john: people have been stranded for more than 24 hours on a major stretch of virginia s i-95 after yesterday s snowstorm. the winter blast is responsible for at least five deaths. thousands of power outages. our senior national correspondent rich edson is live in washington. it can be a nightmare at the best of times, but elevated beyond that. a dry summer day problems down there. today it s a complete mess. state crews are trying to dislodge cars and trucks from the stretch of i-95 where they have been stuck, some sleeping in their cars overnight. virginia department of transportation says they have been sending refueling trucks wherever they can up and down to try to help out motorists who have run out of gas running their heat. local first responders have been bringing blankets and water. the state says it s working to provide warming huts in some
the sun comes up. rescue crews from organizations like team rubicon are spring loaded to help anyone who may be in grave danger. here to discuss, is the director of operations, drew hanna. thank you for being here during a morning like this, we always have you on when there is a hurricane. what are you hearing from crews on the ground right now? thank you so much for having me on. right now our crews are positioned as best they can, so as soon as we get to first light they ll be pushing forward. we have two route clearance teams that will be working with state crews to make sure that we re able to open roadways, get the teams in so they can help affected homeowners who are currently trapped in their houses or affected by the storm. our recon teams will move into place to target areas that are hard hit so we can send supplies. we have our nation knoll operation national operations center in dallas, we have lots of equipment and personnel ready
well as storm surge, especially in those low lying areas. now, you take all that together and you combine it together and we have the potential of seeing power outages and fairly wide spread power outages, as well. that s why we have out of state crews coming out of new england to help restore power as quickly as possible. in conclusion, henri continues to move north. we ll have the update for you in 30 minutes. possible landfall is likely along long island, eastern long island to connecticut, rhode island line and those impacts felt far out from the center of that cone. ken? thank you so much, tyler maulin. stay with cnn for instant updates on hurricane henri this hour and throughout the day. coronavirus vaccinations in the u.s. are slowly heading in the right direction. for the third day in a row more than a million doses of vaccine were administered. but even as more shots go into
this is on top of what we have already dealt with the last seven days so you take that saturated ground. tropical storm to hurricane force winds coming onshore. you mix all that together. trees are going to topple and, yeah, we are going to see power outages for sure. the good news is we are seeing out of state crews, power crews come into the region. robyn, they are coming from 30 different states, d.c., and canada. more than 12,000 crews are coming in to help restore power. that s the kind of storm we are dealing with here. goodness. thanks for keeping us posted. we will check in with you in about half an hour s time. thanks so much. tyler mauldin there. so earlier, cnn spoke with lieutenant commander robert mitchell. he is part of a hurricane-hunter team that flew directly into hurricane henri on saturday night. gathering data that really helps forecasters to know what to expect from the storm. he described what it was like to fly into the eye of this storm. this storm has bee