it's all about cleanup and closure tonight on this day after irene. good evening, everybody. i'm jim handly. >> and i'm lynn rieger. irene continues to weaken tonight. she's passing over new england as a tropical storm with winds gusting at 50 miles an hour. the death toll now stands at 23, including one in maryland and 4 in virginia, falling trees to blame in those indications. tonight the cleanup is under case and travel is getting back to normal. after more than 12,000 flights were canceled along the east coast this weekend, airports reopening. planes are flying once again. here in d.c. the big stories tonight, school closures and power outages. >> that's right. early tonight prince george's county schools canceled all classes for tomorrow. st. mary's, calvert, and charles county schools in maryland also will be closed along with anne arundel and howard counties. >> most d.c. schools will be open but 13 will remain closed because they don't have power. 23 schools in montgomery county are in the dark. they'll make a call on what to do overnight. we're rung all of the closings at the bottom of our screen. and there is a full list on nbcwashington.com. more than 265,000 people are still without power at this hour. 122,000 of them are pepco customers. >> bg & e is working on restoring nearly 19,000 outages this evening, and nearly 24,000 dominion virginia customers are still in the dark in the commonwealth. >> the damage varies greatly from county to county, even from one street to the next. >> darcy spencer spent this night in montgomery and prince george's counties, where a few neighborhoods were hit particularly hard. darcy, what did you find? >> reporter: jim, you can see the caution tape here. that's because right behind me a huge tree uprooted in the yard of this tacoma park home. the owner was right here inside her office in this little addition to the house right around 2:00 this morning when the tree fell down, nearly hitting her on the head. >> that's the bed. >> reporter: it's a good thing maggie sterner couldn't sleep last night. if she'd been in her bed at 2:00 this morning, she would have been crushed by a tree that fell on her tacoma park home. >> fortunately, no one was in that bed because it was completely crushed. the tree landed in that bedroom. the whole ceiling came down on top of the bed. >> reporter: instead sterner was on her computer in her first-floor office. the tree fell through, missing her by only a few inches. >> the tree came in here, and my head was here. the ceiling actually collapsed. it came in. the whole ceiling came down. and i got a bump on the head. >> reporter: at 3:30 sunday morning residents on lexington avenue in beltsville heard a crack. the sound was this power pole snapping and dragging utility lines with it. residents here are among the tens of thousands without power. >> when do you think the power will come back on? >> i have no idea. pepco is probably backlogged. i would think a couple days. it makes life a little tough. >> are you ready for that? >> oh, yeah. it's like camping. it's not a big daal. >> shocked. i'm very shocked about it. lucky it didn't get worse than what it was. >> reporter: in upper marboro waters street and judges drive have flooded, blocking the entrance to the county courthouse. >> i think it's probably the worst i've seen in -- like i say, i've been around here since 19 50. >> reporter: prince george's county executive baker says pepco officials have agreed to give him an update on outages every six hours. he says he's pleased with the county's response to this latest natural disaster. >> we were well prepared for it. the earthquake was a good drill for us. so by the time the hurricane hit i think we handled it very well. >> reporter: back out live, you can see this huge tree that fell on this house here in tacoma park early this morning. and again, the homeowner says that she's had people to come out and take a look here. they say they couldn't just remove this tree. the damage is very extensive here going across the entire top of the house. she says more people will be coming out tomorrow to see if the house can be restored or if it could be a total loss. this neighborhood, like many in prince george's, montgomery county without power tonight. reporting live from tacoma park, darcy spence yes, news 4. back to you. >> all right, darcy. thank you. some of these trunks and roots are just huge out there. thank you. st. mary's county appears to be among the hardest hit in our region. residents spent the day cleaning up and assessing the damage. trees fell on dozens of roads, leaving many of them impassable. those massive trees also caused extensive damage to buildings and homes. and the other problem, flooding. >> what the heck happened here? >> strong winds. bad winds. pretty bad. not good. it's devastating. very devastating. >> as we mentioned at p the top of the show, st. mary's county schools will be closed tomorrow as this cleanup continues. in virginia some homeowners have a very big job ahead of them this week, clearing massive trees that fell on their roofs and front yards all weekend long. >> others are having their patient tested as they sit in the dark. shammari stone is live in alexandria, where frustration is mounting. >> reporter: right now we're in a home here in northern virginia. and this is what residents are experiencing. darkness. they're betting around their homes with battery-operated flashlights like this one right here. let me show you quickly what's happening outside. there was a hurricane irene feeder band that came through here. it toppled a tree right across the street. these are cable wires. there are no live wires right here. we believe in safety first at news 4. now, if you come over here, the wind just came through, knocked down a tree, knocked down this power pole you're seeing right over here. and then officials are out here and they're directing these guys who are -- now they're leaving, they're going to be coming back soon, and their goal is to restore your power. hurricane irene nailed parts of northern virginia. in mount vernon they're also in the dark. after four oak trees toppled, police cordoned off the area. you can see the storm smacked byron davis's home. he said, and we talked about his tropical depression. >> how are you feeling right now? >> a little distraught. we really don't have anywhere to go or a place to live right now. we came home with this in the morning. i don't know really like what to say or anything about that. it's just kind of like, whoa. >> it's amazingly disturbing. >> reporter: lars cant says he's vulnerable. a tree's weight to snap the wires in half and spark an inferno. >> these wires are all live and we haven't been able to get someone to stop by. we're most concerned about should the stuff come down. >> reporter: drive around d.c. and you'll see people also concerned about what hurricane irene left behind. toppled trees blocking several streets. drivers doing u-turns to get away. this one crashed on a car in upton street. yellow tape warns of the danger. at 49th and rodman, a tree slammed into this house. fortunately no, one was hurt here or at this other place where irene snapped this tree like a toothpick. >> about 1:30 in the morning my husband and i woke up to a huge crash and discovered this tree on our house. >> reporter: now, pepco and dominion power officials tell me they're doing their best to restore power. it's important to point out that the first 24 hours after the storm, those are the most crucial in which they go around and assess the situation. tomorrow the men and women tell me that they are going to be supercharged and they're going to hit the ground running. live here in northern virginia i'm shamari stone. back to you in the studio. >> thank you, shamari stone. meanwhile, one of the nuclear reactors remains offline at calvert cliffs tonight but the facility is no longer in the unusual event status. that is the lowest level of four emergency classifications. during the storm unit 1 automatically went offline when a large piece of aluminum siding struck a transformer. officials tell us at the facility they say safety systems are working exactly the way they should be and are designed to work. unit 1 remains offline for inspections but unit 2 is operating at full power. the mandatory evacuation order has been lifted in ocean city. early today, and a lot of people are returning dreading what they might find. as john schriffen tells us, they were pleasantly surprised. >> reporter: the cleanup process from hurricane irene has begun here in ocean city, maryland. authorities allowed residents and business owners to return to this coastal community as 9:00 sunday morning. >> nothing like i examined. it was fine. >> reporter: justin grimes, the assistant general manager at secrets, a possible local hangout, was expecting the worst. >> the water got so high it came through the holes of these walls and took some of the sand back out with it. so we just sandbagged it for today and letting everything settle and then we'll cut these bags over and refill everything it washed out. >> reporter: saturday night into early sunday morgan authorities say the height of the storm brought wind gusts up to 80 miles per hour. >> just the last few minutes she has really picked up her punch. it's gotten so intense i had to put on these safety goggles. >> reporter: with a total rainfall of 10 to 12 inches irene also flooded low-lying areas here on the bay side. but for the most part everyone's staying positive. these surfers from frederick, maryland followed the storm and are now taking advantage of the waves. >> regularly, you've got to paddle just hard to get anything. it's like one to two foot. today it's definitely got some seven, eight-foot faces out there. it's perfect. >> reporter: back at secrets by late afternoon the bar was already up and running. the next big challenge, getting ready for labor day weekend. but for now a toast. >> irene. >> reporter: authorities here are still surveying the area and are not sure how much damage has been done to the entire city but say the good news is that no one here was injured. in ocean city i'm john schriffen, news 4. irene reached new england today as a tropical storm, and while the winds had died down substantially heavy rains caused some major flooding up there. families were caught off guard. they became trapped in their homes. in battleboro witnesses say it just took 15 minutes for some houses to be inundated with water. well, the lights had just come back on in one silver spring neighborhood when fire ripped through a house on the block. huge flames and thick smoke came billowing out of the home here on parum road around 8:00 tonight. our cameras were there as cameras first arrived on the scene. a police officer was injured when he went in the house to warn everybody to get out. he's expected to be okay. the cause of the blaze is still under investigation. still ahead tonight, evacuation orders are lifted, but it could be some time before some people in north carolina can get back to their homes. and rapidly rising flood waters leave two women trapped inside their home. an update on the damage up and down the east coast. the long-awaited martin luther king memorial dedication, it was postponed because of the storm. but that didn't stop hundreds from visiting this weekend. hey, chuck, what's going on with our earth now? wendy, things are finally starting to settle down just a little bit. we're all ready to go back to work and school and back to cleaning up in the morning. we'll have a complete forecast. dan, what's coming up in sports? tonight on "sports final," a local high school football team getting big on a national stage. the redskins suffer a big loss on their defensive line in their third preseason game. and jason reed is in the house to talk their house flooded before they knew what was coming. >> it's like a pool. everything is floating. the bed is floating. my freezer's floating. everything is floating. >> there were several other rescues in that same westchester county neighborhood. wendy? well, even major cities that are not directly along the coast got pounded by irene. katie zachary from our sister station wcau shows us what happened when flooding got the best of one neighborhood in philly today. >> reporter: hurricane irene may not have made landfall near philadelphia but they certainly made her mark in manioc. >> it's been a very interesting day. >> we've never seen the water up this high. >> reporter: a half-mile stretch of main street between sures lane and ridge avenue became a river sunday. the nearby school kyl often overflows onto main street, but rarely if ever like this. >> one of the worst storms in the last 50 years. >> about a little over two feet, and that's with two sump pumps pumping running out the water right there. >> please be safe. don't go in the water. >> you be safe, too. >> reporter: store owners went to great lengths to keep the water out. they say most damage was only in the basement. >> i think the city has fared better than what we thought was going to happen. >> reporter: remarkably there were no water rescues with irene. >> a-plus for the citizens of this great city. they listened to our warnings. they took the information. they did what we asked them to do. and that's how we got through this pretty much unskated except for property damage. >> as predicted, the river crested mid-afternoon and the water slowly started to recede. for a few this spectacle did not match the great floods of before. >> so this is a baby puddle compared to the days when i grew up here. >> reporter: but for many it's a sight they'll never forget. >> i was pretty thankful our apartment's up the hill and not right here on main street because it doesn't look like a lot of fun to have to worry about having all your stuff get washed away. >> reporter: philadelphia police will monitor this stretch of main street until all of the water does subside. the city says it will not reopen the road until they bring in crews to assess any damage and clean up any debris. they hope that will happen by tomorrow. reporting in the manioc section of philadelphia, i'm katie zachary for news 4. >> irene of course made its first landfall in north carolina, and there is an awful lot of cleaning up to do there. along the outer banks, high tide last night brought devastating flooding in from the sound. the water created at least five breaks in the one and only highway there, leaving parts of hatteras island completely cut off. residents were allowed to begin returning late this afternoon to begin surveying the damage. visitors can't return until noon tomorrow at the earliest. >> all right. >> eager to get back in there. >> no kidding. >> so the rest of the week. can we take a break from all of this? >> yeah. we've earned it. we've definitely earned some nice weather. >> mayhem going on. >> it's been a little crazy -- even i'll admit it's shaken me to the foundations just a little bit, so to speak. but yeah, we are in store for some very nice weather. a couple of kids have to go back to school in the morning. good weather for back to school. back to work. and unfortunately, a lot of folks still waiting for the power to come back on and a lot of cleaning up to do. great weather even if you have to spend the day with the chainsaw. outside right now on a sunday evening, beautiful weather has returned to the mid-atlantic. hopefully, we can all just take a little breath and relax and enjoy the upcoming week. it's going to be a fine week. very septemberish around the area, in fact. 74 degrees right now in washington. dew points have fallen back down into the comfortable lower 60s. only 68% humidity, a light breeze from the north at 5, and no wind gusts. isn't that a nice chafe pace? speaking of wind gusts, here were some more peak wind gusts. we could have made a list five miles long for you. north beach, 64 miles per hour. patuxent river 64 miles per hour. even closer into the metro, north potomac 54. dahlgren, virginia 53. even fredricksburg a 45-mile-per-hour wind gust. and rainfall amounts, calvert county and st. mary's county, it's unfair to even compare you to anyone else. you had so much more rain. more than 12 inches in hollywood, mary. bowie, maryland, prince george's county seven inches of rain there. brandywine the far end of prince george's county almost 7 inches. bluemont an inch and a half. martinsburg, west virginia less than an inch. and winchester, virginia only 2/3 of an inch. temperatures backing down into the mid 60s and low 70s. mid 60s back up as well. wake-up temperatures 55 in the western suburbs to 63 in town and bayside. here's the good news. this is what's going to become tropical storm and eventually probably hurricane katya out here in the eastern atlantic. the good news is it's so far away from the eastern united states that even if it forms and it's all likely to, it will be two weeks before we have to worry about it potentially making it anywhere to the united states. so that'll be some welcome news. a little weather front drifting on by. high pressure. so great weather the coming days. cooler in the morning, 65 to 53. form a great day. plenty of sunshine in the morning, a few clouds by afternoon. highs 75 to 80 degrees. monday, tuesday, wednesday. beautiful weather around here cooler than average. a little chance for a shower on thursday. and maybe a few unsettled showers next weekend. but nothing compared to what we've been through. and katia will be a long coway coming. >> after the break hurricane irene kept us busy this weekend at news 4. and one thing that kept us busy were the messages and pictures from you. >> oh, that picture, right there. cat in the hat. >> we're going to show you some of our favorites. >> and we've got sports coming up too. jayson werth coming up big at the plate. but was it enough to launch the nats ove hakem is back from storm duty. nats on a roll in the wrong direction. >> yeah. >> yeah. they avoided hurricane irene but it kind of wrecked their weekend anyway in cincinnati. with 30 games to go in the regular season the nationals hit a low point today in cincinnati. manager davey johnston was ejected for the first time as nats skipper for arguing and the team lost its sixth in a rope. jayson werth at the plate with a man on second and werth battling here on the tenth pitch of the at-bat. base knock up the middle. ian desmond hustling around third. and he scores. nats take a 4-3 lead. and werth says, hey, here we go, guys, drew storen on to close it out facing pinch hitter yonder alonzo. solo shot to right. tie ball game. storen's fifth blown save this season. we go to extras, nolted at 4. bottom of the 14th now. colin balancester in the game pitching to joey votto. gets over the wall. the reds win in extras. the natsz are off tomorrow. they start a three-game series in atlanta on tuesday. in baltimore os-yankees first game of the doubleheader. rookie zach britten solid. here in the third gets mark teixeira looking to end the inning. britten goes seven innings, no runs, strikes out five. bottom eight, os up 1-0, j.j. hardy at the place with two outs, runners at the corners. he's an exquisite situational hitter. single to left, mark reynolds scores. the orioles blank the yanks, win their sixth in a row. however, new york takes the night game 6-3. hey, dan hellie, what's coming up on "sports final"? >> hakem, coming up tonight on "sports final," jason reed, "washington post" columnist in the house, and we're going to be talking redskins, of course. he has been on the john beck bandwagon for quite some time, and i don't think he's done anything to tip that bandwagon over just yet, has he? >> i don't think so, my friend. but look, i think th