>> anne thompson in venice, louisiana. anne, thank you for that. >>> it happened last night in the skies over kansas, and it happened without warning. a united airlines flight bound for los angeles hit some very bad air. turbulence so severe some passengers became airborne in the cabin. more than two dozen were injured and the pilot had to make an unscheduled landing. the ntsb is now investigating. our own kristen welker has more on what happened and why. >> reporter: by all accounts united airlines flight 967 was terrifying for the 255 passengers and ten crew members on board. >> i thought the plane was going to crash. >> reporter: the boeing 777 took off from washington dulles airport at 5:27 p.m. headed for los angeles. the pilot flew around a line of thunderstorms, but hit turbulence over the midwest. all of the sudden passengers say there was a violent drop. >> it felt like i had gone down an elevator shaft and hit the bottom and came back up. >> the bottom fell out. people hit the ceiling. it was pretty bad. >> repor

anne thompson in venice, louisiana, tonight starting us off gechblt anne, thanks. >>> we want to get more on the story from jim cantore of the weather channel in north miami beach. jim, if we have this right, florida gets brushed and everything kind of mobile bay to the west is vulnerable to the next one, correct? >> reporter: they are, brian. one thing you have to watch out for is, a, does it redevelop further north in its infancy, and does it become a stronger storm? hurricane intensity forecasts are horrible at best. that's what we have to watch out for. we are not out of the woods with this by any stretch of the imagination. let's show it to you. all day this has tried to become bonnie. as you mentioned at the top of the show, that's exactly what it is. all the orange colors indicating huge thunderstorms in and around the center. the forecast track makes for a miserable day in florida as we go through the day on friday. but then saturday -- all day saturday and even into saturday night, this storm will track along the south and west fringes of that oil slick. now, the big questio

nbc's anne thompson is watching developments for us in venice, louisiana. anne? >> reporter: good evening, lester. officials here think they can handle whatever bonnie would bring, in part because they had a dress rehearsal, of sorts, with hurricane alex, but they are taking no chances. today, there was not a minute to waste along louisiana's oil-weary coast. tugboats pushed barges loaded down with boom and equipment up the mississippi river. on shore, crews readied supplies to be transported out of the path of the storm. seeing their protection move, some local officials criticized the strategy, but the leader of the federal response says the plan is rooted in his hurricane katrina experience. >> i'm still haunted by the specter of flying in over new orleans on the 5th -- 6th of september as a principal federal official and looking down at new orleans to a parking lot full of buses that were flooded and not used for evacuation because they were not moved in time. >> reporter: venice, louisiana's southernmost town, is at sea level. the risk here, storm surge and

>> anne thompson at her now three-month-long post in venice, louisiana, starting us off, anne, thanks, as always. >>> with us tonight, a gentleman we've spoken to before on the subject, john hofmeister, a veteran of the business, former president of shell oil and currently ceo of citizens for affordable energy. john, first off, do you believe what you heard today? and what if they're wrong about the integrity of this thing? >> well, it all comes down to confidence and credibility, brian. there is a huge debate taking place among industry experts and bp experts about the quality of the well, whether it has integrity, whether it can withstand the pressures, whether it can withstand the kind of emergency blow-out that it faced and will that cap lead to more breaches, if there are breaches, or what exactly is going on in the well itself? it's a confidence game. and where do you believe, who do you believe and what they have to say? >> and what if? i mean, what if there's structural integrity problems and we get, god forbid, into a situation where you've got oil coming up from more than on

anne thompson in venice, louisiana. anne, thanks. >>> with the current sensitivity about oil, a spill in michigan is getting a lot of attention. a leaking pipeline that sent oil into a creek that feeds the kalamazoo river. booms have been deployed an estimated 848,000 gallons of oil have already escaped. trails of oil sheen can be seen all the way down the river, far from the bulk of the spill. it's coming from a 30-inch pipe that runs from indiana to on tear ya, owned by a canadian company. it carries 8 million gallons a day. officials say they don't know what caused the pipe to start leaking yesterday. >>> now to california, where there's been an open display of outrage in a suburb of los angeles. one of many cities and towns struggling to make ends meet in this recession by slashing their budget and cutting services. the people of bell, california want to know what their manager was doing making almost twice what the president of the united states makes. nbc's george lewis reports from bell, california, on new invest

>> anne thompson starting us off from louisiana tonight. anne, thanks. >>> a related story in a way. the new british prime minister david cameron is on his first official trip to washington, and front and center today, were questions about bp having to do with libya and not louisiana, specifically, it's possible involvement in the release of the terrorist bomber behind the pan am 103 lockerbie disaster. our chief white house correspondent chuck todd with us from the north lawn tonight. good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. the so-called special relationship between the united states and great britain has been tested of late thanks to the actions by a company formally known as british petroleum. david cameron addressed those controversies at a joint press conference today with president obama. >> i completely understand the anger that exists right across america. the oil spill in the gulf of mexico is a catastrophe. let us not confuse the oil spill with the libyan bomber. >> reporter: and yet cameron was peppered with questions abo

so we have two reports tonight beginning with anne thompson in venice, louisiana. anne, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. the only thing people here fear more than oil coming is bp and the coast guard taking their equipment and going. that was the topic of a meeting in new orleans today described as frank and passionate. it is the backbone of the shoreline cleanup and an economic lifeline for out-of-work fishermen. today, national incident commander thad allen told louisiana officials the vessels of opportunity program will be downsized once the well is killed. how contentious was that issue today with the parish presidents? >> i don't think it's contentious so much as it's very complex. i hate to use downsize. i think rightsize is more -- we need to adjust the vessels of opportunity, all of the resources to what the requirement is. >> reporter: there are thousands of boats in the program. now that bp's well is capped, the mission will move from response to recovery. parish presidents fear retreat. >> we're going to hold their feet to the fire to make

>> anne thompson starting off at the end of an eventful week there in louisiana. thanks. >>> when this oil is capped permanently then the healing in the gulf can begin. one local official, a parish president in louisiana said last night he fears oil will wash up for years to come. but those waters will get cleaner -- they have to -- and gulf seafood will come back. some of it is safe to harvest now, as you saw, but who ensures it's safe to be served to all of us in restaurants across the country? some answers tonight from nbc's thanh truong in new orleans. >> reporter: a major line of defense against oil-tainted seafood starts with a sniff. >> if it was a minor effect you would probably get a little bit of a gas taint to it or maybe a little bit of a slight petroleum taint to it. if it was more of a parts per million it would be a nasal burn. >> reporter: gary lepinto is one of ten louisiana seafood inspectors specifically trained to examine seafood from state waters still open to fishing. since may they have taken 12,000 samples. >> to this date we haven't reject

anne thompson in venice, louisiana, again tonight. thanks. >>> and now to something we will see here tonight for the first time. this next story answers one of the most frequently asked questions we have been getting in e-mails. where does the oil go after it's cleaned up and soaked up and picked up? nbc news correspondent thanh truong has spent days trying to find out. tonight from louisiana, he has our first pictures of the oil disposal. >> reporter: in an industrial lab 15 miles west of new orleans river birch landfill is filling up with waste, byproducts of the leak in the gulf. it's a scene repeated at landfills throughout the gulf region where bp says close to 27,000 tons of collected oily solid waste from gulf and beach cleanup is being stored. this truck is unloading hundreds of yards of oiled boom recovered from hope dale, louisiana. the bulldozers will eventually take this boom and move it on top of that ridge. by the end of the day it will be covered by a foot of clay. >> it is not hazardous material. the oil that was actua

our own anne thompson has covered this virtually from day one. she's in venice harbor, louisiana, tonight. anne, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, brian. as crews zero in on finally killing that well, the people who live around the venice marina here are not looking backward to the first 100 days but instead are looking forward to the next 100 and worry their plight could soon be forgotten. bright orange blotches mar the gulf coast on this, the 100th day. from the air, the oil is now tougher to spot. federal officials say they see only light bands and very little crude east of mobile bay, alabama. they promise they won't move a skimmer or piece of boom for now. >> we are keeping all of our response assets online until this well is killed. >> reporter: it's what happens after that that worries plaquemines parish president billy nungesser. >> we're worried that we are going to be caught with our pants down. that they're going to leave here, that the coast guard is going to allow them to pull the assets out of the parish. >> reporter: over th

anne thompson in venice, louisiana bringing us up-to-date there. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, lester. the good news about bonnie being downgraded is in a they may be able to keep some of the ships out at the leak site throughout h this event. the last ships to move out of the leak site would be the ships that control those remotely operated vehicles. those are the vehicles that have the cameras that allow to us see what's going on down at the bottom of the gulf. now, they have been monitoring that capped well and the well is going to stay capped even if they have to pull all the ships out. they have something called hydro phones that they have placed down there. they're actually recording devices and they will be able to hear if there are any kind of disruptionses in the well, any kind of tremors or surges that would indicate there are problems with the well. however, they don't get those in real time. they would actually after the event happened would have to go down and retrieve to see what has happened. so the other thing they hope t

ann? >> anne thompson this morning. anne, thanks. >>> today the president will sign that new financial overhaul bill that's aimed at preventing another market meltdown. he says the bill includes the strongest consumer financial protections in history. >>> health experts are urging the fda to stop endorsing the drug avastin for treating breast cancer. this after recent studies failed to show any benefits for breast cancer patients. >>> and take a look at what happened tuesday when a fox got his head stuck in a chain link fence in california. lucky for him, it happened near an ice cream store and there was a man willing to spoon feed him both ice cream and milk, so the fox was eventually able to free himself and an animal control officer said he was sure it's the cherry garcia that gave the fox the strength. look at that. i i mean, ah! there you go. it is cute. 7:18. let's go back to matt and meredith. >> i'm going to go stick my head in a fence. it's hot here today. get a little ice cream. well, you know? look! >> mr. ro

>> anne thompson in louisiana this morning, thanks so much. four minutes after the hour. here's meredith. >> thank you. now to washington, the senate is expected to extend unemployment benefits to millions out-of-work americans today after the president blasted republicans monday for blocking the bill. savannah guthrie is at the white house. good morning. >> reporter: good morning. the white house feels a political winner championing benefits for the jobless at a time when unemployment has dragged the president and his party down in the polls. accompanied by three out-of-work americans the president tried to shame republicans into extending unemployment benefits. >> the same people who didn't have any problem spending hundreds of billions of dollars on tax breaks for the wealthiest americans are saying we shouldn't offer relief to middle-class americans like jim or leslie or denise who really need help. >> reporter: republicans say they support unemployment benefits but not unless they're paid for with spending cuts and won't add to the deficit. >> we're all for extending

. >>> todnbc's anne thompson is i venice, louisiana. good morning, anne. >> reporter: good morning. on the 100th day of the catastrophe, families who made their livings off the waters are still out of work. the oil is still washes ashore and the cleanup is still slow, hot and tedious work. there is fresh oil on the sandbar west of south pass near the mouth of the mississippi river, a new onslaught stirred up by the winds of one-time tropical storm bonnie. >> it's more of a liquid form. before it was more solid tar balls and now it's like a patty. >> reporter: the oil is elusive, playing hide and seek in the gulf currents and it is breaking up, making it harder to spot from the air and more time consumer to clean on the sand. though no new oil has spewed from the troubled well for some 12 days, mike frenett says there is plenty still in the gulf. >> it just doesn't disappear. it's down below. the currents are working it. depending on the wave action it will pop up. i don't know how long it will do that, but it's going to be quite some time. >> reporter: the economic pain of the spill

. >> let's begin with the latest on all of this, anne thompson has been in the gulf region since the start of the disaster and she's in venice, louisiana with more. good morning to you. >> good morning. bp says it's building pressure inside that well and that's what it wants to do, and those remoteremot remotely operated vehicles show no signs of trouble on the ocean floor. but bp, the coast guard nor the people here are ready to declare victory just yet. it is a sight some along the gulf coast wondered if they would ever see. the spill cam showing no oil coming out of bp's damaged well. >> we're just happy finally there's an end in sight. finally a light at the end of the tubl. >> reporter: that glimpse of hope happened 3:25 eastern thursday afternoon when a repeatrepeat ly operated vehicle shut the final valve. >> we'll have to reinitiate the flow. >> high pressure is what engineers want. it means the well is intact. if the pressure is low, it could mean there's a leak in the well, and the oil is going elsewhere. the test is scheduled to run through saturday. with all the caveats,