the traffic hot zones this morning. we go inside their war room to see how they're trying to ease some headaches for drivers. right now let's take you outside to check out that weather. this is a live look over san francisco right now on a stormy friday morning. it's november 30th, 2012. this is "today in the bay." it is 4:30. good morning, everybody. thanks for getting up with us. i'm jon kelley. >> and i'm laura garcia-cannon. a powerful storm rolling its way through the bay area. let's check in with meteorologist christina loren with what's happening now. >> good morning to you. yeah, we have a flash flood warning in place. a warning means that flooding is actually happening or it is imminent, so we want to make sure you're ready for that before you head out for your morning drive. a lot more rain on the way. you can see right now all the yellow and orange is starting to push into the central valley. right now we're just getting light to moderate rainfall but we are not out of the woods just

yet. i want to give you a glimpse of what's to come. stop the clock on your futurecast. look at this, this is 7:00 a.m. right as we kick off the morning drive. the brunt of the storm moves in. so we have a lot to talk about. if you are leaving right now, give yourself extra time, travel cautiously and try to eliminate the distractions in your vehicle. traction is difficult, you've got slick conditions out there. very wet leaves all over the place and it's going to get very windy the next couple of hours as well. let's check on your drive with mike. >> good morning. look at this already, we do have the wind blowing our camera around. this is mounted rooftop over in emeryville. our skycam turned toward the maze, 580, interstate 880 and 80 call coming together. the water covering the roadway and the wind shaking the camera. now to 580 where there's a big problem at the dublin interchange. basically the interstate is shut down westbound coming out of livermore. everyone whether or not you're

using 680 has to use that 680 offramp. so there's the backup right now. it's only 4:30 so a very, very light volume of traffic. you're able to get by about with considerable backup. from what i hear, this may not clear until closer to 6:00. at least 5:30. we'll track that. we're trying to get word from chp for the latest at the scene. back to you. >> thank you very much for that update. right now our storm watch continues. we'll have that coming up in just a few moments. right now you can get the latest on all that wet weather, just check out nbcbayarea.com. you can also send in your weather pictures by e mailing them to newstips@nbcbayarea.com. right now we have breaking news going on in the south bay to tell yyou about. a police perimeter is set up in the quiet neighborhood of monte serrino. >> bob redell joins us live. >> reporter: good morning. this is a possible home invasion

robbery that took place a little before 2:00 this morning in what we believe is a very large house, possibly a mansion. to give you an idea of just how significant this is in the eyes of the los gatos police department, they have called in help from other agencies. right there is a campbell police officer blocking access to the scene. we're several hundred yards away. presumably they're blocking off because the roads are very narrow. access is tight. they want to keep traffic to a minimum so investigators have space for their vehicles as they work this crime scene. we've spoken with police who tell us a public information officer is on the way. again, a possible home invasion robbery here, a crime that's extremely unusual to be happening in this part of the south bay. bob redell, "today in the bay." we have a follow-up to breaking news we brought you yesterday morning. police say an intruder who broke into a woman's apartment in palo

alto tried to rape her and this morning the search for that suspect continues. a woman says she woke up to a man standing over her bed in her apartment on hawthorne avenue. police say the man pinned her wrists down. the woman screamed and managed to fight the man off. he then ran out the front door. even more troubling, the attempted sexual assault happened in the same area where three women were groped in the last few months. >> i'd be a lot more nervous if i was living on my own. >> investigators are looking into whether there is a connection. oakland police releasing more information today about the teenager that disappeared walking away from her group home on tuesday. 16-year-old cheyenne white, who has the mental capacity of a 9 to 12-year-old was found in san francisco late last night. her mother telling the oakland tribune the girl had been badly beaten. cheyenne walked away from a

group home in oakland and was last seen near the fruitvale b.a.r.t. station. police have not yet named any suspects. 4:35. oakland police are trying to find out why two teenage girls were killed in a hail of gunfire. teddy bears and candles mark the spot where the girls were killed. the 15-year-old and 16-year-old were best friends and police are still trying to figure out why they were targeted. neighbors heard the gunshots early sunday morning and ran to their aid, but they died at the scene. they say the killings are over the top, even for oakland. >> it's not safe for nobody. nobody. but when it comes to females getting killed, that's when you know people ain't got a heart out here. that's when you know there is no justice, there is no peace. >> at this time police have no suspects. >> heart-breaking story there. back to our developing weather story right now, one of the places expecting to get a heavy amount of rain is in the north bay. jean elle is taking a look at

how officials and residents are there getting ready. >> reporter: street flooding makes for slower driving in petaluma. some drivers say in the rain it's not slow enough. >> people are crazy. so i try to avoid going downtown when it's raining. >> but julie black made it to work where sandbags line the back entrance. with the petaluma river so close and several inches of rain expected, the restaurant owners aren't taking any chances. >> the city of petaluma or petaluma police department offers them so might as well take precautions. >> reporter: cities and counties all over are watching rising rivers and creeks. >> certainly if there's a lot of rain between now and the fourth storm that comes through, that could be a concern. >> reporter: some people are enjoying the storms of the rusty coalson is preparing for the worst at a sandbag station. >> we had over 150 sandbags already but it's not quite enough to totally seal off the building so we've got to get 50 more, a last-minute run.

>> reporter: filling bags with their hands in the rain. this team hopes it will keep the family business dry. >> hopefully it's just a preventative measure. >> reporter: they are counting on this wall of plastic and sandbags. jean elle, nbc bay area news. continuing our storm coverage now, christina loren back with more on the storm that's really dumping rain on the bay area. >> yeah, we have flooding all over the place. make sure you're ready for this as you head out the front door this morning. treacherous driving conditions. one of the worst mornings we've had since i've been here in the bay area. as we head throughout the day today, you'll see this very shaky camera over the bay bridge. those winds are going to increase even more so as we head throughout the next few hours. right now we are getting into the brunt of the storm. your highways are already nice and slick and more rain coming down as we speak which is why the national weather service has issued a flash flood warning. very unusual to have that here in the bay area. that goes for the coast, also the north bay and the santa cruz mountains. keep that in mind. that's all the way through noon

today. i want to show you what's happening. i told you how we were going to tap into that atmospheric river, the subtropical moisture cap. that's exactly what's happening here and that just means copious amounts of moisture are getting pulled in by the system. look at all the rain that just came through and we have not even been through the worst part of the storm. that arrives 7:00 to 9:00 today. we do have some heavy pockets just to the north of oakland. really slick driving conditions from san rafael to san francisco. we've received upwards of 3 inches of rain. like i said before, look at 7:00 a.m., that's when the brunt comes through. that will continue until 11:00 a.m. and then a little bit of a break. showers turning light and spotty after 2:00 p.m. before we get more heavy rain getting into the weekend. we'll time that out and show you my seven-day forecast in my next report. right now you want to stay tuned to the weather conditions and the traffic report throughout the day today because it's going to be rough out there. let's check on what mike is watch noing now.

>> this is the shot from san jose. the blurry headlights reflecting off of the water-soaked freeway, north 101 just north of 680. so there's a lot of standing water even here. no flooding reported for san jose at this intersection, but watch the on and off ramps. we're showing green all over the bay area. that means wet conditions obviously because it's still raining but the blue means puddling and ponding likely. very likely for 101 as well as 87. so that is an issue heading through downtown. i'm giving you that warning. at the dublin interchange, you do have a slow drive west and continuing down through sunol. the reason is a big rig accident blocking basically all functional lanes of the freeway for westbound 580. you do have the off-ramp open at 680 and that is the only way folks are getting by. the backup slowing just after you pass tassajara so another hour perhaps before they can

clear that. so far that's the latest we have. north 680 heading through the windy, rain-soaked area into concord, there's an accident just before the split with 242. you see the blue on the right, the ponding and puddling for 24. but the caldecott is okay and the peninsula. also 101 through palo alto, very wet, although lighter traffic so the speeds are okay. lower them because traction is an issue so stopping will be a problem. slow those speeds, guys, back to you. 4:40 right now. with all this rain in the bay area, traffic will be a big issue throughout the morning, so the question is how do cleanup crews actually monitor those trouble spots? we're taking you inside caltrans war room and showing you the top problem roads for drivers. plus another stalemate. washington officials talking the talk but still not walking the walk when it comes to avoiding the fiscal cliff. and how does a change to san jose's skyline sound? we'll tell you who the city needs approval from to move forward with some big building plans.

welcome back, everyone. taking a live look outside, this time from the north bay this morning up in san rafael. not a lot of traffic to report, but a lot of ponding on those roadways out there. be careful before you head out the door.

we're getting reports of widespread power outages as well, so just be prepared this morning as you get up, get ready, power could go out. just get prepared as well. 4:44. it's safe to say optimism over avoiding that looming fiscal cliff is now shrinking on capitol hill as lawmakers say they have made no real progress in two weeks. now president obama taking his pitch out on the road talking directly to americans about tax increases and about spending cuts. later on this afternoon, he'll walk the assembly line of this manufacturing company just outside of philadelphia. its main product, k'nex toys. the president says the middle class won't support companies like this without avoiding the fiscal cliff. >> demand is going to go away because all of a sudden you'll have $2,000 coming out of people's paychecks. >> john boehner calling the massive increases and spending cuts scheduled for january 1st a real possibility, but many washington insiders say a deal

is still doable. 4:45. so how is wall street reacting to all the uncertainty? for more on that, we turn to bertha coombs live at cnbc world headquarters. good morning, bertha. >> reporter: hey, good morning. yeah, you know, wall street basically reacts to those headlin headlines. that's what's moving us these days. we had a fairly choppy session on thursday because of it. the markets rose and fell, as you heard from democrats and republicans. they started saying the talks weren't going well. that's when things started to go lower. lawmakers are edging closer to that year-end fiscal cliff, 31 days and counting now. today we'll get data on personal income, spending and manufacturing. we've got the futures pointing to a higher start. we'll see if the dow can extend its gains. it closed up 36 points to 13,021. the nasdaq up 20 to 3012. with one day to go in november, the nasdaq and the s&p 500 are in the black, but the dow is still in the red for the month.

zynga and facebook have changed their friend status. they're not as attached to one another. the companies have amended the terms of their partnership so zynga will no longer have to display facebook ads or use facebook payments on its own site or use facebook as the exclusive social site for its games, which include words with friends and farmville. facebook will be allowed to develop its own games after the end of march. so i wonder if we'll start seeing a lot of new games and more of those little announcement that say someone just bought a cow or bedazzled their tractor. can you bedazzle your tractor? >> maybe that's a game. create an app. thanks, bertha. >> there you go. i may work on that. >> i still have by bedazzler from the '80s. >> no matter what you're going to wear likely it's going to get soaked today.

we've got a lot of rain and heavy wind as well. by mid-morning the wind will be at its strongest and the next couple hours will get really dicey. 6:00 to 7:00 just looks rough. let's talk about what's happening. right now you probably have the pitter patter of light to moderate raindrops over head. already significant areas of flooding across the bay area. we've had quite a bit of moisture pass over the past couple of hours. some of the more impressive cells, thunderstorm cells are just to the north of dublin this morning, so watch out for that. you could get caught in a very strong thunderstorm cell and that will produce very gusty winds, potential lightning and it's just going to be a really rough commute. we want to make sure you're ready for that. but the faster you prepare and get your mind set on what you're driving through, the better off you'll be. so we stop the clock on your futurecast at 6:00 a.m. we're going to see quite a bit of shower activity as you head throughout the day today.

showers start to lighten up a little bit. then we get a break by 2:00 p.m. between now and then we're expecting an additional 1 to 4 inches of rainfall. stopping the futurecast at midnight on saturday, starting to get some lighter showers. saturday looks okay for outdoor activities. heavy rainfall returns as ewe head through the second half of your sunday. it is going to be rough. 6:00 a.m. sunday all the way through the afternoon hours, the next wave of heavy rain comes through and then we get a little bit of a break for monday. highs today are only going to be in the upper 50s and 60s. i want to show you your three-day forecast. rain at times saturday, heavy rain on sunday, monday into tuesday, a little bit of a break and more wet weather tuesday into wednesday, drying out on thursday. we've had reports of torrential downpours in the santa cruz mountains and heavy lightning. it's one of those guys where you've got to get to work and drive through this so the more you prepare yourself, the better off you'll be. >> just like christina right now, mike inouye very busy

because it's no secret traffic is usually a mess when it starts to rain outside. right now we give you a look at the rush hour commute on our traffic cams. this was from last night. stephanie chuang taking an inside look at how caltrans monitors all those trouble spots. >> unfortunately he did get hit. >> reporter: but that man was able to walk away tonight after a car crashed into him here at the 80 east on-ramp on cutting boulevard in el cerrito. >> you've got to watch out 4 safety. >> reporter: especially in these dark and wet conditions. >> when you think it's not going to happen to you, that's when it happens to you. you crash, you get hurt. worst case scenario, somebody dies. it's a loved one, an innocent person, it's a child. >> reporter: caltrans crews are working around the clock to prevent that worst-case scenario. >> it's our version of mission control. >> reporter: the oakland-based traffic management center has 35 screens connecting caltrans to the view from 300 cameras set up around bay area freeways to help

speed up response times to accidents and emergencies. >> time is of the essence. >> reporter: this interactive map shows realtime traffic data collected from thousands of sensors. green is good, yellow shows traffic is slow, red means trouble. >> if we see a lot of red dots, then we know we can zoom in, find the nearest traffic camera and possibly find out what the problem is right away. >> reporter: one of the major problems in the south bay today was on the off-ramp to capital expressway from 101 north where four cars crashed, landing one on top of the other. most trouble spots are where you'd expect, close to the water, like 280 in san francisco, 101 and lucky drive and the gilman university stretch on 80 and beckerly. it's a straightaway. >> they tend to drive faster. with the wet roads, it does puddle up around gilman and we do get a lot of crashes down in that area. >> reporter: and it can happen more often this time of year. >> it's the holiday season. you know, people are in a rush. just enjoy the time with your

family, your friends, and slow down. >> reporter: stephanie chuang, nbc bay area news. >> very interesting look at how they do all that. >> and it gets so backed up this time of year. mike is keeping tabs on that as well as still ahead on "today in the bay" why san jose is asking the faa for permission to change the city skyline.

welcome back, everybody. talking a lot about the rain out there today and you can see it

coming down right there. this is a live shot from san francisco at marina green. yeah, the waves coming in as the water is coming down. the weather channel will be checking in for us with a live report a little bit later on from that area to let us know what things look like and how the weather will be out there. it is 4:54 right now. now to a story you'll see only here on nbc bay area. the san jose skyline may end up looking a lot different if the city gets clearance from the faa. city leaders say they want taller buildings, up to 40 stories high. but since downtown is in the flight path of the san jose airport, height restrictions are in effect and leaders say that is costing the city money. now, the faa is doing a study right now looking at other airports emergency takeoff patterns and depending on the results, they might allow taller buildings downtown, but critics say having taller buildings will ruin the view for buildings currently in that downtown area. rain really coming down

across the bay area today. that certainly could affect the morning commute. >> you guys were talking about that accident which has all of your traffic lanes for 580 shut down. we got on the phone very, busy man, an officer from the california highway patrol. officer, good morning, thank you for joining us. >> good morning, mike. not a problem. >> we have this accident. the freeway itself, 580, is reportedly closed for all lanes at the dublin interchange but folks are getting by. you just spoke to the officer on scene. what is the very latest regarding this big rig accident? >> right now they still have debris that is blocking all lanes. also it affected some b.a.r.t. property adjacent to the freeway, so currently we have the main lanes of traffic shut down. traffic is getting by using the transition that would normally take you to 680 in that area and they are routing traffic back around onto the westbound 580 through that area at this point. >> and you said it hit the b.a.r.t. property as well. the b.a.r.t. trains are

obviously not affected, this is just the parking area? >> it's just the actual fence, it's not affecting b.a.r.t. at all. >> regarding the accident itself, i hear there's also a spill, a diesel spill presume bleer ably and there's rain in the area. do we have an idea how long until they open the lanes? >> it's a small amount of diesel. they're estimating around 5:40 this morning they should be clear and the scene will be cleaned up and back to normal operations at that point. >> so right now the advisory, just allow extra time through the area and use caution because of the crews. anything else that your officers can advise since they're out there on the scene? >> right now throughout the whole bay area, we're just advising motorists to reduce their speed. give a little more of a space cushion between your vehicle and others, keep your headlights on and allow more time. >> you be careful. you are in dispatch, you never know what can happen and of course all the officers out there.

thank you, officer. folks, now we're going to show you a live shot through san rafael where there's a serious situation farther north. we do have the grav stein highway closed down because of a mud slide and another accident on highway 29 that we're watching. >> thanks, mike. 4:57 right now. we'll continue to track the weather and your traffic all morning long. coming up in a live report the north bay where flooding is a concern.

good morning, i'm bob redell. we'll take you live to monte serene owe where police are investigating a possible home invasion robbery. that story coming up. mudslides, also reports of heavy flooding and downed trees already and there's a lot more on the way in your morning rush. your full forecast just moments away. and i've got what christina said, plus we have the closure or at least all functional lanes for 580 right now blocked. we'll brin