over towards salisbury, not quite but ocean city, yes. wallop, as teague, under hurricane warnings. the delaware bay, much of southern, central eastern new jersey under hurricane warnings as well and then tropical storm and hurricane watches extending north of that across long island. even philadelphia under a tropical storm warning. irene has wind of 110 miles an hour category 2 storm: it will fluctuate 2 to 3 here over the next 24 hours or so. by tomorrow morning getting close to the coast here at 9:00. but the advanced hurricane center they think this will accelerate quicker than what they were thinking yesterday. crossing north carolina during the day on saturday and hatteras, the coastal areas, the outer banks going to get the brunt of the storm as a category 3 storm. they'll be on the left side. the weaker side if you will. still a formidable storm with even a 6 to 8-foot storm surge in and around the tide water down here. coastal areas around the delmarva. passing ocean city sunday morning as a category 2 storm and then potentially into western long island. big problems with this storm. for us some rain, some wind and tropical storm conditions gusts probably 30, 40, 50 miles an hour here saturday night into early sunday. today, sunny and 83 by noon. maybe seeing a shower or storm lite with a high in the mid- to upper 80s. this morning, watch out down in southern maryland. a few showers, no lightning there but a few showers, some of these are heavy down on the northern neck approaching the lower eastern shore. there's a quick look. st. mary's city it's coming towards you. monika? take it away. we've got the yellow light and already a couple of incidents to tell you about. live to sky 9 right now and show you what it looks like on the southbound side of i-270. work is continuing on clean-up of the accident right here in the local lanes southbound 270 at shady grove road and they are letting traffic by now along the left side of the roadway. be aware that that is there and it was causing some traffic coming down in the local lanes the main lines seem okay. a live look northbound at i- 395. this accident clean-up continues. it's right off the exit for the gw parkway before the 14th street bridge and causing delays from at least the pentagon. now a look at 66 on the inbound side. still looking good here at the rest area although it is slow from route 234 over to route 28 in centreville and a last look live northbound on i-95. a couple of slowdowns now from the prince william parkway up to rule 123 and then lorton into newington. a look at the travel times starting with the outer loom -- in my next report, another look at the problem areas at 6:18. back to you. ocean city, maryland has a simple message for everyone there -- get out. >> that's it. it includes visitors, homeowners, full-time residents, the city is taking no chances are hurricane irene. >> the mandatory evacuation went into effect at midnight. police will be going door to door to make sure people are gone. we caught up with some people who got an early jump on things leaving thursday. >> we were planning on leaving sunday and so we had to get out early. disappointing because it's my last vacation in a while but you know you didn't have a choice. >> i'm glad we evacuated when he did and didn't want to be like the people in new orleans. >> police and fire departments cannot be responsible for your safety if you don't leave. one of the facebook friends said they were also discouraging the sale of alcohol to prevent any hurricane parties. and you heard howard predict strong winds all across the region and that has power companies struggling to make sure they are ready to respond. >> surae chinn is live at the montgomery county fairgrounds, pepco is using that as a staging area. good morning. >> reporter: good morning, behind me are all the utility crews that have been here staging here from out of town. about 150 of them. they are lined up from one end of the fairgrounds to the other. pretty impressive. hey you know what? we've been talking with earthquake victims in the last few days and a woman came to me and said you know a lesson i learned from the earthquake is to have an emergency kit. an emergency bag for an earthquake is good enough for a hurricane. she said i wish i had my toothbrush, toothpaste, extra clothes and understood wear. i would have felt so much better if i had the things. especially in an outage, add to the emergency kit a plank et, a good one. and a flashlight. and also extra batteries for that flashlight and your phone. you want to make sure your phone is fully charged tonight and in the next few days. and also what else is in this bag? we've got -- a clock battery operated clock. you also want one that has a radio, that's always helpful. a water. food. and -- emergency phone numbers. which i have for pepco. you might want to jot that down for pepco if your power is out. it's (877)737-2662. again, (877)737-2662. pepco.com and you can also put those outages there online. back to you. >> all right, surae chinn with some good advice live in gaithersburg, maryland. and also checked in with dominion, bge and smeckel. all of the utilities remind you to stay away from any downed power lines. if you see any, report them immediately. and hurricane irene is already having an impact on travel in and out of the washington area. we just checked amtrak's website in most trains south of d. c., canceled. amtrak says service north of here could be affected also and keep checking. most airlines are allowing you to change or cancel your plans without paying any fees but again make sure to check with your individual airline. greyhound canceled service from here to atlantic city and ocean city. no cancellations on both bus or megabus yet. but keep an eye on this all weekend as well. police this laurel, maryland want know who is issuing some fake evacuation orders. hundreds of people got ro calls telling them to evacuate. we checked with city police who say the calls are bogus. however, people in low lying areas of the city, they say should be on alert for possible flooding. the threat of hurricane irene is delaying the official dedication ceremony for the martin luther king jr. memorial. the head of the memorial project foundation says the dedication will take place sometime in the fall. the memorial will be open to the public today and tomorrow. saturday's national prayer service will take place at the basilica in northeast washington. keep it here all week long for continuing coverage of hurricane irene. live updates saturday and sunday morning to keep you safe. >> follow wusa9.com on the computer or the mobile device. download our hurricane tracker too, you can find that on wusa9.com, upload your photos and videos to the facebook page and please make sure you do it safely. it is 6:08. we switch from hurricanes back to earthquakes. >> there's still a bunch of schools closed because of tuesday's earthquake. in the district -- they will relocate students to eastern high school for monday. >> in prince george's county, six schools remain closed -- we're back. 6:11 now. we are watching and waiting for hurricane irene this morning. here's a live look from the coastal highway in fen wick island, delaware. just across the border from ocean city, maryland. delaware is under a state of emergency now. visitors to the beach are being asked to leave now. >> and it looks pretty barren there on the roadways. hurricane irene did some damage to the bahamas but the florida coast seems to have gotten off pretty easy. >> a latest from the sunshine late we go to st. augustine beach, 45 miles south of jacksonville. claire sims joins us live from first coast news. >> reporter: the waves don't get more and more impressive this morning. we are standing oen a boardwalk, there's a seawall between us and the water but that doesn't seem to platter this morning. the waves continue to come up over the wall and over to the boardwalk and officials here are trying to make sure that people are aware of just how dangerous situation is. they have told people normally people can drive on the beach in this area. they have decided to close the beach to cars today through at least tomorrow. and they also will have emergency officials out here. lifeguards out here trying to make sure that nobody gets in the water. we did see surfers out here yesterday afternoon but they were having a pretty hard time and officials hope the people who would try maybe tried yesterday and have decided that this storm is just too strong. even, even hundreds of miles off of our coast, we're live in st. augustine beach, claire sims, back to you. >> have you heard anything about evacuation orders or other forms of transit or plane or flight delays? >> reporter: you know in our area it looks like things are kind of touch and go. the airlines have said make sure that you're checking their website before you head to the airport because we're really not sure at this point how bad that's going to get and i think that's the theme that we keep hearing is we're waiting, we're watching. and we're just hoping for the best. >> you know claire, people in florida are used to hurricanes, are they taking this one seriously? how prepared is the area? >> reporter: you know, like you said people really are used to them here. we've been reminding people for many days now to get your hurricane kits ready. but i think this one -- you know a lot of people here take it for granted that they are ready but this one is so huge that people really were watching and watching every day hoping it made the turn out back to sea. >> all right, claire sims reporting live from st. augustine beach, florida. good luck there. howard bernstein is here, what's the latest model telling you? >> telling us that this storm is still going to be a big storm and very close but maybe, maybe just a little bit farther east than what we were thinking yesterday afternoon, yesterday evening. right along the coast still going to get pounded. either way it doesn't make a difference. the big waves, the winds, the rain that's going to happen. the further west you go, the better the conditions. we had tropical storm warnings and don't take that likely. put your outdoor lawn furniture away and take the precaution bus the further west you go, the shenandoah valley, maybe just a little light rain shower action. the look at the graphics, here's the satellite imagery of hurricane irene. and the eye wall -- sometimes you see that eye, sometimes you don't. it gets a little obama secured but moving off to the north, this little tiny pinhole right here just to the left of the line as it's moving due north now at about 13 miles an hour. storm was downgraded off the 5:00 advisory which makes it a category 2 storm not a 3. but still got great circulation and it will flubbing hate a little bit potentially up to category 3 by the time it makes landfall. near okracoke, the outer banks are going to get hammered and this is why they evacuated. this is going to have potentially a 10 to 15-foot storm surge with it along with whatever waves it's going to generate at time. saturday, 2:00 in the afternoon still could have winds at 120 and maybe a strong 2, weak 3 as it passes virginia beach and norfolk there saturday night at 10:00. that means overnight into sunday morning, it will be passing the area beaches at ocean city. at dewey, at rehoboth. cape may here, atlantic city at sunrise and potentially toward the jones beach and fire island there sometime by sunday morning at 11:00 and that means with the quicker time frame it will be in and out quicker. so sunday afternoon may not be that bad around here after all. we had tropical storm warnings along the florida coast, but closer to home, hurricane warnings the entire coast of north carolina, the sound there into the tide water of virginia and then along the ocean areas the delmarva, the entire state of new jersey and the delaware day. back to the eastern shore, the chesapeake, the tidal potomac and d. c., the northern neck, yes, you guys are in the hurricane warnings and that means your winds potentially 60, 70 miles an hour or more and gusts around here i think we could be gusting 30, 40, 50 miles per hour. but the heaviest rains will be southern maryland on the eastern shore. today sunshine low 80s by noon and mid- to upper 80s for a high and 81 by 5:00 and continue to watch irene. also watching few showers this morning on the live doppler 9000 hd as you can see them there in southern maryland the northern neck going back to richmond. as switch it over to live doppler 9000 hd, heaviest stuff, cambridge you may or may not get this. also calvert county a few light showers around solomon and fog has been another issue. up through 70s, gaithersburg, the half mile visibility there. same to leesburg and cull pep ier and -- culpeper and petersburg. they have a temperature down to 61. in the mid 60s up in martinsburg and hagerstown and here? washington 72 degrees with a dew point in the upper 60s and the winds at the moment are calm. the showers personally pop this afternoon. here and there isolated stuff and into the over night. lighter showers developing to tomorrow morning especially south and east. through the morning house you may see some rain in the mountains and also a band of showers from irene moving into southeastern virginia and then here comes hurricane katrina saturday night coming up the coast here. this computer model. our model here is a little bit farther east keeping the heaviest stuff along the shore, but moderate to heavy rains at times saturday night into sunday morning before irene pulls away by sunday afternoon. today, 87 degrees and it will be a warm one with an isolated storm. 82 tomorrow. increasing rain and wind by afternoon and evening. tomorrow night, the worst of it with our severe weather alert day late saturday into early sunday and northeast week looking a whole lot better. monday through thursday, sunny and nice. highs in the low the mid 800s. monika has the latest on the timesaver traffic. we've got the yellow light although kind of a good news bad news situation. i'm going to take you live to 270 where the good news is the accident we've been showing you in the local lanes here at shady grove road is cleared but the bad news is look at the fog. you've got that with reduced speeds now coming down from jermantown all the way down to the point where the lanes divide. it may take you longer for the travel plans. to the other side now over to the outer loop, delays from new hampshire avenue to university boulevard and then the pace improves as you head to rockville and 270. again watch out for the heavy fog in that area. prince george's county and a map, route 4, route 5, route 301, everything is looking fine fort washington waldorf you're going to be fine there and last lack live on the northbound side of 395 with the accident here in the gore area right after that exit for the gw parkway or before the 14th street bridge causing some delays. overall delays from duke street to seminary road. over to the travel times we're going to start off with 66 inbound -- in my next report, another look at your trouble spots at 6:25. mike and andrea? just about 6:20 now. all summer long while you've been sleeping the army's old guard has been photographing every single headstone at arlington national cemetery. >> it's a story making news now at 6:20. they're using iphones to snap a shot of all 219,000 grave markers. it's trying to account every grave something mandated by congress following a scandal. libyan rebels will face a major crisis if frozen assets are not freed. a u. n. panel issued that today later today in denver. the u.s. and south africa both agreed to release $1.5 billion in assets. the prime minister of japan is stepping down. he made the announcement this morning. he was criticized for a lack of leadership following the earthquake and tsunami in march. he is japan's fifth prime minister in the last five years. time for a break, coming up next in sports, hear from both redskins' quarterbacks after last night's game in baltimore. but right now it's time for our question of the morning and it's all about hurricanes of course -- >> sean put her answer on our facebook page, she says -- be prepared people. >> we'll have the answer coming up at 6:54. [ agent ] so your policy looks good, is there anything else? why did you buy my husband a falcon? thanks for the falcon. i didn't buy anyone a falcon. sure, you did. you saved us a lot of money on auto insurance. i used that money to buy a falcon. ergo, you bought me a falcon. i should've got a falcon. most people who switch to state farm save on average about $480. what they do with it, well, that's their business. oh, that explains a lot, actually. [ chuckles ] [ male announcer ] another reason people switch to state farm. aw, i could've gotten a falcon. [ male announcer ] get to a better state. [ falcon screeches ] here's a live look at the eastern end of king street in alexandria. of course the city is bracing for flooding. howard has the latest on irene's path coming up in about six minutes. in sports, redskins' head coach mike shanahan may wait until hours before the season opener before announcings his starting quarterback. both rex grossman and john beck looked good in last night's preseason game against the redskins -- against the ravens rather. both had touchdown passes. grossman found mass in the second quarter. there it is while beck hit terrence austin in the third and that score put d. c. up 28- 21. but with less than a minute left in the game, brandon jones caught this pass for baltimore. it was the game-winning t.,skins lose to the -- touchdown, since lose to the ravens. both qbs spoke after the game. >> it's real competitive you know anytime you're from a situation like this it's a great opportunity to take the washington redskins' franchise with coach shanahan -- i mean, this is a huge opportunity for us. >> through this whole deal, just tried to maintain a huge work ethic just believing and some people have given me great advice about things to do and just tried to live by the things. >> the redskins take on the tampa bay buccaneers next thursday in the final preseason game. if baseball the nationals are in cincinnati this morning, they begin the three game series with the reds tonight. last night at nationals park, an early pitcher's duel turned into an offensive showcase for arizona. the d-backs scored 3 in the 8th. 3 more in the 9th and the fat fall 8-1 -- nats fall 8-1. up next the latest on hurricane irene's strength and where she's headed. >> ahead find out where people in the district and virginia can get some sandbags just in case. right now monika has a quick check on traffic. >> a live look mike on the northbound side of i-395. you still have delays from duke street to seminary road and across the 14th street bridge. in my next report, another look in the district coming up next. you're watching 9news now. stay with us. 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heeding the warnings. >> indeed. thanks a lot for joining us this friday morning. monika is going to have traffic in just a moment. but first man of the hour who says he can take an hour and tell you about this. meteorologist howard bernstein. >> that might not be enough time. >> get right to it. >> all the business owners who've had to shut down. we know it's tough to lose on a weekend but obviously the people's safety has to be pair mount and leave and out get and if you know something like that is coming why stay in its path when you have time to get out of the way. let's talk about irene because irene has forced hurricane warnings to be issued by the national hurricane center for the north carolina coast, southeastern virginia, getting up into the northern neck even. coastal areas on the delmarva, from ocean city and assateague and rehoboth and the entire state of delaware, southern and eastern new jersey along the atlantic and then hurricane watches are up along long island and southeastern massachusetts. for us, tropical storm warnings in yellow including the bay and the eastern shore. there's irene this morning. east of daytona beach. a good 150 miles or so. maybe 200 and it's continuing to move north. now the only difference from yesterday is that it's a slight and i mean 20, 30, 40-mile shift eastward in the track by the hurricane center. but still uncertainty here in the ken that surrounds that. anywhere in the cone is where irene could be. but it looks like tomorrow morning, 9:00, 10:00 a landfall near okracoke. 24 hours from now kill devil hills will be really rough. saturday it goes through eastern north carolina and pounds the pouter banks. by saturday night, already north of norfolk, virginia beach just approaching areas offshore here overnight saturday night into sunday morning. passing ocean city, the mouth of the delaware bay up to cape may and atlantic city and potentially western long island before noon on sunday. this thing is going to quickly move to the east and be out of here. around here today a few showers south andest of town early. patchy fog also. noon 83 and stray storm possible later on, high of 86. a couple of my daughter's friends and her were going to be driving down north carolina to get back to college. tonight and tomorrow? guess what they're going to be spending a couple more days with mom and dad. they are not going down south. closer in, we've got the yellow light and that's because we have a couple of incidents to tell you about. we're going to start off with the district. on the westbound side of the suitland parkway heading into the district at first sterling avenue an accident just reported there. watch out for authorities driving up to the scene right now. we're going to take you live into the district right now on the inbound side of knock avenue, you have got delays now from the times building to bladensburg road and head into southeast across the sousa bridge on pennsylvania avenue and heading to the capital right now. that looks fine across the bridge span right now and last look at 15th street and new york avenue, no problems to report in the northwest corridor right now. a look at the travel times -- another look at your trouble spots again at 6:46. back to you guys. we are preparing here in the d. c. area for the hurricane irene but the biggest story is along the mid-atlantic coast. >> vacations are being cut short from the outer banks to long island. the mayor of ocean city, maryland basically told everyone to get out. residents and visitors told to leave. no one is allowed except for emergency personnel. >> visitors to the delaware beaches are being told to leave as well. governor jack markable is even telling full-time residents along the shoreline to seek shelter elsewhere before the storm hits. >> and people along the jersey shore also bracing for irene. there was some minor flooding after some thunderstorms there last night. new jersey's governor chris christie is urging people to leave right now. he may possibly he says issue mandatory evacuation orders later today. now for the immediate d. c. area. high winds this weekend could lead to power outages. the local power companies are making sure they're ready to respond. >> pope koa is using -- pepco is using montgomery county fairgrounds in gaithersburg as a staging area. good morning. >> reporter: you know pepco has taken over the montgomery county fairgrounds and set up shop here. we have the restroom trailer right behind me. right next to that we have the operations trailer and more coordinating trailers for officers here right next to that and right in front of us with pallets and pallets of water for all the crew members who will be working throughout this weekend. and beyond that right in front of us, are all the trucks that have lined up from one end of the fairground to the other. they're side by side and they're ready to be deployed at a moment's notice and you can see some of the workers who have already come here on the grounds of the montgomery county fairgrounds and they are ready to work. they're grabbing the ice and the water so they are prepared for the long haul. we've got 150 crew members from out of state from ohio, we've got 300 tree cutting trues and linemen and they've poured in lots and lots of resources for this and employees are working double shifts, double time the make sure. if there are any outages that they're reported and you can call in if you are suffering from the power outages. that's the very latest here. it seems that pepco is prepared. >> so far, so good. thanks surae. live in gaithersburg, maryland in morning. here are some of the outage hotlines of the big utilities in the region -- and if you didn't have a pen, you can go to wusa9.com to check out those number once again. both the district and the city of alexandria antares debits to know they can get free sandbags to protect from flooding. these bags are heavy and you have to haul them away yourself. in the district you can get the sandbags at -- the giveaway the district residents goes from noon until midnight tonight and 8:00 a.m. to midnight tomorrow. in alexandria, sandbag distribution begins at 11:00 this morning, there are three locations -- we have a super cool and easy way you can track this storm and any severe weather in fact. download the wusa9 weather app for your iphone, ipad or android. check it it. it's free, it's simple and really effective. go to the app store on apple on the android marketplace and search wusa9 and you will see the one called wusa9 radar. go ahead and download it. again it's free and it's really effective. you have access to to live doppler 9000 hd and then click on "i" and turn on the tropical track. you can keep tabs on hurricane irene all during the day. the united nations confirmed bombing at the offices there in an area near the u.s. embassy. we will bring you any important updates as soon as we get them. and right now howard is keeping an eye on the track of hurricane irene. he'll have the latest data come up next, but first some schools are still closed because of tuesday's earthquake. in virginia, the schools without walls is closed. it will relocate on monday. >> prince george's county, six schools remain closed -- keep it here, we'll be right back. we are back at 6:43. the entire mid-atlantic is bracing for hurricane irene. >> here's a live look from -- >> alexandria. >> that's right. alexandria. you can see there's some boats and the water seems to be very calm eight now and we shouldn't have any problems for a little bit. already a mandatory evacuation order for low lying areas in nearby norfolk though and those are some considerations. >> that's a low lying area here prone to flooding and on the website you can find out where to get free sandbags. one is down in the old town area to make sure you're protected as much as possible. >> the winds pushing up and astronomical high tides too with the new moon. some flooding and throw in some potentially heavy rain and i like to think most south and east the heavy heavy stot of the metro -- stuff of the metro d. c. region. maybe it won't be so bad. irene is due east of north florida here passing the kennedy space center almost east of -- well, st. augustine at this point as i moves just about due north here at about 13 miles an hour. and you can see that line of longitude that it is sort of just going right up now. maybe a slight wobble off to the north and storms do that as they're spinning. you can imagine if you spin a top sometimes it's not a perfectly straight spin. but it's got a little wobble to it and that's what happens with hurricanes. 110 on the sustained winds from the left advisory from the hurricane center at 5:00 a.m. gusting to 135 and moving north at 13 and you can see -- that's the 77th parallel there. at 77.2 and going to go up 77 and then start to cross it as it gets to okracoke and staying west of hatteras, the outer banks are going to get the brunt of it for tomorrow afternoon and evening and by tomorrow night, this thing will be back in the atlantic. east of norfolk and virginia beach and approaching areas east of the southern delmarva. overnight tomorrow night it passes ocean city and by tomorrow morning, starting to emerge east of rehoboth and headed to western long island on sunday. noontime, it could be some big problems central and eastern long island into new england as the storm continues its track up the east coast. with all sorts of warnings now, tropical storm and yellow, hurricane in red for eastern north carolina, southeastern virginia. also areas in the delmarva, delaware, ocean city. down toward chincough teague as well but locally we have tropical storm warnings, winds gusting 40, 50, maybe 65 miles an hour in some of the heaviest storms here and maybe 100 plus over to the coast by ocean city and that's one of the reasons along with the incredible wave action they're expecting and beach erosion and torrential rains they've evacuated that. a mandatory evacuation. so hurricane irene close to the coast, problems for southern maryland on the eastern shore too and then the northern neck as you're in the hurricane warning. i think the critical time is going to be between 2:00 and 10:00 a.m. 2:00 p.m. saturday and 10:00 a.m. on sunday. start the preps if you haven't done that now. fill up the gas tanks and we lose powers the going to be tough to pump gas. put away the lawn furniture, garbage cans. you want to make sure that's tied down and your storm drains, your gutters and sump pumps, make sure they're plugged in. 76 here at 8:00. calm winds, 83 at noon. as we head toward 4:00 p.m., we're looking at 8 # degrees with a chance of storms and then by 8:00, 81. we have had some isolated storms and showers i should say south and east this morning along with some patchy fog. that will burn off and turns into a decent day with highs in the mid to upper 80s. tomorrow night severe weather alert into sunday morning and by monday we're back in the lower 80s with sunshine. you just minuted the fog and good morning everybody. we're going to take you first over to 270 and show you what it looks like livement planning the head -- live. planning to head south right now, just reduced visibility there so be careful. to the outer loop of the beltway. it's heavy and steady basically from new hampshire avenue to route 29. at the american legion bridge is the heaviest stretch of fog as well on the west side of town. planning to head into virginia, let's take a look now route 29 at lynnton hall road. it is very heavy in gainesville as well with fog here's what it looks like on the beltway here at arlington boulevard. everything is okay there. route 29 and lynnton hall road. and now a last look northbound on i-95. everything is fine basically from dumfries into newington and then you have a bit of volume in the newingtop area. proproblems on 39 # right now to the 14th street bridge. coming up, we'll take a look at the problem areas at 6:58. back to you guys. we're worrying about high winds here which could lead to power outages and the utilities are making sure they're ready. >> leah joins us on the phone now from doe min john energies. >> caller: good morning. >> i'm imagining you're going to have a very busy. 48, 72 hours coming up. do you have a lot of crews from out of state? >> caller: we have a lot of courthouse period. we've got our own dominion crews that are already engaged. we also have our contractors who will be involved. in fact, many already been staged in areas where we think we might have the greatest impacts. and we also have been in discussions with neighboring utilities and made arrangements to have them on the system as well. >> we've had a lot of practice, utilities deeming with power -- dealing with power outages this past season. do you think you're ready for what hurricane irene may bring versus storms, winter storms, earthquakes, everything that's happened so far this year? >> caller: good question, yes, we are, we are ready and not only have we practiced with events that have already occurred but we do regular drills year-round and our employees all have a storm role that they play which they have practiced and which they have perfected and we're ready. we need to be ready for anything and we encourage our customers to be just as prepared as we are. they can make sure they have the emergency plan in place and reviewed that with the family members so that everybody knows and we also encourage people to have three days' worth of nonperrishing food and drink. have batteries on hand to keep in touch with the news and know what's going on and then of course when there's an outage to call 1866-dom-help. they help us to be able to identify more quickly where the problems are and we can get crews there more readily. but i want to set expectations for customers and make sure that they understand that when the hurricane impacts us, we need to first be conscientious of public safety and make sure that our clues are safe before we can actually get out to do restoration. so you know, we'll all be prepared and the best way to be prepared at this point is to make sure you have all your ducks in a row, but also to understand what this is all going to mean for us. >> realistic expectations, we understand that. leah anderson with dominion power, thanks for speaking with us and she gave out the phone number. put that in the smart phone right now so that in the event of power outage you can have that just click on it. >> excellent. okay, 6:50,en 2 degrees here -- 72 degrees here in northwest washington. >> time for a check of the news before you go when we come back. time for the united airlines travel forecast. some areas north and west of there near 0. partly sunny skies and calm winds. we are looking pretty good today up towards chicago. going through there or to there, you're going to enjoy a nice day with sunshine and temperatures in the lower 80s. denver, big hub out west, they could see a few storms later this afternoon. 94 degrees, potentially a storm or two in phoenix and that may help cool it off. 113. vegas 109. looks really fine on the west coast with 77 in los angeles. san francisco, 71 and seattle today about 82. from this friday morning, hurricane irene is the story you need to know about before you go. a mandatory evacuation is in place in ocean city, maryland. visitors and full-time residents are being told leave and this morning only emergency vehicles are being allowed into the city. the threat of irene postponing the formal dedication of the martin luther king jr. memorial. it was supposed the take place sunday and the memorial foundation says it will now take place in either september or october. rex grossman and john beck both threw touchdown passes for the redskins last night, butwayway falls to baltimore -- but washington faults to baltimore. time to answer the question of the morning. it is hurricane related. >> of course -- >> the answer is b., 2005. you know how we go through the alphabetical list? storm names? 2005 we made it all the way through 22 names and then went on to the greek alphabet. the season ended with tropical storm zeta. >> it was something else. today we're worried about irene next, howard has one more check on the storm and monika has another check on traffic. stay with 9news now. we'll be back. switching to progressive could mean hundreds more in your wallet year after year. feed me! saving you money -- now, that's progressive. call or click today. couple of showers this morning in southern maryland, some patchy fog north and west but sunny. later on with an isolated storm, 87. irene arrives tomorrow, we start feeling here in the afternoon and tomorrow night especially but by sunday midday things start to improve. monika? two incidents on the westbound side of the suitland parkway. one is at sterling avenue and the other one right after that at branch avenue. by the way heavy traffic o on 66 to nutley street. stay with 9news now for coverage on hurricane irene. we'll be here and have live special reports tonight, tomorrow and sunday. >> you can get the latest forecast at wusa9.com. also download our free weather app with the iphone or android device. >> and howard and i will be back in 25 minutes with a live update on traffic and weather. >> have a great day everybody. stay safe. take care. 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