the severe housing shortage. but a new report says instead of cutting the red tape, that red tape seems to be getting longer and thicker. we'll dive into why with our media partner, the san francisco standard. and a stunning and scary new report on the effects of climate change on lake tahoe. and it's bad news for skiers, snowboarders and homeowners hoping to avoid

damaging floods. but first, the manhunt continues at this hour in maine after a gunman massacres 18 people and escapes is armed and dangerous. you're watching getting answers. i'm kristin z. cities in the state of maine are on lockdown as suspected. mass shooter robert cod remains on the loose. and just in the last hour, the fbi confirmed agents are now at a nearby house associated with the 40 year old army reservist. abc news reporter reena roy has the latest. >> officials confirming at least 18 people have been killed and 13 others wounded after a heavily armed gunman opened fire at two locations in lewiston, maine. authorities releasing these surveillance images showing the suspect, 40 year old robert cod, as he entered a local bowling alley that was hosting a youth night for a kids bowling league. i don't know where he just came in. >> and there was a loud pop. i thought it was a balloon. i had my back turned to the door.

>> police say car then allegedly traveled about four miles to a bar and restaurant where police allege he shot several more victims. and since then, he's been on the run cards. white subaru pictured here, was found at a boat launch in lisbon. officials say he owns a boat as well as a motorcycle. >> he should be considered armed and dangerous. we believe this is someone that should not be approached at hundreds of federal, state and local law enforcement agents joining forces to try and track him down . >> a shelter in place advisory is in effect for several communities. many schools and businesses in the state closed as the manhunt continues. >> i do ask the public to continue to be mindful of their own personal safety. >> over the summer, cod was deployed to a military training center in upstate new york to support training for west point cadets. a defense official telling abc news that back in july he was behaving erratically and out of concern for his safety was taken to a mental health facility for evaluation. he spent two weeks there and allegedly threatened to shoot up a national guard facility in

maine. >> one source telling me this is the worst case scenario involving a highly skilled gunman who is irrational cod is a firearms expert in army reservist with a history of mental illness. >> flags at the white house and across maine have been lowered to half staff in memory of the victims. now according to the gun violence archive, this is the 565th mass shooting here in the us this year alone, and it is the deadliest since the massacre in uvalde. reena roy, abc news, lewiston, maine. >> you heard that number that reena just gave. and also i should say this year it marks the 36th mass killing at least 190 people have died, according to the database maintained by the associated press and usa today. so joining us live now to talk about it all, john donahue, stanford law professor, steadying the impact of guns and gun safety regulation and research fellow of the national bureau of economic research. professor donahue, thanks for your time. >> good to be with you. >> we just heard about his whole background. the suspect is an

army reservist who lived in that area. law enforcement officials say he made statements about hearing voices and wanting to hurt fellow soldiers while serving at a military base this summer. so many questions, but i wonder, when you look at all these particulars here, what could have been done to prevent this madness and tragedy? >> well, of course, many years ago back way back in 2004, the federal assault weapon ban was allowed to lapse when then george w bush broke his promise to retain that as part of federal law. and if that law had been in place, at least he would not have had the weaponry that he had available today. so the lethality would have been diminished. but guess it drives home again, the point that this is what the gun lobby usually refers to as the good guy with a gun, you know, is a law abiding citizen and an and it should be a wake up call to all americans

that steps need to be taken to keep guns out of the hands of individuals like this rather than just saying, well, because he's never committed any crime with a gun, he must be a law abiding, responsible citizen with a constitutional right to carry, you know, this type of weaponry. i think that's a dangerous mistake. and we don't see anywhere near this level of mass shooting frequency in other countries. >> i want to get back to that good guy with a gun idea in a little bit. but first, let's just talk about this weapon. during that ten year period when the us did have that assault weapons ban, would that type of weapon in not have been available to anybody legally? and what was available and what was available then? could you not have incurred this kind of damage in that amount of time? >> yeah. yeah. so he bought this weapon recently and he would not have been allowed to buy that weapon through, you know, a

retailer, they did grandfather in the weapons that were available at that time. >> so you know, conceivably there would have been some of those grandfathered weapons available. but the price, of course, would have been dramatically higher and it would have helped to keep guns out of the hands of people like this. and certainly some of the 18 year old shooters that we've seen committing these mass shootings recently. so he would not have had the easy access to this weapon. and nor would he have had the capacity to have these large capacity magazines. that was able to employ so effectively here to such a lethal effect for people who don't touch weapons, including myself. >> how quickly can you take down people with what he had? >> uh- you know, these these weapons were designed for use in vietnam because they were the deemed to be the most effective rapid fire or lethal weaponry

available all and in in vietnam, you were often using these weapons exactly the way he was not on on sort of automatic fire , but semi-automatic fire. >> and, you know, looking back to the, you know, one of the other horrible mass shootings in the us where a crazy guy went up and shot up sutherland springs baptist church, he stood outside the church and fired 254 bullets in a matter of minutes through the walls of the church and killed 26 people inside the church. so these are incredibe lethal weapons can kill a lot of people very fast, but and not good to have in the hands of people with this sort of problem . >> i know your research probably doesn't point to just better mental health screening as a solution, but that is a piece of this. when something like this happens in his case, obviously,

he had been in a mental hospital , you know, but months later, was able to get access to this. you know, is there something to be done there? that is, if we had more screenings. and i think california law has a little bit more in there for that, would that have made any sort of difference? >> yeah. and of course, if we were anything like a european nation, it would have been very, very hard for him to legally purchase a weapon because they would be looking at at the mental health background in the us, the federal law in place that addresses this actually says anyone who has been committed into a mental hospital is not legally allowed to purchase a gun. >> but it seems like this was some sort of voluntary stay away and therefore not an obstacle to purchasing a gun. so you can see our laws are very porous. and there's a reason for that because the gun lobby, you know,

sells a lot of these weapons. and if they had to cut out everyone who, you know, doesn't seem to be like a responsive citizen, that would cut into sales very dramatically, of course. >> right. and involuntary commitment. you know, there are different rules, different laws. it's very difficult to get that done in many states as well. i'm sure questions will be asked about that afterwards. what about other red flag laws? are there things that you've studied that have potential to also help a little bit in this situation? >> yeah, so red flag laws can be effective if someone is alert enough to the issue and is willing to press the issue with with local police. >> so this could have been a great use for that sort of intervention. off the top of my head, i don't know whether maine has such a law in place. luckily for maine, it tends to be a low, low homicidal state and so in

that sense, maybe there hasn't been the same pressure to get these types of regulations at the state level. but but certainly around the country, red flag laws have been used effectively to stop not only mass shootings, but also suicides. >> and when you look at this right short of some sort of national congressional action, which is so difficult because of the state of politics these days, what can individual states do or what is within the realm of possibility that could help? >> yeah, well, unfortunately, we there there's a sort of war going on around the second amendment right now. >> and the newly emboldened supreme court is trying to strike down many of the gun regulations that states like california and new york have put into place. so california's assault weapon ban and ban on high capacity magazines have

both been struck down recently as unconstitutional. that is being challenged in the courts. and so there's a lot of concern around the country because you know, two thirds of americans want more more gun regulation and yet we're actually moving in the opposite direction as the gun lobby challenges us, are meeting success in the supreme court right. >> well, before i let you go real quickly, i do want to ask you, obviously, the greatest toll is the loss of human lives. but beyond that is there a way to put a price tag on the scourge of mass shootings? >> yeah, i mean, mass shootings are are just an immensely costly social plague for the united states. you know, obviously, as you mentioned, there's the death toll. but the broader ramifications of mass shootings are far beyond the number of deaths. first of all, the

injured are often their lives are destroyed. but the fear and the just the crushing burden of knowing that this is a risk that all parents have to think about with their kids is very debilitating. i know i was in connecticut during the time of the sandy hook mass shooting. i was on trial on a matter there and the social cost of that degree of harm in a community is just immense. >> professor john donahue, stanford law professor studying the impact of guns and gun safety regulations. thank you for your time. >> thank you. kristen >> when we come back, the dire warning san francisco just received wheit comes to building new housing units

problem is california's massive housing shortage, which isn't just limited to so-called affordable housing. perhaps no place exemplifies this more than san francisco. an article in today's san francisco standard examines a major reason by the crisis, as it's called, clock ticking on san francisco to take housing action or lo control. joining us live now is standard reporter josh keen. josh thanks for coming on the show today. >> hi, kristin. >> how are you? i'm good, thank you. so your article starts with a scathing report. state officials released yesterday about san francisco's housing crisis and really the red tape contributing to it. tell us about it. yeah >> so the state issued a unprecedented first of its kind report from the department of housing and community development and what it did was

it took a very close look at what's happening in san francisco or maybe to say what's not happening, because really right now the city is falling massively short of its goals to build new housing and just even apove permits to build. and so this report basicallyffer a slew of suggestions and actually should call them not suggestions. these are basically actions the city has to take. and if not, then the state might take control of loc housing decisions away from san francisco. >> right. that's the hurry up or lose control part, right? okay. so there are things they have to do, but before we get to that, i thought this was interesting. how long does it take? wasn't it some 500 something days on average to get housing projects in titled and permitted? and by the way, what does that mean? entitled? yeah so entitled means just to actually have all of the conditions met the requirements to basically meet approval to be entitled to have everything signed off in san francisco.

>> it takes more than 600 days, which is about 140 days more more than the second worst jurisdiction in california once you've even reached the entitlement process, then it's about getting your building permit. the report found that san francisco on top of the long wait times of entitlement it then takes 600 days, i should say, for to get a building permit. it was 500 days for the entitlement. so then we're talking about a total of 1100 days, which is just insane. and developers actually told state officials in the report that the reason it's so expensive to build in san francisco is because of all this red tape and all the hoops they have to jump through. >> can i just ask you then, what are some of the reasons for the 500 and something days? is it that people who are doing the approving are sitting around twiddling their thumbs, playing games, or is it that they just have to be more diligent than other cities because of our laws and requirements? maybe it's higher environmental standards. what is it? >> yeah, i think actually city

officials in the planning department would tell you they want to approve projects faster. they want to expedite this because they know there's such a crunch and because of the shortage of housing that it raised the cost of rents and building and everything. but san francisco is relatively unique in which people can throw up objections. anyone in the community, and it can essentially stymie a project to have to go back for a review process, get community input, have a series of public meetings . all of these things can basically just add in a ton of extra time and effort when it comes to the city, having to make sure that it gets all stakeholder involved, saying that san francisco also has some of the most expensive permitting fees of anywhere in the state. so so add it all up and that is what combines to make building and actually renting and buying in san francisco so expensive. >> all right. so how many new housing units does san francisco have to add by 2031 under its housing element, goals only

about 82,000 by 2031, which is a staggering number. >> it's one of the largest in the state. and right now, we are making a snail's progress when it comes to meeting that goal. near the end of my story, it notes that hud, the federal housing and urban development department, basically found that only, i think roughly around 180 permits have been issued through the first six months of this year to build, which is obviously putting us drastically short of where we want to get to . one thing i do want to say, though, is that the report notes that a bill passed in enacted in 2018, sb 35, which was authored by san francisco state senator scott wiener, has actually led to a process of expediting some projects. however our local officials have found ways to stymie that and there's a new bill called sb 423, also by senator wiener, that if san francisco is found to be failing

in meeting its goals for permitting affordable housing, low income housing and market rate housing, then basically the decision in process to approve becomes what's called ministerial, which means anything that reaches the threshold for entitlement will be automatically approved. >> okay? absolutely wow. fascinating. we'll see if san francisco can get it together before, you know, it kind of turns into a pumpkin in that sense where the state takes over. josh cain, senior reporter with the standard. thank you so much. thanks, kristen. you can check out josh's article and more of the san francisco standard's other original reporting on their website. sf standard.com abc7 will continue to bring you more segments featuring the standards city focused journalism. look for that twice a week right here on getting answers at three. we'll be right back with a new report about ski season in the sierra. and if you're a skier and snowboarde

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the desert research institute's division of hydrological services. thanks so much for joining us, sean. >> thanks for having me, kristen. >> so this report suggests a huge decrease in the snowpack in the tahoe area by the end of the century. how much and what are the causes? >> yeah, that's right. kristen, what we did was simulate responses to climate change in the tahoe basin. and we did that out to the end of the century, 2099. and we looked at two scenarios, those where greenhouse gas emissions kind of peak around 2040 and those where they peak around 2080. and obviously the latter causes more severe consequences. what we saw in our work was more precise mitigation will fall as rain, no longer as snow. earlier snowmelt will happen of the snow that is available and we will see about the same amount of precipitation

overall. but again, it'll be more rainfall and it'll be more variable, more extreme storms like those we've seen in the last few years. so in some ways, this study gives us more confidence in the predictions we've had before. it's consistent with everything that we've been seeing. well, we also did here was to look at the tahoe basin in a much more granular level where previous studies have looked at the tahoe basin as a single entity. here we've looked at 60 different sub basins for that. so less snow, warmer temperatures. how much you ask? yeah we have come up with a new measure that looks at the amount of snow on the ground. and we said how many days are there going to be with ten inches or more snow on the ground? and we see that reduced by as much as 140 days. so more than four months of winter that we have now is going to go away by the end of the century under

the most extreme greenhouse gas emissions under the 2080 scenario. >> okay, let's hope it's the 20/40 scenario. but what does this mean? mainly because you said the overall precipitation stays the same. so i'm hoping that doesn't impact the amount of water we get because usually we think of snowpack melt, we get water right. >> right. good question. so in some ways you can think of the snowpack as nature's reservoir, right? so as it snows, it's able to collect and it's able to be released more slowly as it melts as more precipitation comes as rainfall. we don't have that buffer, that storage capacity anymore. so we will be getting that precipitation as rainfall and as streamflow directly as it lands on the surface. >> i see. okay. so less will be usable. and then, of course, chances for flooding. so what does that mean in terms of planning for infrastructure? >> right. we see in some of the sub basins, floods increasing the amount of water coming

through in a flood, increasing by as much as three times over. what we've seen in the past. so that's signified efficient flooding compared to what we are used to. and that is going to wreak havoc on the infrastructure here in the tahoe basin. >> and as far as skiing and snowboarding, did i correctly, that it translates into you? i mean, obviously shorter season, but by a month, or is it more than that by several months, by the end of the century under the more extreme greenhouse gas emissions? >> but i think even in even under the less extreme 2040 scenario, we're going to see up to two months or more shorter winters than we have now. >> and but given that area, so dependent on the business brought in by the skiers and snowboarders, this must change the economy there, too. >> that will have significant consequences. yes. now we all know that tahoe is not just a winter destination. it's a year round destination and summer

sports will still still be happening. >> so while this report is a big warning, it's not all doom and gloom. what do you think tahoe has going for it that will enable it to hopefully adapt and succeed as a region? >> i think yeah, a number of things that are interesting is we really didn't see any change in streamflow over the long, long haul. again, more of it's going to come as rain and the timing will be different. but i think when it comes to fish stocks that live in those streams, there will be water. but the timing will be different and we'll have to see how that impacts things. tahoe is obviously very resilient. there's been many changes over the last couple of hundred years , and i expect it will continue to stay resilient. >> all right. sean mckenna is division of hydrological services. appreciate your time. thank you. we'll take a short

around the bay area world news tonight with david muir is next. and i'll see you back here at 4:00 tonight, breaking news. we're on the scene of this horrific mass shooting. the urgent manhunt at this hour here in maine. the suspected gunman, an army reservist, now wanted in the dead liest mass shooting in th u.s. this year. robert card accused of killing 18 people and wounding more than a dozen others. tonight, authorities warning he is arm ed and dangerous. the chilling surveillance images showing him walking into a