this wind that is punishing and stinging. a lot of women would refer to this as an exfoliation. something i would prefer to pass on this morning. as you look down here, this is a three-mile stretch and in the distance you may be able to see the lights. the only people out here this morning are nypd. these guys came up to me ask askask e ed how i was doing. their loved ones lived in long island. you have to respect the sacrifice they are making out here. worrying about their loved ones who are else where right now. walk this way over to some of the concessions. we have been using this as sort of a measure of exactly how strong the winds have been. here s one of those sort of figurines with a burger in one hand and the flags have been shredded, just simply destroyed. she is holding pretty firm there so far, matt. a lot of honey do lists where the wives send the husbands out to powerwash the decks, mother nature did it this morning. it is now 8:08, let s go to matt. meteorologist jeff is tracking irene. where s the eye right now? right now it is about 40 miles to the south, southwest of new york city and we definite low don t want to be overly focused on the center of the storm just because so much rainfall in the outer bands that are going to continue to lash the new england area with that potential river flooding that is continuing. however, in and around the center of the storm, we are still going to be seeing those winds ramping up in new york city. the worst of the wind is across long island and connecticut just to the north and the east of the center of it storm. bill karins was here earlier and he was talking about it, at some point during the course of the storm, the winds will shift and come from the north and push the water. how long until something like that occurs? probably be about maybe four, six hours because what we need to happen is we need that center of the storm to the pass to the north of new york city and also connecticut to see that water push back out in the other direction. little bit earlier this morning there were isolated tornados and a tornado warning and watch in effect. is that still in effect or has the threat diminished? threat of nornados tornadoes us. you get a lot of twisting right in that northeastern quadrant. so, we re going to be looking at the tornado threat throughout massachusetts, connecticut and also interior sections of new england. most likely as long as the storm is with us. although we re fought seeing the devastating winds, the winds over 75, 85 miles an hour, we re seeing massive amounts of rain, five to ten and above inches in some areas. yeah, definitely. some of the highest totals i think we had was in upwards of 14 inches in parts of north carolina. add to this the fact that august has already been a soaking month, we ve got ground that s saturated. this is just really an unbelievable meeting of circumstances. you not only have this storm that just doesn t want to give up. how many times do you see a category 1 storm that makes landfalls and stays a category 12 and st 1 and stays with that pressure up the coastline. that doesn t happen very much and bringing widespread effects. this is where the storm is on long island, new jersey, connecticut area. that is where irene is right now. talk about what s in store for the people in the hudson valley and new england. well, as you look up into new england and interior sections upwards of ten inches of rainfall. that s really the after storm, if you will. once this storm is all said and done in the next two to three days, what we are finding is record setting river flooding and we don t know how bad that is going to be until this storm moves out and we already know there are several rivers in the new york city, new jersey area that are going to see all-time record flooding. this is a storm like no other category 1 storm that i ever covered. yeah, not a category 3, but a category 1 that has wide-reaching impacts. i never, personally, tracked a category 1 storm with hurricane-force winds extending out 90 miles from the center of the storm. it s rare when you look at it in so many different respects. jeff, thank you very much. we appreciate that very much. it s 11 minutes past the hour, let s go over to ann. matt, thank you very much. let s go to kerry sanders in atlantic beach this morning with more on this. hey, kerry, good morning. well, good morning, ann. yesterday is assessment day. a beautiful day here, the sun is up and no humidity, but there is going to be a need to go through to really determine how bad it was. early indications are it s not as bad as they thought. governor bev purdue plans to travel to the coastal communities to figure out what aid the communities will need from the state and if any requests will need to go to the federal government. meantime, more than just devastation. sadly, there is death in north carolina, at least two deaths directly a result of hurricane irene. hurricane irene made landfall just south of the outer banks of north carolina s coast. winds in excess of 100 miles per hour ripped apart siding and tilted electrical poles and church steeples and downed trees. an unconformed tornado was believed to touch down in bell haven, damaging one of the front businesses. while the storm surge flooded some roadways, waves, most eight to ten feet, with the occasional 17-footer hammered the atlantic beach pier. this is what the pier looked like before irene and now after. the final section is gone, washed out to sea in the early morning hours. north carolina state officials say early indications are damage is minimal, duncan reids who road the storm out with his 80-year-old parents, he s tha thankful irene, which had been a category 3 hurricane, showed mercy when she made landfall here as barely a category 1. i put everything away that could blow around. reporter: irene came ashore here in the early morning hours. the eye of the storm passing directly over atlantic beach. 5:44 in the morning and the winds are buffering tropical force winds. irene has a less defined eye but right now, even though you can t see blue sky, this is it. we re in the eye. this is the back end of the hurricane coming through here. these are the hurricane-force winds and it s brutal. i got to tell you, the sand is like a sand blaster. i can barely turn that direction. reporter: along the north carolina coast, more than 200,000 homes are still without power. for those evacuated inland, emergency managers say there will be at least one more night away from home before the all-clear signal. whether this was a 5 or a 1, this state and our people have sustained some really significant damage. i don t know what the cost will be, but i think the cost is going to be significant. reporter: i got most of the sand out of my ears and hair now and for those who want to come back to their communities, they need to check to make sure the bridges and the barrier islands are open. it s possible they re going to wait for all the electricity to be restored here before letting residents come home. that may take more than a day. kerry sanders, thanks so much. we ll be back with more on hurricane irene, including an interview with chris christie. but, first, this is today on nbc. look at all this stuff for coffee. oh there s tons. french presses, espresso tampers, filters. it can get really complicated. not nearly as complicated as shipping it, though. i mean shipping is a hassle. not with priority mail flat rate boxes from 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[ male announcer ] buy 2 bic products and get one free. only at staples. that was easy. welcome back to a special edition of today. right now irene hitting new york, new jersey, connecticut area. 2.3 million people evacuated ahead of this storm. among them, 1 million people along the new jersey shore. chris christie is the governor of new jersey. good morning, again, governor. nice of you to join us. thank you, matt. you were with us about an hour ago and you said you still hadn t gotten reports from some of the coastal areas of new jersey. have you been able to get more information on what s going on down there? i have been, matt. we started to do some search and rescue and what we re finding at least preliminarily is that the property damage right along the coastline is not as bad as we had feared it would be. that s preliminary and it s from helicopter passes across the shore by our state police. but so far that looks like it s a little bit better than we have hoped, although we still have some high tide and some storms, some surge issues to deal with regarding water damage. but at least so far the coastline looks like it had been better than we hope it would be. but we still have now, matt over half a million people without power and over 250 road closures across the state and the thing i want to emphasize, again, the folks of new jersey who are watching is, please stay in your homes. there is no, no safe place to be outside right now in new jersey between downed power lines and flooding. you need to stay in your homes. if you do, we can keep you safe and rise through this. a lot of people did evacuate. those million people from the coastal areas. they want to know if their property has been damaged and want to get back home. yet, you don t want those people heading into that area right now. not yet. we need to make a full assessment of what things look like on the coastline. i m particularly concerned about downed power lines. until we can get the power companies in there to make it safe for people to travel. i don t want people doing that. also, the flooding is excessive, matt. we have record flooding in new jersey, already starting in the bound brook area and we need to keep people away from those areas. right now to make sure we can get people to help folks who need to be evacuated. we don t need people trying to rush back into the barrier islands at the shore until we know it s safe for them to do so. we often hear that governors declare a state of emergency or the federal government does the same, what does it actually mean? what does it allow you to do? well, first, when we declared a state of emergency a few days ago anticipating this we called the national guard up to get the national guard out and we now have over 2,000 national guard soldiers and airmen already doing rescue missions and being ready to help us as we move forward. on the federal level, what it allows us to do and the president did a prelanding declaration for new jersey at my request, was to allow fema access to begin to flow to new jersey. we have fema officials right here in the operation center working with us and that s what declaration of emergencies allow us to do. call national guard and federal funding for fema on the federal level. chris christie, you have a lot of things to do this morning. governor, i appreciate your time very much. matt, thank you very much. everyone stay in their homes and stay safe. good idea. much more on this storm as it rolls across the northet. but, first, this is today on it rolls across the northet. but, first, this is today on nbc. y from the dust in here and the pollen outside. but with 24-hour zyrtec®, i get prescription strength relief from my worst allergy symptoms. it s the brand allergists recommend most. lily and i are back on the road again. where we belong. with zyrtec®, i can love the air®. so we made ocean spray cranberry juice cocktail with a splash of lime. it s so refreshing, your taste buds will thank you. mm. oh, you re welcome. what? my taste buds they re thanking me. uh-huh. i don t normally associate with salty snacks. huh. i thought berries were supposed to be sweet. [ female announcer ] new quaker chewy smashbar. kid-loved ingredients, smashed together. with 33% less sugar than the leading sweet snacks. long beach, new york, feeling the effects of hurricane irene. much more on the storm, right after this. [ male announcer ] get ready for the left lane. the volkswagen autobahn for all event is back. right now, get a great deal on new volkswagen models, including the jetta, awarded a top safety pick by the iihs. that s the power of german engineering. hurry in and lease the jetta s for just $179 a month. visit vwdealer.com today. hebrew national hot dogs are unlike any other all-beef hot dog. every bite goes above and beyond the call of deliciousness. that s a big 10-4, kosher. no fillers, by-products, artificial flavors or colors. hebrew national. the better than a hotdog, hotdog. you carry them around everywhere. yes i do, because cravings are everywhere. would you take a craving for me, cartwright? how would i exactly. [ male announcer ] nicorette mini goes wherever you go, to help make quitting suck less. good morning. 8:26. sunday. good morning. i m joe krebs. at least 10 deaths attributed to the storm so far. overnight president obama signed an emergency declaration for d.c. homeland security and fema can allocate equipment and resources to the district to support the recovery. ripple effects will likely be felt at airports nationwide. more than 9,000 flights are canceled through monday and the power problems getting worse. 3.12 million homes and businesses across the east coast are in the dark right now. in our area we re seeing widespread power outages. pepco has 200,000 customers without power. half in prince george s county. dominion reporting 120,000 outages in northern virginia. bge s numbers continue to grow with 500,000 people without power system wide more than 107,000 in arundel county. this is video of sparking wire in northwest washington. we ll be back with more weather after this. [ male announcer ] washington, d.c. a landmark of liberty and opportunity. at bank of america, we live and work here, with thousands of employees and hundreds of branches and atms. every day, we re working to help set opportunity in motion. from supporting the arts and howard university to helping revitalize anacostia and downtown d.c. because when you re giving, lending, and investing in more communities across the country, more opportunities happen. more opportunities happen. you said you d get me on the field. i did get you on the field. you are brian orakpo all-pro linebacker, surely you can do better than this. come on sunshine. it s game time. squad s waiting. this is embarrassing brian. they ve got me on the bottom of the pyramid. you know what else is embarrassing? paying too much for car insurance. geico. fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. welcome back. another check of the trek on hurricane irene. finally irene is loosening her grip on our region. we have one band of light to moderate rain from the pennsylvania border, washington county rg frederick, montgomery, down into the washington region across the district, prince george s county. that band is advancing off to the north and east. later today, sunshine should break out. we ought to climb into the low 80s with wind diminishing. gusts near 40. but they should diminish during the afternoon. monday partly cloudy. low humidity coming up. the end of the weekend, maybe the weekend, perhaps passing showers. tom, thanks very much. we will be back with another 90 minutes of special coverage of 8:30 on this sunday morning, august 28, 2011, with more of our special coverage of hurricane irene. it is a massive storm, 500 miles across now and left some places under a foot of rain. right now quickly moving over new york, taking aim at the biggest city in the country and inside studio 1a in the biggest city in the country, i m ann curry along with matt lauer. new york has been preparing for days. yes. the entire subway system, for the first time in history, is shut down. this never happened before in the history of the system and right now the greatest fear is floo flooding. irene has already brought a 3 1/2 foot storm surge into new york harbor, that could be twice as high a little later this morning. irene remains a category 1 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour. while most people will not feel winds that strong, probably in the 45 to 50-mile-per-hour range, it s still a very dangerous storm. irene has killed at least ten people and from north carolina to new england, more than 3 million people are now without power. that s right. the big thing here in new york is that the combination of wind and water could turn dangerous in a city of 8 million people. that got us thinking about something. the three places you might not want to be in a storm like this. freedom tower, one world trade center. that s the massive building they re building at the former world trade center. they re up 80 stories right now but very much an active construction site. we were recently up there. could you imagine being on top of that building in 50, 60, 7 70-mile-per-hour winds? it would not be easy. especially they had to spend a lot of time battening down the equipment that is up there over the last couple days. it s true with the winds as you go up from ground level to higher elevations in buildings that actually it s much more intense? that s absolutely true. number two of places you wouldn t want to be, how about the george washington bridge on top of that thing. it was closed to traffic, closed to traffic at the moment, but earlier this year al actually walked up that bridge to help change a light bulb. spans the hudson river and links upper manhattan with new jersey. nearly 80 years old and 4,760 feet long. we find him in poughkeepsie somewhere blorn north and the third place i m glad i m not hanging out, the statue of liberty. this was us a while back, it would be a different scene this morning as hurricane irene comes ashore. that s right. we want to get the latest on the hurricane now as she rolls over new york. al roker is 30 miles east of where we are on long beach on manhattan. al, good morning. good morning, guys. i ve got an anemometer i borrowed from stephanie abrams at the weather channel. we have sustained winds at 48 miles there we go at 56, 54. the winds are coming up pretty good right now. you can see, we ve got quite a bit of rain. we ve got some folks who have come out to see some of the damage to see what it looks like, but you can see the ocean still pretty angry right now. it continues to really blow pretty well. where high tide was about 20 minutes ago, but the big story, of course, is going to be the flooding. as you see this boardwalk is about 40 feet wide and they breached the seawall here and you can see the flooding has really started to get fairly extensive. it works its way all the way to this other street here, that s called broadway. a lot of flooded basements over there and a block or two down they had the phenomenon where the ocean meets the bay. so, that there s a bay that s about a quarter of a mile from here. that now is the ocean and the bay have now merged. earlier today we showed you that house back there. that s where the life guards for long beach, that s their headquarters. it floated off of its moring and engineers will come out to inspect the boardwalk but police tell me they will coordequarden off because they don t know if the boardwalk has been breached. again, flooding along the shoreline, you might expect it. but, interestingly enough, it appears that the flooding inland is probably going to be worse. we are talk about 10 to 15 inches of rain in the extreme, but on average anywhere from three to six inches of rain will have fallen when this is all over and said and done. we have mudslides and flooding along the new york state freeway. there are river flood warnings for the paspasic river and some them loo won t crest for at least another 48 hours. so, we re going to be seeing a lot of activity. we ll see, in fact, the effects of irene willt long after she s gone. we are expecting the center. we are not even calling it the eye. we are talking about the center of the eye of the hurricane going over new york in just about an hour. and then the winds will shift and, so, all the north-facing beaches here on long island which is basically a barrier island are going to be dealing with flooding and storm surge, as well, matt. al roker on long beach this morning, thank you for your reporting all morning long, we appreciate it. new york city isn t all concrete and skyscrapers but miles of beaches from coney island and peter alexander is in coney island with more on this. hey, peter, good morning. good morning, ann. you re seeing another police car pass us by right now, basically us and the nypd out here. this is a mandatory evacuation area. more than 106,000 people that live in coney island were told to go home. you have been watching us all morning long. right now it s not nearly as bad as it was 30 minutes ago. things have calmed down substantially since then but we are getting occasional gusts. we ll get away from the police officer right now. the stinging sand that is hitting us over and over. i ll go to these officers and see if they see anything significa significant. what have you noticed? a lot of flooding. are people here or are they heeding the evacuation warnings? they re heeding the evacuation warnings. thank you for your service, stay safe. the bad news is we anticipated, matt, this is turning in to a real water event right now. as we walk this way, i think you can see the sand coming this direction. so, if you ll excuse me, i ll turn my back to it. you get a real sense of what the ocean looks like right now. that does not feel so good. you can see what the ocean looks like right now. the seas have really been pushing this direction over and over and just blowing a lot of the sand and a lot of the wind this way, as well. normally it s about a football field of sand and right now it s about half that. wow. now we re seeing some s more of those gusts. just a short time ago those gusts reached about 60 miles per hour we re told by bill karins and right now sustained at about 25 to 30 miles per hour, i think it s safe to say. if you pan the camera down this direction, though, you get a sense of one of the iconic landmarks in new york city, for sure. coney island, the famed boardwalk here. 450,000 people coming every season. this is the last sunday before labor day and it would be packed. instead, matt and ann, this place is deserted. thank goodness. peter alexander, so sorry about the sand blasting. it is now 8:38. let s go back to matt. thank you. joined by jeff, our meteorologist. let s talk about good news. we talked about all the bad things happening. we look and there s a massive area of clearing making its way to the new york city area. you re doing a good job of that, by the way. my pointing here. yeah. we have a wind shear on the bottom edge of the storm and dry air filtering in from the south and that will save a lot of areas in and out of new jersey, connecticut getting the second strong lashing that we see with a tightly wound hurricane. however, for the new england area the rotation of the storm will still push in a lot of moisture from the atlantic and they are looking at record flooding there. what this image does not show us, we do not know what is happening with the tidal flooding behind it. exactly. we re looking at storm surge flooding anywhere from four to eight feet here in and throughout the new jersey shore happening right now also for long island. as this storm moves up the coastline, it will range a little bit as the storm weakens from two to six feet and anywhere from maine, one to two feet above ground level. this is all coinciding right now with new jersey with this astronomical high tide. just to put this in perspective, the people that live in this area here are used to what we call noreasters in this area. what type of storm surge would they get in a typical nor easter based on what they re going to see from this storm? it depends on the size of the nor easter. no nor easter exactly like the next, but can you get a three to six-foot storm surge with a nor easter? most certainly. this is different when you look at a hurricane because it s something that kind of build up a little bit more and has a lot more motion behind it. this storm started way down south of florida. it s been pushing up this water all along its path and, you know, even though it s been intera interacting with the landfall, it maintained its category 1 strength. right now we re going through some of the worst of it in new jersey and also into new york city. and the other thing i want to mention is going to be really important, if we see this rain clear out like we talked about the dry air on the southern side of the storm, that people don t go out and kind of think the storm is over. i covered a lot of these people go outside and they end up getting hurt. we will see these winds gusting in upwards of 60 miles per hour even though there is no rain falling. unsettled weather in the very near future. jeff rainieri, thank you very much. more on hurricane irene in a moment. when you ve lost interest in everything. when you ve had one too many days feeling sad or anxious. aches and pains, fatigue. when it becomes hard to ignore that you need help. that s the day you do something. depression hurts. cymbalta can help with many symptoms of depression. tell your doctor right away if your depression worsens, you have unusual changes in behavior or thoughts of suicide. antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults. cymbalta is not approved for children under 18. people taking maois or thioridazine or with uncontrolled glaucoma should not take cymbalta. taking it with nsaid pain relievers, aspirin, or blood thinners may increase bleeding risk. severe liver problems, some fatal, were reported. signs include abdominal pain and yellowing of the skin or eyes. talk with your doctor about your medicines, including those for migraine, or if you have high fever, confusion and stiff muscles, to address a possible life-threatening condition. tell your doctor about alcohol use, liver disease, and before you reduce or stop taking cymbalta. dizziness or fainting may occur upon standing. side effects include nausea, dry mouth, and constipation. is today your day? 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[ male announcer ] buy 2 bic products and get one free. of america s number-one puppy food brand? with dha and essential nutrients also found in mother s milk. purina puppy chow. we re back now with more of our special coverage of hurricane irene as it slams across the northeast. millions of people in its path. the big thing here in manhattan is massive flooding in the downtown section. at one point, the lowest area in lower manhattan near battery park, the staten island ferry. that s where nbc s amy robach is this morning. i know you took a walk recently, amy, and saw some things that didn t look so good. we did. unfortunately, some worst fears confirmed. there was a real big fear that new york s harbor would start flooding the streets and flooding the areas here. these low-lying areas at the tip of manhattan and we were able to take a walk down a few blocks down where we re not able to get our cameras because it s pretty tetcherous over there and i immediately fell into six inches, almost a foot of water. in fact, take a look as i take you down what used to be the boardwalk here at the tip of manhattan. just a few moments ago, this street was dry and already started to flood and it is high tide. irene is coming ashore. we already have at least six inches on the ground here and it s rising as new york harbor is coming over the boardwalk here into lower manhattan and starting to flood the streets. that car probably not you can t really see the statue of liberty. it is right out here. this is the boardwalk here and you can see it is completely flooded. the entire harbor has come on to the road right here and the tide continuing to rise. this is flooding as far as the eye can see. and that s a concern. i mean, the tide is still coming in, irene is still washing ashore. we re not exactly sure how far that water is going to head into the streets of lower manhattan here. obviously, we know battery park boardwalk is off limits at this point and the concern is at this point this water getting into new york and affecting the power grid and affecting the cables that are carefully laid below the city s surface. so, we ve seen some con edison trucks around here monitoring the situation and deciding whether or not they need to perhaps cut off power to protect those lines because once that salt water gets into those areas, it s major problems. also interesting we went over there because we talked to this guard who guards the staten island ferry. his guard shack right along the water s edge and he s looking at it and he said, i ve never seen the water so high. i don t like where i am right now. i have been here for a long time and never in my life have i seen the water like that. we went over to the boardwalk and saw exactly what he was talking about as we now see the water coming on top of the boardwalk. unfortunately, coming into some of the parking lots in the area and the concern is whether or not it comes into water street and some flooding these areas. there s businesses in the area and they have all sandbagged their doors, but we re watching this very carefully as we watch the water continue to rise here in lower manhattan, matt. you re just a few blocks from wall street, the financial hub of the country, really. not only the city. if that salt water gets into that area, that could pose all kinds of problems for the potential opening of those markets tomorrow. absolutely, major problems. if we lose power here, obviously, you can imagine the ripple effects it will have not only here in manhattan, but around the world that there isn t power to fuel exactly that, the financial district of the world. this area is in a very precarious situation right now with the rain coming down, the water s coming in. we have irene washing ashore. so, as we mentioned, con edison trucks they are doing the best to protect those cables and those wires for further damage because it could take weeks to get back up if those wires themselves are damaged by the salt water, matt. amy robach in lower manhattan this morning. thank you very much. it s 47 after the hour, here s ann. home to 8 million people and not used to a storm this size. deputy mayor holloway, good morning, thank you for joining us. we just heard a report from our correspondent amy robach talking about the water rising in lower manhattan. at what point would you consider shutting down the electric grid? first, ann, thanks for having me on the show. so, we are concerned about the potential effect of the storm surge that is coming with irene and it is coinciding with high tide here. at this point, we don t have any reports of inundation. so, at this point, we don t have an indication that water has come over the seawall. we are in very close contact with con edison and they are, as you said, there are trucks up and down, i believe it s the former report said there are trucks going up and down trying to make a determination to figure out, is there any inundation and is it likely to happen and what will be the impact? with con edison who really makes the decision to turn off any part of the power grid, it is getting salt, getting salt water on that infrastructure while it s live can be very damaging. now, they don t, it doesn t mean that a single drop of salt water means that you have to turn off any part of the system and i know con ed doesn t want to turn it off. we want to try to figure out a way to keep as many people and hopefully everybody with power as possible. but, ultimately, you know, we are going to be faced potentially with a choice about, you know, what we have to do now to ensure that we don t have any long-term damage. right now we don t have any reports of inundation. deputy mayor, unless i m misreading the images we just saw, i believe we ve been looking at from our correspondent there on the ground water coming over the seawall. i don t know to what degree this is an issue. the question for you is, what is the dividing line? at what point do you decide that you ve got to shut down the grid? does it have to reach a certain geographical place? is there a point on the ilsland that you re monitoring more closely? tell us what is going to be the deciding factor? let me just explain, con edison, which is the utility that does power for the city of new york, which is not a city agency, ultimately it makes the decision about when and what part of its infrastructure it would have to shut down. that s not a decision that new york city is going to make. but we are in very close contact and coordination with con ed. our understanding is they are watching to see what the extent of any inundation is and what the damage is likely to be. water is a common occurrence going into manholes. most of their network is underground and certainly in lower manhattan that s the case. so, it is but there is not a firm point, there is not a firm point that is established now. it is really going to depend on what the infrastructure impact is and con ed is able to turn this infrastructure off remotely. they don t have to go into the street to do it. that s good. that means they can wait, really, as long as possible and see what the impacts are likely to be before they would make a decision to turn off any of it. and, cas, if the decision is made to turn off the power grid, how many people, how many new yorkers could be affected and is it true that it could be days, if possibly even a week before that power could be restored? i don t know the exact number of people who would be impacted with that, but it would be, you know, lower manhattan, which is the financial district and has over the last few years has become a very vibrant neighborhood downtown. it certainly would have an impact. in terms of restoration, it s nut, it wouldn t be a week before that was up and running, but it could take a couple days to get the infrastructure back up and running so that there was power. we have to just wait and see. obviously, it would be an inconvenience for people, but i think we ve seen through this whole experience as new yorkers have really done what mayor bloomberg asked, which is evacuate for the low-lying areas and if you re not in one of those areas, stay inside. incidentally, people should still do. we are at the most dangerous part of this storm and now is the time to do what new yorkers have been doing, which is staying inside and staying safe. we want to thank you so much, new york city deputy mayor cas holloway for that information this morning. thank you so much for joining us. anyway, we re back with much more on hurricane irene, first, this is today on nbc. the best approach to food is to keep it whole for better nutrition. that s what they do with great grains cereal. they steam and bake the actual whole grain while the other guy s flake is more processed. mmm. great grains. the whole whole grain cereal. 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[ male announcer ] get to a better state. state farm. that was amy robach reporting from lower manhattan just a couple minutes ago where you can see the water of new york harbor spilling across the boardwalk and into the streets of that part of manhattan. in the city of hoboken where natalie morales is this morning. i understand the water is rising there this morning. since we have been out here this morning the water has risen a good foot over where we were earlier. this is a major residential area. all up along this coastline, matter of fact, homes, apartment buildings. the concern is we see that storm surge is the water is rising dangerously here. there is already flooding being reported on the west end of town. this is a low-lying town. all along here from edgewater to jersey city, there are tens of thousands of people who live in these areas and the concern is a lot of people are doing what we see over there, they re walking around and checking things out and trying to get an idea of what s going on. there s downed electrical wires and people could be electrocuted so they re being told to stay in their homes, matt. the situation is still very fluid. natalie, thank you very much. much more on this hurricane, but, first, on a sunday morning, this is today on nbc. coming up, much more on what is now tropical storm irene, as she walloped new york city and takes aim at new england. we ll check in live all along 8:59 is our time right now. these are live pictures from ocean city, maryland as the skies are still cloudy there. some activity but the ocean is a whole lot calmer than it was this time yesterday. and we are continuing our coverage, special coverage of hurricane irene this morning. good morning to you. i m joe krebs. here s the very latest. 10 deaths are attributed to irene. falling trees or rough surf to plame. overnight, president obama signed an emergency declaration for d.c. homeland security and fema can allocate equipment and resources to the district to support the recovery. the ripple effects will be felt