36 million people are in the flood watches from vermont all the way through all of connecticut, massachusetts, hudson valley, back down to new jersey and long island. and the rainfall estimates, we easily could see an additional 3 to 6 inches and we re very concerned, jonathan, with the mountains of the berkshires and western mass, western connecticut and through the hudson valley including the catskills. that s where we ll see the problems starting this afternoon and continuing all night tonight. so the bottom line landfall expected in the next two hours of henri in rhode island. all right, bill karins, thanks so much. this sunday as we await remarks from president biden, they have activated the civil reserve fleet. 18 commercial liners will be used to transport evacuees from afghanistan. freeing military planes to focus on getting people out of kabul. meanwhile a brand-new nbc poll out this morning reveals the president s approval rating has
get americans safely out. when he said the chaos that exists is just a fact, it s gonna happen no matter when i do it, that isn t necessarily true. there was a better way. if you just look at the 1973 paris peace accords, there was a decent interval in the negotiations to allow the evacuation of americans and those that were in danger. the fall of saigon didn t happen for two more years. i m happy with the processing stations. thank you. but i d rather it would have been done right and done sooner. but i do think those countries thank those countries that are participating now, and i think that the civilian reserve fleet is a wonderful thing. i mean, i flew commercial to kuwait before entering iraq when i deployed to iraq. but we re doing this out of desperation if instead, and that s a problem. on to the deadline, extending the deadline, we ll see, he said. but i m pretty sure he wants it done before the symbolic date of
background checks before they continue on to their final destination in the united states or another country, or one of our nato allies as well. and so, from asia to africa, from europe to the western hemisphere, nations are making generous offers to support resettlement efforts. i have been in personal contact with the leaders of many countries, including germany, spain, italy, the uae and many others. they are making vital contributions. i want to thank them to for their support and to discuss how we can continue to coordinate our efforts in afghanistan moving forward and that is the reason i continue to contact them. i want to again thank all of our partners for continuing to stand together. we have also activated the first stage of what is referred to as the civil reserve air fleet to help with the onward movement of evacuees from each of these transit centres. military aircraft will get them to the centres, but then we will get the centres, but then we will get the civil reserve f
our military aircraft and others will get them to these center, but then we re going to get the civil reserve fleet. it s a program that s designed and was designed in the wake of the berlin airlift after world war ii to use commercial aircraft to augment our airlift capacity. this is a voltaire program for our commercial airlines, and we re grateful for those airlines and the u.s. carriers who are supporting us. this will only use 3 or 4 planes from each of the major carriers, so there should be know effect or minimal effect on on commercial air travel, and we ll stay in close communication with our partners to mitigate any impact. these civil reserve flights will be helping dog facilitate the safe mobility of people to transit centers and to the united states or to a third country. none of them will be landing in kabul. now, the american aircraft part of this will not be going to any country but the united states.