gulf of mexico. residents of mississippi and louisiana got short notice warnings today. get ready for tropical storm lee to hit this weekend. it may not be as powerful as a hurricane, but it's moving at a crawl, which means new orleans canals and levees will be tested by a prolonged rain. up to 15 inches or more are expected plus a storm surge. we'll get a live update on storm preparations in a few minutes. but first, today's stunner from the labor department, the country saw a net gain of no jobs in august. plus no change in the unemployment rate still 9.1%. it is the worst jobses report in a year. wall street crater, the do you industrial, s & p 500 and nasdaq all lost more than 2% today. president obama didn't even try to put a positive spin on the news. no on-camera statement, not even a written one. we did catch one clims of him today as he left for camp david without even turning to wave good by. with us now, the president's former economic advisor, christina roamer, she's now an economics professor at the university of california. professor romer, thank you for being here. let me ask you first off whether you saw any good news inside this report. >> you know, it was pretty hard to find anything. i think the basic view is this is a pretty wretched jobs report. i think if you look deeper, it becomes even worse. when we learn, for example, that hours went down a little bit. not only did we not add any jobs but we were cutting back on hours so that total labor input went down. or discovered that another 400,000 people are working part-time for economic reasons. that's another sign of distress in the labor market. so i think it is very hard to put any kind of a positive spin on this report. >> in fact, americans don't even try. we have a new cnn poll out today, cnn-orc poll. we asked is the economy in a recession. 82% of americans believe the economy is in a recession right now. only 18% believe the economy is not in a recession. convince them that this is not a recession. >> yeah. i think maybe we're too sort of caught up in what the right term for this is. so there's a technical definition of a recession that means the economy is literally falling. and right now it seems to be we're growing at a snail's pace. but the more fundamental point that this is an incredibly distressed economy, i think that's what the poll respondents are saying. and of course they're right. this is a terribly distressed economy. unemployment rate is 9.1%. whatever you call it, it is a tragedy and it's a situation that demands very bold action. >> do you think -- and i want to talk to you about that bold action and what you think it should be. but do you think it is possible technically, because i know you're an economist, technically speaking is it possible we could fall back into recession? >> you know, when growth gets as low as it has been, when job creation is as weak as it is, zero new jobs created in the month of august, of course the chances that you fall into a technical recession go up. i mean, it's not a very big line between no growth and actually losing jobs or actually seeing gdp fall again. so that's not my best guess of what's going to happen. i think like most forecasters, i think that growth is probably going to continue at sort of the snail's pace that it's been going. but of course, the risks of a recession have gone up. >> what does the president need to do? he's giving a big jobs speech coming up to talk to us about what he wants to do to member create more jobs. how does he do that? >> you know, i think there's a lot riding on this speech next thursday. i think the president not only the whole country but i think the whole world is looking for leadership on how do we get out of the mess that we're in? you know, i think what the president needs to give is what i would describe as a very bold, two-part strategy. it obviously has to have some very big, very significant measures, fiscal measures to try to create more jobs. and then it has to reassure everybody that we're going to get our fiscal house in order over the long term, so it's also going to have to talk about how we'll deal with the long-run deficit. and that's a hard message, but it's the right message and it's the one the president needs to convey. >> so he needs to convince people that in the short term to kind of jumpstart the economy we need to spend money and cut taxes. and in the long term we need to stop spending money and raise taxes. is that what you're saying? >> that's exactly right. and you know, it's easy to say that that sounds silly, but it's right. we have an immediate jobs problem. to deal with that certainly the federal reserve could be helping. but the other main tool we have is some kind of fiscal support. so more tax cuts, infrastructure spending, tax incentives for firms to do hiring. all of those things are what we know will create jobs in the short run. and then it's completely sensible to say you take the emergency measures you need to take now, but we're also fiscally responsible. we put on the table what revenues are we going to raise over time, what spending are we willing to cut back, what are we going to do to entitlements. you spell that all out. but that can wait for five years, ten years before that has a big impact on the economy. >> you know, try to put some meat on the idea that we need to spend more money here. where do we need to spend it to do -- make a dent in that jobless rate? and how much do we need to spend? >> i think that's exactly the right question. so i think the big sort of the big picture is, we're not going to do this with 1 billion or $2 billion programs. that with 14 million americans unemployed, what we're talking about is something substantial. so we've heard coming out of the white house that they want to for example extend the payroll tax cut that they did last december. all right? so that's about 110 billion for a year. but you certainly need something i think substantially bigger than that. something -- a new jobs tax credit that might be another $50 billion or even more. a big infrastructure program. so you really are, i think, having to talk about some significant amounts of money if we're actually going to move the dial. there can be wonderful, small programs that could be helpful, but they're not going to put millions of people back to work. >> so if i sort of add that up, you're kind of in the range of $300 billion in new spending. is that about right? >> of new spending and tax cuts, maybe even somewhat above that. you know, i'll give you an example. i've been talking about a bold, two-part plan. one of deficit commissions headed by pete daminici and alex riplin had a $6 billion payroll tax cut and $5 trillion of reductions over the next ten. i don't think i would go that far. but that's the idea of a big, bold plan. and we've seen very responsible, fiscal conservatives put out that kind of a plan as what you do about jobs now and what you do about deficit over time. >> i want to ask you one last question. you all when you were in the government were part of the report, the forecast in january of 2009. and we went back and looked at it. and right now, according to that forecast, with the stimulus plan that was put into place, unemployment should be at about 6.5. we clearly know it's not at 6.5. what went wrong, and what do we learn from that so that the president can do something different next wednesday? >> i think the most important thing is what went right, right? so in that report we certainly made a prediction about what the recovery act would do. it would create 3 to 3.5 million jobs. something i dearly wish the president would go on tv and say with all his heart is, that recovery act worked. it absolutely was an important step. >> but surely not the way you wanted it to work since you thought the unemployment rate would be at 6.5. i don't want to relitigate what you wrote. i'm just saying is there something there that you thought, you know what, we should have dumped a lot more money in? >> oh, absolutely it should have been bigger. so if you ask how did that forecast go wrong, it was all in the baseline. it was predicting where we were going to go without stimulus. and we absolutely got that wrong. the economy -- and it wasn't just us. it was basically every forecaster didn't recognize how severe this recession would be. and so certainly had we recognized that, as it was i was pushing for a larger stimulus. but boy, i'd have laid down and died for even much bigger. because i think what we know now is that fiscal stimulus does work, and study after study is confirming that. it's just that given where the economy was headed, what we did wasn't enough to turn it around as much as it needed. to it was helpful. it helped to stop the bleeding. but we definitely needed more. and i think that's what the president has a chance to enunciate on thursday of, okay, we've now seen this play out. here's the more i'm going to do now to put people back to work. >> thanks to former obama economic advisor christina romer. thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> great to be with you. our next stop is new orleans where they're preparing for a slow-moving tropical storm and localized flooding. we'll see just how bad it could get. ♪ okay, so who ordered the cereal that can help lower cholesterol and who ordered the yummy cereal? 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[ male announcer ] they'll see you...before you see them. cops are cracking down on drinking and riding. drive sober, or get pulled over. it's a lifetime. gone. we'll make it right, john. when the unthinkable happens, we're right there with you to help you get your life back on track. nationwide is on your side. people along the coast of louisiana, mississippi and alabama are preparing to deal with a foot or more of rain. this afternoon new orleans mayor richlandry joked that people have been praying for rain this week to put out a swamp fire, but those prayers are being answered by a tropical storm forecast to come ashore this weekend and just hover. ed lavendera is in new orleans tonight. ed, how bad is it supposed to get there? already looks like it's there. so how much worse is it going to get and what are they doing to prepare? >> reporter: well, it's interesting, this is a really large storm, a tropical storm lee. but from everything we're hearing hear is that people really expect this to be a rainmaker and a very constant rainmaker throughout much of the weekend. this is a massive storm that is not only large, but moving incredibly slow, about two miles per hour. most people walk faster than that, so this will take its time meandering over the gulf coast, parts of the mississippi coast and into texas as well. but the concern will be flooding. this is the beginnings of this. the heaviest and strongest winds are supposed to hit the louisiana coast tomorrow afternoon. so we are anticipating that. but they are expecting a lot of flooding. in some places, expecting perhaps as 20 inches. 12 inches in other parts. so that flash flooding could be very much a big concern as you obviously saw with hurricane irene along the northeast. that is a big concern, and this will be bringing a great deal of rain. candy? >> obviously, ed, the holding of those levees is vital it to the city of new orleans. we know that if we know nothing else after hurricane katrina. how confident are city officials that those levees will hold? >> reporter: they were talking about that today and one thing they're doing is making sure that all of the pumping stations which move waters through the canals here in the new orleans area, the mayor says that all of those pumps stations are working properly, that all the backup generators are working properly. so as of now, i feel confident that everything will hold. i don't hear a lot of people talking about any kind of dangers to the levee system in terms of breaching levees. it would take a great deal of rainfall for that to happen. but obviously pumping this water out and getting it out of here is a big concern and that's why those pumping stations are so crucial. but as far as we know right now, all of that is working properly. >> ed lavendera for us tonight. thank, ed. once it gets beyond the louisiana and mississippi coast, tropical storm lee may wash out labor day for much of the southeast. meteorologist karen maginnis in the cnn severe weather center with me. karen, where is the storm headed? obviously right for new orleans and then where? . >> well, this is forming so close to land, and it does not have typical characteristics of a tropical storm. meaning we don't see kind of that concentric look, we don't have a clearly defined eye. but the computer models are still in very much disagreement as to where this is going to be headed. take a look at this. some have it just kind of swirling around the coast, some have it going off towards the southeast. there were even a few that had it going over towards texas. i see in our latest run that it looks a little bit more defined as to where we anticipate making landfall. perhaps sometime on sunday, maybe the middle part of the day, but somewhere along the louisiana coast. but i say that, but just to be aware, this is a system that is not moving very far. not moving very fast. still at tropical storm intensity. and yet some of these areas are going to get drenched. they need the rainfall. they don't need it all in 24 hours. we'll see for tonight a couple inches of rain for new orleans extending over towards lake charles, violet. all of this coastal communities because this moisture keeps getting pumped in and pumped in. all along the coast. and some areas as i mentioned could see up to 20 inches of rainfall. the computer model is suggesting that. take a look at this. where you see the white shaded area, that's where we're looking at the heaviest amounts. but all across the southeast, this is where we're anticipating some much needed rainfall. three, four, five inches of rain even in northern sections of georgia. maybe as much as ten inches. but a lot much these areas have experienced severe drought. over here in texas, needed rain. desperately. we were hoping this would be a benevolent weather system for texas. it looks like the bulk of that precipitation more towards the northern gulf of mexico. but we'll keep you updated. >> thank you so much. when it rains it powers but apparently not in the right places. thank you so much. new jersey governor chris christie has been dealing with his own hurricane disaster. irene caused chronic flooding throughout the state, but this weekend, the governor will be personally helping the new jersey coast economic recovery. >> i'm heeding my own call. we're at the beach for the weekend. mary pat and i and the kids will be down here. we'll be going to different spots and hoping that everybody follows the lead. coming up, will this be a jobless labor day and are there more fears of another recession? personally helping the new jobless labor day and are there as we head into labor day weekend, at least 14 million of our fellow country men and women don't have jobs. nearly 9 million more have only part-time jobs. either because of cut backs or because they can't find full-time work. today's jobs report raises fears of a second recession and even more people being thrown out of work. is there any end in sight to this? with us now, mark zandi from moody's analytics. and reuters global editor at large, christa freeland. thank you both for being here. what a lousy august this has been for the markets. i realize we're into september, but now they have the jobs report on top of it. how are the markets doing? >> well, august has been a rotten month for the markets. just as it has been for most americans in terms of the economy. i think there had been a hope that the recovery had started and i think august really, you know, solidified the fear that a lot of people had that actually the economy was very weak even if not going into a double dip recession, the recovery was extremely weak. and that made people worry about the value of their companies and, therefore, the value of holding shares. >> and mark, it does surprise me, because often times i think we get bad news and the market goes up. now the market seems to be acting like a normal human being. >> i think the markets are discounting weak economic growth but i don't think they're discounting a recession just yet. american companies' balance sheets are strong. so i think investors looking at individual stocks of companies like those stocks. they really don't want to sell them. so i think that's the key reason why the stock market hasn't fallen more and odds are still that the broader economy will avoid a recession. >> and since you brought it up, these companies are sitting on a lot of money. what is it that's going to induce them to hire? >> they just have to feel more confident. and i think what has happened over the last month or two is that we've lost faith, that the spectacle in washington over the debt ceiling, the s&p 500 downgrade, some of the problems in europe have eviscerated confidence. businesses are shell shocked as are everyone else and they've stopped hiring and expanding. so they need to get back that faith, that confidence. and i think the only way that will happen is if policymakers, the federal reserve board, congress, the administration, european policymakers step up and do roughly the right thing over the next few months because if they don't we will be in a recession. >> i want to ask you what you believe the right thing to do is, but i want to talk about the jobs report. we all know zero job growth in the month of august is now what we're seeing. that's bad enough. is there anything else in there that just sets your hair on fire? >> i'll give you some good news an bad news. the good news is those newspapers are actually a little bit better than they look because the verizon strike is reflected in those numbers and those people have gone back to work. so it's not quite as bad as it looks. the bad news is wages also went down just a little bit. so that's what happens when there is a lot of unemployed people. it's hard to ask for a raise. and i think that is significant because what it says is it's not just the people who are unemployed who are suffering the most, but there are a lot of people who are very insecure about hanging onto their job. and that insecurity is real. it's not just some neurosis. and think it's weighing on the economy overall. if you're worried about whether you're going to keep your job, you're unlikely to go out and spend. and as mark was saying, if you're the ceo of a company, that means that maybe you're going to hold back making big investments because you're not sure that the consumer demand is going to be there to support them. >> there's a bit of a feel of a chicken and an egg thing going on here because consumers aren't buying things because they're worried they're going to lose their jobs and companies aren't hiring people because they're worried consumers won't buy. >> good point. but this is the same chicken and egg problem we always have in the business cycle and it's broken by business people deciding, hey, i can't continue to grow my earnings, maintain my stock price if i don't look for revenue opportunity, if i don't take that leap of faith, if i don't let those animal spirits run a little bit and invest and hire people. so we've gotten pretty close to that happening at different points in the last year, year and a half. of course recent events have been a real problem for business confidence. but assuming that we don't have any other missteps here, i think businesses will look at their balance sheet, them look at their profit, all that cash and say i got to take a chance, i'm going to start to hire. and that will create the income that will support the consumer spending that will get businesses to hire even more and we'll get into that self reinforcing business cycle. that we've always gotten to in the past. >> at the same time, though, we are looking in this report at a decline in the number of hours worked. average number of hours worked, does that give you pause? >> yeah, sure, that's a leading indicator of jobs. businesses will cut hours before they actually cut workers. so that is a disconcerting sign. one positive sign, though, is that i think at least so far businesses have not increased layoffs. they've cut back on their hiring, they have hiring freezes in place and that's why we're not getting any job growth, but they're not increasing layoffs. and that would be what we need for a recession. so hopefully they won't do that and they'll gain traction and start hiring again. >> three hard hit places, government, manufacturing and construction. just dissect those three and tell me why. >> it's pretty obvious, governments are actually cutting spending. and i think that's the opposite of what mark would counsel when he was talking about needing con concerted government action. so the government is adding to the problem by laying more people off. >> basically state governments, too, we're talking about here. >> that's right. and that's not the classic response to a recession. classically you've had the government be able to hire. but partly because of the deficit debate and partly because of i think this extreme ideological divide in america. the government is unable to do that. construction i think is self-evident. there was a huge construction bubble and there was a huge morl bubble. and that means that there's an overhang of housing stock and not a lot of people are building new houses. people are having a hard time selling the houses they already have. the manufacturing number is the one that actually worries me the most because i think at the beginning of the recovery, we actually saw manufacturing picking up and you were able to say, wow, maybe this is a turn -- a little bit of a turn around and maybe american manufacturing in particular is making a recovery in the global economy overall. so that was the figure that made me the most impressed. >> and let me wrap this up with the same question for both of us. christa, give me the top two things you think washington should do. not whether it will be able to do because of partisan bickering but should do to get this economy out of idle essentially. >> i would say spending on infrastructure and -- >> roads and bridges. >> roads and bridges which puts people to work, and cut the payroll tax. and i would just make a final point which is we talk about like it's just numbers. but what should worry us most is long term high unemployment. which is what america is now experiencing. and it's unusual for the united states. that leaves generational scars. some of those people will never have jobs. kids are going into a labor market that is really, really tough. and it could change america for the worst. >> mark, let me get your comment on that because i do think that kids come in to an america that's very different from the one that i started in the job market. but i also want to get your thoughts on the top two things the president and congress can do to help. >> only two, can i have more? >> sure. >> i would second christa's two, and then i would also argue that we need corporate tax reform. we need to focus on broadening the tax base, at least scaling them back, will generate enough revenue to help with deficit reduction and we could also lower those marginal tax rates for businesses to allow them to compete in a global economy. we need them to be able to export. that's where jobs will come in the future and that's where our kids and our grandkids will get their jobs from producing the things that the rest of the world will want from them and things that they produce. >> so just because i'm a political junky, that sounds like the huntsman plan at least as far as the corporate tax reform. >> well, actually, i think there's pretty broad support for that across the political spectrum. the president, treasury, republican congress, governor huntsman. so that's why i mention it. i think it's hard work because each tax deduction and credit has someone who will defend it, they will go to the mat for it, so it's politically hard to get done. but i think it's something that economically makes sense and politically it also makes sense. mark zandi, christa freeland, thank you so much. >> pleasure. next up, new evidence of atrocities by members of moammar gadhafi's family including an office with its own jail cell. ♪ sing polly wolly doodle all the day ♪ ♪ hah welcome back. here is the latest news you need to know. arizona will not throw a monkey wrench into the republican party's primary schedule. governor jan brewer just announced she won't sign a bill that would have moved up her primary to late january ahead of iowa and new hampshire. in return the republican presidential candidates will hold a debate in arizona. >> the government is suing 17 banks and financial institutions in an attempt to recover money lost to bad mortgages. among the targets are bank of america, citi group, goldman sachs and jp morgan chase. the head of moveon.org is blasting president obama and threatening not to work for his re-election because of the president's decision to delay new clean air standards for ozone. a federal judge today refused to throw out the perjury case against baseball star roger clemens and set a new trial for april. clemens is accused of lying to congress about using steroids. >> the list of gadhafi family atrocities is long and one son even had a jail cell in his office. >> reporter: now being cared for in tripoli's burn hospital, she is weak, but able to gesture a greeting to those who have helped her and express her profound gratitude. >> translator: i want to say thank you very much because all the people have helped me. thank you very, very much. >> reporter: she's overcome with emotion, but these are tears of relief, not pain. she's christian and her faith has been crucial in coming to term with what's happened. >> translator: thank you very much. i want god to heal me. and return me back to my family. >> reporter: the national transitional council's new health minister also visited her and summed up the horror of her or ordeal. >> we'll ask the minister of justice to send someone who can document it and then we document everything and then after that, she has free waiver. if she wants to go that would be great, as well. >> reporter: this man is too scared to reveal his identity but showed me another of his properties, where he said more horrendous abuse was meted out to staff by hannibal's wife. >> translator: he's not the only one. there is a man who burned her twice. >> reporter: he says the foreign staff were targeted the most. a picture is emerging of horrendous abuse at hannibel gadhafi's houses. i've been contacted by another nanny who describes alene gadhafi as psychologically sick and a saidist and this room seemed to bear out her testimony. what family has their own jail cell. she's facing months of recuperation and surgery. dan rivers, cnn, tripoli. coming up, a new round of wikileaks documents is released and the state department is up in arms. are u.s. lives being put at risk? and later we'll update you on the storm expected to soak the southeast this labor day weekend. t... to investigate it... ...prosecute it... and stop criminals. our senior medicare patrol volunteers... are teaching seniors across the country... ...to stop, spot, and report fraud. you can help. guard your medicare card. don't give out your card number over the phone. call to report any suspected fraud. we're cracking down on medicare fraud. let's make medicare stronger for all of us. tonight more than a quarter million u.s. diplomatic cables that are supposed to be secret are available online. exposing scores of diplomatic sources and informants. wikileaks which is behind the document dump boasts that it is shining a light on 45 years of u.s. diplomacy. the state department calls the release irresponsible, reckless, dangerous and illegal. here to assess the damage, p.j. crowley. also with us, fran townsend. she advised president george w bush and now is a member of the external advisory boards for the cia and department of homeland security. we're out of time but thanks for coming. let me start with you first, fran. these wikileaks, we're running up to 9/11, there's a lot of talk about being on the alert, no specific threats. does anything in this worry you insofar as the immediate issue of homeland security? >> you know, candy, it's hard to assess because after all, this is such a volume of documents, i don't think anybody has been entirely through it. so it's hard to know. you worry about things like junior diplomats being denied access to information, their inability to put information in kabls that can be shared. you worry about the informants, human rights activists, the sort of people who talk to embassies around the world and expect protection, being able to be targeted for retribution. but it's too soon to really understand because of the shear volume of what's been put out there. >> and p.j., that really is -- there are diplomatic ramifications, but let's talk about the most important part, and that is that this really does expose some people to real live danger. >> sure. and in this latest group of cables put out, some of those cables had identifiers as strictly protect. that meant that it was sensitive information or the sensitive nature of the individual who was talking to a u.s. diplomat somewhere in the world that put that person at risk and now with that exposure, he or she is put at additional risk. >> and, fran, if you have the united states government's business, if you will, out there involving all of these people who have in some way tried to be helpful to the united states, does it not then sort of -- can we not extrapolate that we will get information that is not as good in the future for fear of these people being exposed? >> i think that's absolutely right. and that's a difficult thing to measure. the critics will say this is a good thing to transparency, but i think we have to assume that when people hear that their identities have been revealed, whether or not they're directly threatened, people in the future will be less likely to provide information and cooperate with the u.s. government. and that's always bad. when you want policy makers in washington to have is accurate and complete reporting from the field and around the world. from our embassies. >> and pj., hillary clinton sort of joked that she should have a leather coat like she was on an apology tour. but joking aside, doesn't this make diplomacy difficult when some very sort of unvarnished views of allied leaders come out and they're all over the web? >> oh, sure. and for a period of time both prior and even today i'm sure that the secretary had the opportunity to talk again to leaders around the world and make sure they understand that while there's reporting from the field, the policy is made from washington, d.c. and these kabls don't necessarily reflect u.s. policy. and she's done a yeoman's job over the past nine months of trying to make sure that the damage that is caused and the irritation that is created is temporary and not permanent. but as fran was saying, we've had instances over the past few years where it was a tip from overseas that made the difference in detecting and then disrupting terrorism plots still being perpetrated against the united states. and if somebody all of a sudden withholds information, that can have a real effect. we'll maybe never know whether that makes a difference or not, but it is this aspect of bringing information together, connecting the dots, if you will, that has been the success of the last ten years. and you don't want to have anything that interferes with that ongoing international cooperation. >> so what's a government to do? we're in a day and aim when information can be hacked. people are knowledge of how to get into a government computer can pass it along and then it's out there for the world to see. a, how does government conduct its business and, b, is there anything realistic that can be done to stop this kind of wholesale exposure? >> there's no guarantee with all the due diligence you can do that that will never happen. but what you want to do is put process in place so you can't take a thumb drive and put it into a classified computer system. so there ought to be minimum standards that go a good distance in protecting sort of a massive kind of leak. there will always be spies and there will be insiders who go bad and take a document. what you went to prevent is wholesale leaks like that. >> pj, if you were back in government and had to forward some confidential information, how would you do that now? >> that's the dilemma. next centric database set up by the state department with the cooperation of the pentagon to make sure that state department information was broadly available across the government. now, the aftermath of wikileaks, they've pulled back on some of theett the networks with that information was available. that has an impact. also i think if you're an ambassador, you'll think to yourself is this going to end up on the front page of a major newspaper. that might have a chilling effect. the information will still come forward, but perhaps rather than the cable, it will be put in an e-mail, in a phone call. that means the reporting is still taking place, but as fran was saying, it means we don't have all the information in one place at the same time to do what we need to do. to evaluate threats to the united states. so it's a very subtle potential impact here. but nonetheless, this pushes us perhaps against the kind of need to share attitude that we've embraced since 9/11 back to a compartmentalization from information. >> need to share to need to know. thank you so much. coming up, we'll go back to the cnn weather center for the latest on the storm expected to soak the gulf coast this weekend. plus, is that another hurricane zeroing in on the east coast? 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[ crunching, sipping ] be happy. be healthy. can i try yours? be happy. be healthy. host: could switching to geico reon car insurance? or more host: do people use smartphones to do dumb things? man 1: send, that is the weekend. app grapgic: yeah dawg! man 2: allow me to crack...the bubbly! man 1: don't mind if i doozy. man 3: is a gentleman with a brostache invited over to this party? man 1: only if he's ready to rock! ♪ sfx: guitar and trumpet jam vo: geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. any questions? no. you know... ♪ we're not magicians ♪ we can't read your mind ♪ ♪ read your mind ♪ we need your questions ♪ each and every kind ♪ every kind ♪ will this react with my other medicine? ♪ ♪ hey, what are all these tests even for? ♪ ♪ questions are the answer ♪ yeah ♪ oh the latest on tropical storm lee hitting the gulf coast. >> we do have the latest information regarding tropical storm lee, and from the national hurricane center they're still keeping it at tropical storm intensity. still winds around 45 miles per hour. but here's the key. it's going to be moving very, very slowly over the next 24, 48 hours. so the bulk of that precipitation moving on in from lake charms, new orleans, lake ponchetrain. even towards mobile bay and biloxi and walton county. lots of folks anticipate today go to the beaches for one last hurrah before the fall season really starts to kick. in but this is going to be a soaker. how much? well, we're looking at between 10 and 20 inches of rainfall. this is low-lying ground. so flooding is going to be a big issue here because it is moving so slowly. computer models now are a little bit more in agreement moving along the coast of louisiana. but bringing some much-needed rainfall across the southeast. this is an area that is very, very par muched. in some cases rainfall deficits about a half a foot or more. so the rainfall's going to be welcome here, but for new orleans it may be too much too fast, at least in the short term. but not just for new orleans, all along the low-lying coast, this is where we'll be watching out for the potential for severe flooding. there are no mandatory evacuations, there are voluntary evacuations in coastal sections of louisiana. candy, back to you. >> karen maginnis, thanks. it has been almost a week since hurricane irene wreaked havoc on the east coast, and the effects of the storm are still being felt. north carolina alone is estimating the damages at more than $400 million and more than half a million people are still without power in a handful of states. and in hard-hit%, where some of the flooding occurred, several towns are struggling to get essential services up and running. vermont governor peter shumlin now joins us from the state capital. governor, give me an overview if you will focusing on what worries you most right now. >> really what worries me most is just getting everybody the access they need to basic services, hospitals, grocery stores, and getting them back to work. and we just got absolutely whacked by the storm. we've had whole communities where we've lost obviously hundreds and hundreds of houses. businesses have been whacked. we've lost untold miles of roads and bridges. so we're getting back on our feet. we've got the power back on to almost all vermonters. that was a big accomplishment this week. but we've got a lot more work to do. >> we spoke with the wyndham county sheriff earlier today, he told us that at this point wilmington is the area that he would kerr in the most dire situation, that they still lack essential services. is that your understanding? and what do you do to get them back up to speed? >> well, to be candid, i would say that we have many communities in that situation. we have the national guard here. president obama has been extraordinary in getting us the aid as quickly as he has. and we're in there. we've got the national guard in there, the red cross. we're starting to open up roads. we now have at least what i call oak trails to every single community in vermont so that we can get vehicles in. and we're resilient up here in vermont. we're tough. we're self-sufficient. we stick together. we've got tight communities. and we're pulling through. >> what is your level of concern if any about people planning to travel to vermont over this labor day weekend? it's such a beautiful state, as i know i don't have to convince you of that. and i ask that because again the sheriff said his biggest worry is people coming in to sort of look at the damage, or coming in and thinking that things are okay and it just would sort of bleed some of the services that they're trying to give to residents. do you worry about tourists coming in? >> no. we desperately want you here. and if you want to give a little love and help to your friends in vermont, one of the greatest states in the country, this is the time to come and not only visit but spend tourist dollars. listen, we need all the help we can get up here. the fact of the matter is that much of vermont, the entire north end, was entirely untouched by the storm. so while we have huge suffering in central and southern parts of the state, our interstate highways are open to the north. and we'd encourage you to come. this is leaf peeking season up here. i'm going to guarantee you we're going to have the best leaf season vermont's ever seen because our maple trees are going to get more water than the history of this state and water bring brilliant colors. this is the time to come here, give us a hand. spend your dollars here. buy vermont products. we need all the help we can get. >> and what do you suppose? do you have a grip on how much this has cost the state first in damages and second in economic losses? >> well, it's just -- it's not possible to measure yet. we're still counting destroyed houses, we're still tallying up businesses that have been pushed under. so we're just trying to get everyone back on their feet. but frankly to go to numbers now would be about as reliable as heading to vegas. >> i understand. how are your emergency responders doing? do you need relief coming into the state? are you able to give them any time off? it's been a long time since that storm hit. >> well, you know, we have because of the president's extraordinary action we have all the help that we need right now. and they're doing their job. and i just got to say, the thing about vermonters is we live on top of mountains and valleys and we deal with huge storms. and we are extraordinarily resilient. i've seen communities acts of kindness and just bravery, people reaching out to neighbors who literally just lost their own homes. the stories, the kind of community that's happening here in vermont is just really bringing out the very best news. and we've got all the outside professional help that we need. we're going to start to rebuild. >> that's great news. vermont governor peter shumlin. thank you so much. that's all from us tonight. "piers morgan tonight" starts right now. sunday, bringing strong winds and almost two feet of rain. a