Cost of Caring for Quake Victims; Storm Brings Washington to Standstill
BLITZER: And to our viewers, you're in THE SITUATION ROOM. Happening now, tensions are running high in Iran as the country prepares to mark the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. The Iranian government doesn't want a repeat of last year's protest, and it's reportedly cracking down on the opposition, the journalists and lot of other folks including the Internet. New York's politically embattled governor goes on the offensive. David Paterson talks -- takes to the airwaves to defend himself against all kinds of rumors. And a simple embrace with President Obama, not so simple for Florida governor, Charlie Crist, who supported the president's economic stimulus plan, is now being used as political ammunition by the man who wants his job. I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM. But first a record-breaking snowstorm is bringing much of the northeast to its knees. Heavy snow and blistering winds are creating nightmare conditions from North Carolina to New England. A region still recovering from last week's huge storm. Major cities are turning into ghost towns as businesses, schools, airports, even governments shut down. Let's check out the situation of what's going on outside. I'll walk outside here from THE SITUATION ROOM. We'll go over to the balcony here. Let me put on my coat first of all because it's cold out there. We'll see what's happening. Let's open up the door and we'll go outside. Let's take a look at the streets of Washington, D.C. and see what's going on. Stand by. All right, here we are. We're walking outside, and you can see this is really a ghost town. Take a look at the street behind me. We're right behind Union Station up on Capitol Hill. You can see it's virtually empty. You see one or two cars, basically. This would be jam packed right now with rush hour traffic. That's to the right over there, you can see the back of Union Station, but it's deserted like so much of Washington, D.C. right now. Simply deserted. It's dangerous to be on the streets of the nation's capital and for good reason. This has been a record-setting blizzard here in Washington, D.C. So I can personally testify driving to work earlier this morning, it was a whiteout. You could barely see what's going on. The bad weather certainly kept federal employees in Washington out of work for a third straight day. Hundreds of thousands of them. CNN's Brian Todd is joining us from the National Mall. Brian, tell us what you discovered as you went about the nation's capital today.</s>TODD: Just what you saw today at the balcony there, Wolf. It is a ghost town down here. This is right on the National Mall. You can see it's just -- there's just no traffic down here. It has been just amazingly empty all day. The second major snowfall in less than a week has left this city paralyzed. You're looking at one of the federal buildings behind me, the Capitol, that has been largely empty today. This is a government shutdown on a scale that we have not seen in about 14 years.</s>TODD (voice-over): A government ghost town. What you see through this wintry blast are federal buildings that are largely empty. Officials say Washington hasn't seen a government shutdown this sweeping since 1996. We asked these folks braving the blizzard if they miss it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They haven't been functioning very well for the past 10 years anyway, so -- so shut it down now for a few days and it's really no difference.</s>TODD: We drove and walked through streets that would normally be stifled with traffic. Tried to enter buildings like the Treasury Department and the IRS. No one home. But the director of the Office of Personnel Management which oversees the nearly two million federal workers across America told us a government shutdown isn't what it seems.</s>JOHN BERRY, DIR., OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT: Only 13 percent of the government is here in this region. You know when I say this region I include not only Washington, D.C., but all of the surrounding counties. And -- it's about 270,000 workers in that area.</s>TODD: That means people can still process things like Medicare claims. Tax returns are getting through. And Social Security recipients are still getting their checks by mail or direct deposit even when that agency's key offices are shuttered. (</s>On camera): Yes, hi. We're with CNN, we're seeing is anybody has stopped working at the Social Security administration today.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, they're closed.</s>TODD: Did anybody come in?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No.</s>TODD (voice-over): The White House is up and running. As for national security -- (</s>On camera): Nobody answering the door knocker here at the Justice Department, but we're told by officials here that the attorney general has kept some key offices open, including some very important counterterrorism offices, told the same thing for the FBI just across the street where an official there says that all the counterterrorism, national security functions are in place. Also the Departments of Homeland Security, the Pentagon -- officials there tell us that their operation centers where they coordinate all of their 24/7 operations and their responses are functioning. (</s>Voice-over): What's not getting done? Congress is shut down and not holding hearings. Administrative, policy and budget meetings are on hold. Speaking of budgeting. (</s>On camera): What does it cost per day to shut down the government?</s>BERRY: It's $100 million approximately, but that number is 20 years old. And it doesn't account for the emergency and essential personnel. What that is, is that's the total payroll cost of 270,000 people.</s>TODD: Now John Berry says that after this storm they're going to update that figure to reflect current reality which he says about 30 percent of the government workforce, the essential personnel are at their offices, were at their offices today keeping those crucial operations running. Also, many, many more people are what he calls teleworking by computer from home. Translation, he thinks that $100 million a day figure for a government shutdown is going to be probably inflated. It will come out to be a lot less than that -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Brian, what about the postal service? How are they doing?</s>TODD: Well, we have heard reports from the postal service that they have had delays. Not a shutdown, but delays in processing a lot of the mails especially in some of the offices and the delivery services around this region and in the northeast. So some of those Social Security checks and other things like that people were counting on by mail may be getting there a little bit late, but they say they are going to get there, but the processing centers are experiencing some delays in the postal system.</s>BLITZER: Brian Todd, not far away from me. Is it snowing where you are, Brian?</s>TODD: It's still snowing, Wolf, but a lot of this is the wind carrying the snow all around. So it really has tapered off. The snow is supposed to stop really any minute now and it could have stopped but it's just the wind carrying this around us, it's kind of hard to tell that it stopped right now.</s>BLITZER: Brian, thank you. New York City certainly managed to escape the worst of last week's huge storm, but no such luck this time around. The city and its suburbs are getting hammered right now. Our senior correspondent Allan Chernoff is joining us live from Central Park. Allan, what's it like there?</s>ALLAN CHERNOFF, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, it is still coming down. We've seven inches here in Central Park as of 4:00. By now, I'd say we're talking at least eight inches of the stuff right now. And it's still coming. We're supposed to get at least a foot in New York City. The wind gusts up to 30 miles an hour. And we've got a blizzard warning until 6:00 a.m. tomorrow.</s>CHERNOFF:  (voice-over): New York City brought out its heavy artillery to battle the blizzard -- 2,000 snow plows and salt spreaders to clear the streets and highways, at a cost of $1 million per inch of snow. Interstate 80 in Pennsylvania was not as well maintained. Two separate accidents damaged two dozen vehicles. One driver was killed. Airports around New York remained open through the afternoon, but virtually no planes took off, as carriers canceled most of their flights out of the region. New Jersey shut down all state offices. And courts in New York were closed. But as the blizzard frosted the Big Apple, municipal offices remained open and the city kept functioning, though at a slower pace. (on camera): And how do you deal with driving in this snow?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's OK. You just take your time and go slowly.</s>CHERNOFF:  (voice-over): The city's second big storm of the season seemed to bring out a tough it out attitude among both New Yorkers and out of town visitors.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm from Florida, so I'm just drawn to the shorts anyway.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The town we come from, it has been snow for over two months now.</s>CHERNOFF: Aside from stomping through slush, the worst part for those who work is the commute. Many trains to the suburbs are delayed or canceled. But no work for the kids -- school was out. (on camera): Are you glad that school was out today?</s>UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Yes. Yes. Yes!</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When it's snowing, I love for them to be out of school.</s>CHERNOFF: So a snow day is a happy day?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A snow day is a happy day.</s>CHERNOFF: OK.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's no better day for children.</s>CHERNOFF: You -- do you agree?</s>UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: Yes.</s>CHERNOFF: They'll -- they'll have no such luck tomorrow. These snowmen, well, they'll be a little lonely because school is scheduled to be open. But at least the storm should be finished by tomorrow and we'll have the big dig coming -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Thanks very much, Allan, for that. People will be shoveling, I guess, for a few days. Let's bring in our meteorologist, Chad Meyers, for a little bit of the forecast. So what do we expect to see over the next few days -- Chad?</s>CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, it's going to pull out tonight. The whole thing will be done. The snow will be all gone, really, by morning for most everybody, except maybe Boston and the Cape. But it is still snowing very hard in some spots. And, in fact, that could keep up. I want you to notice this. Wolf, I haven't shown this all day, so this is brand new for you -- 532 lightning strikes with this snowstorm. So that means there's thunder snow out there somewhere. So if you heard some rumbling, if it wasn't a truck driving down the street, there may very well be lightning and thunder in some of this very heavy convective, as we call it, snow. The snow is wrapping around, grabbing moisture from the ocean -- almost an ocean effect storm, although, it's really -- we just call it ocean maybe enhanced. Some of the big enhancement is along from the Long Island Expressway all the way out toward the Hamptons. At times, there's some sleet mixing in and so that's keeping the numbers down for snow amounts. Sleet won't pile up like light fluffy snow will. That light fluffy snow, though, is piling up in Western New Jersey, parts of New York State, right through Maryland and into Virginia. The next story -- airports. This is actually LaGuardia. There are still four planes in the air to LaGuardia. The airports in New York are not closed. Now in DC, they are. DC, National and Dulles done -- shut, not even going to open until tomorrow. But some of the planes are still making it in and out of New York. JFK, actually, almost 25 planes in the air heading there. So if you're sitting there waiting for a plane, there's some hope. But it's probably a better chance of getting a hotel room than a plane -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: A good point. Planes, trains -- there's a lot of problems right now...</s>MYERS: Yes.</s>BLITZER: -- although Amtrak seems to be OK, at least for now. Thanks, Chad. We'll check back with you.</s>MYERS: All right.</s>BLITZER: More blizzard coverage coming up later. We're also watching another story -- rumors raining down on New York's governor. David Paterson is now fighting back.