would things have gotten? pretty bad. we would have an oil spill. reporter: american soldiers protecting their island looking for more people to save. nbc s gaddy schwartz reported from puerto rico. dr. oliver, thank you very much for joining us. is it accurate to say that things right now in hospitals are on the verge of collapse and that patients could essentially be on their death beds right now because they can t get access to the medicines they need, there s not enough refrigeration for medicines, and the hospitals, frankly, just can t function as they normally would because they don t have power. doctor, you there? dr. oliver? we seem to be having some issues with dr. oliver.
bumper to bumper traffic as residents were allowed to return home for the first time. the road to recovery may be the longest here in the florida keys, but those who live here say they re ready to rebuild. we re going to come back strong. everybody that lives here in this community. we will survive. we will survive this. reporter: gaddy schwartz, nbc news. thank you. for more on the recovery i m joined now by alice hill, former special assistant to president obama. once the water recedes, we ve learned this from katrina and sandy, it s hell to pay. this is a long road to recovery. we have debris removal. we have people who need to find ways to get to work. we have homeless. we have very ill people who have lacked medical care. this will be a difficult task for everyone. it will require all of the community to pitch in. let s talk about housing. people have one house, most people, they live in the house and once the water goes back
now to california s unprecedented drought. and some of its silent victims. giant sequoia trees. they can live to be 3,000 years old. but new evidence shows they are struggling with the drought more than ever. now a team of scientists is taking the trek up to monitor them. nbc s gaddy schwartz went along for the climb. reporter: towering above the sequoia national forest, living icons of resilience that have survived fire, storms, and insect infestations. attracting thousands to go stand next to their massive trunks. but in this historic drought, something is happening to the mighty sequoias. this area was identified as having the highest number of trees that are showing symptoms of what we think is drought stress. reporter: some of these trees have lost 75% of their needles. that s what you re seeing down here on the forest floor. but to see the true stress of
there is no rest for the 2016 presidential candidates. new nbc news/marist poll shows that bernie sanders has leap frogged over hillary clinton, 41% of democratic voters, clinton gets 32% and vice president joe biden, who hasn t officially entered the race, gets 16%. in iowa, clinton is still on top but sanders is narrowing her lead from 21 points in july to just 11 points now. on the republican side, former alaskan governor sarah palin is rallying behind trump. she said that spanish speak iin say you better speak american. you better be here legally. and when you re here, let s speak american. palin was trying to take a swipe at her 2016 rival, jeb bush, fluent in spanish. club for growth continues. overnight trump tweeted a photo of a letter from that group asking him for $1 million. trump is calling it extortion. nbc s tracie potts is live in washington for us this morning. a lot to go over, tracie. busy labor day for presidential candidates. they re trying to take a
he s not a war hero. he s a war hero 5 1/2 years he is a war hero because he was captured. i like people who weren t captured i have to tell you. he was a war hero because he was captured, okay? i believe perhaps he s a war hero. right now he said some very bad things about a lot of people. after the event trump sought to clarify his remarks to reporters. if a person is captured they re a hero as far as i m concerned unless they re a traitor like bergdahl. he was captured but he s no hero. you have to do other things also. i don t like the job that john mccain is doing in the senate because he s not taking care of our veterans. why would you say you like people who don t get captured? it s a simple question. why? the people who don t get captured i m not supposed to like? i like the people who don t get captured and i respect the people who do get captured. why did you say that in the context of john mccain? you had many people who didn t get captured. i