welcome back to the newsroom where the news unfold live this saturday, august 27th. i m fredricka whitfield. we continue to watch hurricane irene and all that it is doing and wreaking havoc along the east coast. right now, live coverage from our affiliate out of norfolk, virginia, wavy, wayv vy as it i referred to. sure talking about a child that might be trapped. let s listen in. two people and their cat rescued after their boat was anchored and they got caught in some vicious water trying to escape hurricane irene. we understand they are okay. we also have many road closings. the hrbt is closed with the midtown tunnel and the chesapeake bay bridge tunnel. you look at the pictures and you can see why. this is a view from our vdot traffic cam, traffic jam cam, it shows virtually nobody on the road because conditions are getting progressively worse. we talked to melody woodrow a few minutes ago in hampton. melody had to move because the james she was stand on the james r
ireports that we share with viewers worldwide but we capture these more than ever before and that makes it numbers seem higher. fascinating stuff. all right. thanks, reynolds. the federal government has offered the storm victims trailers to live in while their homes are being rebuilt but in one alabama town they re being turned away. what i had suggested doing was putting fema trailers in my backyard. because of the mayor, we can t do that. we can t help our neighbors because he won t let us. you heard right. the mayor is saying thanks but no thanks to fema s help and in 60 seconds i ll tell you why.
this memorial day weekend. here s the latest on one of the nation s deadliest tornadoes. 156 people are missing as of this morning down from 232 the day before. searchers are still going through piles of debris. the confirmed death toll stands at 132 with over 1,000 injured. more than 2,500 people have applied for federal disaster assistance to help with home repairs and personal losses. fema has approved $2.8 million in aid. president obama is returning from his overseas trip today and will meet with officials and victims in joplin tomorrow. rebuilding the city of nearly 50,000 people is going to require a lot of money and a lot of muscle. our casey wian is in joplin and he talked with one man who is rebuilding his wife s business. reporter: when you cover a story like this, you have a lot of images and most are gruesome and bad. i ll remember driving around one of the streets in joplin amid utter devastation and there s this building that s brand new wood and construc
wide tornado roared through joplin, missouri, more than 100 people are unaccounted for on this memorial day weekend. here s the latest on one of the nation s deadliest tornadoes. 156 people are missing as of this morning down from 232 the day before. searchers are still going through piles of debris. the confirmed death toll stands at 132 with over 1,000 injured. more than 2,500 people have applied for federal disaster assistance to help with home repairs and personal losses. fema has approved $2.8 million in aid. president obama is returning from his overseas trip today and will meet with officials and victims in joplin tomorrow. rebuilding the city of nearly 50,000 people is going to require a lot of money and a lot of muscle. our casey wian is in joplin and he talked with one man who is rebuilding his wife s business. reporter: when you cover a story like this, you have a lot of images and most are gruesome and bad. i ll remember driving around one of the streets in
completely different category from a small rope tornado that dances along the plains to a storm that stay on the ground for a very long time. we had a major tornado, at least 150 miles per hour, and in some spots in its lifetime greater, rolled right through a town of between 50 in downtown to 150,000 people. we will see damage, we will see devastation like we saw in tuscaloosa as this video keeps coming in, don. the later we get into the day, the more video that s going to come in, it s not going to look like this anymore where power lines are still standing and power poles are still standing. we ll get to a point where video comes in that everything is leveled. that video is out there. we re getting ireports as well. don t put yourself in any danger. if you would like to send a report in, please do. if you re walking around out in joplin, missouri, there are boards with nails everywhere. some of the most devastating