it's wednesday, october 9th. it's going to be quite a day. we're in a microclimate weather alert and there are power outages to dealing with us. i'm scott mcgrew. marcus washingas the day off. >> and i'm laura garcia. we have a lot to get to. also maybe you felt it overnight, a small earthquake in the south bay. did it wake you up? it did for me. the quake hit at 2:15 this morning. we briefly broke into programming.

it was a 3.4 quake centered in san jose's alum rock. haven't heard of any damage but some people who were awake at the time certainly said they felt t as i mentioned, maybe you were sleeping. >> we have power outages, earthquakes, apparently the flu season is going to be worse. you got this, though. you got this. let's start with kari with some of the details. >> yeah, good morning. it's going to start to get windy today. that's going to be the issue, as we go into the rest of the afternoon as well as tomorrow. it's a clear view, as we take a live look outside in san francisco, and here is a look at our hour by hour wind gust forecast. winds will come from the northwest and continuing to pick up, mostly this morning at about 10 to 15, but there will be spots like as you see more like 20 to 30 hours per hour in winters, causing the potential of any fires that develop to spread rapidly. we'll track that and mike is starting with the bay bridge. >> letting folks know we started

early this morning but it's not unusually in many places but the bay bridge is standard no, problems for the span and typical backup 4:31. overall a nice ride for the speed sensors, green everywhere. slowing typical out of the altamont pass. in the north bay where they have the voluntary outages i have reports of wires that came down about 1:00 in the morning, highway 29 at 221, and caltrans is on there to help with the signal outage and highway 12 toward kirkland ranch road traffic lights along that stretch that are out and pg&e is out in that area so we'll follow that. those wires down at 1:00 in the morning they may have been related to some windy conditions. you guys will take over with the bigger picture overall. >> that's right, the power outage we've been talking about it all week getting you that warning ahead of time. >> of course overnight pg&e cut off power to roughly 500,000 homes and businesses in the

north bay alone, due to the high fire risk we've been talking about. these are the outages under way right now. there's a large swathe of purple across the north bay area there. pg&e is calling this part of the outage phase one. >> pg&e cameras captured the before and after in lake county. you can see this area went completely dark when the power shut off. the second phase set to start around noon, go into tonight, those impacted areas could include parts of contra costa, santa clara, alameda and san mateo counties. in the second phase, 234,000 homes and businesses will be impacted. >> also this morning, classes at many schools and universities across the bay area are canceled today. we have a list of schools on our ticker, that is scrolling at the bottom of your screen and the south bay bracing for outages as well. we expect san jose mayor sam liccardo to hold a news conference at 7:00 a.m.

we'll stream that for you live on nbcbayarea.com. we're following this story of course for you, from multiple angles. bob redell looking at the commute concerns from the orinda b.a.r.t. station. let's start first with pete suratos in napa. many neighbors lost power. i can see it out behind you. pete? >> reporter: that's right, good morning, guys. we're still standing along highway 29 and highway 221 here in napa. you can see the traffic lights are out, but this is a power lines issue. caltrans is on scene, unclear if this is related to the power shutoffs. they're trying to fix this situation because the traffic lights are out at a very busy intersection here in napa, but we know that in napa county the shutoffs began roughly around midnight. we do have some new video from other areas that are affected by the shutoffs, in fairfield you see the power is out at gas stations in that area. when it comes to the shutoffs, you guys mentioned it, pg&e

deciding to shut off power due to elevated fire danger across the bay area and of course the decision is affng huneds of thousands of customers who are trying their best to prepare for a situation like this. the times of the shutoffs will vary by county and in some cases it could take several days until the power is ultimately restored following these shutoffs. i did get a chance to speak with a resident this morning in napa who was just getting off of work and she really doesn't know what she's going home to as far as power goes. >> it's bad for us, for my little sister. we can't have refrigerated its, which is not that bad, but we need at least something more economically good, and we can't use like heaters or anything like right now. it's freezing. >> reporter: back out here live, the highway 29 and highway 221 the intersection where the traffic lights are out, but it does appear to be a power line

situation, so you got caltrans on the scene working to fix the situation. of course the impact of the shutoffs could continue as the day goes on. we'll have more updates for you in the next hour. >> pete, thank you. there was even talk of the caldecott tunnel shutting down. that is not going to be the case. >> it was very concerning. "today in the bay's" bob redell joins us live in orinda. cruise worked fast to avoid this problem and b.a.r.t. had been for a while. >> reporter: correct. b.a.r.t. is telling us, say the power goes out to the tracks in orinda b.a.r.t., they'd be able to draw power from other sections that are still electrified to keep the trains running, something b.a.r.t.'s been working with pg&e on for several months, and there are some stations that might lose house power, that's why you have generators outside the orinda b.a.r.t. and five other stations. house power is the electricity used for elevators, escalators, ticket vending machines and fare gates so b.a.r.t. has brought in

portable generators to orinda, rock ridge, lafay yaet, castro valley, west dublin/pleasanton and dublin/pleasanton. the elevators and other things should still be operational but the escalators will be out. along highway 24 in orinda, the lit up sign warning drivers the caldecott could shut down at noon due to the pg&e emergency outage but caltrans is telling us it will remain open. last night as you could see in this video workers brought in power generators for the kald cat, expected to do the time for dallas slide to keep the vital exhaust fans running. both tunnels are supposed to remain open. this is a big deal especially here in the east bay for commuters who use the caldecott because without that connection between the 680 corridor and oakland, traffic would be a nightmare. yesterday we also spoke with

alaala m alame da county sheriff greg ahearn, concerned about an increased level of crime because security alarms might not be working, one reason the emergency services war room is up and ready to go and why his agency will be on heightened alert and again, with the power being out, not expected until noon in the east bay and south bay area. if and when it does and if you hit an intersection, right, and the pourt is ower is out there, the intersection as a four-way stop. reporting live at orinda b.a.r.t., bob redell, "today in the bay." >> take caution, thank you, bob. many people posting about the outage. >> this morning #powershutoff is trending on twitter. a lot of people voicing their concerns about the blackouts across the bay area. others posting photos of empty store shelves. many businesses have sold out of water bottles and ice ahead of the outages. people were preparing.

if you are among those without power, we have live streamed nbc bay area coverage, just a tap away on your phone or tablet. all you need is our nbc bay area app, which is of course a free download and once you load the app, scroll to the bottom and click "watch live." after you put inr you provider details you can view our program. coming up, some other news we're covering, including changes that facebook is making, trying to take a bigger slice of the video conferencing market. twitter admits to a mistake that compromised user information. come try my really big chicken sandwich combo with

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calls to their colleagues. twitter used user's email addresses and phone numbers to enable targeted ads, the information provided by users for account security. in a statement twitter apologized for the error but could not say for sure how many people were impacted. the social media company did not disclose when it discovered the error but said it fixed the problem as of september 17th. scott and laura, back over to you. >> good to see you, frank. coming up next on "today in the bay," kari hall keeping a close eye on the strong winds, triggering the outages in the north bay. >> we're also seeing high winds picking up even as we look at our fremont camera right now. you can see the flags waving in the wind. we're going to see those conditions get even more windy as the humidity drops and our temperatures cool off as well. we'll talk about all of what to expect as we go throughout the day, that's coming up next. >> and look at that, as you are going up to the top of the screen, one crew clearing, some

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a very good morning to you. what a beautiful live look across the bay there. this is a lovely look at the san francisco sky line this morning. this is the bay bridge. of course the lights are on there, but not in many parts of the north bay.

we've got full team coverage for you this morning covering our microclimate weather alert. >> we also have coverage right here in the studio, the traffic is going to be an issue and the high wind. >> today as you head out the door, temperatures are very cool compared to yesterday, and as we take a live look in dublin, everything is fairly quiet here. we will see mostly clear skies. i wanted to show you how cool it is right now in napa and santa rosa, and some of those areas that may have to deal with no electricity, we're going to start out with very cool temperatures this morning, and it will also be chilly tomorrow morning. but look at brentwood, where the winds are funneling through parts of the delta, it warms up the temperature so we're at 63 degrees right there and toward oakland it's 58 degrees. we see some spots that are very cool and it will stay chilly as we go through at least about 8:00 with some upper 40s in the

forecast. as we go through the rest of the day we're going to see some sunshine and also some much more comfortable temperatures. we're heading up to 78 today in martinez, 80 in antioch and reach up to 77 in san jose, so that's a big difference from the temperatures and what we had earlier this week, and even in san francisco, where we had some mid 80s on monday. today we're reaching up to about 67 degrees. let's talk about the humidity, because that's going to be one of the main factors and the reason why we have a high fire danger, and that any sparks could spread rapidly, not only have we not had any significant rain in a long time but the humidity levels will continue to drop down to at times the teens and even the single digits especially in the north bay, and normally what happens during the overnight hours, humidity comes uhm, but then as we go into tomorrow morning, it's going to stay very low. we sometimes see our humidity levels coming back up to close to 100%, especially if there is some fog, but we are down to about 21% in napa, as we go into

tomorrow morning, along with some strong winds that will be blowing through. so our threat of any quickly spreading wildfires will continue through tomorrow as well. and then this storm system, this area of low pressure is what's causing that but it's also providing some cooler air. as we go into the weekend, we'll start to see that moving away, so friday the winds start to calm down but there will be another system right behind that on saturday. it won't dig as far deep south but we'll have breezy winds and not the same exact conditions like what we are seeing right now. so high winds continue today. upper 70s in the inland areas. a slight rebound in temperatures tomorrow as well as friday, going into the weekend. we'll see some upper 70s and low 80s with mostly sunny skies, while san francisco some slight warming over the next couple of days. mike, you were saying everything's so far moving pretty smoothly. >> we see this map, the majority of the counties that we worry about for the morning commute the bulk of it is all green.

great flow of traffic on the major highways, silicon valley, peninsula, tri-valley. vasco road just fine, at about, between 15 to 20 minute from marsh creek road to 580. that's a smooth drive. very dark in this area but it does have the lighting that you expect through the area. it's also part of the windy portion of contra costa county where we have all the advisories, so we are tracking because any outage also affect folks early in the morning on the commute. no problems reported right here. we take you to the north bay, where pete suratos continues to update us. he showed us how dark it was right here at 29 and 221 where the signal was out and wires were down early this morning. caltrans is there trying to help out with the signal, that is not a planned outage there. wires are down, highway 12 reports of traffic lights along that stretch as well so be careful, as you're perhaps headed to or from i-80 on that stretch of roadway as well. that's in the north bay, where they have a lot of planned

outages, be careful. when you come to an intersection that's not on, treat it as a four-way stop. san rafael pretty predictable pattern, the volume of traffic is just fine and it's well lit. we're continuing to follow that. guys, back to you. >> thank you very much. we're continuing to talk about all the power outages. also affecting schools this morning. >> "today in the bay's" kris sanchez is at city hall keeping an eye on that impact. good morning. >> reporter: hi there. a lot of schools will be closed all around the bay. the biggest impact is up in the north bay and of course in the east bay, but a lot of the power outages are going to affect our local communities as well so if you have your earthquake kit ready to go, then you will be ready for any power outage that arises as well. pg&e will shut off power and you could be in the dark for as long as a week while the wind risk passes and then pg&e checks for any damage before turning the power back on through those lines. before that happens, make sure you have water, one gallon per

person per day, also non-perishable food for your family for a week and don't forget a can opener to get into those cans, also foods for your pets as well and your medications. make sure your phones are charged, also your other gadgets, and if you download the nbc bay area app, you'll be able to watch us for information, even if your lights are out. make sure you have your flashlight ready to go, also fresh batteries in case the power is out longer than a day. keep a full tank of gas in your car or truck. keep cash on hand in case your bank is without power, even though you're not, or the atms are not working. also make sure you have small bills so if you have to buy something, you're not dependent on somebody else to make change. if the lights go out or when the lights go out, make sure you keep that refrigerator door closed as much as possible, that might be hard with the kids but try to explain to them the food will last longer if you don't open it. ice perishables in a cooler if you can and turn off or unplug

appliances so you don't have any damage in the event of a power surge and remember, if you have a generator, you have a camping stove or you have a grill, use them only outside, and never inside for heat, because that can create a carbon monoxide poisoning situation. you can find all of this information at nbcbayarea.com and also posting it on my social media pages. coming up at 5:15, we'll talk more about the school closures and where you can expect them and for how long. in san jose, kris sanchez, "today in the bay." >> that will be good to note as well. a lot of parents had to scramble. 4:53. a lot of pg&e help centers are popping up across the bay. >> bottled water, bathrooms, places to charge your devices are being provided, this is avia stadium in san jose, that will be one location, opens at 8:00 this morning, will stay open until the sun goes down. each county will open at least one community center, all of them including contra costa would be at bishop ranch parking lot in san ramon. we have a scrolling list of

resource centers in the ticker at the bottom of your screen and we also have them on our website at nbcbayarea.com. now to decision 2020, coming up on "today in the bay," some of the other news this morning, the presidential race heating up. >> the big endorsement joe biden is getting this morning from one californian and bay area political heavyweight. but first, happening now at 4:54, a turkish intelligence team has arrived at the syrian border, this comes ahead of what some believe will be the invasion of kurdish-held land in syria, it comes following president trump's decision to pull u.s. troops out of syria. the troops will remain in the country but will not confront turkish forces should they launch an assault. we'll be back with a lot more news affecting you this morning. it's 4:54.

welcome back. decision 2020, former vice president joe biden has picked up another endorsement, california senator and former san francisco mayor dianne feinstein just put her support behind biden. the endorsement is not a total surprise, but is seen as a snub against california's other senator, kamala harris, who has been dropping in the polls in recent weeks. you remember a fund-raiser was held for biden at senator feinstein's san francisco home last week. if you really like to wait until the last minute, california's got you covered when it comes to voting. >> governor newsom approved a bill allowing people to conditionally register to vote at all polling places election day 2020. those people will not have their ballots counted until their registration has been verified. california's official registration period closes 15 days before election day. coming up on "today in the

bay," kari hall tracking the fire dangers across the bay area. >> we're getting you ready for the day as we take a live look in the south bay. if you're about to step out the door in santa clara t feels chilly and the winds will pick up today but that wind also for some of our bay area hills will cause a high fire danger. i'll have more coming up next. don't worry, plenty of power to have the metering lights turn on when they're ready, not just yet, over at the bay bridge. pretty typical pattern, well lit in the east bay. you're watching "today in the bay."

it's wednesday, october 9th. we're in a microclimate weather alert this morning. good morning, everyone. thank you for joining us. i'm scott mcgrew. marcus washington has the day off as we face kind of an unusual day. >> we have a lot to get to but we want to let you know about a small earthquake as well you may have felt overnight in the south bay. this is a map showing where it hit, about 2:15 this morning. we briefly broke in to programming. it was a 3.4 earthquake centered in the foothills east of san jose's alum rock. we haven't heard any reports of damage but some people who were awake at the time say they felt it. it woke me up this morning. now to our big breaking news as well, the control power outages we've been telling you about for days are already in effect at this hour in some locations. overnight pg&e started cutting off power to more than 500,000 homes and businesses in the north bay.