with tech firings we saw in 2023 ripple into the new year. also so we know car break-ins in the bay area are nothing new, but could a stretch of road in oakland be one of the hottest spots in all of our region? what the sf standard saw when they crossed the bay for this report? but first up, palisades tahoe back open this afternoon after a deadly avalanche shut down the mountain yesterday. what crews are doing to prevent another slide of snow, as we hear from a backcountry skier who survived a similar disaster. thanks so much for joining us for getting answers on this thursday. i'm julianne glover, palisades tahoe is back open a day after that avalanche roared down the mountain, sweeping up four people and killing 66 year old kenneth kidd of pointrillionaise, the area where the avalanche hit the ct 22 lift remains closed while crews worked to clear debris there. avalanches in the tahoe area are far from rare, but yesterday's deadly slide as many people wondering what skiers and boarders can do to stay safe and increase their own odds of

survival, a first guest today is scott benge, a skier who is buried beneath four feet of snow and survived a. scott, we really appreciate you joining us. thanks so much for being here. >> yeah. thanks, julie, and, um, i just want to say first and foremost, you know, sending our condolences and thoughts to all those affected by the avalanche yesterday. and, you know, coming from the telluride area in colorado, we know all too well how this affects the community. so sending all of our love to the tahoe area. >> and i'm sure they certainly appreciate that. so let's talk about your own experience. as you mentioned, you are an experienced backcountry skier. your mishap happened just a little bit over a year ago in the telluride, colorado area. as you mentioned. and there was also a similar avalanche concern to what we saw yesterday in tahoe. the day that you hit the slopes, paint the picture for us. if you can. what was your first clue that you were actually in an avalanche? >> yeah. i mean, you know, it's all it's a nightmare of people

that recreate frequently in the backcountry. um you know, mother nature is stronger than all of the education that we can, uh, provide ourselves. and, you know, my stakes happen. so, you know, it really happened as soon as i made a first turn and the entire slope broke underneath me and, um, i was carried about 800ft down a slope and buried about 12ft below the snow. um, for about 12 minutes, unconscious. >> yeah. i can only imagine, scott, how frightening that must have been. as you mentioned, the kind of the snow gave way from underneath you, and then you slid 800ft down the mountain. what does that feel like? and what did you hear? >> it's absolutely surreal. there's no way to describe it. i mean, it's the most terrifying thing that you could ever imagine. um, it's all. it's all kind of silent. um, you're just trying to do what you've been trained to do. get your get your

hands in front of your face to create an air pocket. um, which, unfortunately, i was not able to do. um, and at the time that i finally came to rest and had tens of thousands of pounds of snow on top of me. um, you know, i was really only awake for 30s before i went completely unconscious, so, um, pretty terrifying moments. what's going through your mind in those 30s like you mentioned? >> you know, from the point that you're being buried by that snow and to the moment that you lost consciousness, you know, you were trying to do everything you could, like you mentioned, you know, putting your arms up, trying to keep that kind of pocket of air for yourself. but what's going through your mind in that moment? >> it was just sorrow. i mean, i honestly thought i was going to die. i thought that was it. i thought about my fiance. um that i just proposed to about five days before the incident, and i thought about my mom and my family and, you know, really thought there was no way that i

was going to be able to survive that. and then, um, you know, i it was just basically liquid cement on top of me. i wasn't able to move a finger. and, um, luckily, i was only awake for 30s and, uh, buried for a full 12 minutes before i was extricated. >> just so terrifying to hear you recount the experience. you know, again, i can only think about what you were going through mentally as all of this was playing out. >> so let's talk about the happy ending here. right. you were on the slopes with a buddy that day . how did his quick thinking, you know, really save your life? what did he do to jump into action? there >> yeah, and that's something i want to talk about is, is just, um, how important it is to get educated. first and foremost, know how to utilize your equipment, beacon, shovel and probe and radio, um, and then practice those those skills that you're taught. i mean, you can get educated, but really being able to polish up on those

skills and know how to utilize them on an annual basis is extremely important. and then traveling with partner hours that are that are similarly educated and, um, can jump into action when, when the time comes . but, um, yes, i was skiing with kane skydiver that day. um, it was just the two of us, and he was is highly trained backcountry, um, enthusiast as well, and was able to do everything that he was taught and stay calm. um but luckily radios were the main reason that saved our lives. you know, we were in a small town outside of telluride, which is a frequently traveled backcountry area over colorado and there's many groups in that area. and our radio channels were all on the same radio channel. so other groups can hear what's going on in other groups and, um, luckily, that another group got word of the avalanche and was a member of another party, was able to quickly get over to the scene

and assist kane with extrication of myself. so really, kane scheidegger and seamus croke are the ones that saved my life that day. >> let's walk through these three pieces of safety equipment. >> right? so that beacon, that shovel, that probe. so you had the beacon and so did your buddy. and he was able to essentially use his to find you. is that right? >> that's correct. yeah. everyone is wearing it. should be wearing an avalanche beacon and is transmitting a signal. so your your beacon went on is always transmitting a signal. and then in the case of an emergency like this, when an avalanche occurs, um, everyone in the party will go to search mode. and that way they can pick up a beacon that is transmitting a signal. um, and they usually are anywhere from 35, 30 to 50m, um, away. so that was how he was able to kind of locate me. and then, uh, take out his probe to,

to probe the snow, because obviously, um, i was 12ft down, so he had to ensure that i was he was going to start digging with his shovel in the correct location. >> and then he was you know, kind of getting after it as quickly as he could. and then other folks from my understanding, essentially, who were also on the mountain that day, heard that call for help. they jumped into action to what was it like when you finally came to right, you regained consciousness and you just saw this crowd of people around you, you know, just trying to make sure you were okay. >> yeah. you know, i think it was kind of it took me 50 teen to 20 minutes to really come to it. um, due to the loss of oxygen to the brain. as you can see in this picture here, i'm pretty, pretty white. but um, first and foremost was kind of almost, uh, utter stunned. um, and then a little bit of embarrassment, you know, i think there's a big thing in the

backcountry community that and i don't really know where this stems from, but there can be some embarrassment and shame around accidents that occur like this. even if you're doing everything right. um, but, you know, that's really why i've tried to share my story. um, just so, um, maybe 1 or 2 other people can come, become educated and learn from the mistakes that i made that day. and um, maybe save a life or two. >> well, you know, i hear what you're saying about the embarrassment or. but you shouldn't feel that way, right? of course, the most important thing is that you're still with us, that you're safe. you were well prepared. but of course, avalanches and accidents do happen. uh, it's my understanding that it didn't take you too long to get back out on the slopes. maybe just a few days later, after this happened. what are you doing differently now? if anything? >> yeah. you know, a lot of there was a lot of questions about are you going to go in the

backcountry again? are you going to ski again? but, you know, it's such a deeply ingrained as to the human being that i am. i can't imagine life without skiing or or being recreating in the back country. so, you know, the things i'm doing different is really just paying attention to the avalanche forecast. here in colorado. we have fantastic. um agencies, the colorado avalanche, um, institute that, uh, puts out daily forecasts and then even more so we've got local people like chris dixon with the san juan snow cast that is doing weekly podcast on the state of the snowpack and, and avalanche forecast. and then really just open communication with your partners about what you feel comfortable with that day, what your objective objectives are for the day, how we can avoid, um, danger and stay safe and come home to ski again the next day. >> well, these are certainly tips that we hope everyone is thinking about. we expect a lot of folks hitting the slopes out in tahoe this weekend ahead of

the long, three day mlk holiday weekend, so, uh, hopefully they're certainly going to heed your advice. scott bent, we really appreciate your time. thank you so much for being here and sharing your story of survival. thanks so much. the trend of tech layoffs. it is stretching into 2024, with google eliminating hundreds of jobs. is it indicative of an industry wide shift as we turn the page on this new year, a journalist with the new york times who covers the tech industry joins us next to share

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grant, who wrote an article about this latest round of job cuts. nico, we appreciate your time. thanks for being here. thank you for having me. really interesting time, because i know a lot of tech workers were probably hoping that we were leaving the layoffs in 2023. we also have the split screen happening right now. ces happening in vegas, but we're learning about this latest round of tech layoffs with google. um, let's talk about what sectors are really being affected here. and how many people are being laid off. >> yeah. so last night in the evening, google started to restrict employee access to the corporate network and email for hundreds of workers in its core engineering division. this essentially makes infrastructure and technology that the rest of the company is dependent on, as well as google assistant, which is the voice activated assistant on some smart phones that google makes, as well as folks in that hardware division that makes phones from pixel and nest thermostats and other devices.

and so, you know, google is saying that this is restructuring that's in the normal course of business. it's hundreds of roles. and each of those divisions and it was almost a year ago now that google laid off 12,000 uh- employees, which was the largest layoff it had ever conducted. and a real shock to the system. after years of expansion. and now it's starting to look like it's the new normal for google and other tech companies. >> let's zero in on some of those specific sectors within google and the larger alphabet company that are getting cut, zeroing in on are right. i think like two years ago, we were all talking about ar and the metaverse. is it the next big thing? are we behind if we're not thinking about ar? there were some cuts there to absolutely. >> most of the cuts in that hardware division affected augmented reality, which is essentially a digital overlay over the real world. you see it if you use google maps and it allows you to, you know, situate yourself where you are, look at

directions over the real world. this is no longer a big priority for google. and, you know, for a long time it had been looking for a strong second act to its search business, which is giant, provides most of its money and you know, now it looks like google and other companies are looking to artificial intelligence as as providing that, you know, these other bets, including meta formerly facebook, which changed its name, you know, in a nod to augmented reality and virtual reality also is just as focused on ai and also just as focused on, you know, shedding employees who are not driving that essential, you know, pivot forward. i want to talk about ai in just a second, but i also want to talk about pixel right? >> so google's big competition to the apple iphone, there were several cuts in that division as well. uh- do we know if this is more hardware or software? where or how many people are affected? >> so there were hundreds of people from that division who were affected as well. it seems

to be a trend across the company and, you know, while google has had lots of aspirations for pixel to be a strong competitor to the iphone, some years google sells fewer phones than nokia does. you know, it has, you know, not performed well as a business. google is saying, though, that you know, the lion's share of cuts in that hardware division involved augmented reality d and that it remains committed to the pixel. >> okay, so let's talk about ai. of course, it is all the buzz nationally. and of course here in silicon valley there is pretty much an all out race now to try and catch up with open ai . and it seems as though while google is cutting in a number of divisions, they might be shifting some resources to their ai division. is that what you're hearing inside? >> so, you know, google one thing that was not cut at all this time around and also was not cut last year, was the company's focus on generative ai . so it actually has been hiring

in that regard. and the company openly says that if there's talent, whether it's from openai ai or companies like anthropic that are strong competitors in ai, they will gladly hire them and they are paying, you know, massive compensation packages for engineers said to be in the seven figures for some of them. and so that is not seeing any cuts at. and the company is continuing to invest. they have a new building in mountain view where, you know, it's essentially dedicated to what used to be google brain. now it's part of google's ai division called deepmind. and they are very eager to hold on to that competition that, you know, that talent which is so competitive right now, seven figures for an ai engineer. >> once again, i'm beating myself up for going into the wrong thing in college because clearly, well, i love what i do. don't get me wrong. um, they're trying to pay people big bucks

to keep them retain them. there a shifting past. google want to talk about amazon because they're coming into the new year with some big layoffs. also um, they let go a number of people in their mgm studios, but also the people that work on prime video streaming again, once again, a big bat for amazon. what are you seeing when it comes to industry wide trends in terms of priorities for 2024? >> um, yeah, that one came earlier. this week and amazon cut hundreds of employees from prime video and mgm. this after spending more than $8 billion to buy mgm in the first place. um and we also saw that amazon cut 35% of its staff from twitch which is a streaming service. it's used by a lot of gamers, but also other it's a competitor to youtube, and that was a significant cut. you know, amazon on, um, you know, for a long time was was financially boosted by its cloud division, amazon web services and these other things were essentially

nice add ons to have, particularly its content like prime and mgm. um, you know, what they're selling with those prime memberships is fast shipping and, you know, having content is essentially a nice add on. it's an incentive. it's similar to how, you know, netflix is raising prices, but it also has made a decision to cut down the amount of content that it puts out, the amount of new content. um, i think that what all of these tech companies are doing is saying, you know, a lot of the financial decisions that we made in good times, when interest rates were low, were, you know, not very good and ultimately did not actually, you know, pad our bottom line. and we are going to see how far we can sort of peel things back while boosting profits and invest in growth areas that they think are going to actually boost growth.

>> and i namely being one of them, really shaping up and shaking up the tech industry in so many ways. uh, nico grant, tech reporter with the new york times, we really appreciate your time. thanks for being here. thanks for having me. of course. well, we know many of these layoffs affect workers here in the bay area, and we are keeping track. and you can too. this layoff tracker is up on our website, abc seven news.com. well, car smash and grabs have become so common at small business corridors in oakland that employees in the area say it's an anomaly not to see them. our media partner at the sf standard exposes why it's a prime target for thieves, and whether anything is being

but one thing we know for certain where there are tourists, the break ins typically follow. that's why our media partners at the sf standard found an in a new report out today. when they crossed the bay. and it's not just tourist destination signs, but one of the first stops they

make after landing at oakland international airport. and joining us live now is garrett leahy from the standard to tell us more about his report out today. garrett, thanks for being here. thank you for having me. so how many car break ins happen on a daily basis at the in-n-out on oakport street in oakland? we know for many folks, it might be their first time coming to california. they're excited to try one of the in-n-out burgers. they've read so much about it, they parked in the parking lot, and then unfortunately, they get got. >> so, you know, i couldn't quite visit every single business and tally up everything. but i spoke to three gas stations on hegenberger road there and the in-n-out nearby, and they all reported seeing you know, at least three break ins, a day. the ins and outs i heard from a local security guard who patrols the area is the worst one. i spoke to a guard who patrols the in-n-out, and they said they see usually around five a day, but sometimes it's a lot worse than that. and a guard who patrolled the area said that they've taken 60 reports of car

break ins just by themselves within the past two months. so this area is quite bad at the in-n-out. within 90 minutes, i saw three cars with broken windows, and i actually witnessed a car break in at a 76 gas station nearby. myself just before 7 p.m. when i went on tuesday. >> okay, so let's talk about those gas stations. there are a couple of them right next to the oakland airport right there, which of those did you find are really be a hotspot for auto burglaries? >> sure. so the first one visited was the shell gas station. i spoke with the owner of a taqueria across the street, and she said she sees around 2 to 3 break ins there daily. uh- the 76 is where i witnessed a break in happen, and one of the clerks told me he saw six on monday. just on monday, and that was where i met a man, paul from portland, who was visiting the bay area, and he had his bag and his girlfriend's bag taken, and his girlfriend was actually in the car when the bag was taken.

and over at the chevron across the street, i spoke with a clerk who said that he had seen 2 or 3 recently as well. so it seems to be multiple break ins a day at each of these gas stations, and it should be noted they're pretty close to the airports. i was told by a security guard that often they target these uh- tourists and their rental cars because they're kind of unaware of street crime issues. people are frequently there with their bags, refueling their rental cars, and it's just a ripe environment for thieves, is what i'm told. >> and that's something that i've seen. you know, in my own experience, too. i live in oakland. i tell my friends, you know, don't leave a napkin right in the seat because that could be an indication that you got something in the car. so just take everything out with you. but how are they targeting people in these rental cars and kind of in these tourist areas? >> sure. so, you know, one of the things that i was told by security guard that what they look for is one, does the car have out of state plates? because that can indicate if the car is a rental car or if somebody just visiting from another state and maybe isn't aware of the risk of break ins

locally. another thing a dead give away for a rental car is rental tags in the window and they'll look for those, and then they'll surmise this person is, you know, from out of town. they're an easy target. so out-of-state plates and rental tags are the way they they pick. if that's a target, someone to, you know, break in and take their bag. so if you have either of those things, you might want to think twice about, you know, parking in these areas and kind of keep your head on a swivel. >> all right. garrett lahey with the s.f. standard, we really appreciate your time. thank you for joining us. we know that particular stretch right near oakland international has been kind of a problem for a long time, especially for those tourists. well you can check out more of the san francisco standard's original reports on their website, sf standard.com. you can also see garrett story there too. and abc seven will continue to bring you segments featuring the standards, city focused journalism, and every so often they skip across the bay into the east bay to. you can look for that twice a week right here on getting answers at 3

p.m. and a quick reminder you can get our live newscast breaking news, weather, and more with our abc7 bay area streaming tv app. it's available on apple tv, google tv, fire tv and roku. all you have to do is search abc seven, bay area and

tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. there are growing signals at this hour that the u.s. and uk could be planning potentially significant military action against iranian-backed militants. the emergency meeting in the uk. and the warning from the white