Hurricane Sandy disrupts travel for millions

>>> sandy has snarled flights, trains, mass transit throughout the northeast including shutting down the entire new york city subway system on its 108th birthday. nbc's tom costello has the latest from reagan national . tom, any sign that flights are going to get back to normal any time soon and what about amtrak, the rest of the whole northeast corridor ?

>> yes, but, but, but. here we go. yes at reagan national airport . yes at dulles. behind me it looks empty and it is. u.s. airways has shut down operations again at reagan national today not because we have any damage here but because trying to get up to the northeast up to the new york city area and boston , there's no point. those airports are closed. let me give you stats real fast here. 6,127p flights canceled today. today. 6,127. and systemwide, since they started shutting down flights over the weekend because of sandy, 16,000 flights. we're talking hundreds of thousands of people inconvenienced. i want to show you quickly a photo we got out of laguardia airport and this will tell you why they have shut down air traffic in new york. look at laguardia . it is under water. they've got significant flooding in laguardia . also significant damage as well at jfk and also at newark we're told and because of all of that they are deciding that they're going to keep the airports in the new york city area closed at least through today, probably through tomorrow, but when you see those photos you have to wonder how long will it take to reopen laguardia at least. let me show you flight radar 24, a live website that shows what's happening in the skies over the country and we'll show you the northeast corridor . at any one time this area is packed. but because the new york city airports are still empty and because philadelphia is still not operating really, same at boston , same at washington, you can see that it is really significantly reduced compared to what we would normally have. keeping in mind that the northeast corridor , new york city , down to d.c., all the way up to boston , that stretch of the country is the heaviest, most congested air space in the country. usually making up almost a quarter, a quarter of all air traffic in a given day. so if you've got the major airports shut down, you can see what the ripple effect is. and andrea, here's the problem, the ripple effect , you got people stuck in these cities they're also stuck in paris, in moscow, in london, in los angeles , chicago, honolulu, all over the world because of this hurricane. it's going to take a long time to get back up and running. back to you.

>> i wouldn't mind be stuck in paris, but other than that it is a real crisis. thank you very much, tom costello.