of atlantic city. right now, the winds are obviously very gusty. ali, you have a question you'd like to ask the mayor. >> reporter: yes, i do, mayor. and the important thing is by looking at atlantic city, people can look at this and say, this might happen in my community. if you're still not evacuated, what do you do? i know people are driving around. they can get out in their car but it's gusty and dangerous. should people leave and go to a shelter now or hunker down and stay? >> at this point, i think they would be best served to stay at home and hunker down. i just visited a couple of our shelters. i had a very difficult time getting back to where i'm supposed to be. in some place, we still have 2 1/2 to 3 feet of water on the ground at this point. and as you know, this is the low tide. and so in about an hour and a half at around the 6:00 hour, the brunt of the storm will make its way to atlantic city. we're expecting the impact at that time. a few hours of that, high tide will come again and we c

in atlantic city. this time, the governor is blaming the mayor. saying that he is allowing people to shelter on the barrier island rather than bring them inland. they say get the heck out of there fast. it was complicated by the mixed messages. the governor said the mayor was sending a mixed message. they are talking about everything being suspended until tuesday. forecasters already saying that hurricane sandy has or will have atlantic city tonight or it when it does, it will make a bad situation worse. again, the famed boardwalk that we are telling you about -- there's no way of knowing whether or not it was destroyed. we do know from a couple people on the scene that it is very hard to tell. not only because of the driving rain storms, but because there is no way to see if it's still there. this is the southern end of the boardwalk. my ac knowledge coming into play. don't get the wrong idea, i do not gamble all the time. but it is hard to tell depending on where you are. it wasn't it was broken up.

, from the main city of atlantic city. he will certainly look at the loss there of the boardwalk and the flooding that persisted in that town. and then move up and down the coastline where some of the devastation, as governor christie said yesterday, is just indescribable. so the president and governor christie will do that. then we are told the plane from marine one and take a tour either by foot or car of some of the neighborhoods and towns that have been affected by this super storm. we'll be watching those images and bring them to you throughout this hour. >>> if you'd like to see why we're having problems getting air traffic moving again -- except there -- but he comes first -- look at this video. it just fed in a short while ago -- oh, my goodness! look at that! that is laguardia airport today! two days after the storm went through. runways covered with water. if you've ever flown in to or out of laguardia airport, as many of you certainly have, you know that you come right over those bays and that open water there a

voters head to the polls. >>> a live report from atlantic city where most of that city is under water. >> continuing our extreme weather coverage of course atlantic city, new jersey battered by sandy. the storm wiping out a huge section of the city's historic boardwalk. waves ripped up boards literally one portion found blocks away. steve keele joins us from atlantic city with the latest conditions there. >> ainsley i know extreme is an under treatment but in this case it is. i am standing on part of the boardwalk. these aren't even the boards or the planks. these are the heavy thick sports you can see some of the metal railings that are now into this thing. it only stops by the main and grammarsy place street sign. we saw parts of the boardwalk at the enof the street. it is the beach sand in the street it is almost like quick sand. any emergency vehicles trying to get a before sunrise first look at the damage are getting stuck in this like it is knee deep snow in the winter time and a blizzard. we can give you the picture of the day on the east coast. you are talking about part of th

you should know the casinos are closed in atlantic city. that should give you an idea of how seriously they are taking this. >> picture of an 80 foot chunk of the atlantic city boardwalk that came loose and is floating down the street. here's a live look outside of the embarcadero in san francisco, not wet but fog go meteorologist mike nicco will have the full forecast, coming up. and we'll check in with sue hall in the traffic center. >> mike is also tracking sandy to let you know what is going on there. also the world series win turns into a fashion statement. statement. late night effort to make i moved to new york to work in fashion. so i had to look the part. t.j.maxx is such a great place cause i know when i go in there, i'm gonna score. they've got such great deals on all my favorite brands. fashion direct from designers. savings direct to you. t.j.maxx. >>> check out the visibility we've improved in concord up to a mile quarter mile in napa still same in santa rosa, improved in half moon bay to 3/4 of a mile, definitely an ebb and f

impressive and new york city is still gusting to 57. trenton, 60. atlantic city, 62. islip, 26 and the tree also fall. what's been interesting is we've had some of the highest gusts lately near the baltimore and washington, d.c. too. you had heavier rain, five inches of rain in baltimore and we had a 55 mile per hour gust and look at this, washington, d.c., one of the highest gusty winds. 06 mile per hour gusts and we have trees down in and around the greater d.c. area. so it's still dangerous. it will weaken rapidly as we go throughout the night to early tomorrow morning and tomorrow will be a little bit l better but wait until tomorrow afternoon before you start get out there and looking around to clean up from this huge mess. >> i'm struck by the geographic scope of the storm. we've had a lot of concentration on its effect on the coast particularly negotiating city and the new jersey coast. in the list of states i just read that have experienced death and other than new york, it was one each. it included west virginia. what is a storm doing in west virginia? how di

reports come in confirmed that hurricane sandy has hit atlantic city. that city was already underwater with the advanced warning of waves coming. leaves are eight to 12 feet. welcome, everybody. for the next three hours, we will be giving you nonstock special coverage on what is at stake on what is already a busy day in midtown, manhattan. it is about as windy and inhospitable as it has ever been in recent memory. further uptown, radio city, which is getting ready for its famed christmas show in a little more tha weeks. hang a left towards columbus circle, and you have an ongoing construction potential catastrophe developing. this is earlier today. outside a building known as 157. this is one of the grandest and most expensive buildings on the planet. i say that because when it is completed by the spring, it will be the tallest residential structure on all of god's earth. also, the priciest when all of god's earth. the penthouse of that building is $100 million. average sales for condos in that unit, and keep in mind, it is virtually all sold out, even

, atlantic city expressway. so that must have been covered a while ago. a little bit of high land in downtown. that's where we parked our vehicles. my camera that's shooting this is parked on a little bit of dry land. probably about three feet higher than where i am right now. but everything downtown has just got the ocean running all over it. there's no dry land between here and the ocean at all. >> ali, you stay safe. it's getting bad out there. stay safe. we'll come back to you when we can. let's check in with the governor of maryland, martin o'malley. governor o'malley, i appreciate you joining us. i know you've been busy. how are things in your state? >> we seem to be right in the middle of this thing, anderson. ocean city is getting slammed right now. we have power outages climbing to above 300,000 people without power and we expect that to go up to 1 million. it's the sound of trees cracking all over maryland, becomes the sound of this dark and stormy evening. we've had some inundated areas inside the bay

atlantic city's record is 960.7. we could easily break that and we'll be keeping you updated on that and then there's a whole other part of the storm, the snow. let's look at that. how much can you expect in parts of the mountains and west virginia especially up to a foot or more. some winter storm advisories and watches have already been posted and we're going to keep an eye on just exactly where that snow falls and when it falls. and that's going to be later in the storm monday and tuesday and also wednesday. dan and bianna? >> we are going to be all over this story for days. as sam was saying, and i think this is worst echoing, it doesn't really matter that much where this storm comes ashore because it is going to merge with a cold front and create a mess. a hybrid disaster-type storm with -- it's going to be a combination of a nor'easter and a hurricane, so this is going to sit and spin over this part of the country for days. we'll be covering it as we said for days. there's a lot of other news. this morning, let

atlantic city. we've been looking into atlantic counties, specifically, something like five feet of water on some of these roads and, folks, it will get worse. right now we know of at least 116,000 homes without power. those numbers will obviously change. but i just want to hit home this point, that everything about sandy is huge. you see the system. this is on your screen here. the wind field, this is something we'll talk to chad about, the wind field roughly 900 miles wide, 60 million people all the way from north carolina to maine could be affected by this hurricane. about 61,000 national guard troops have been deployed. the president making the point that a lot of the resources, as best as they can, have been prepositioned in anticipation of this storm. $87 billion worth of homes reportedly at risk. and in manhattan, the new york stock exchange closed today and we know it will be closed tomorrow. also shut down, amtrak, subways in new york, washington, d.c., philadelphia, and in boston. and at t

get atlantic city itself. many other cities up and down, coastal cities up and down the jersey shore are under water like this. >> shepard: we may have lost our connection with him again. it could have be a satellite connection. first i should tell you we have just gotten new information. i have told you we have had this rising surge in new york city. the surge has now flooded all of lower manhattan. it's flooded the fdr drive up the east side of the city. it's also flooded up the west side of the city and i have just gotten this urgent the brooklyn battery tunnel which connects manhattan with brooklyn is now flooding. the surge has come over the banks and into the tunnel and it is now flooding. pumping water out of the tunnels in new york city depending on the volume of water ask take 15 hours and four days if all of the tunnels begin to flood and the worse case scenario that they have been predicting finds us, we could be shut down for days. the hope is they will be able to keep the water out of most of the

of atlantic city heeded that advice. unfortunately, as there will be the case there are always those who will not heed the warning and decide to stay. it's better to have options than not need them than to need options and not have them. we had a plan in place for those few residents who would decide at the last minute that they would not try to heed our warning and vacate the city but would try to hunker down, tough it out only to find that at some other time they wanted to flee. we had that contingency plan in place. >> mayor lorenzo langford, mr. mayor, if you're free a little later in the morning, perhaps we'll try to get you and the governor on at the same time. appreciate your time this morning. >> i would love nothing better than that, than to confront the governor mano-a-mano. >> all right. we'll see if we can arrange that. thank you very much. savannah? >> we want to go back now to al who is along the jersey shore. al, good morning. >> well, good morning. again, sandy is 90 miles west of philadelphia, so it is s

it's hitting atlantic city soon. my district is 30 miles from that so i can see the sight of t we have police officers, nurses, social workers been out for the last 48 hours. they are doing a fabulous job. we have shelters set up. we have people who have been evacuated and i think we're going to be okay because of the hardworking public employees. >> now your particular constituents are going to take a direct heat and you said that there's already been prep rags and evacuations. how many people have been evacuated? or do you know? >> well, we're further in so we're probably in the hundreds, maybe low thousands on the evacuation. we have a lot of flooded areas and there's been an effort to get people out of there. trailer parks near creeks and rivers we have people in shelters now. i will tell you something, all of these people who criticize public employees ought to walk in their shoes today because they are doing a great job. >> as we are seeing the response of public employees, as you state, and government official

this is a city street in atlantic city and water was above my knee. if i would have tend to walk, basically the ocean was behind me. i'm not sure if you can see the red valley sign. if you continue, you're heading toward the ocean. the water just got deeper and deeper and deeper. the mayor of atlantic city was telling people, this was before it hit in full, we haven stading water in many places, 2 and 3 feet deep, fearing the water was going to be 5 and 6 feet deep. he told people at some point and has taken some criticism for that, if you haven't made it to a shelter yet, hunker down now. there were 500 or 600 people at one county shelter. interesting back and forth on that front. bottom line, you wanted to get out of here. it was brutal yesterday as it was in new york city. it was surreal to be standing half a block back and it was just a raging river, the winds were swirling, the water was swirling and kicking up and every emergency vehicle that drove by would kick up a wave that would rush my water to my waist. it was quite a scene in atlantic cit

atlantic city was in the heart of the storm. ali velshi has been taking a battering throughout the day. what is it like right there now, ali? >> i can tell you, erin, it is finally going down. the water is for the first time in several hours at my knees, not going further up. it's going down. but this water is full of vegetation from the ocean. the ocean is less than a mile behind me, about 3/4 of a mile. if you look down, you can see the red lights, showing up as a red glow on tv. that's the boardwalk. right beyond that is the ocean. this water, this is ocean water. there are waves in the streets of downtown atlantic city. this is where i am. when i was here a few hours ago, i was standing on wet pavement. it is now fully engulfed. there's power out. you can see power behind me. at this intersection right behind me, everything from here forward is out. everything from here back you can still see the power. that's caesar's, and bali. those are evacuated. there's a curfew in place. and an entire travel ban, you couldn't get out o

like we said on the edge of atlantic city. families trying to get in to check out the damage to their homes are being turned away. let me pan and show you what's going on. state police had the roads blocked going to atlantic city. they say they are going to open them tomorrow. right now families driving there are being turned away. one lady wants to get, in check out her home and see what may have happened. another gentleman who couldn't get into the hotel room because many of the casinos backed behind me booked the hotel rooms for their employees. rented a u-haul place and rented a u-haul and sleeping into the parking lot until he can get back into his home to see what remains. some 80,000 people in this area without power. some 2.5 million people statewide. shep, this is becoming a very very cold night. temperatures are dropping fast. and the governor said today, likely 7 to 8 days or longer before power is restored, shep. >> shepard: looking at the aerial pictures from there. i want to keep looking at those from atlantic ci

in the crosshairs atlantic city. the road into this sea front town is completely submerged. damage started early, massive chunks of boardwalk littering the streets. street after avenue after cul-de-sac inundated. so we just picked one. plain street and started knocking on doors. >> the water starts coming in our house we'll go upstairs and we got our kids. we're going to snuggle in a ball and hope for the best. >> reporter: once it peaked waves at the shore could grow to 20 feet. out at sea up to 40 feet. you got to take a look at how the winds have picked up and this is what happened. debris like pieces of the boardwalk three blocks, the ocean back there. crashes up and over. you see that one, pushing ocean water. the storm is on top of us right now. and it's only going to get worse during the next high tide. so this is taking shelter, what you're seeing right now. that's what we're doing if you can believe it or not one of the safest and driest places. this will be a historic storm for so many but the storm surge is still 90 minutes away from high tide here. we'll have man

boston, 41 in atlantic city. it continues into the day tomorrow with wind gusts still anywhere from 15 to 35 miles per hour. the water rises, they were a mess as well. kings point new york, 7:15, another high-rise. as you look around here, you can see the devastation and it's going to continue as we move in and sandy finally dies out. matt? >> thank you very much. obviously, it was new jersey that took the direct hit from this storm. the governor oft state, chris christie is holding a news conference right now bringing reporters up to speed on the damage. we had the chance to talk to governor christie a little bit earlier this morning. i started by asking him about the state of his state. >> we have over 2.4 million people without power across the state. we've had flooding in the new york bay areas, rareton bay. new jersey area is 59% without power. it all came from the tidal surge that came through raredon bay and new york bay, and the same thing affecting new york city, and we have a battered, battered new jers

nbc's ron allen in atlantic city. check out this picture of al roker from this morning imagine what this must look like now in point pleasant, new jersey. can you see here we've got the fdr in new york city. over water. i mean, these pictures just get more and more compelling as you move on. it's unbelievable. we're going to keep following this as they come in, but for now, bill, back over to you. >> a highly photographed storm, that's for sure. thanks very much. >>> hurricane sandy could cause as much as $20 billion in economic damage and losses. how much of that impact is going to be felt by the insurance industry? don griffin is with us tonight with the property casualty and insurers association of america. don, thanks for being with us tonight. >> a pleasure to be here. >> lots of superlatifs have been heard to describe the size and magnitude of this storm. do you have any sense yet of the possible cost of this storm for the insurance industry? >> well, it's awfully early for us to tell as it's just making landfal

although things did start to calm in atlantic city. it's north of the storm we're seeing our strongest impacts. this area of low pressure now that we'll call it will actually slow down. it's going to slow to the point where it's going to rain and rain across portions of pennsylvania and new york state. it's eventually going to cause inland flooding where several inches of rain is likely. look at baltimore. predicting more than 10.5 inches of rainfall. we have a coastal concern, but eventually yooer going to have an inland concern because of the flooding. winds are still gusting up to 68 miles per hour in new york city. trenton, new jersey, inland still gusting near 60 miles per hour. we had reports of an 82 miles per hour wind gust in islip. so the winds on the north side of this storm were certainly strongest. but elsewhere, we're still getting gusts of near 50 to 60 miles per hour. you see the orange blob there? that's stretching from northern new england still all the way down into north carolina. that's where winds will still e be

and for the president to come to atlantic city, i am most appreciative. he will see for himself the devastation that has been wrecked on this city by sandy. but i'm happy to say that although the loss in terms of property is catastrophic, on the human side the loss was very minimal. not to diminish the loss of one life that we had, but there has been no real serious injury to our residents. we did have one fatality. and so on the human side, i think we came through this as best as we could hope. certainly we would like to have preserved all life, but we did unfortunately lose one. but again, on the property side, catastrophic damage. on the human side, very minimal, so i'll very thankful for that. >> seeing things very important but the actions of the people of atlantic city restoring power more important. what is the timeline, sir, that you think that people will get power? >> as we speak, crews are out about atlantic city, mostly in the inlet area and working their way downtown. i'm hopeful that by tomorrow at this time we should have most of the energy

of atlantic city. the mayor was sending a mixed message. he told folks that they could shelter as a last resort in the city of atlantic city. a number of people chose to do so. that was the wrong thing to do. i ordered the evacuation. and now we're in the midst of doing urban search and rescue. >> so, mr. mayor, can you address that? >> i sure can. the governor is dead wrong. it's the governor who has spewing mix ed message. first was i countermanded his order. the order came through the state to the county and municipality that we are to make every effort to get every resident out of the city of atlantic city. we did a press release. we posted it on the city's website and had two press conferences on saturday and sunday, urging residents to flee the island. first the governor says i countermanded his order saying that residents should say. now he has backpedalled and said i have sent mixed messages. someone has given him the wrong information and the governor is dead wrong. and he needs to admit it. >

one of the major roads into atlantic city. a writer for the philadelphia enquirer newspaper nearby sent us these pictures. part of the city's historic board walk is now in the sea. other parts have collapsed there. and the new jersey governor chris christie ordered all of atlantic city's casinos to shut down. he did that, it's only the fourth time officials have closed those casinos since the city legalized gambling more than three decades ago. storm chaser dennis sherrod joins us now. is he live in atlantic city. i'm hearing the water is still rising, dennis. >> that it is, shepard. i'm at bali's casino now. and i don't know -- i don't know if you see it but the water is quickly rising here. it's, in fact, the evacuation routes, everything are cut of off now. power is beginning to go off throughout the city. west of here, south of here. and i'm pretty much isolated in one little small spot now which i will probably be in the parking deck shortly. that will be my only dry spot that i will have available. >> shepard: what's you

these are the streets of atlantic city. it all came together when this storm was at its full roughly 8:00, 9:00 last night. we're talking about the storm surge, high tide, the water up to my knee. if a car drove by it would splash above my waist. throw in that with the rain, gusting wons, 70, 90 miles an hour that could have knocked me into that water. chris christie wanted mandatory evacuations. in the mayor's press conference early last evening chris christie said that the governor gave people comfort to stay. governor christie wanted mandatory evacuations. some ended up in a hotel, makeshift shelters. i stayed in the sheridan. they were able to get here and commiserate with each other, there were dogs and kids and families in hallways as they were trying to make the best of the new normal here in atlantic city. we're waiting to see what going to look like as day breaks. back to that flooding. when it was at its worse, high tide, storm surge, there were reports that 70% to 80% of atlantic city was under water to some degr

of the atlantic city. a number of people chose to do so. that was the wrong thing to do. i had ordered the evacuation. now we're in the midst of doing urban search and rescue on a number of folks in atlantic city who were left behind there. we started that at sunrise this morning. we're going to be continuing that all day to evacuate the final people out of atlantic city. >> what's the price tag of all of this going to be? i'm looking at pictures from atlantic city, asbury park. it's bad across your state, very, very bad. what does this come to, financially? >> it's incalculable at this moment. i've not been able to tour my state or even get a handle on t i'm expecting to see a devastated jersey shore. that will be extraordinarily expensive to fix. and we have 2.4 million households without power. to give you some perspective, soledad, that's a million more households than lost power during irene last year. the infrastructure damage here is expense itensive. extensive. >> what happens -- i know this is a w

we're in new jersey right outside of atlantic city. the roads going into atlantic city are closed still tonight. the state police are blocking the roads. families that come by want to go back into atlantic city to check out for homes being turned around, told to come back tomorrow. that's not signature well with some people who want to just know what they're going to be going home to. they have no idea how much damage if they have damage or if there is a home there. one gentleman, in fact, can't get back to his home, can't get a hotel because the casinos you see behind me have booked most of the hotel rooms. he actually rented a hundred-haul trucks and sleeping in his truck until he can get back into his home hopefully some time tomorrow. there's some 2.5 million people around the state without power, about 80,000 just in this general area, gasia, and the temperature is really dropping tonight getting very very cold. >> craig, we've heard a lot about the bigger citys and how they're doing but tell me about some of the small town yous e

we ordered the evacuation of atlantic city and the barrier islands. the jersey shore took a beating. that's where the storm came on. new jersey took it worse than any place, i think. and we're dealing with it now. we're digging out from under. >> i know you spoke with president obama late in the night. what did he tell you? >> he called me last night around midnight, again, to ask what else could be done. and what we did last night, he was able to move forward very quickly with a major disaster declaration for new jersey. he worked on that last night with me. offered any other assets we need for help. i have to say, the administration, the president himself, and fema administrator, craig fugate, have been outstanding with us so far. we have a great partnership with them. and i want to thank the president personally, for his personal attention to this. >> and you're assessing the damage this morning. rescues continue. but this is going to take weeks to clean up. >> there's no question, george. it will take weeks to clean up. in new jersey, stay home to

brother craig is down near atlantic city. tell us exactly where you are and what's going on there. >> all right. geraldo, we're in ventnor city just down the road from atlantic city and behind me is the intercoastal waterway, now, it's the low lying areas of the jersey shore where people are most at risk. they're directly in the path of the storm. now, we're not expected to feel the full effect of hurricane sandy for another 24 hours when sandy makes landfall, but we're already feeling the outer bands of the rain and the wind. now, with the astronomical high tides, these homes behind me are already at risk. when the storm comes ashore in the delaware area combining with the two winter storms, becoming that hybrid monster storm,s tides are expected to be ten to 12 feet above normal. now, in the atlantic city area, where tens of thousands of residents have been ordered to evacuate, there's a problem. a lot of the residents have refused to leave, despite governor christy's order. earlier today, i spoke with the atlantic city may

we are not sure what we are going to find tomorrow in atlantic city, if we can go into atlantic city. it remains to be seen. what remanies, the boardwalk in atlantic city. we will see what remains of that storm tomorrow. we'll see the families that stayed here to ride out the storm. what they end up in the light of day. we saw off to the side of us, several hours ago, a transformer, just exploding up into the sky. the blue hue up into the sky and then it went dark, down the highway 30. we have a long night ahead of us and a long day tomorrow, as people get out and look and see what damage they have to clean up, if the rain clears out of here tomorrow. >> craig boswell with a nod to psychiatrists in the reference to sibyl. thank you very much. >> a good description. precing and serving new jersey, the garden state's finest, confront monster storm sandy. coming up, a conversation with a resofficer about what it takes to do his job on a night like this. i was having trouble getting out of bed in the morning because my back hurt so bad. the sleep number bed conforms to you. i wake up in t

and also talked to the mayors of new york city and atlantic city. talked about what they need. in the information he also one of the things we could do would be to expedite the process, by declaring major disaster relief. he'll have a conference call. eat seems like the campaign will go back on sket tomorrow, george. >>> we're getting more scenes of devastation. a large tanker ship washed up onshore of new york city. michelle charlesworth. power of the storm clearly evident right there. >> reporter: unbelievable. we pulled up. we jumped out of the truck. amy, this is a 700-ton tanker. dates back to 1962, we now know. it's "the john b. caddell." this is the narrows. that's where it came from. it was over, moored on the right, a mile away. sandy picked up this tanker. first of all, marina. and the 15-foot storm surge, picked it up and put it on the street here. this was a fence. it is completely smashed down. and people all over staten island, are making their way here and coming over to say they touched a tanker on front street. unbelievable picture this morning. >> thanks so mu

. >> people have been ordered to evacuate from atlantic city, new jersey, casinos are boarded up and closed, part of the boardwalk has wash wad way. >> tourists and locals are preparing for flooding and power outages. in new york city waves are splashing over the sea walls. here's t.j. winick live. >> reporter: good afternoon whether here on the southern tip of new jersey or 150 miles north up in new york city, we are expect to see water rise from 6 to 11 feet. it could have a devastating impact on the east coast. forcasters predict this could be the worst storm in two generations. hurricane sandy is strengthening and heading north. with 50 million in its path. the eye is expect to make landfall late monday night in atlantic city, new jersey but will.i.am pack communites hundreds of miles away. >>> -- >> -- >> this is going to be a big storm, a difficult storm the great thing about america is we all pull together. >> reporter: the real fear is sandy's storm surge, fueled by high winds and a full moon. >> we are talking the ocean coming in causing massive flooding. >> reporter: alread

ginger is in atlantic city. it may north of you, ginger, t but, as we're pointing out, it practically doesn't matter where this storm makes landfall, such a big storm with so many problems. >> it is. all of the waves, anywhere coastally, from jersey, up to long island, it's going to be an issue. already starting to see the water pile up. we have a little bit of seafoam. we got a little barrier that's happening right before that iconic boardwalk you see. that's what they're concerned about. if you get a ten to 20-foot wave, and the wind surging, you have the water surge. i want to show you the breadth of that storm and how -- >> difficulties there. with ginger zee. we'll get back to ginger and sam as the broadcast continues. we're going to be all over this story for days as sam was saying, it doesn't really matter that much where the storm comes ashore because it's going to merge with a cold front and create a hybrid, disaster-type storm, it's going to be a combination of a nor'easter and a hurricane, this is goi

atlantic city became an extension of the atlantic ocean. seaweed and ocean debris swirled in the knee deep water covering downtown streets. take a look at this. this is the snapped construction crane that's 75 stories dangling over a condo construction project. these are live pictures that you're looking at right now. it's swinging like a pendulum over midtown manhattan. now, this broke yesterday afternoon when the winds hit new york city. a nearby hotel was evacuated in case the snapped portion of the machinery broke and crashed. there are still rescue efforts ongoing as the storm continues to go through the east coast. cate caugiran, cbs 5. >>> sandy has been downgraded from a category 1 hurricane to a tropical storm. still got a lot of rain to come down though. let's check lawrence and find out what's in store today on day two. >> speaking of rain, there are some places in new jersey almost 12 inches of rain yesterday in places with nine inches were common and sandy coming onshore only as a category 1 but really had a very deep low press

we're here at atlantic city high school which is one of four locations set up at this shelter by the mayor of atlantic city and other emergency personnel despi despite governor's christie's orders for a mandatory evacuation that was supposed to happen sunday afternoon. in and around atlantic city early evening tonight i can tell you a number of the streets around those particular schools, those shelters, those locations were completely impassable so those shelters were basically on an island in and of themselves. we saw traffic signals, the big yellow traffic signals down in the street. you know, just in pieces, we've been in the high school since 7:30 tonight. when we arrived, we were told by the personnel here that the national guard troops and that's because, you know, police, fire, ems have been ordered to stand down through the night until about 7:00 tomorrow morning until this storm passes that they would not be able to respond. those emergency responders. but national guard troops, we can tell you, just within the last hour or so, brought about two dozen evacuees from two diff

ali velshi is in atlantic city. erin burnett in battery park where the water is already higher than it may have ever been before. jason carroll is in lindenhurst, long island where the worst of the storm is hitting right now, plus chad myers is tracking the path of this dangerous storm from the cnn severe weather center. i want to go to erin burnett, who is in new york's battery park, where the water is at record levels. erin, i have been watching you all night but there's been a dramatic escalation in the depth of this water even in the last half an hour. tell me what's going on right now. >> i can tell you what's going on right now. we're at about 13.54 feet for the storm surge right here in lower manhattan and that is a record. the last time that it was anywhere close to this was back in 1960 during the storm named donna, when the water came up to just over ten feet, 10.02 feet. we are clearly at a record and as you can see where i am now, i'm just watching where i step because the water is really murkey and it's

the city is basically flooded, atlantic city and there could be a lot of damage. what does it look like there? >> and we have a lot of flooding at point pleasant beach, david. the storm is moving much more rapidly than we first believed. as you said, before the high tide. you can see we are already getting a surge, take a look at the water surging in because we're approaching the high tide. low tide earlier today. big waves, but not that kind of surge. that is what is going to do the large majority of the damage out here. i don't have the wind has intensified any. closer than it was earlier, that will tell us how bad of a storm is wind up being on jersey shore. liz: jeff flock, stay right there. we will go to ocean city, maryland. steve. okay, you know what, doesn't surprise me we're having audio troubles. david: i want you to be careful of that undertow. as we take a look at that, how high up is the surf right now compared to where it was at high tide this morning about 7:00, 8:00 this morning? >> at the height of high tide we had water almost up to the cameras.

atlantic city right there. plus, those high winds and heavy rains expected to take down trees and power lines. we'll have the latest on the massive power outages expected. >>> and the cruise ships in sandy's path right now, riding out the superstorm. i'm sean. i switched to advil® 10 months ago. biking can be really tough on the lower back and your upper thighs. you have some nasty aches and pains. i really like advil® because it takes care of it all. neck ache, shoulder pain and definitely lower back pain. i use advil® because my wife, she's a nurse, she recommended it. [ male announcer ] make the switch. take action. take advil®. and if pain keeps you up, sleep better with advil pm®. the #1 selling brand. [ male announcer ] the way it moves. the way it cleans. everything about the oral-b power brush is simply revolutionary. oral-b power brushes oscillate, rotate and even pulsate to gently loosen and break up that sticky plaque with more brush movements than manual brushes and even up to 50% more than lea

here's the turnpike from philadelphia right to atlantic city. there's not much wind where ali is because he really is in the eye of the storm. when the eye goes over you, you lose your windfall, you lose your wind speed. the problem with where anderson cooper and rob marciano are, they're now into a new band of weather that will be coming in. every time the rain picks up, you can see these rain bands, the wind will pick up. the wind is shifting direction and this is the issue with all of this storm surge. i know they weren't expecting all this storm surge in the battery. we're now over 13 feet, a new record by a couple and a half feet and it's still going up. this was always a very big threat, the storm surge. we didn't see the storm surge earlier because the wind was from the northeast. that doesn't blow water to the shore, it just blows wind. well, now, now the wind has shifted because of where the center is. the wind is now coming this way. when the wind comes this way and this way here, it's going to pile up right along where lady liberty st