nightly news with lester holt. good evening from houston where i am on assignment working on a story for a future broadcast but our top story tonight, the flooding catastrophe in kentucky where officials say at least 19 people have died including children with a toll expected to climb. authorities are not even sure how many people are still missing with fresh concern about more life-threatening flash floods this weekend. urgent rescues in boats and from helicopters continue with crews saving hundreds already. the governor telling me on thursday it s by far the worst flooding disaster in his lifetime 6 more inches of rain are expected in parts of the already devastated region. northeast tennessee, southwest virginia and west virginia also in the storm zone. all of it accentuating a climate crisis that is causing more intense and frequent severe weather emergencies around the world we have it all covered tonight beginning with maggie vespa in hard hit kentucky. reporter: i
none of the damages surprise you? nothing surprises me after ten years at ktwo, pete joined the staff of then congressman dick cheney as press secretary, eventually moving to washington when cheney became defense secretary, propelling pete to pentagon spokesman and an adviser to cheney during the first gulf war good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, i m pete williams in 1993 pete joined nbc news covering the justice department and the supreme court, breaking stories on spies like the cia s aldrich ames and fbi s robert hanson investigators say he was arrested sunday night in the suburban washington park in virginia after dropping off a package of classified information for his russian handlers investigators say he would signal a drop by putting strips of tape here on this sign pete s steady hand guided the network and viewers through some of the most difficult news events in history. the bombing of the federal