move closer to shore what you can do to avoid what lies beneath. announcer: this is nbc nightly news with lester holt good evening i m tom llamas in for lester tonight we begin with breaking news massive ground stops and delays across some of the country s biggest airports, making the holiday travel chaos even more complicated. a difficult summer travel season is now going from challenging to worse before the severe weather even moved in, americans facing a rare combination of high gas prices, high airfare, and mass cancellations across the country. the july fourth getaway is under way it is unclear how far people will get. nearly 50 million navigating clogged airports and roads gas prices down slightly, still painfully high for so many americans tracking it all for us tonight, tom costello who starts us off. reporter: friday night and america s july 4th getaway looks dicey. critical airports up and down the east coast in ground stops with severe thunderstorms from or