Gulf Situation News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Is so high up that they can't get under the telephone lines and power lines. so a very difficult situation over here, thomas. we'll continue to monitor it. >> nbc's gabe gutierrez, thanks. we'll check back in with you. want to take you back to tampa and the man who hopes to be america's next vice president is prepping for what could be the biggest speech of his political career. paul ryan will formally introduce himself to millions of voters during an address in the primetime spotlight tonight. this morning, his wife jana stressed her knimt the campaign during a women for romney breakfast. >...

Feet high. but the storm surge of this -- of isaac has just been incredible. the parish president here says that it is worse than katrina and the national guard has rescued several dozen people. they plan to rescue up to 60 people. this is a very rural parish that was told to evacuate three days ago. several people didn't, however. and this is the situation. again, let me step out. you can see national guard officials are here. they are trying to figure out how many people are still stuck in that subdivision. we spoke with several residents. some of them very thankful they've been rescued but ...

Earlier today, that's when floodwaters came over the local levees there in plaquemines parish. a big distinction is these are the nonfederal levees that were breached. so they were not part of the billions of dollars that were spent on levees in and around new orleans to shore up things after hurricane katrina came through. as we had senator mary landrieu on during this hour talking about the fact that they need to relook at certain places. plaquemines parish was not considered for the federal funds to shore up what is to be a porous area as we're seeing now. they've had 2,000 people at least ...

This gulf situation, and it's the mosque situation. >> reporter: yeah, there were controversy about if he would get in the water, and is he here enough? they will be here 27 hours on the ground. and all of that seems like a distant memory now, and not a big deal after the controversy on friday evening when the president at a white house event said he would back the project to build the mosque near ground zero. yesterday i had a chance to catch up with the president one-on-one and pressed him on this very issue. rather than run away from it, he was very eager to answer my question about it, and...

Welcome back. live pictures from the briefing room. the epa's carol browner. let's go to bill nelson from florida at the balcony and anne thompson from the gulf, a reality check from both of you. first, hearing good news from the president and his top officials reports today. are you as optimistic as they are that the gulf situation is far better than we expected and that we believe it's two-thirds or three-quarters cleaned up? >> i believe if that's what they think, then i believe it. let me say, the big unknown, andrea, is still how much oil is lurking underneath the surface and what are the...