structu destruction of the wildfires in texas. this now stretches across a 16-mile area. winds whipped up flames again today. a separate fire in eastern texas killed a mother and her 18-month-old child. tropical depression lee slogging its way north today after dumping as much of a foot of rain in parts of louisiana. pumps in new orleans helped prevent any major problem there. that was good. but the storm caused flooding in other towns and cities along the gulf. in alabama, lee spun off portable tornadoes and strong winds damaged at least 20 homes in thewn the television say, tornado warning, and about that time, we had an ungodly clap of lightning and the hard ligwind by. lights went out, came back on and everything opened up. it was like a machine gun going off. breaking news on the political front. texas gov senior riernor rick p poultd pulled out of a political forum in south carolina to go back to texas to deal with the wildfires. five others will take part in the
killed. and again, the picture that you re seeing now is a lot of tripoli where that black smoke the rising over gadhafi s compound and richard engel is reporting right now for nbc from tripoli, let s listen in. reporter: there was an assault that started in the very early hours on this fort tied compound where em standing right now in the center of tripoli. then air strikes quickly developed. the rebels advanced as close as they could get to the wall. they started lowering antiaircraft guns. firing them on to the walls. eventually they managed to breach a hole in the walls themselves. stream into the compound and now there are thousands of people, rebels and ordinary people in the area who have come in to see what is inside. we are watching an incredible amount of looting going on right now as they are taking weapons. not only weapons, but television sets, golf carts, cars,
[ speaking in a foreign language ] [ gunfire ] [ speaking in a foreign language ] hello, everyone. this is randi kaye here watching the live events unfold in libya here along with michael holmes. it is 7:00 p.m. in tripoli, where the fight to oust moammar gadhafi just took a potentially momentous turn. within the past 90 minutes, libyan rebels penetrated gadhafi s compound which nato war planes have bombed off and on now for months. the rebels now have the run of the place. we have seen them celebrating, confiscating files and weapons and ammunition as they go room by room through what is a large compound with multiple buildings. we are hearing about pockets of fire, in fact, we have actually seen that. you can see now a fire that appears to have broken out in one part of the compound there. until he pulls out, it s difficult to know what part this is. we have been seeing that domed building which has been to the left and to the right of that domed building is the famous
moammar gadhafi s grip on libya appears to be ending. rebels say they control 80% of the libyan capital today, pockets of gadhafi fighters are holding out. they still control this hotel that s home base for foreign journalists. gadhafi s whereabouts are unknown. his loyalists continue to defend his compound. rebels keep rolling with no major resistance. they pour into the street to celebrate after they have taken much of tripoli. we were outside the windows screaming. everyone realized no one wants him. no one wants the dictator. most of us had our homes closed because there was fear, but there s no more fear. the end, game over. rebels stay three of gadhafi s sons are in custody today, including the son groomed to succeed his father. fighters grabbed another early this morning. he was on the phone at the time for a live interview with the al jazeera. you can hear him talking as rebels approach. translator: i m standing outside my house. i m being attacked right now. th
say now we re going to leave. mike barnicle, looks like we ve gone into libya, mika disagrees, but we ve gone in there without an end game, just like we ve been in afghanistan now for a decade without an end game. this at least to me doesn t seem to be anyway to run a foreign policy operation. well, joe be i think there is an end game. it s been articulated. whether they can achieve the end game is another question entirely. the end game is gadhafi has to go. but mike, who takes over gadhafi s place? is it al qaeda and does that require americans to be sitting in libya for another decade to make sure al qaeda doesn t get their hands on oil? well, that is their ultimate problem, is it not? because the only way you can win a war, check throughout history since people have been throwing rocks at one another, the only way you can win a war is ultimately, eventually with troops on the ground. you can do all sorts of incredible things from the air with air power. no doubt about that.