Francisco to sacramento, floodwaters and fierce winds have been knocking out power to thousands of people. Some people who lived in the areas for decades say they have never seen anything like this. Thing just went up fast. Weve had previously where its gotten up real high but hasnt gotten this bad. Do you live right here in the park . Right here. Right here . Yeah, right there. I got my mom out. I took her down to a friends house down the street because you never know if water like this what its going to do. People are evacuating out of the cars, and as you see, you cant get out. I had to march up the hill and walk down the side hill to get in here. So its really, really very bad. Rob marciano is tracking the storms from the cnn Weather Center in atlanta. How is it looking in the near future, rob . Well, a bit of a break today, soledad. More rain coming tomorrow. You saw the folks dealing with the rain about fall, cars driving through it. The rivers rushing. But we have infrastructure damage, as well. Some video out of oakland in and around this area, lafayette there, this home damage, a number of them, you get near the hillside, that brings down debris and boulders and mud, and that does damage not only to homes but on the other side of roadways, weve got damage from a number of primary and secondary roads in and around this bay area. A tremendous amount of rainfall that has just undermined those structures. So youve got issues with that, as well. Of course people driving through these flooded streets. Youve got a need for rescues. The Fire Departments and their swift water rescue teams were out in full force over the weekend rescuing people. This is in cuss cadder ra and a number of other people had to be rescued. Napa valley tremendous rainfall there. Napa river up and over its floodbanks. The Sacramento River also in flood stage. In some cases, almost a foot and a half of rainfall in this fiveday period. Raining right now in seattle to portland. Not raining right now in sacramento and San Francisco. But that will likely change as we get through tomorrow, at least tonight into tomorrow. Yesterday, punch was pretty strong and you saw the damage from that. Our next system about to come in. It will start in the Pacific Northwest tonight and tomorrow morning and eventually drift down to the south. Shouldnt be as strong as far as wind and rain like what we saw the past three. Also big issue with fog this morning across the great lakes, down across the southeast. Very, very warm from across the eastern sector of the u. S. , and with that comes a little bit of fog. Thats so unusual for california, isnt it . A lot of times reporting there. In that area like that to that degree. Thank you for the update. Congress heads back to work this morning as the clock is ticking down toward the impending fiscal cliff. Talks, though, seem to be at a stalemate. Yesterday with just 29 days until tax hikes and deep spending cuts kick in. Both republicans and the democrats were running to the airwaves to try to explain their positions. Heres what they said. What were not going to do is extend those tax cuts with the wealthiest americans. Those cost a trillion dollars over ten years and theres no possibility that were going to find a way to get our fiscal house in order without those tax rates going back up. Nobody wants to go over the cliff. Thats why the day after the election i tried to speed this process up by making the concession to put revenues on the table. Its unfortunate that the white house has spent three weeks doing basically nothing. The administration has presented a plan that calls for 1. 6 trillion in new tax revenues. 400 billion in cuts to medicare and other entitlements. 50 billion for a new stimulus and congress would have to give up control over raising the debt limit. Republicans have indicated that they want to raise revenue by lowering tax deductions, havent given any specifics yet. Brings us right to White House Correspondent brianna keilar. Good morning, brianna. Good morning to you, soledad. Yes, things are at an impasse here. I will tell you the white house after not being very happy with the pace of negotiations the week before last sent treasury secretary tim geithner up to the hill to outline this proposal. Theres a lot we already knew about that president obama had already taken a public position on. The white house is now saying to republicans as well, we want you to put the meat on the bones when it comes to the entitlement reform portion of this deficit reduction plan. Thats politically very tricky, as you know, because a lot of times dealing with entitlements will be construed as cuts to medicare and thats often not very popular. As you can imagine that deal that you just outlined, not received very well by republicans on the hill. I think were going over the cliff. Its pretty clear to me theyve made a political calculation. This offer doesnt remotely deal with entitlement reform in a way to save medicare and medicaid, and Social Security from imminent bankruptcy. The president s plan when it comes to entitlement reform is just quite frankly a joke so i dont think theyre serious about finding a deal. So not really good language youre hearing soledad. House Speaker John Boehner said he found the proposal flabbergasting. He said its not serious. But you definitely have the white house here and democrats feeling that they have some leverage. They look at polls that show americans are more prepared to blame republicans because of the impasse and also the fact that the consequences of the fiscal cliff, these spending cuts and these tax pardon me the spending cuts and the tax increases that kick in here at the end of the year, the consequences are very dire and following the election the white house and democrats think that they can really push republicans into a corner here. Brianna keilar for us. Thank you. Just ahead were going to be talking with connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal will join us to talk a little bit about the democrats responsibility about this impending fiscal cliff. Another story were following, friends and family of Kansas City ChiefsJovan Belcher looking for answers this morning after he killed his girlfriend and then took his own life. His team took to the field just a day after the tragedy. It was i guess kind of a somber victory. They beat the Carolina Panthers 2721. Just their second game of the season. Saturday morning belcher shot his 22yearold girlfriend Kasandra Perkins and then turned the gun on himself outside the practice facility. He and perkins leave behind a 3monthold daughter. Casey wian has been talking to chiefs players and coaches, all of them trying to figure out what was wrong. Lets talk a little bit first about croce crennel who saw belcher kill himself at what did he say that belcher said to him . Well he hasnt said what belcher said to him specifically but what police have said is that belcher expressed this thankfulness to coach crennel and Chiefs Organization from giving him a chance to play in the nfl. He was from a Small University and he worked really hard to get where he was. There was another member of chiefs staff who saw that he had a gun and called 911. The chiefs Staff Members who confronted belcher in the parking lot said they never felt like they were in any danger. At least thats according to police. But then he shot himself right in front of them. The police now know exactly what happened. What theyre trying to figure out in this investigation is obviously why it happened. Yeah, i mean 25 years old. Hed been really just sort of a, an underdog in a lot of ways and hed been so successful in that. There have been six current or former nfl players that have committed suicide in the past two years. Which is an unprecedented number. What are they looking into as to the why behind all those . Well there has been some speculation about the role that perhaps traumatic head injuries, concussions may have played in this. Theres no concrete evidence of that at all. But the nfl has been struggling with the issues of concussions for awhile. That is something that im sure theyre going to be looking into. Also this tragic issue of suicide among current and former players. Definitely on the mind of chiefs players. We spoke through one whos been through this before. Ive been through this situation earlier in the year, in tennessee with o. J. Murdoch when i was with cincinnati, so im kind of used to this now. Wont say used to it but i been in the situation before. So just continue to try to pray for the families that lost loved ones, and continue to go. We need to talk to each other more as men, not as Football Players i mean in life. Because generally men dont really show their feelings. You know, they dont talk about whats going on. They dont cry. They dont show emotion. I mean, to, to have a act go on like this yesterday, its one of those things, could have been avoided. As a teammate you know we have to do more about not getting in peoples business but i mean just, just you know, making sure that you know the teammates okay. Soledad you mentioned earlier that it was a somber victory for the chiefs yesterday. It was somber and quiet throughout the whole game. Quietest crowd ive ever heard at an nfl stadium and that locker room was really surreal. Wasnt much celebration going on at all. What a terrible tragedy. Casey wian for us. I mean he was 25 years old. His girlfriend was 22 years old. Thats just a horrible story. Casey wian reporting for us. Coming up in our next hour were going to talk to Jovan Belchers agent joe linta. Hes been his agent since 2009. He also represents the kansas city coach who witnessed the suicide. Well get his take right at 8 00 this morning. First though want to get a look at some of the other stories making news. Good morning, everybody. A member of the u. S. Coast guard is dead after a suspicious boat rammed his inflatable boat during a pursuit off the coast of southern california. Affiliate wabc says the suspicious boat was used to smuggle drugs. Chief petty officer was one of two coast guard members thrown off on impact. He suffered a twrau matic head injury. The other coast guardsman was treated at a local hospital. The coast guard says the suspicious vessel was intercepted and the two people were detained. An Evacuation Order remains in effect this morning in doyline, louisiana, as authorities rush to secure more than 6 Million Pounds of gun powder. The m6 powder was found that camp minden. Operation is under way to move the powder into authorized fasscilities on the same safe. Workers have safely stored more than 1 Million Pounds. Thats enough to fill 27 18wheelers. Soledad grab all three of your mobile devices the pope is on twitter. Starting december 12th. Pope benedict will begin tweeting using the handle pontifex thats pontifex. He already has 6700 followers. Vatican Officials Say the pope will be composing the tweets himself. How can he have 6700 followers . Well hes on you know. The vatican by the way launched a twitter news feed 17 months ago, kicked it off with a tweet from pope benedict. President obama recognized entertainers at the Kennedy Center honors last night. This years honorees include oscar winner dustin hoffman, late night host david letterman, ballerina, blues guitarist buddy guy and led zeppelin. Listen to this during a reception for the event mitt romney supporter kid rock ran into the president. Rock says the runin wasnt awkward, not at all. In fact he says they were able to laugh off any past rivalries. He said im still here. No hard feelings. And he remembered meeting my son when i played his inauguration, which was very special. And the kumbayah moment, kid rock also ran into look at that our own wolf blitzer right before the ceremony. Cut and paste that photo. Wolf tweeted that picture. My invitation must have blown off my desk. Still ahead this morning on starting point, fiery danger thats forced ford to now recall two of its bestselling models. Well update you on that and the race against time to stop america from plunging off the fiscal cliff. 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Take advantage of exceptional values during the season of audi event. 16 minutes after the hour, welcome back to starting point. Minding your business now, ford is issuing recalls for two of its newest and biggest selling models. The 2013 escape crossover and the 2013 fusion sedan. The problem is at the engines can overheat and catch on fire. The recall affects nearly 90,000 vehicles. Market check now, u. S. Stock futures are up. Possible data overnight on chinas manufacturing sector. Investors will be watching those fiscal cliff negotiations in washington today. Plus, we will get reports on u. S. Auto sales. Manufacturing and construction spending. Big news this week, of course, the november jobs report for the government, that will come out on friday. Soledad, back to you. Alina, thank you. The story thats going to affect all of our wallets, our retirement, our benefits, the economy, if, in fact, we do go over the fiscal cliff, taxes will go up, major spending cuts will kick in. This weekend republican South Carolina congressman seth graham said he thinks that were going to go off the fiscal cliff in fact and he said this, i think were going to go over the cliff, it seems to me that they made a political calculation. This offer doesnt remotely deal with entitlement reform in a way to save medicare, medicaid and Social Security from imminent bankruptcy. Senator Richard Blumenthal is a democrat from the state of connecticut. He joins us this morning. Good to see you. You heard Lindsey Graham saying he thinks were going off the cliff. You think thats true . I respectfully disagree. Im really encouraged that we can avoid this fiscal cliff for a number of reasons. First of all, there is a growing group of republicans who say we really need to raise revenue, not just talk about raising revenue, but actually increase taxes on the wealthiest 2 . And theyre willing to consider those kinds of taxes that the president proposed so that middleclass americans, the 98 , will not see any taxes. And second im encouraged because some of the businesses, in fact a growing number of businesses, moderate and constructively, are proposing that the president s plan make sense. But the major developments that really for the republicans to come forward with some of their specifics. And specific terms, and proposals if they say they want to avoid these tax increases. They need to be more specific. On how to do it. You keep using the word encourage and ill read you some other words that have come from Lindsey Graham. He said its a joke. Its not serious. And it, you know, you might be encouraged but treasury secretary geithner did not seem all that encouraged. He seemed like he had to spend his entire weekend on television sort of selling his side of it. There are republicans who would say listen what the democrats have supposed offered is absolutely nothing and as time ticks away were starting already late in the game to be sort of a still at point zero. The president s put a great deal on the table. First of all, 1. 6 trillion in tax increases that hit only the wealthiest 2 of u. S. Households earning more than 250,000. Would see their taxes increase but the 98 of middleclass americans would see no tax increase. But its entitlements as you know. Its the entitlements that have the republicans upset. When you look at the changes to entitlements, republicans would say, theres really not much thats been put reasonably on the table thats a real shift from what was already being negotiate back in 2011. Well, there are 400 billion to 600 billion in Health Care Savings predominantly through medicare that would be achieved. Through a number of measures. And i think very encouragingly, goen again i use the word encouragingly, there are increasing realizations that we can do it with Higher Quality medical care by cutting the cost on the states, hospital required inspections, premature discharges, and also some of the measures that can cut the cost of medicaid spending which is very important to the states, as well. So there is going to be a give and take here. There has to be use the magic word, compromise. And im hoping that some of the rhetoric here may be a guise for the real negotiations that are going to be occurring behind the scenes. And there have to be negotiations. You know, in any sort of compromise in any serious negotiations, there has to be a give and take and im hoping that there will be in the coming weeks. Nor Richard Blumenthal, is a democrat from connecticut joining us this morning. Nice to see you, sir. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Still ahead, the u. S. Has a stern warning for syria. Why theres worry in washington, d. C. About chemical weapons there. Starting point team is heading in to talk about that much more youre watching starting point. 2 on groceries. 3 on gas. Automatically. No hoops to jump through. Thats 1 back on. [ toy robot sounds ] 2 on pumpkin pie. A