not one two crashes are causing a big backup. >> no kidding. stop and go traffic there. we are on storm watch. look at this. stop and go traffic here at the bay bridge toll plaza as well. heavy rain, gusting winds all across the bay. traffic stacking up and you can see all those lanes are full. and this is what it looks like in san jose right now. alexis tracking the tough commute but we're going to start with mike and live doppler 7. on the peninsula, if you're transitioning from san bruno, south san francisco to brisbane, all the way to daly city you can see that moderate shower causing ponding on 101 and 280 and right along the coast from pacifica all the way up to the sunset we've got a moderate shower also and over the oakland airport a moderate shower but more developing to our south so here's a look at the golden gate bridge. you can see it's definitely been raining there all night. heavy at times in our 12 hour day planner the rain this morning moderate at noon, becoming scattered at 4:00 but still a chance at 7:00 so have the wet weather gear handy and some patience, especially on the

roads this morning, alexis. especially if you're trying to head westbound across the richmond-san rafael bridge. i want to take you up on our traffic maps. we started off with a rollover crash near the mid span about an hour ago. that was cleared and then we have another crash near the san quentin off ramp and possibly a third crash east of the toll plaza so investigating all of those but obviously we're heavy around the mid span down to 4 miles an hour. i wanted to show you the richmond side there approaching the toll plaza. very heavy. amy hollyfield and her photographer on the move there, getting very close to this so hopefully they can clear some of this up for us. next traffic update coming up. as she just mentioned, the rain is making the morning commute a pretty challenging one. >> amy hollyfield is indeed live on interstate 580 for us. amy, how does it look? >> reporter: hi, jessica. the rain is coming down very steady and heavily right now. we are dealing with very wet roads out here as we make our way to where all those problems are occurring.

we're hearing about a lot of issues on westbound 580 around the san rafael richmond bridge. we're on richmond parkway between 80. this connects us from 80 where we were, where we dealt with a lot of rain, and headed over to 580 to see if we can check out what's going on and give you an idea of what this is going to mean for your commute if your commute takes you through that area. the chp, though, very busy this morning with lots of calls for service and they will tell you their advice would be if you do find yourself in a spinout, hopefully you won't, slow down, keep a lot of space between the you and the car in front of you but don't panic, don't put your foot on the brake or accelerator. just try and ride it out. but they are hoping that you will have a safe drive this morning. take the speed down a bit. give yourself a lot of extra time. the rain is very heavy out here. reporting live from richmond, amy hollyfield, abc7 news. some good tips there and of course be careful too. the peninsula also getting soaked this morning.

we want to show you this. a live look here. it's actually new video that's coming into our news room from menlo park near marsh road and scott drive and you can see the rain is coming down there. the roads are slick there as well. be careful. water resources will be keeping a close eye on waterways this morning. we want to show you this live look outside at water being released from the anderson reservoir in morgan hill. the reservoir actually 99% full this morning. it's only supposed to be at 68% capacity because of any seismic concerns so they have no choice but to release all of this water. water officials say there's no immediate threat to the oroville dam, even though we're getting all this new rain. crews are working on repairs to those damaged spillways. they have dropped the lake's level 37 feet and that is expected to continue going lower. one issue now being discussed by local officials, widening state highways leading away from

oroville. many roads and highways leaving that part of butte county are only one or two lanes and as you can see, that led to massive traffic backups on sunday when 188,000 people below the dam were told to evacuate as soon as possible. and it's not just us here in the bay area on alert. the whole state is under that watch because people in southern california, they are worried voluntary evacuations have already been ordered in camarillo springs where residents are hoping to aside another mudslide like this one two years ago. a slide took out dozens of homes. today's storm will be the most powerful southern california has seen in years and officials are already warning it could cause damage all across the region. you can track our storm with the abc7 news app. we do have live doppler 7 on the app and you can enable push alerts. that will get you weather advisories right on your phone. this morning, new details involving the reported kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl

in the south bay. "the mercury news" reports the teen lied about the whole thing. the girl is the daughter of milpitas councilman garry barbadillo. police say the girl told officers two men kidnapped her on february 7. the supposed ordeal came to an end when the girl escaped and called home. police say an extensive investigation concluded the councilman's daughter was never taken. she was cited for filing a false police report. police in pacifica want your help finding an armed gunman. they released this image of the suspect. they say he went into the safe room store on wednesday wearing a mask and glasses that made him look older. he showed a gun, stole cash and ran off toward highway 1. there's still a lot of uneasiness in san francisco's soma district where a construction mishap prompted evacuations on wednesday because there was a big concern a concrete wall would topple over. yesterday the city slapped the

builder with a violation notice requiring the construction to stop until repairs are made. it gives the construction company and developer until tomorrow to give the city a status report on their safety fixes. the building's texas developer, heinz, tells abc7 news the situation is safe. in addition, the street there, tehama, is still close ld between 1st and 2nd. new details involving a legal aid fund to help undocumented immigrants detained in san francisco. "the examiner" reports the proposal to increase funding is now on hold. the legislation would prioritize immediate funding for immigrant legal defense through the public defender's office, but last night, the board of supervisors budget and finance committee debated the idea for three hours and in the end, the committee voted to postpone a decision for at least two weeks. president trump plans to announce a new executive order on travel into the u.s. next week. the south bay muslim community

says the current executive order that the courts have put on hold is contributing to islam last night a group called silicon valley faces hosted a discussion on how to fight prejudice against muslims. panelists say they hope to spread understanding. >> i am actually thankful to mr. trump, because of his hatred for everybody, he is pushing us to really get closer. >> it seems like a lot of americans don't know any muslim or they have not met a muslim so it's important for them to get to know us and see us as human beings. >> the ninth circuit court of appeals which decided not to reinstate the travel ban announced it will not issue any further decisions until it sees the president's new executive order. still ahead, b.a.r.t. riders that may be relieved by a new idea coming in and real security cameras that may be installed on those trains. and here's a live look at

sfo right now. expect to see delays if you are expect to see delays if you are

wondering where the greatest

potential for damage? santa cruz mountains. you can see light to moderate rain showing up on live doppler 7 and it's going to continue with heavy rain down there. look at that. more than 3 inches possible, less than an 1 more most of the bay, 1 to 1 1/2 inches by tomorrow afternoon. also on the peninsula and in the east bay and the window just opened at 6:00 for the damage to begin from gusts up to 50 miles per hour and that window stays up until 6:00 this evening. temperatures, mild day today, upper 50s to low 60s like 60 in san francisco, san jose 61 and tonight's going to be another mild night but notice the scattered showers will hang around. temperatures in the upper 40s too low 50s. when we come back, an hour-by-hour look at today and tomorrow. there are some dry spots in your weekend forecast and it's mainly on saturday. the heaviest rain sunday. i'll show you when we'll finally get some dry weather in the kieft. good morning, mike. i want to take you back to our

hot spot this morning. this is the richmond-san rafael bridge, the westbound side and this is amy hollyfield and her photographer driving through that mess this morning so they are on 580. they are sitting in that backup. three crashes this morning on westbound 580 between richmond and san rafael so they did clear the first one, the rollover, sounds like we still have a blocking situation once you get a little bit closer to scan quentin and another one closer to the toll plaza on the richmond side so really heavy stop and go traffic this morning. heavy rain as well and windy conditions once you get over the water. use caution. new best by date labels could be on the way to a grocery store near you. plus mother nature's power on full display. it is 6:12 and yep, it's a rainy one this morning. we are keeping you up to date with weather and traffic throughout the commercial break, throughout the commercial break, including a hello moto. throughout the commercial break, including a it's time to reimagine the smart phone. snap on a speaker. a projector. a camera that actually zooms. get excited world.

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today's storm is level 2. that means moderate rain so gear up before you go out and drive safely. track today's storm any time on the abc7 news app. download it now. and we just had a moderate shower roll over sfo where the flight arrival delays are averaging two hours and 18 minutes and with more rounds of moderate rain on the way, i don't see that stopping any time soon. mike, thank you.

we do also want to show you what it looks like from our golden gate bridge camera. and look at that. all the water on our lens. you can see what the weather looks like where you live. we want to see them too. we want to see your photos and video this morning so we can help everyone get around the bay area. just use #abc7now and you may see those photos and videos on our air here on abc7. we have overflowing rivers and dams here but check out this river of a totally different kind. probably the coolest thing you'll see all day. a lava lake in northeastern ethiopia. a man on a volcano discovery tour captured this video last month. a surge of magma pours into a collapsed volcano. we do have an update on a road rage shooting that left a father dead in san leandro. police right now say that they are looking for this van. take a look at your tv screens. they say it may be connected to the incident sunday night.

a gunman opened fire on a man while his wife and children were also inside the car. this vehicle was spotted near the shooting scene at marina boulevard and police say it has a custom roof and black rims. if you have any information, call police. also new details this morning in one of the lawsuits against comedian bill cosby. a massachusetts judge has thrown out a defamation case against the disgraced comedian. the lawsuit stems from a 2014 article in which former actress catherine mckee accused kos booe of raping her. she claims it happened in 1974. mckee claimed cosby defamed her when his representatives demanded a retraction and mckee was among dozens of women who accused cosby of sexual assault. he faces criminal charges in pennsylvania. so, all of us shop at the grocery store at one time or another, you know when you see those expiration dates, do some of them leave you scratching

your head? there's a new effort among retailers and manufacturers to reduce consumer confusion. right now, there are more than ten different date labels on packages. they include sell by, use by, expires on, best before, better ifioused by or best by. major food trade associations are encouraging stores and manufacturers to switch immediately to only two product date labels. they would be best if used by and use by. >> i think the new initiative that simplifies all the dates will be really, really helpful and cut down on food waste. it's so streamlined and it's much easier to follow. >> coming up on gma, find out when food trade associations hope that all stores will adopt these new labels. that starts at 7:00 a.m. right here on abc7. and mark your calendars. all b.a.r.t. cars will have working cameras installed by july 1. the announcement comes more than a year after b.a.r.t. admitted most of the cameras on trains were decoys.

the fakes were exposed after a 19-year-old was fatally shot on a train last year. video showed the suspect leaving the west oakland station but there's no video of the actual murder, even though there was what appeared to be a camera overhead. b.a.r.t. says the new cameras will help improve safety and crack down on crime. okay, let's take you book to the richmond-san rafael bridge. not an easy drive on the westbound side so if you're leaving richmond, this is what you're going to be dealing with. we've got some heavy rain and we've got a series of crashes. we are actually working on talking to chp at the moment. just to get to the bottom of this. we started with a rollover crash near the mid span, then another crash reported and another one a little bit closer to the richmond side so it's unclear how many lanes are blocked but obviously we've got something blocked there because that was some heavy delays there. couple crashes on the bay bridge this morning. one on the westbound side, one on the eastbound side. those have cleared but we have

stop and go traffic as you can see and pretty heavy back from the toll plaza. we've got a moderate pocket of rain over the bridge right now. quick check of drive times. richmond-san rafael, 26 minutes for you. westbound 92, san mateo bridge, 15 and westbound 84, dumbarton bridge you're in the green. let's check in with meteorologist mike nicco and this rain going to be hanging around. yes it is and today's storm is one of the stronger ones. moderate to heavy rain, strong gusty winds, downed trees, flooding on roads. that's what you can expect. you can see the rain is letting up just a little bit at the bay bridge toll plaza. we had a moderate shower just pour on here. and that's what's going to be the case through the morning hours. moderate to heavy rain, then showers, scattered lighter showers this weekend, holiday rain trending heaviest. here's a look at that shower, just went over the bay bridge toll plaza. it's in kinsington, heading right up 80 through san pablo, heading towards hercules and eventually benicia. you can see tiburon and right in

sausalito, puddles developing there also. and moving off of 101, moving out of san carlos and over the ocean, you can see a moderate shower just left its imprint there in the form of some puddles. from 6:00 all the way through 9:00, yellows and oranges across all of our neighborhoods, waves of showers that will continue through noon and then it starts to transition over to more just scattered showers by 5:00 and then during the evening hours, it becomes isolated and then a few more showers are going to develop and some of those could be moderate as the area of low pressure moves over the top of us and tomorrow afternoon, we'll get a little bit of a break. if you're heading to the sierra, tomorrow and sunday. heavy wet sierra cement-type snow for president's day. here's a look at my accuweather 7 day forecast. we'll get some showers scattered and light sunday, steadier rain moves in around '5, it's heaviest monday morning and taper to a lighter storm for tuesday and wednesday and then finally dry thursday but with all that snow falling in the sierra, there's see what alexis

has up her sleeve for the toyota tahoe report. >> conditions not too bad right now. i did just double check and no new restrictions. no chain requirements for 50, 80, 88, 89, a little bit different. we do have a couple mudslides but that's north of the lake tahoe area so if you are coming from the bay area, no restrictions there. squaw al pine, northstar and heavenly both healthy bases there and of course all of them at this point certainly do. 80 again, no restrictions for you, diamond peak, boreal and mt. rose, just under four hours because it's before 6:30 in the morning. if you're getting an extra early start. the drive times will increase and the driving conditions will go downhill too. speaking of driving, most of us know that terrible feeling when your car battery dies. but imagine how angry you'd feel but imagine how angry you'd feel to find out it's an

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we're monitoring a situation along the embarcadero. the power is out in a small section of the embarcadero. this is a live look from the camera on top of abc7's

broadcast center. you can see lights are out between green and prodway. just checked with pg&e. they say they're dealing with equipment failure. they're working to restore power and they hope to have the lights on by 10:00 this morning. just affecting two customers right now. time to ask finney. asking a question about car batteries. >> she spoke to us at our ask finney event in walnut creek. >> my son just got a brand-new battery, and a couple months later, it had to be jump started, so we took it back to the store where he got it and they said it had been incorrectly installed, but they made him pay for the labor and the part. how do we get reimbursed? >> hey, getting reimbursed will depend on who installed it. now, if that was your son, you're not going to get any money. you're not going to get a refund but if the auto shop installed it, call tell them you contacted

me and i said they should pay for the mistake. if that doesn't get them moving, call the hotline here at the station. thanks for your question. >> if you have a question for michael finney, record it on your smartphone or tablet and share it on social media using #askfinney. confusion and more fallout from morning in ghost ship fire. and also right now, water being released from the anderson reservoir in santa clara county. the concern about what might the concern about what might ha

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good news and bad news, okay? good news, it's 6:30, it's time to get up and it's friday. bad news, live doppler 7 showing that you're waking up to rain across the entire bay area. look at these cameras outside. the storm is here. the rain moved in overnight and it will stick around for a few hours. expect a really tough commute no matter where you live this morning. >> let's find out what the timing of this is like. abc7 news meteorologist mike nicco standing by. >> the heaviest of the wet weather is falling there you can see an update just happend right on highway 4 as it gets close to 80 in hercules right

around pinole valley road. let me the give you an idea of which way this is moving. an atmospheric river, a moist tongue of southerly winds that are not only going to be giving us moderate to 7:00 to noon but also the potential for damaging winds. after the noon hour, it will turn over to scattered showers and random showers by 7:00. so very weighted towards the morning hours for this storm and the mute's been affected. let's talk to alexis. it sure has. westbound 580, the richmond side of the richmond-san rafael bridge, we've got some moderate rain in the area and heavy volumes. we've had three separate crashes on the bridge. one still blocking but they did get the second crash cleared. we'll check in with amy here in just a second. she's in that herself right now. quick check of drive drives. southbound 680 from walnut creek, pretty good. northbound 17 between highway 1 and los gatos, 53 minutes and of course that is due to that slide in the santa cruz mountains. next traffic update coming up at

6:40. we have alexis in studio helping you get to work and we have abc7 news reporter amy hollyfield on the road. >> in fact, she's heading to that crash on the richmond bridge on 580. amy, how does it look? >> reporter: i'm not making much progress. no, @not a parking lot. this is a bridge. we're on it but we're not moving very quickly if at all. we're doing about a 30-minute mile. i've been timing us. we've gone half a mile in about 15 minutes so we just want to let you know this is what you can expect this morning. your commute's going to look a lot like it did yesterday morning. very wet out here. a little break in the rain right now, just a light drizzle but we have been in some heavy, steady rain this morning as we traveled from 80 over here to 580. but the problems this morning, though, more on the -- this side of the bay area. yesterday it was the east bay. today, we're richmond and heading over to san rafael and marin county so just be aware, leave early, slow down, lots of

accidents out here as people deal with these wet roads and as the chp will tell you a lot of times it involves people going too fast so please slow down. live from the richmond-san rafael bridge, amy hollyfield, abc7 news. that is not the only spot that we are watching closely this morning. we are keeping an eye on those very full reservoirs all over the bay area. >> that includes morgan hill where they are taking precautions this morning because the next round of rain is here. abc7 news reporter matt keller is live for us at the reservoir. matt? >> reporter: good morning, reggie and jessica. i've got some good news this morning, over the last hour since i last saw you, we haven't really seen any significant rain here in morgan hill. in fact, it's been just a light drizzle on and off for the past 60 minutes or so. now why is that good news? because we have more than enough water here in morgan hill. check this out. i just checked the water level's website and anderson reservoir is at 99% capacity and that's why they're doing this, getting all that water out but while

they do that, it causes another possible issue, flooding down the coyote creek and this is what it looks like when it gets a little swollen down there. a number of low-lying communities close to the floodplain so there is a risk they could flood. the refb war is supposed to be at 68% capacity because of seismic concerns so water officials need to get it below that level to make it safe in case there is a really big earthquake and with the rain today and over the next couple days anderson reservoir could reach full capacity. at that point, the water will be spip spilling over the top of the dam into a concrete spillway designed to relieve pressure. only one reservoir out of the ten here in santa clara county is currently spilling b others are above 90% and that includes anderson here in morgan hill. reporting live in morgan hill, matt keller, abc7 news. and let's take you to the peninsula now. you can see it coming down in east palo alto this morning near ikea of east bay shore road. one man was out for an early morning walk.

he was prepared for the rain. there he is with an umbrella in the hand. and pg&e putting its mobile generators on standby in case of any major power outages. abc7 news was in benicia where many of the units are already loaded and ready to go. pg&e is using emergency power systems more often to get the lights back on in these storm outages. in fact, they've already been used this winter in san rafael, diablo, and fairfield. >> pg&e has a plan when it comes to storm event like this one that's coming this weekend and part of that plan is to prepare for large-scale outages and that's when we call on aggreko. >> yeah, so, we can power anything from a single home, single residence, up to, say, 5,000 or greater. >> and the generating systems can actually be pre-positioned ahead of the storm in places where outages are expected. you can track the weather any time with our abc7 news app. we have live doppler 7 on that app and you can enable push alerts. that way, you get weather

advisories sent right to your phone. and unexpected about-face for oakland city leaders who issued a new policy aimed at avoiding another ghost ship fire only to then retract that new policy only a few short hours later. yesterday afternoon, oakland's assistant police chief ordered all officers to report by e-mail any illegal parties like raves or unpermitted living spaces in warehouses. the report was to include specifics and be completed the same day. but four hours after the new policy was issued, the city administrators sent this e-mail saying the previous directive was "districted prematurely and has been retracted." the union is upset. >> they're not engaged in building code violations. this terrible traj should not be related to see a work in police officers. >> this all follows last year's ghost ship fire where 36 people

died. recent reports indicate oakland police knew people lived and partied there illegally but code violations were never documented. new details emerging this morning about what caused this. that huge crater in the main spillway at the oroville dam. this is an interesting report from cal fire and it blames rain water erosion, which you probably already knew, but what you probably didn't know was that they're talking about the erosion on the sides of the main spillway that undermined it and then caused a portion of it to collapse. video shot tuesday shows the sides of that spillway starting to break away. on top of that, major erosion was triggered when water was released over the backup spillway leading to the evacuation of 188,000 people. mandatory evacuations are over, but many people have not come back because they fear more problems with this next round of rain. a highly decorated war veteran is among the evacuees who came back home to nearby uva city only to find that he got

broken into and whoever did this stole two dozen of his medals from vietnam. this is mike and he was awarded those medals, including a purple heart, for heroism and valor. he served as an army medic during the war. he says he has ptsd and he has a hard time talking about his experience so he had hoped these medals were going to stay a secret until he was gone. >> a lot of things went on and you try to bury it and that's it. but the medals were to be pass down to my family and then they could sort out what grandpa did or grandpa didn't do. >> i don't know why someone would want to take that from somebody. take a part of their life away. >> for almost 50 years, he has kept those medals looked in a black case in the back of the closet. now he's opening up about his experience because he hopes that whoever took this brings it back. here at the live desk, we continue to monitor that power

outage that we just told you about on the embarcadero. this is a live look here from the roof of the abc7 broadcast center. the lights are out for just two blocks and pg&e tells us that an equipment failure is impacting only two customers. that's good news but we want to show you this shot here from our camera and note that some of those dark buildings are there. those are pier 9 and the water front restaurant. no word if they don't have any power or if they're just dark because it is so early. pg&e is now working to restore that power and hopes to have the lights back on by 10:00 this morning. we of course will stay on top of it and keep you updieted. today senate republicans plan to use their majority power to confirm president trump's nominee to lead the environmental protection agency. they're ignoring calls from democrats to delay the vote until scott pruitt releases thousands of e-mails he's exchanged with oil and gas executives. pruitt is oklahoma's attorney general. and critics are questioning his close ties with the energy

industry. yesterday, a judge gave pruitt until next week to release those e-mails. retired vices admiral bob harward has turned down the job of national security adviser. he's citing his family obligations as the reason. he denies reports that he turned down the offer because of chaos in the west wing. harward would have replaced michael flynn who resigned on monday for lying about his contact with russian officials. no matter what bridge you're going across this morning, dumbarton, san mateo, bay bridge, all the way up to the richmond-san rafael bridge and all the way towards the strait, those are going to be wet this morning. look at this massive moderate rain that's about to pull out and head towards the dumbarton bridge and palo alto right now. plus we've got the winds picking up, 30 miles per hour in san jose. you have the fastest winds. how often do we say that? they're 25 right now in santa rosa. fastest winds today will be in this area shaded yellow. the peninsula, the south bay, and east bay, damage potential now all the way through 6:00 this evening because they'll gust up to about 50 miles per

hour which could down some trees and some power outages could happen also. here's a look at 101 and 880. you can see it is wet this morning. a little bit of light r falling right now. your activity planner revolves around being wet, especially this morning. public transit morning is going to be the wettest. wet and windy for commuting during the a.m. and showers will linger if you're out and about during the afternoon and evening hours. as far as our temperatures today, probably our warmest day moving forward. upper 50s to low 60s. near 60 tomorrow and then just mid to upper 50s sunday. worried about wet weather this weekend? i'll give you an hour-by-hour look of what to expect coming up next. yeah, our main hot spot this morning has been the richmond-san rafael bridge, the westbound side. it is still just crawling at the toll plaza there or approaching the toll plaza. i've been watching amy hollyfield, of course, she and her photographer are on the move this morning. they made it out on the mid span. it looks like they're moving along a little bit better but taking about 30 minutes to go a mile. just a slow crawl there this

morning and you can understand why i've got live doppler 7 on top of the traffic map. so plenty of light to moderate rain for you this morning too. just getting reports of flooding. if you're heading into san francisco, northbound 01 around the vermont street kit exit, all lanes flooded. 101 around the 280 merge, we tend to have flooding there too. just use caution. b.a.r.t., no delays so far this morning. ace very limited service. limited service here and reduced capacity for san francisco bay ferry trips this morning too. just got good news from vta, regular service has resumed on the light rail line. they were providing a bus bridge earlier but that has been canceled. we'll take a look at drive times next. a health alert for hundreds of students and staff at a local high school. the tuberculosis scare on campus and the emergency action the school's taking. and taking care of a new puppy can be a full-time job, right? the company now offering workers

paw ternty leave. >> wow. 2017. it's quite something. taking a live look outside at 6:42 there is what it looks like at tahoe right now. like at tahoe right now. we did you know 90% of couples disagree on mattress firmness? enter sleep number... she likes the bed soft. he's more hardcore. you can both adjust the bed for the best sleep of your life. save 50% on the ultimate limited edition bed, plus 24-month financing. go to sleepnumber.com for a store near you.

today's storm is level 2. that means moderate rain, so gear up before you go out and drive safely. track today's storm any time on the abc7 news app. download it now.

and this rain is not going to end before you have to go to work. here's a live look at san jose, 101 as people are doing just that. we'll check in with mike nicco in just a minute. developing news this morning in solano county. public health officials are trying to calm fears about a tuberculosis case at a fairfield high school. armijo high sent this letter to parents yesterday to let them know about students' possible exposure to the infectious bacterial disease. officials haven't said who tested positive for tb. they won't even say if it's a student or faculty member. health officials are contacting anyone who may have been exposed. they say more than 200 people will likely have to be tested. >> it's not something that you get in passing through the hallways. it's a matter of, you know, spending prolonged periods of time in an enclosed space with the individual. >> a public meeting for concerned parents and scheduled for next tuesday.

happening conservative provocate provocat yiannopoulos will appear on bill maher. some do not believe maher should give yiannopoulos a major platform to spew hatred. in response, maher released a statement saying if yiannopoulos is the monster he claims, nothing could serve the liberal cause better than having him on the show. a scheduled appearance at berkeley made national headlines this month after it triggered major protests. did you get the flu shot? a new government report has the answer -- centers of disease control and prevention say the flu vaccine is 48% effective this season. officials say flu activity in the u.s. is expected to continue for several more weeks.

bay area dog lovers, listen up because some of you may want to move to scotland now. a company there is now offering puppy parents pawternity leave. >> that's right. you get time off to bond with your newborn puppy. a scottish brewery called brew dog, makes sense, is behind this idea. it now offers a week of paid leave for employees with new puppies or rescued dogs. it tweeted this video of some of the happy pups and their owners and get this, it looks like brew dog is set to open up an ohio location this year so if you want to move away from the bay area, that's the spot to go. unfortunately, those pups not going to be getting a very dry walk this morning. >> no. i was going to go to the dog park when i got off but i think those plans will be delayed, mike nicco. i'd love to see his rain outfit. >> obnoxiously. >> i bet so. good afternoon, everybody. if that's what it takes to deep them dry, make it more

obnoxious. looking toward the west, it gets grayer. let me give you what's going on. downpours and we've got gusty winds this morning. random showers this weekend and then we have our heaviest rain slated for monday morning. i know a lot of you may be off because of the holiday. here's a look at what's going on. redwood city all the way down to woodside, stanford, more puddles developing there and all pushing up towards the san mateo bridge. that's the moderate rain that rolled over there. now moving through san leandro and heading up towards 24 in moraga and lafayette and orinda so expect an increase in the intensity and more ponding on the roadways there. here's the area of low pressure, that counterclockwise flow pulling up all this moisture from this atmospheric river that's hitting the southern part of the state that's under the drought. we're not anymore. today's storm is a 2, moderate, because of the moderate to heavy rain and the winds, that's what changed it from a 1 to the 2. let's go hour-by-hour and show

you what's going to happen. lot of yellows and oranges still out there. and by noon, still dealing with heavy downpours from time to time but then turns over to scattered showers at 5:00 and if you're headed out this evening, isolated showers but then the air over us, more light to moderate showers but then as we head into the afternoon hours, saturday, that's when we get our biggest break this weekend from the wet weather because scattered showers will litter all day sunday and then by 5:00, it becomes a steady rain and then heavy for monday morning. by the time we get to thursday, sunshine and dry weather, alexis. we still have delays on the richmond-san rafael bridge. we're going to check in with amy hollyfield in just a moment. hollight now, a very soggy gold gate. a solo vehicle collision, lost control, was blocking the left lane. facing sideways. looks like they have that pushed off on the south end of the bridge. also wanted to check on the

santa cruz mountains. the backup not as terrible as the last few days. boy, we were backed up south of scotts valley area there about five miles. today, around three miles but you are crawling 8 miles per hour, 14 miles per hour and that is approaching the slide at vine hill where just one lane is getting by in each direction. quick check of drive times as well. westbound 80, 32 minutes, westbound 80 across the bay bridge, earlier trouble but down to 18 minutes now and southbound 101, san francisco to sfo, 14 minutes. you are in the yellow as well. next traffic update coming up in just a few. what's it like to actually be in the commute this morning? we have your answer, especially on that troubled 580 this morning. >> abc7 news reporter amy hollyfield is in the slowdown on the richmond bridge. amy, looks like you're going a little faster now. >> reporter: hi, jessica. we got through the rough patch, just got off the bridge and i'm here to tell you it's improving significantly. once we got to the trouble spot where the accident had happened, we saw they were loading the car up on the tow truck and were about to clear the area and the

second accident has been cleared. so the richmond-san rafael bridge is going to start opening up soon. it's very slow going, though. there's quite a significant backup. we were going -- it took about 30 minutes to go a mile but it is clearing out and that's been the biggest trouble spot of the morning. i just checked in with chp. they said the rest of the bay area is looking pretty good. people handling the rain okay. it is coming down. very wet out here. this was the major trouble spot of the morning. reporting live from approaching larkspur, amy hollyfield, abc7 news. we are so glad she made it through. >> and we're back in 90 seconds with the seven things you need to know before you go. and let's take a live look outside with abc7 news now. you can see there is backup at the bay bridge toll plaza. oh, slow going there. we are keeping your weather and traffic up through the entire break there on the sides of your screen. screen. so y

whether you're just joiningous r about to go out the door, here are the seven things you need to know. it's going to hang around a lot longer than yesterday's storm. let me show you live doppler 7. you can see the moderate to heavy downpours and developing to the south. hydroplaning is going to be high through most of the morning commute, urban and creek flooding and trees down, moderate, low for power outages and river flooding. all that translates to a pretty tough commute. here's a live look at the richmond-san rafael bridge. still really jammed in the richmond area but once you make

it past the mid span things are better and that drive time is coming down to about 22 minutes so still in the red but getting better. number three, water officials are keeping a close eye on gushing bay area reservoirs. anderson reservoir is above capacity, forcing officials to release all this water. we are watching the dow right now. it dropped 85 points after the opening bell. right now it's down about 55 point. it's notable because it follows six straight record highs for the opening. number five, officials in oroville are talking about widening state highways leading away from the city. this is in direct response to the massive backup we saw during evacuations during the dam crisis. and number six, the l.a. area getting ready for storm getten, people preparing for what's expected to be the biggest storm in many years. some parts are expected to get up to 10 inches of rain by tomorrow. number seven, it is nba all-star weekend. steph curry, kevin durant, draymond green and klay thompson will all represent the warriors

at sunday's game. tomorrow, klay will try to defend his three-point championship. and abc7 sports larry beil is in new orleans. he is going to have live reports starting tonight. he's going to get some beignets and gum bow. >> i'm jealous. larry's going to have the fun weekend. >> it's mardi gras, how about king cakes. >> bring them back, larry. >> obviously, we're jealous but it's not going to a total washout this weekend. >> tomorrow afternoon.

good morning, america. breaking news for our viewers in the west. the strongest storm of the season hitting southern california. 20 million on alert for flash flooding as torrential downpours batter an already hard hit west coast. this mudslide shutting down i-5 in washington and this road collapsing. a car sinking. is new warning as nearly a foot of rain moves in. >> the president defends his first month in office in a fiery face-off with the press. >> this administration is running like a fine-tuned machine. >> answering questions about those contacts between his campaign and russia. >> russia is a ruse. i have nothing to do with russia. haven't made a phone call to russia in years. >> lashing out at the media. >> i turn on the tv, open the