adviser that s an indication negotiations could potentially be one way out of this. jo, there s two issues, there s the oil tanker issue and then the issue of the nuclear issue. the oil tanker the president will work closely with his allies but they don t have a written agreement just an informal conversation. we ll see how this develops. it doesn t seem as though they settled on a response. the president is up tweeting the this morning and stepping up his attacks on the four democratic congresswomen. what s the latest? reporter: on twitter talking about how he was just at this crowd, this rally where they clearly were going it a. i did nothing to lead people nor was i particularly happy with their chant. the baby trying to split the baby. not aware of what was happening with the tweet but not endorsing what they are saying. what he s doing is doubling down
mariana atencio. mariana, bill s been talking about the flooding there. what s the damage been like? reporter: so, jo, the main concern with the flooding here in plaquemines parish is because the area sits between two bodies of water the mississippi river is to my left, just to give you an idea that the only highway, highway 23 here behind me the only way in and out of this area was going to get flooded. so, you can just imagine what that would have meant for the 24,000 residents who live in this area. but as you ve been reporting today, and we just heard from bill karins, the worst did not materialize. a lot of areas here did not suffer significant damage. by the time the storm hit as a category 1 west of where i am in morgan city, a lot of people had sheltered in place or had evacuated. that being said, two levees here breached. there was overtopping because of the flooding, because of the storm surge, and that s why you have this scene behind me here
in manhattan, kendis, i know you were there when there was still natural light outside reporter: whoa! oh, did it just happen? the lights just came on behind you! let s go back to kendis. look at that! that looks like that was the final grid they were working to restore. kendis, is the marquee lit up? reporter: it is back on! the marquee s back on. msnbc s chris pollone is live in new york city. kendis was excited. we re all glad the power s back on, but what really caused this? reporter: yeah, that was a crazy few hours. that was a great moment there. and that s the question, jo lyng, that city and state leaders are asking themselves this morning, exactly why did this happen? the local power company over manhattan, over new york city, con edison, initially blamed this on an equipment failure, but a full investigation is under way this morning to figure out exactly why that equipment failed, plunging a great swath of the west side of manhattan into darkness.
outage of this magnitude in this city. it is too dangerous. the potential for public safety risk and chaos is too high. we just can t have a system that does this. it s that simple. at the end of the day. and that s what we re going to work on. reporter: jo ling, we ll be keeping a close eye on see if an exact cause is determined sometime later today. a lot of people were quick to point out last night, a very strange coincidence. that power outage happened on exactly the 42nd anniversary, almost to the hour, of one of the most infamous and widespread power outages in new york city that happened back in 1977. that one was far worse than what we experienced last night, but it was sure a strange night on the west side of manhattan. chris, are we ready for a blackout that has more of a sustained effect that would last longer in a major american city? reporter: yeah, that s the question.
said they had been detained for more than 40 days. what you saw today was that the facility here in mcallen is overwhelmed. i wouldn t take the word of people that are being detained in mcallen for how they re being treated but i m very confident that they re being provided with shelter and water and food and access to health care and access to hygiene. joining me now is representative norma torres. congresswoman thank you for joining me this morning. my first question is the vice president got a look at the crisis unfolding at the centers and he is saying that he wouldn t take their word for the conditions there. what s your response to that? good morning, joling, my response to the vice president is he s absolutely deaf to humanity and the issues surrounding the detention of these people. obviously what he saw were overcrowded conditions, the