for free visit otter.ai, ai or download the app. i ll rafael romo at the georgia state capitol in atlanta. this is cnn cnn breaking news i m wolf blitzer, the cnn newsroom, and we re following breaking news out of new york right now of four only eight, four magnitude earthquake rattling the tri-state area just a few moments ago, initial reports indicate there shaking was felt in new york, and new jersey donna philadelphia, as well as washington, dc, where i am right now, the nypd says no damages or injuries have been reported, but only happened a few moments ago, new york s governor, kathy hochul says, her team is assessing the impact and the new jersey governor phil murphy says he s activated the state s emergency operations center, cnn, as of course, covering the story from all angles, i want to go to our meteorologist elisa raffa. she s over at the cia weather center for us. so at least walk us through what we know so far yeah. well, i mean, i know that new yorkers a
masks are optional for drivers as well as riders, but when i got in an uber, they said they were not optional, and masks are still required today, and the driver didn t know about it, and masks are required in new york subways, but not on amtrak trains and not required for the new jersey transit system but you are required if you are in a new york-state governed station, and you can have a scenario where you are on a train in new jersey and you get to penn station and you put your mask back on and it s optional when you are in the train hall. if that s not confusing, in
anticipating and leaning forward into making sure we ve got the best possible response to what is going to be a big and messy system. as you can imagine, this is a really fluid situation at this hour. a total of ten states up and down the eastern seaboard have officially declared a state of emergency. in virginia the national guard has been authorized to call up 500 troops to help clear roads and remove debris. in delaware, the governor ordered 50,000 people living in coastal communities to evacuate by 8:00 p.m. this evening. evacuations are also in place in parts of coastal new jersey. about an hour ago, new jersey began to operate a shutdown of the new jersey transit system. here in new york city, mayor michael bloomberg and city officials are not taking chances either. the mayor ordered a mandatory evacuation of 360,000 new york city residents living in low-lying areas. the entire new york city subway system will be shutting down at
down at 7:00. you have the path system, the underground train system linking new jersey to new york. that shuts down after midnight. the new jersey transit system also included in that. a bit of preparation here beforehand. they are preparing for worst case scenario. earlier today new york s governor cuomo gave us reasons why they are shutting down mass transit. it is unsafe to operate the trains in high winds. second, we don t want the equipment damaged. trains are designed to deal with a lot of tough duty. they are not intended to be submerged. i wouldn t want to damage the equipment and then have a real problem getting the system up and running. thirdly, we don t want to encourage people being up and about. we want people staying in their homes. you know, new yorkers take everything in stride.
we begin this morning, talking about the aftermath of irene, the massive storm that paralyzed and pummeled much of the east coast. today, it s blamed for at least 21 deaths in nine states from florida to vermont. and at last count, about 3 million homes and businesses are still without power. more than a billion dollars in damages is blamed on the storms winds. flooding damage will be much more costly. three navy ships should be positioned in relief efforts from new york to new england. cnn crews are in place, measuring the storm s impact and the struggle for the millions of americans trying to move on now. we ll take you from north carolina to new york to new england and give you the big picture from the cnn weather center, right here in atlanta. let s go ahead and begin in vermont, a state reeling from some of its worst flooding in decades. gary tuchman there in brat tleboro. reporter: they don t deal with hurricanes, at least not until yesterday when tropical storm ire