captions paid for by nbc-universal television good evening. in a matter of days, when the olympic flame and the stadium behind us here is put out and the nonstop television coverage signs off, and the summer of 2012 continues and thoughts turn to politics, in a matter of days we will know mitt romney s choice for a running mate. some new polls just out show romney may face a bit more of an uphill race than he expected right about now. but the gop convention, their chance to show off their candidate, their ticket, begins in 17 days. we start off with the state of the race tonight and our chief white house correspondent and political director chuck todd. reporter: trailing in the polls, the romney campaign hopes the announcement of a vice presidential running mate will give them a shot in the arm and a chance to relaunch. i certainly expect to have a person that has strength of character, vision for the country, that adds something to the political discourse about the dir
then once that water spout got farther to the east and then went out over the atlantic ocean, it turned essentially into a tornado. the difference between a water spout and a tornado is that tornadoes have much more wind and they generally form over land. that was kind of a very strange thing. then it quickly dissipated as it moved out farther to the east. here this morning, we re dealing with a chill in the air. it is down into the 40s in most locations. gaithersburg is 43 degrees right now. it s 51 at reagan national. this is the coolest morning we ve had since way back late last april and early may. quite a chill in the air. out in western maryland, oakland now and garrett counties down to 37 degrees. it s 39 now in stanton, virginia, in the central shenandoah valley. this is just incredibly chilly. right now around the bay, southern maryland, eastern shore, it s only in the mid-50s. all this came in after that cool front came by yesterday and gave us those showers. that c
mary s county. now in d.c. 16 schools are closed. anacostia senior high school, beers elementary school, coolidge high school, lasalle backus education campus, orr elementary school, oyster-adams bilingual school, savoie elementary school, stanton elementary school, thomas elementary school, turner elementary school, whittier education campus, and winston education campus. here s the latest on the power situation. more than 250,000 customer,still in the dark. pepco numbers have been dropping steadily, but there are still 80,000 outages system-wide. about 44,000 of those are in prince george s county. 16,000 pepco customers are in the dark in montgomery county. about 19,000 in d.c. dominion virginia s numbers have been dropping significantly overnight. they re now at 17,000 without power. bge is still reporting more than 118,000 customers without power. most of those in anne arundel county. smeco s numbers on the increase. 52,000 without power in southern maryland. alleg
the economic toll could be staggering. the university of maryland says the storm s price tag could be $45 billion. that factors in damage and the money lost when several major cities had to shut down. with still more than 30,000 power outages officials are just beginning to assess the damage in prince george s county. it is not just the countless downed trees they are dealing with. flood sing causing headaches. yesterday water street was inundated with water from a nearby creek. it has since started to recede but water street is still closed. news4 s megan mcgrath is joining us now from temple hills with the survey of the damage out there. megan, good morning. what do you see today? reporter: good morning. we began our day on water street. it was covered. it was closed making it difficult for folks who work in upper marlboro to get to their offices. that s a popular route and closed to both directions because of the high water. we are here in temple hills where we are still
especially boston. let me go to my tracking computer. let el now what we re going to be dealing with. this band, as we go down in, see the bright yellow band down here? just outside of brock ton. that s what they re worried about. gusts are possible up to 60 miles per hour approaching lowell, boston, right along that 495 loop. that s going to be the concern there. if we can actually add the interstate lamts on for you, and let you know what we re dealing with. as we stop the radar, it s this yellow band, and it s right over the top of 495, and also near 90, as you cross over from 495 to boston. that s the most dangerous band we have out there right now. further to the south. where ron is located, there it is, that s also a bad, probably the strongest winds they re going to see with this storm,