we're talking about right now. these are the southbound lanes of highway 101 in rohnert park, it's nearly 19 hours after those potholes were originally reported. one lane is still closed at this hour and drivers are telling us it's taking them up to an hour to make their way out through all of that traffic. >> for hours today, caltrans crews worked to patch a series of potholes along 101. caltrans says the holes usually form after rainy weather. water works its way to the road and vehicles force that water in to cracks and expand those cracks into potholes. this series of potholes was so bad instead of simply filling them. crews had to dig out trips of -- strips of roadway and lay down new asphalt. hours of work that meant closing down one of the two lanes here slowing traffic to a crawl. ben davis was on his way to collect one of his atm machines and was a half hour late for his

appointment. >> we got back on the freeway to go back home to vallejo. i already knew it was bad. i come here quite often and that part of the freeway right there is backed up every day. >> now, you might be able to sea the patch on the road on lane closest to the shoulder. >> we are alive here in rohnert park. >> people in marin county are dealing with mudslides from the weekend rain while trying to get ready for more storms on the w ay.

today, mill valley emergency responders were out looking for trouble spots on the hillside. a split indicates a possible m udslide later. long-time marin residents say they are not supposed -- surprised when they see the m udslide working -- mudslide working. >> you see on monta vista, when we get a lot of rain there will be slides. there is so much degree that they have actually had to leave 0 it on the side of the road for now. >> the neither has been pair lidsed. the blizzard is not only causing problems in the east, travelers in the bay area are having trouble getting to where they need to go. rob roth has spent this day at sfo talking with many frustrated travelers there. >> reporter: here at sfo, it appears the evening flights are beginning to get back on schedule but the ripple effects of the east coast snowstorm are still here.

>> at least a dozen flights from san francisco to jfk were canceled today. that left many passengers out in the cold. the only way to get to new york to fly to lon bon. some flights to newark were also cancelled. most flights are booked solid this time of year. for many new yorkers getting a ticket on another plane means extra you -- means extra u nanticipated days in san francisco. >> where does that leave you. here for another two or three days. >> many fluents were delayed some two and a half hours. snow in the east wasn't the only problem. >> we've been having issues. and we had -- >> reporter: that made life difficult for people who came to sfo to pick up friends or relatives. my sister got rerouted to

monterey which is close to where i live. >> airport officials say it could be another day or two before the schedule returns to normal so it's best to contact the airline and try to be patient. reporting live at sfo, rob roth, ktvu channel 2 news. some air travelers expected to land in sfo or oakland found themselves in the south bay. 25 flights were diverted and passengers had to find their way from new york to boston. we're seeing flight -- flight delays an c ancellationings here. thousandses are still without power in parts of ms. and some stranded passengers may not be able to rebook their flights until friday. up until 16 inches of snow is expected in new england before all is said and done. similar story in new york

at times today all three major airports were shut down but are partially reopen with some flights taking off. it's going to take days for things to get back to normal. getting around new york city on the ground proved tough going. including problems with trains, planes and subways. in philly, more than a thousand passengers were stranded at the airport there and last night's eagles game was postponed because of a snow emergency. at eagles -- that eagles/vikings game will be played tomorrow night. here at home, tragedy in a walnut creek neighborhood. an elderly man who neighbors say was a well-liked war veteran was found dead during a fire at his home. the call came in just before 2 :30 p.m. for a house fire near bancroft and ignacio valley r oad. the firefighters found the victim in an upstairs bedroom. >> his wife passed away about six, seven years ago, and --

and loved by all of the neighbors. several of us had him over for din -- over for dinner an regular basis. his name has not been released. a warning tonight from the oakland police department about robbers using craigslist to lure victims. the robberies are happening in east and north oakland neighborhoods. the victims are being lured with the ads and when he they show up at a meeting place they are robbed at gunpoint. the oakland police do have advice, do not meet in secluded or residential areas. don't bring a lot of cash to those meetings. if someone or something looks suspicious, if it just doesn't feel right, leave. and if you are roshed, give the suspects what they are asking for because your life is more valuable than your property. the founder and chairman of san francisco-based discount brokerage charles schwab investment severals is reduping from heart surgery.

he underwent heart valve r eplacement surgery on friday. the 73-year-old is expected to go home in the next few days. schaub's stock rose on wall street despite the news about the chairman. consumers are making hundreds-- tom vacar is live in walnut creek tonight with more. >> reporter: thanks to scam a rtists at some plates, refund even on little things becoming more and more difficult. the return line was long and busy. target's return policy is liberal. did you have -- if you have a receipt a full refund within 90 days of purchase. within recent years, many retailers were forced to

tighten up. you have to wait in very, very long lines. >> it will be tough waiting in lines and just exchanging for sizes or things you don't want. >> reporter: the national retail federation says retailers expect 15 billion worth of fraudulent returns. the sources returning stolen items. returning items bought with stolen or forged checks and credit cards. returning items with countert fit receipts, and returning an item such as a -- such as addressed after using it. you don't want a lot of returns but certainly exchanges where you are still moving inventory out of the store. you don't want to be left with a lot of inventory. to minimize problems, they have an actual receipt or gift receipt. returning items bought online will cost you even if you return it to a brick and mortar store. finally know the retailers policies in advance such as restocking fees, store c

redited -- store credits only. or nonreturns if the package is damaged. for retamers, a return or exchange has a silver lining. they are seeing they are coming in an they had are making united exchange and of fromming more especially with the gift cards austwell. having said all of that, r etamers remain in a very, very good mood largely because they have had a great year. reporting live from walnut c reek, tom vacar, ktvu channel 2 news. the owner of the san francisco 49ers explained why he fired the head coach. yesterday york says he made the move so the players and coaches can immediately focus on the next game and next season. he's disappointed the 9ers didn't make it to the next year under mike singletary's l eadership. >> when i look at our team and performance o the field, that's the bottom line. we just hadn't gotten it done. >> reporter: new york says his next move is to fill the long,

vacant general manager position who said that porn will select the head coach. coming up in about 15 m inutes here, mark ibanez will have his take on the future of the 9ers. if you want to one more clips from that press conference go to our website at ktvu.com. when you are there click on the bay area sport -- crick on t he -- click on the bay area sports tab. hundreds of new laws are about to go neither coming up from noodles. we'll return up some of the changes about to happen. i'm tracking the rain that's headed your way tomorrow. it will be a wet day.

0 new year, any job, the san francisco mayor are e xpecting their second child. the new baby, due in june, a b oy. newsom is scheduled to be sworn in as lieutenant-governor. the family plans to stay in its san francisco home while newsom commutes to san francisco. from motorcycle the to truancy to noodles. all are involved in new california laws that are about to take effect. maureen naylor is live in san jose tonight with what you need to know about these new l aws. >> reporter: frank, it is quite arrange. one of the new laws allows residents to serve asian rice

noodlessed a room temperature. another targets cyber bullies and was inspired by well manufacture known silicon valley leaders -- by a well- known silicon valley leader. this man says the p rofanity- ladened e-mail was sent to thousands of recipients year'. >> you have a feeling of violation as if someone had broke into your house. they had broken into my identity imposed as me. instead of being a victim, we wanted to be a victor and stand up to cyber bullies. >> he contacted state senator joe smideon. starting january 1st it makes impersonating someone online illegal in california and those doing so face a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail. my hope is this will serve to the -- will serve as a d eterrent. i hope people learn this is -- this is illegal and against the

law. >> i think there are better things for the police to focus their attention on. >> reporter: people under 212 who want a drive a motorcycle have to take a safety order and a parent can be charged with a misdemeanor and face up to a year in jail. i don't know if it's necessarily gonna be something that should be fined. >> reporter: one final change to note. there is a 60-year-old law on the books that requires the department of mental health to research the causes and cures for homosexuality as of j anuary 1st that will be repealed. live in san jose, maureen n aylor, ktvu channel 2 news. california's new republican wants to whip the law books into shape. he's holding a contest saying there out not to be a law. >> what laws do you know that are silly, annoying or killing your business that we should be looking at to pull off.

now that all of the presents have been unwrapped this chris marks people are busy reclaiming and recycling gifts that don't work anywhere. we found tons of televisions, computers and other electronic gadgets all waiting to be recycled. some activists say 75% of the e -waste ends up in asia and africa. the data on those hard drives and disks can be collected by identity thieves and spammers. >> at lost of the spam we get is allowing the data to go o verseas. materials are reused here in the united states. >> san francisco residents are

being urged to recycle their christmas trees instead of t ossing them into the, interest. the city's department of the environment kicked off its 24th annual curbside tree recycling program today. the trees will be picked up and turned into mulch before b eing -- this is part of a l arger effort operated by the recreation and parks d. >> we encourage all san franciscans to participate in this program. it creates a -- it gets us closer to our zero waste goal. >> the curbside tree pickup formally begins january 3rd and runs through the 14th. be sure to remove all decorations and take the tree off its stand. on to the weather because another storm is on the way. and bill martin is tracking it. what are we looking at, bill? >> more rain on the way. it's seplam to -- similar to what we saw on saturday.

>> we're looking for a good doze of win and rain and snow in the mountains. tomorrow, your morning commute is dry, maybe not commute. maybe you are off. either way it will be dry. the rain gets here tomorrow afternoon. the driver -- the drive will be dicey, say, 5:00, 6:00, 7:00. remember saturday how it came. when it gets here you are gonna know its here. there will be some wind and rain and it will go on for a bit. and then it will die down. it should be rapidly moving. unless you are in the mountains. here's the computer model -- here's that diagram. dry monday obviously valley fog that goes away as this system scoots in. next storm heavy rain tuesday night with this one. it's got cold air. it's a nice-looking system. here is a computer model,

tomorrow morning you look at that, okay? where you are? if you are in the mountains, you are already getting a littleby. snow in the mountains, a winter storm everyone are warning will go into effect for tomorrow and wednesday for the lake tahoe area. snow level is 5,000 feet. tuesday at 4:00. sanjose-- not much going on. here is goes, it looks like the front is right on us at 8:00 tomorrow night. so the heaviest rain. you see the swoop at the back edge. it goes through and you see the contours and rainfall accumulations. big rain in the santa cruz mountains. 10:00 news ktvu will be here. i will have stormtracker2 lit up and we'll be backing -- we'll be looking at it. and i bet we're close to this timing on this issue. you see the mountains never let up. that means 80s and 50s. one of those nights that they could close them. it's gonna come fast and f urious. now it's gone wednesday morning. it just kind of clicks through some sprinkles. a few sprinkles but that's the big hit tomorrow. it's not the end of the world,

soy the snow we're looking for a winter storm warning to go into effect. your five-day forecast, looks just like this, with wet weather in the forecast, main event tomorrow night. big deal in the mountains. -- >> another two feet up there. that's amazing. >> it certainly is a winter wonderland. while it looks like there is a snow -- there is snow on the ground. coming up tomorrow morning, the department of california water resourcings will conduct the winter survey and the snowpack is expected to be huge. it may certainly seem like a great day to romp in the snow back east. but we're about to show you what happened when one new jersey woman let her dog out to play. >> yikes! >> jack disappearedded off -- jack disappeared. calling and calling for the pooch. but did manage to keep her

video camera rolling and you can see here, eventually the dog months up right out of the snow and -- jack the terrier, visit our website pat ktvu zacarias moussaoui. scroll down to the video player. that's priceless vet. vets the at the marine mammal center set an cha examination of the sea lion known as silent night shows that he's blind in both eyes. he will not be released back into the wild and the center are start looking for a home in a zoo or aquarium. silent night was found earlier this month in sauce leta suffering from shot gun wounds. you can call it the grinch that stole baseball. a league that helps hundreds of children keeps getting hit by vandals.

the field behind edendale middle school is -- dash is covered with junk, graffiti, even condoms and needles. the little league is constantly having to pick it up.

>> this is all for the -- this is all for the kids. >> the league is asking members of the community to keep an eye on and call police when anyone suspicious comes on to that field. sports director mark ibanez is here with the big story in sports. the 49ers get rid of their head coach. what happens next? >> that's the question everybody wants to know about. but jed york said today the first step is hiring a general manager who will have a big day in who the next coach of the 49ers will be. of course, it's the season that just started out terribly and got worse. yesterday culminating in a p layoff elimination game after losing to the rams, they had no shot left. with this team this year, it's been one thing after another. >> first we brought our quarterback coach in to take over the job of offense coordinator. then we switched quarterbacks. we have an been going back and

for for that for quite some time now. there's a lot of difficulties. as a team, you have too learn how to deal with it. >> i apologize to jay rice, all of the older guys that used to play here and to come out with a report like this, i feel like we're disrespecting it because they are the one that started one of the bib -- one of the biggest franchises in the l eague. stanford packing it up h eaded toward the buses that will take them to the orange bowl and a date on january 3rd with virginia tech. their weather would the 49ers would love to get -- their quarterback which the 49ers would love to get their hands o n. talking about excitement about going to the orange bowl. >> excited looking for the opportunity. we know it's a business trip. we'll have fun. roarking forward to play in the orange bowl. >> it's aunt opportunity for our ballclub to play in the big stage. another big week of practice

ahead of us in miami. that little press gathering broke up real quick when one of the reporters ask the if he was interested in the 49ers head coaching job. he said later. bye-bye. can't blame him. it's way too early to talk about that. but speculation continues no matter what. gasia? >> thank you, mark. and that's our report for tonight. i'm gasia mckale threeian. i'm frank somerville. have a great evening, everyone.