tuesday into the front half of the day wednesday. we should clear out wednesday afternoon, thursday looks nice and spotty shower chances return for friday and sunday but nothing major. coming up how the capital you don't pretend to be unbiased, red tie, red pin. >> red marker. >> rockin' the red on seventh street tonight, too. >> game two tonight, it's going to be good. better. april showers bring may flowers and hopefully for the capitals the power play is in full bloom on the first dave day of the month. in game one the tampa bay lightning killed the power play, washington 0 for 5. tonight a chance to plant a new seed. for more we go live to join lindsay czarniak. >> reporter: the capitals are hoping for inspiration and the caps took the ice for their pre-game skate. 22, mike knuble who suffered the hand injury and he hasn't been on the ice for the past three games with the caps so they obviously will be very excited to have him back tonight but as bruce boudreau hinted, this could just be for inspiration. meanwhile the capitals know it's important to win tonit. they don't want to have to head down to tampa with two losses. the capitals know they've got to start off with a lot more energy than they did last time. they didn't start off strong like they would have liked. they hung in there and the capitals had a 2-1 lead but the tide turned and once the lightning found their rhythm they took advantage of the capitals team struggling on a penalty kill. how much more difficult do you think they'll be to face tonight because of that momentum they gained from game one? >> well they believe they can beat us now which is going to be big for them, i think. we'll have to take the will out of them early, make sure we get a lot of shots on goals. >> reporter: what was the biggest lesson learned from game one loss? >> stick to the game plan. the coaches did a good job of figuring what to do to beat them. we had a good lead, changed the style of play we were playing and it cost us. >> reporter: what is the most critical improvement that you see from your group tonight? what are you looking for the most? >> i just think we need to be more connected and committed to what we do, rather than you know, just be so emotionally involved that we're going individually all over the place, which is what i thought we were doing last night, or last game. >> reporter: i'm sure bruce boudreau gave his team an earful between last game's loss and tonight, but bottom line he hopes they bring more energy and able to pull out the win tonight against the tampa bay lightning. talking baseball now, ryan zimmerman expected to miss at least six weeks the nationals will definitely have to step up to the plate. zimmerman will have surgery on tuesday to fix a sports hernia, and before the all-star went on the disabled list, he was batting .357. this afternoon, nats against the giants. screech and the kids at the ballpark having a good old time and kids you'll like this, jordan zimmerman facing matt kaine, check out the gloof work, flows to first, see it again, between his legs. craig knows my catch phrase already, glovely, and ends the inning. zimmerman allowed two runs in over six innings. pudge rodriguez bottom eight, two on, base hit to center, espinosa scores, here comes ian desmond, the throw is cut off, they get rodriguez at second but the damage is done, the nationals defeat the giants 5-2 and can win the series tomorrow night. in chicago, orioles against the white sox, zach briton going for his fifth win of the season. strike inside corner, only stroupt of the game, he goes six innings, allows just one run. top five, orioles lead 2-0. bases loaded, one is driven into the gap in left center that, gets down, bases clearing double, part of a five-run inning, the orioles win it 6-4, and they'll have a chance to sweep the series tomorrow night. capitals game two, lightning 7:00, top of the hour, i'm pumped. >> lots of folks pumped. hopefully they can even the series. going back to the nats, you said this on the capitals sports show. >> "capital games." >> i hope folks are watching. they look like a better baseball team than in years past. >> they have to be without ryan zimmerman so the young guys have to step up, the veterans also have to step up. there's a lot of young players on this team and it's important for them to follow suit with pudge rodriguez. the base hit is clutch. they have to swing the bats well. >> the pitching has gotten better. >> hopefully we have caps highlights at 11:00. this is "nbc nightly news" with lester holt reporting tonight from tuscaloosa, alabama. >> good evening. four days after the historic outbreak of tornadoes that swept across the south, leveling communities, killing 342 people, we learn today still hundreds of others are officially listed as missing, unaccounted for. four days in it's still difficult for us to show you how much was lost. take a look. one tornado in tuscaloosa cutting across several miles through heavily populated areas. every pile of brick, every pile of wood here tells a story. this was a japanese restaurant. 20 people took refuge in the office. it's still standing. ten others took refuge in a cooler. they all survived as the building literally disent grated around them. officially 39 people have died here in us the tuscaloosa. there's a growing fear that number of will go up. john? >> there are so many stories here. remarkable survival. devastating loss. people tonight are pulling together, picking up and trying to move forward. >> reporter: a show of force today from the obama administration as five agency heads, including three cabinet secretaries, got a first-hand look at the damage and the needs. >> i don't think words can fairly express the level of devastation here. >> reporter: in heart-hit tuscaloosa, officials released the names of the 39 confirmed dead. their ages ranging from 95 years to 8 months. more than 450 are still missing. >> my heart tells me that we will have many more fatalities. >> reporter: the work of rebuilding power grids shifted into high gear. across the south at least 650,000 customers remain without electricity. ♪ >> reporter: at tuscaloosa st. john baptist church, a spiritual rebuilding. 14 members of the congregation lost their homes but none of them lost their lives. >> the tornado had no addresses. amen. no addresses were on there. there were no black and whites. >> reporter: in the alberta city neighborhood, 14 people rode out the tornado in the basement of this home and escaped with just scratches. >> when we first stood out and started screaming, because we knew our house was gone, but we looked around and everybody's house was gone. >> reporter: the university of alabama's school year was cut short by the tornado. but students are sticking around to run a relief operation. since they started on friday, more than 12,000 meals cooked, packed and delivered. other donations of diapers, toiletries, canned goods, sorted, packed, out the door for delivery almost as fast as they come in. the heart is the power of twitter. >> we need white bread. ten minutes later a man will show up and say i have $100 worth of sliced bread. it's the way our generation is and our community responds. >> reporter: a single facebook post sent volunteers descending on an elementary school. they recovered books from the rubble of the school's library before tomorrow's expected rain. >> i was hoping to get a handful of people i knew to help out. i got here at 10:30 when i said and there were already ten people out here working. people i didn't know. strangers. >> reporter: it's not just local folks who are lining up to help, lester. the city's volunteer hotline has been getting calls as far away as new hampshire and california, all with one question. what can we do to help? >> what an incredible outpouring. john yang, thanks very much. from alabama to neighboring mississippi now. one small town especially hard hit by a tornado that roared through smithville with winds estimated at more than 200 miles an hour. nbc's ron mott is there tonight. ♪ >> reporter: today in smithville, where the dearly departed were mourned, the faithful gave prayer. out in the open next to rubble under a fireworks tent. emotions raw, exploding into tears for what was lost here including 15 lives, 150 businesses and homes and all but one house of worship. >> this is the church of god right here. this over here is a building. >> reporter: the pastor called his sunday sermon filling your hope chest. encouragie ining the congregati lean on each other. while so many in this town of 900 are hurting, that didn't stop them and scores of volunteers from resuming the backbreaking task of picking up the pieces. with tales of survival spreading from one debris field to the next. like this 77-year-olds. i don't know how you made it out. >> i don't either. >> reporter: he doesn't plan to rebuild. long stretches of power lines are simply gone. though crews have begun setting new poles. tomorrow, however, one sign of normalcy returns with the school heavily damaged. students will head back to class, elsewhere. welcome news, says teacher nora cole, who cried under that fireworks tent about wednesday's tornado, her faith solidly intact. >> it didn't shake my faith at all. we'll come through it. >> reporter: one of the speakers at this morning's church service echoed that very sentiment saying, we will come through this but adding, we'll never get over it. lester? >> ron mott, thanks. these severe storms we've been following here in the south, also the midwest, have led to another problem. dangerous flooding that may only get worse. the weather channel's jim cantore has more on that for us tonight. jim, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, lester. that has certainly been overshadowed as the kind of tornado outbreak that we've had in the month, for that matter. you can see behind me here relief efforts are well under way. if you don't have a tarp on your roof, you better get one quick. we got 24 hours until that rain comes in. let's take a look at this computer model. what we've asked it to do is mimic out the atmosphere about 48 hours from now. you can see the showers and the thunderstorms from texas through arkansas, tennessee and, yes, mississippi, alabama, some of the hardest hit areas as well. but you can see where the precipitation is going to be heaviest. right there in that yellow area we're talking about 4 to 8 inches. where we've already had historical crests, we're expecting record crests once again as we go through the next several days along the mississippi and ohio rivers. this is the only going to make things worse. lester? >> jim cantore, thanks. the other big story we're following here tonight, fallout from a nato air attack that the libyan government says killed one of moammar gadhafi's sons and three of his grandchildren. today angry mobs set fire to the british and italian embassies in tripoli which prompted britain to expel libya's ambassador to london. nbc's mike taibbi is in tripoli with more on last night's nato strike. >> reporter: there's no doubt there was an air attack. nato confirmed it. reporters here who are tightly controlled were bussed to the scene to record the damage. two of the four structures at the compound destroyed. blood trails on the floor. a government spokesman says moammar gadhafi's son, saif al arab, was killed. at the time of the air strike on saturday night, gadhafi and his wife were also reportedly in the compound for a family gathering. >> he's in good health. he wasn't harmed. his wife also is in good health. she wasn't harmed. >> reporter: in rebel controlled benghazi, eastern libya, there were celebrations of the news that the strikes had killed members of gadhafi's family. there are also doubts expressed that gadhafi's son was actually killed. nato's commander said all targets were military in nature. that nato had no independent confirmation of casualties or of the identity of any casualties. in fact, though, the air strike was the third in a week that reportedly came close to taking out gadhafi himself. one attack while he was giving a televised speech about a proposed cease-fire with nato. but even with the bombs falling reportedly so near to where gadhafi was speaking, his offer to negotiate with nato did not include even a hint he might surrender power. instead he said, i am not leaving my country. no one can force me to leave my country. that was hours before the latest attack in the intensifying nato air campaign reportedly came close to forcing regime change another way. >> this was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country. >> reporter: pro-gadhafi demonstrators believe that and believe, too, that their leader has now seen family members killed while escaping with his own life again. mike taibbi, nbc news, tripoli. when "nbc nightly news" continues on this sunday evening, a milestone witnessed today by one of the largest crowds in vatican history. we take it a day at a time. that's how it is with alzheimer's disease. she needs help from me. and her medication. the exelon patch -- it releases medication continuously for twenty-four hours. she uses one exelon patch daily for the treatment of mild to moderate alzheimer's symptoms. 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[ female announcer ] ask the doctor about your loved one trying the exelon patch. visit exelonpatch.com to learn more. visit exelonpatch.com [music playing] confidence available in color. depend® colors for women. looks and fits like underwear. protects like nothing else. depend®. good morning. great day. ... ... this was a joyous day in rome as one of the biggest crowds in vatican history witnessed the beatification of pope john paul ii. the last milestone before sainthood. ann thompson is in rome for us tonight. good evening. >> reporter: good evening, lester. six years after his death pope john paul ii can still draw a crowd as today the faithful answered the call. under a perfect roman sky, a massive demonstration of faith. 1.5 million catholics crowding every cobblestone in st. peter's square and beyond. here pope john paul ii declared blessed. the unveiling of a joint tapest of the late pontiff signals his beatification and unleashed a wave of emotion. many in the crowd flood to the streets to get a spot in the square. >> we camped out until 4:00 in the morning. then we got in line for about five hours. but it was worth it. >> reporter: susan labelle came to honor the man who changed her life. >> in '93 came to denver. he turned me around and made me look at christ. >> reporter: at mass, this french none who says john paul cured her parkinson's disease carried a relic of his blood to the alter. igniting memories of that tragic day in 1981 for chicago's cardinal francis george. >> with the relic, you know, his blood was spilled on that piatsa. now his blood is at the alter. i found that overpowering. >> reporter: the proudest people in the square were john paul's fellow fold. waving their colors. pope benedict xvi remembered his predecessor as a rock, restoring christianity as a religion of hope. yet the priesthood still reels from the sex abuse scandal, critics accuse john paul of ignoring. for father robert gall and the priests who call himself the john paul generation -- >> one could perceive that. >> reporter: after mass, swarms of pilgrims filed by john paul's casket. a final show of gratitude to a man already a saint to so many. now, the pope needs one more miracle to be cannonized a saint. tonight the faithful continue to file past his coffin. the vatican says the basilica will remain open until the last person has prayed. lester? >> anne thompson in rome for us tonight, anne, thank you. much more as "nightly news" continues from tuscaloosa, right after this. host: would foghorn leghorn make a really bad book narrator? foghorn (stammering): it was the best of times, it was the wor - i say worst of times. and by worst i'm talkin' as bad, i say, as bad as my aunt ginny's corn puddin'. that stuff'll sink you like a stone. engineer: ok that was a little... foghorn: you gettin' all this in there son? i just added that last part it's called "adlibbin..."anyway...it was, i say it was... vo: geico. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more on car insurance. dr. scholl's custom fit orthotic center recommends the custom-fit orthotic that's best for your tired feet. foot-care scientists are behind it. you'll get all-day relief. and you could save a couple hundred bucks. for locations, see drscholls.com. thank you... can become romantic just like that. a spark might come from -- a touch, a glance -- it can come along anywhere, anytime. and when it does, men with erectile dysfunction can be more confident in their ability to be ready with cialis for daily use. cialis for daily use is a clinically proven low-dose tablet you take every day, so you can be ready anytime the moment's right even if it's not every day. tell your doctor about your medical condition and all medications and ask if you're healthy enough for sexual activity. don't take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. 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[ male announcer ] ask your doctor if cialis for daily use is right for you. for a 30-tablet free trial offer, go to cialis.com. a fiber that dissolves completely, is clearly different. benefiber. it's the easy way to get more fiber everyday. that's the beauty of benefiber. we're back again from alabama. as we heard at the top of the program, people here are not just waiting for help from the outside. despite what you see behind me, there are large areas of this city that are undamaged, yet it seems the entire city is gladly sharing the burden of recovery. there are no strangers in tuscaloosa anymore. just really good neighbors. they are everywhere. on trucks, trailers, on foot. regular citizens passing out water, food. >> they need the water. >> reporter: at a call-in radio show a resident says they need water in his neighborhood. help is soon on the way. some of them haven't met before today and some aren't even from around here. but now rolling through this deeply scarred landscape, they share what they see as a common responsibility. in their wake, they leave a trail of grateful survivors. >> you getting any help out here? >> there's so much help it's unbelievable. >> reporter: many of those they help are volunteers themselves. no job is too small or too big. and there is so much to do. >> it's really encouraging. >> reporter: it would be easy to label this uniquely southern hospitality. except we've seen it before in many parts of this country. tragedy reminding us that at the end of the day, we're all in this together. >> any community would do what we're doing. i mean, it's -- how could you not? it's your home. >> one woman we found helping here came all the way from louisiana. she said the folks here were there for us during katrina, doggone it, we're going to be here and help the folks here through their really tough time. that's "nbc nightly