virginia in washington d.c. amtrak has shut down all service in the northeast until further notice. if you live somewhere other than the northeast today, be very glad. chief meteorologist rick reichmuth is with us. glad you weren t on that flight. shepard: i know. everybody throwing up. tough weather in boston. this storm will last through four high tide cycles. the last high tide cycle, some of the levels were at the third highest ever for flooding along the coast. this prolonged pattern here of wind because it s a slow mover and so strong is pummelling a lot of waters across the shores of massachusetts. all along the coast, we have flood watches and warnings. along with this, take a look at the winds. it s 53 miles an hour gusts right now in boston. 55 at j.t.k., 49 in philly and
couldn t afford to subsidize train safety. well, two weeks ago, they repealed the entire estate tax at a cost of nearly $700 billion to the treasury without a penny in offset. so instead of subsidizing special interests, we need to subsidize the safety of americans and their infrastructure. let me ask you about that train ride. everybody takes that train from d.c. to new york and loves it. but the problem with the train ride is it s the opposite of a bullet train. it doesn t go straight in a line. it jumps back and forth. it goes around every corner in every big city. it s a jagged line. how do you get around that? the fact is it s a difficult course to run safely. certainly not at speed. chris, i once had a debate with the former head of the metropolitan agency in new york when i was telling him we needed high speed rail. he said you ll never get it done. it s too complicated. it s too expensive. i said to him i m glad you weren t around in the 1850s and the 1860s when we built th
they know what their speed limits are. we want to find out. what other job does an engineer have other than to regulate the speed? i don t know how you can get it wrong. that s the only job they have, isn t it, to make sure the train is going at the right speed? it s certainly an important part of their job. let me ask you about why i know this is speculative. but we know there is evidence because you reported in the tape. the guy jammed on the brakes. why would he jam on the brakes? did he know he exceeded the speed and wasn t conscious of it or was? you couldn t jam on the brakes once you re derailed. that wouldn t do any good. we hope to interview the engineer. that s certainly a priority for us to certainly find out what was going on in his mind. we also want to look at the mechanical condition of the train. we want to look at the signal system. how about the track? we ll be looking at the track as well. let me ask you about this. i ride it all the time. and everybo
it s too complicated. it s too expensive. i said to him i m glad you weren t around in the 1850s and the 1860s when we built the transcontinental railroad right through the rocky mountains. if we could do those things now we should be able to do them now. and we have to quit this defeatism and this lack of priorities in washington, d.c. it can be done. if other countries can do it we can find the will and the way to do it here. but we have a country where people can complain and communist countries like china, they just draw a straight line. whether it goes through your house or not it s a straight line. this amtrak i ve been taking it for half a century. it doesn t go in a straight line. in this case it tried to make a turn and turned over because there are so many turns on that route. you re right. if you can t get rid of the turns, at least fund the ptcs, at least fund the positive train control systems that would immediately stop the train if it s going too fast around a curve.
georgia was the last one in 2008. the question is what other kinds of pressures can be brought to bear. we saw the president was very successful in cobbling together an international coalition, including the russians to force iran to the negotiating table on the nuclear question. but what made that effective was t was the u.n. nimty there was for him. bringing the allies around both in support of the ukrainian government and some sort of sanctions against russia. and very briefly, david, i saw your tweets about being the parent of a special olympian and the excitement with jimmy fallon and rahm emanuel taking the pole are plunge for special olympics. i m glad you weren t with them. how rough was that? well, you know, we re flirting with zero degree temperatures and they jumped in