president barack obama will be in the bay area today. we'll tell you where he'll be and who will get to see him. >> reporter: good morning, i'm kristi smith live near san quentin prison where there was a very unusual rescue overnight. two people had to be plucked from the very cold water, and it turns out that inmates actually helped out. that story coming up in a live report. plus get ready to pay more for water. why more than a million east bay customers will see their water rates shoot up. a live look outside at the bay bridge this morning. it's wednesday, april 20th, this is "today in the east bay."

good morning, everyone. i'm scott mcgrew. it's 4:30. let's get a check of an east bay forecast with christina. >> good morning to you. we do have a few showers out there in the east bay this morning. for the most part the peninsula is nice and dry and the showers that we are seeing are moving through the east bay so watch out for slick roadways throughout the morning. the showers will become a little more steady this afternoon and then we'll see clearing by tonight, but we do have a couple more rounds of rain to get through as we head through the coming days. i'll break down your forecast in moments. >> no problem on the roadway. i'm talking about going through the water. the posey tube had construction overnight and should have reopened minutes ago. chp has -- i'm sorry, department of transportation has no delays getting from alameda over to oakland. looking at the oakland shot we see a nice easy drive, very light drive past the coliseum.

the northbound commute is not interrupted by any closures this morning, it's a nice smooth flow. the barricades are out, the signs are up, secret service is in the bay area. at 1:00 this afternoon, president barack obama will touch down at sfo for a 17-hour visit. now, supporters are anxious for the chance to meet him in person at a rally. jean met up with some. >> reporter: hundreds lined up to pick up tickets for president obama's san francisco 2012 kickoff event paying anywhere from $25 to $2500 for a ticket. they donated to the campaign, but not every ticket holder is thrilled with the president's first term. >> is in inability to bring consensus to washington, i'm sure everybody is waiting for that. >> guantanamo bay is not closing, we are still in iraq and afghanistan, those three issues are important to me so there is a lot to hold him

accountable for but you can't get everything done in four years. >> reporter: like many obama supporters, he says obama has more work to do. >> am i excited to see the president in san francisco, but i'm also more excited to hear what he has proposed for the next four years. the country has gone through a lot. >> reporter: a group of 30 kids from the boys and girls clubs are preparing for a special field trip. >> i've been telling every day i'm going to go see obama. >> reporter: 16-year-old cedric helped friends paint a "welcome to san francisco" sign for the president. the kids are excited to see mr. obama in person. if they have a chance to meet him, they want to talk issues. >> people grow up in their neighborhood and they don't have goals for themselves, so i would like for them to have goals for themselves like a better chance, like a second chance at education and more jobs. so, yeah, i think that would be the main topic i would talk about. >> reporter: those kids talked about the need to fund summer

school and improve school lunches while they painted. the bay area is full of president obama supporters, but even people in line picking up tickets for his first bay area campaign speech for the 2012 election are looking for the hope they held onto in 2008. now, on knob hill traffic will be a mess most of the day. parking is, of course, quite limited. protesters plan to be there starting at 4:00. ticket holders will begin filing in at 5:00. right now the president is expected to speak at 8:00. meanwhile here's the rest of the itinerary. president obama expected to arrive at sfo this afternoon. he'll visit facebook headquarters in palo alto where he will hold an online town meeting. he has 19 million facebook friends. then from palo alto to san francisco, two campaign fund-raisers, that nob hill masonic center and the private dinner in pacific heights.

$35,000 a plate if you're interested in that. tomorrow morning a fund-raising breakfast at the st. regis before boarding air force one and then flying on to reno and then on to los angeles. stay with nbc bay area and nbc bay area.com. we'll have continuing coverage of the president's visit to the bay area. two people in the hospital this morning after their row boat sank near san quentin. kristi smith is live in marin with more information. good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you. i just talked with a spokesperson for san quentin prison and he tells me this was really an unusual situation. can't remember anything quite like it. he says it was around 1:30 in the morning when a tower guard heard something unusual coming from the water. it turns out that was two people out there who were yelling for help just around the bend. that's when he called for help. he got an on-staff firefighter, some guards and even some low-risk inmates that are trained to help people.

they actually got in the water to help. it turns out the people had been in a small boat, they're thinking possibly coming from the larkspur area when somehow it capsized. they were in the water for at least 90 minutes, very cold water. they got them out and called for help from san rafael firefighters and paramedics. they had to perform cpr on the man, we're told, and he may have suffered from cardiac arrest. they were taken to marin general where they are still at this hour. the whole thing we're told lasted about an hour and guards telling me that when this whole thing was over, they had to do an emergency bedcheck on all the thousands of inmates here just to make sure that nothing unusual happened inside the prison while this was going on outside. so quite an unusual story coming out of san quentin this morning. reporting live, near san

quentin, kristi smith. also smock and disbelief in the east bay as a family struggles to understand why someone would shoot and kill a 33-year-old mother. flowers and balloons mark the spot where beatrice burton was killed on union street in west oakland. her family says the bullets were meant for someone else. >> caught in the crossfire coming out of a store. some people were shooting at someone else, and unfortunately bullets have no name. >> burton was hit several times. her boyfriend didn't wait for an ambulance, rushing her to a hospital where she died. her most recent job was at oxford elementary school. she worked in the cafeteria, encouraging students to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. as profits for one water agency are going down the drain, more than a million east bay residents could have to pay more for their water. rates could go up 12% over the next couple of years for the east bay municipal utility,

which is facing rising costs and diminishing revenues. that loss in revenue due to the rising gas prices for the company's trucks and the fact that customers are apparently using less water than expected. the two-year proposed budget will be presented on may 10th. if the board likes when it see, a public hearing and vote will take place june 14th. if approved, a 6% hike could kick in on july 1st. starting in may, pg&e plans to start pressure testing 150 miles of pipelines that are similar to the gas line that exploded in san bruno. the pressure will be provided by waur, not natural gas. some of the first lines to be tested will be in antioch and mountain view because they are most similar to the line that exploded in september killing eight people. let's check in with christina and i've got to think about, it's a wednesday forecast. it's early enough in the morning. let's see, we did tuesday. >> we did tuesday, got through

monday, so we are off to a good start. hump day, that's why they call it hump day. today looks pretty good. weatherwise we'll see spotty activity the first part of the day. as you make your way home from work the rain will become a little more steady and continue overnight into tomorrow morning. today we'll see enough sunshine for temps to climb into the low 60s, but overall looking like an overcast, gray day. possibly some isolated thunderstorms we're already noticing this morning in northern california. as you can see here, the east bay getting a little action already. just to the east of livermore we have light showers coming down. this is what we're expecting the fist part of your day, just spotty activity. it will intensify through 6:00 p.m. that's when the bulk of the moisture starts to push in lasting through the overnight hours. by 2:00 a.m. things start to clear out. tomorrow morning we could wake up with slick conditions. i do believe that will be the case. you want to give yourself plenty of time today and tomorrow.

55 in hayward, livermore is at 53 so we're starting out relatively mild even with limited sunshine today. we'll still break through to the 60s. 62 in livermore and 63 degrees today in concord. now your holiday weekend forecast is just moments away so stay tuned for that. let's get you to work. how does it look, mike? >> one of those areas you showed, in livermore, in antioch you showed a couple of blips there so you might get red weather roads. the antioch bridge does have overnight construction so one-way traffic control for the next half hour or so. and eastbound 580 at summersville opposite your main commute and right now it's before the commute kicked in for the westbound side. by 6:00 the westbound side will show slowdowns right in that same spot. we do have a wind advisory for the benicia bridge across the water between the north bay and east bay. a smooth flow of traffic but watch out for those gusty conditions. a view of the east shore freeway

and very light volume, but if there's gusty winds at the benicia bridge, likely to see some patches in the east bay hills as well. coming up, the newly revamped terror threat system and the new way the government will be alerting the public. plus, new passenger protection rules this morning. what you should know before you take off. and more criticism for the nation's air traffic controllers. this time as a plane with the first lady is told to abort a landing. you are looking at live pictures of

it's 4:44. you're looking at the san mateo bridge. we'll check in with mike in just a moment. from here on out, america will consider herself to always be under the threat of attack. a new national terror alert system will be unveiled today. it replaces that color-coded threat level you just saw. after the 9/11 terror attacks, that was put into place. the new system has just two threat levels, elevated and imminent. gone are the never-used levels like guarded or low. the homeland security secretary says it's meant to streamline the process to help the public know about threats. the government will issue some public alerts through social media sites like facebook and

twitter. the government announced new rules to protect the flying public from the airlines. airlines now required to reimburse more passengers who are bumped. and if it loses your luggage, you get a baggage fee refund. another rule prohibits airlines from holding passengers on stranded international flights for more than four hours. these changes stem from numerous incidents last december where travelers were stuck for up to ten hours on snowy runways. air traffic controllers once again in the spotlight after a plane carrying first lady michelle obama came a little too close to a military cargo jet. the 737 she was on was coming in for a landing monday at andrews air force base when it was told to abort the lappeding and circle around. the plane came within three miles of an enormous air force cargo plane landing ahead of mrs. obama. the faa requires a minimum separation of five miles in order to avoid wake turbulence, which can affect the trailing aircraft. the faa is investigating the

incident as a possible error by controllers at a regional radar facility. as for the people in the control tower themselves, they did their jobs just right. the black eyed peas look into the future of their music business, their peapod foundation opening a school for teenagers to learn video and music production. for more news let's turn to nicole lapin, a big black eyed peas fan. >> reporter: absolutely. how did you know? futures are higher this morning, scott, thanks largely to upbeat earnings from tech giants intel, ibm and yahoo!. stocks rebounded on tuesday and positive earnings. also a rise in commodity rises. we are talking about oil above $109. gold flirting with that $1,500 an ounce mark. asia rose on the back of our gains and tech results so europe was higher and it all comes full circle. we get some data on existing home sales and earnings from

at&t, united technologies, wells fargo and apple after the close. the dow rose 65 points yesterday, the nasdaq composite gained 9 to 2744. but it has been one year to the day actually since the explosion of bp's deepwater horizon rig in the gulf of mexico triggering, of course, america's worst offshore oil spill ever. writing in today's "wall street journal" the ceo says the company gets it and is changing safety procedures. he also makes the argument for deepwater drilling saying the demand is rising and the world needs a lot of oil. all right, well, i know this is up your alley, scott. you can dump your iphone for a new version is on the way. apple's asian suppliers will begin production on the next generation in july or august. it's expected to run on a faster processor but will look largely similar to the current iphone.

apple is not commenting, scott, but they typically don't. we talked about how they deal with pr relations yesterday with the suit against samsung, but we know it's coming. happy early hannukah or christmas, whatever. >> i just started playing with the playbook yesterday and they're having trouble with at&t connections. i think apple has got iphone and it pad in the bag, no matter how late it comes out. >> reporter: that's the thing with the playbook. first of all, they don't have any apps. second of all, hello, where is the e-mail. just that one thing that was missing. >> and if you check the blogs, it's not working with at&t's network. so it's something close to a disaster. nicole lapin. >> reporter: such a tech guru, scott. >> i am a tech guru. you know who's a weather guru, it's christina loren. >> good morning to you. we do have a system of low pressure pushing into the bay

area. the storm track is back. the jetstream has opened the door for all these storms to move into the bay area the next couple of days. we have rain chances each and every day all the way throughout your holiday weekend. i think the best chance for those showers if we do see anything on sunday will be up in the north bay but about a 30% shot now. we do have a little bit of light shower activity this morning in the east bay, just to the east of livermore this morning. also just to the north along 680 you'll find slick conditions probably the next couple of hours but this isn't even the main event. we'll see the bulk of the moisture come through between 6:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. so we're not completely done with the spring showers, but not to sound cliche, it's true, april showers bring may flowers. 55 at hayward and san jose, and that's good news because once the summer arrives the hills will turn brown so we want as much rain as we can get. 67 in san jose, 65 in gilroy

today and 62 degrees in livermore. a little bit more mild in the east bay today than it was yesterday. as you can see, our temperatures, because of that limited sunshine on sunday, easter sunday, mostly cloudy conditions, a 30% chance of rain up in the north bay. for you in the east bay, about a 20% chance, but it will be later in the day. if you want to do any sort of outdoor plans, easter egg hunts, et cetera, you'll be able to do it in the first day of the day. >> and you know what may flowers bring, right? pilgrims. the a's will try to pick up the fourth win in a row today. they'll host the troubled red sox at 12:30 today. last night pitcher brett anderson kept the boston bats quiet. you just saw striking out carl crawford. crawford gets called for interference on kurt suzuki's throw to second. crawford is out. oh, yeah, that's interference.

bottom of the eighth we've got a two-run double to make it 4-0 and then the a's go on to win 5-0. coming up, one year later, lives lost along the gulf coast. change in an instant when the deepwater horizon rig and explosion, some of what nicole was talking about. we'll take a look at what people are dealing with today. plus why ebay wants your apple trash and how much they'll pay for it. >> right now a very light commute through the caldecott tunnel. you should see a good bulk of traffic. we're watching weather and traffic together coming up.

4:54 right now. today marks the one-year anniversary of the tragedy in the gulf. 11 men died in an explosion on the deepwater horizon oil well that triggered the worst spill in u.s. history. it took engineers, scientists and crews working around the clock nearly three months to stop the flow of oil. but the fight against the oil continues this morning. 66 miles of gulf coastline are still moderately or severely oiled. a thousand square miles of fishing water remain closed, and the loss in tourism revenues expected to reach $22 billion total by next year. let's take a look at what's coming up later today in the bay and we say good morning to brent. >> the political spotlight may be on facebook today as it hosts the president's town hall, but

you might be surprised to learn about the voting record of facebook founder mark zuckerberg. we'll have that for you. plus when can you touch your phone in your car and when can you not? the rules are a little bit more complicated than you might imagine. we're going to break it down for you. you know you've got to go hands-free, but how hands-free is kind of surprising. and san jose city leaders drastically reducing the number of medical marijuana clubs. we'll have those stories and a lot more coming up in just a few more minutes, scott. >> i encourage you to stick around for that talk about the texting, it's amazing stuff. let's check in with mike. good morning, mike. >> good morning, scott. we'll take you out to livermore right now where the traffic flow is very nice, a 13-minute drive out of the altamont pass. in that area, 205 and 580 meet, christina has been showing us some rain so a note there's rain sticking around from overnight. you might have some wet roads on 580, as well as 680 but we're looking at a nice easy drive

across the way westbound through castro valley. castro valley y. we'll see blips throw up but no major slowing and a smooth transition over onto the san mateo bridge. construction on the connector ramp should be cleared right about now and we'll see a nice flow across the bridge. a wind advisory on the benicia bridge. we'll watch for gusts as they kick around the bay area. >> mike, thank you much. coming up, your morning joe is about to cost more, if it hasn't already. coffee just one of the things you're paying more for. there was a whopping 27% price jump between december and march. bananas are another. they cost 10% more. chocolate, hershey's raised wholesale prices nearly 10%. potatoes up 40%. companies passing along the higher cost of raw materials and transportation. ebay wants to buy your broken apple gadgets. the online auction house will pay $150 for an old ipad.

a broken iphone could be worth 100 and ipod up to 50. these run until april 30th in honor of earth month. the products will bow refurbished and then sold. you can get more a re

new this morning, facebook is ready to welcome the president today. good morning, i'm marla tellez. i'll explain how the social networking website is changing politics, coming up. plus a bay area school district is talking about cutting school days to deal with a massive budget shortfall. confusion over the rules of the road. exactly what can you do and not do with your cell phone while driving? i'm bob redell. we'll try to sort this out. and a live look outside at the bay bridge this morning. it should be a nice day on tap. it's wednesday, april 20th. this is "today in the bay."