power this evening are in roanoke city and roanoke county. but appalachian is reporting significant outages in six other counties as well. and the utility has called in reinforcements to make those repairs as quickly as possible. we caught up with a line crew from kentucky working near mount chesnut road in roanoke county. working on the narrow gravel path, they were replacing a pole and power line that had snapped during the storm. and we found two residents of the area, missionaries with the church of jesus christ of latter day saints, who turned to their neighbors to keep warm. sister ward & sister cook: they've got a generator, so we've been on generator power. they have a wood stove they don't have heat, but they've got that. so what was your reaction when you saw the truck finally arrive up here today? we're excited,. we're so excited for some warmth. yes. earlier today, applachan said there

coming up at six, we'll check on the work in the raleigh court neighborhoood. live in roanoke joe dashiell wdbj7 snow is quickly region and that's one construction site all of the moisture we've seen in the last few days caused a small mudslide at river ridge mall. a dirt slope collapsed yesterday on a piece of property where crews are building a residence inn motel. the mall entrance and the northbound lanes of wards road were still covered with mud this morning. city inspectors are working with contractors to make sure the site is safe. tonightand we didn't see a lot of moisture which you factor we got in the snow in the rain to almost three inches of water and that we really see

over the next couple days as the temperatures soar into the forties right now forty ninety charlottesville bristol coming in at thirty nine he would got some forties across the area a good portion of the region off you lighter snow showers sneaking into parts of west virginia very very little coverage or not expecting much in the way of some snow in the mountains at all tonight the main stories can be that refreeze anything that melts today and goes into the roads especially some the back roads we got the mountains and the a water just drains out of the mountains and valleys we could have some frozen conditions in some black ice in the morning with those low temperatures in the twenties does be aware of that after that let's talk about the warmer weather check going to the we get 40s tomorrow near 50 on friday and then look annette sixties by the weekend old taste of spring average highs this time year right around fifty degrees were were get a be almost an attendant in some cases fifteen degrees above average will talk about the will stick around i can tell you on the other side it is the menu chance of some wintry preliminary numbers

rose by eight percent last year. that's the largest year to year percentage increase in 50 years. the national safety council also says it was the deadliest driving year since 2008. leaders say a stronger economy, lower unemployment rates, and lower gas prices meant more drivers on the roads. a new study shows people in flint, michigan are paying the highest rates in the country for it's undrinkable water. public interest group food and water watch just released the results today. it found people in flint paid about 864 dollars a year for water service, nearly double the national one of the study's authors says the united nations recommends that service shouldn't be more than three percent of a in flint, the charges totaled about 7- apple says it will not help investigators break into the i- san bernardino killers. a judge ordered the company help the fbi get into syed farook's phone, but

solution is something considered too dangerous to create. investigators have farook's phone, but passcode. the goverment says apple owes it to the victim's families to investigators every aspect of the attack. a letter signed by the company's ceo says the order would create a quote "backdoor to the iphone." pope francis spent his last day in mexico showing support for some of the country's most marginalized groups. today he visited about 700 prisoners in juarez he also spoke in support of migrants. his historic trip marks the first time a pope has visited the mexican border. nearly 200-thousand people are expected to attend the pope's last mass there. after that, he heads back to italy. republican presidential candidates are focusing on south carolina today, just three days ahead of that state's primary. donald trump is far ahead in the polls, with the other candidates looking to come in second. marco rubio is picking up an endorsement from south carolina

hailey, and ted cruz is targeting trump with a new ad. ted cruz/(r) presidential candidate and i understand, a candidate with a record like donald trump's, how he could consider anyone pointing to his actual record as defamation." candidates are also making a push here in virginia ahead of the march 1st primary. donald trump is set to appear at regent university next wednesday, and ben carson plans to stop there on february 29th. john kasich will host a town hall meeting monday at virginia commonwealth university. democratic clinton's campaign is also launching a television advertising campaign across the state. a public auction in danville today brought out several bidders for property in the river district. sheets roofing building on loyal today, three buildings and a storage yard went up for auction. business man william gentry outbid two representatives from the city of danville's industrial development authority for the full bid of both properties

he did not tell us what his plans are for this complex but says he is investing in danville's future. "we try to find customers that will add some substance to downtown and draw people down here and come to the stores. all the stores we have draw people to the river district." gentry already owns the golden leaf bistro, loft apartments and other successful properties in the river district. the auction bids will go back to bankruptcy court for a final approval. you're watching your hometown news leader, wdbj-7 if you think you're being healthier by skipping the soda machine and going for coffee, you may want to re-think that. "the sun's out and the storm's over and now it's time to clean up here at the mill mountain zoo how staff's dealing with the

while students may have been home today for a snow day, workers at one school system are the empty buildings. wdbj7's eamon o'meara has details on how grayson lot of extra work thanks to the weather. not have students running to class, but there's still plenty of activity in grayson county high school. (rick sage, maintenance even though there's mean nobody's here. we work everyday. (kelly wilmore, grayson county schools superintendent) the snow days just allowed us to get some groups of people together and start painting and start making things look a whole lot better here because renovations here have been lacking for the last many years during the snow days, they've done a lot of work touching up the buildings. we've painted the foyer in our gym, 2 bathrooms [at the gym], downstairs we've painted most of the big hallway underneath the gym, we've painted the girl's locker room, completely remodeled the girls locker room, and we've already done the bottom floor of the high school. wednesday they were completing the second floor of the high school. no students around

help from inmates. they're really, really good, very thorough and the days that no one's here it really allows us to take advantage of this help from the regional jail. (jesse carr, jail caretaker) it's about the only time you can do it is when there ain't no school and we get to come out and do it. i look forward to doing it. but even though school will likely be back in session on thursday, the work is not yet done. so instead the staff will have to work around students. something that snow days helped to avoid. :11 we may have to come in on a few saturdays or get some volunteers and then another option is going to be the holiays, spring break if we get any spring break, or as soon as summer starts. and then during the day some areas we can work on. we can do the cafeteria after 1:30. :15 for more on what the school has planned check out wdbj7 dot com. in grayson county eamon o'meara wdbj7. signing their name into history. it's a big step for centra in danville and the hospital leaders invited the community to take part. over the holiday season, anyone

were available at sam's club. this afternoon, construction crews put the last beam in place during a "topping off" ceremony for the new facility on park avenue this new facility in the city will combine all it's current offices into one. daurie bussell, medical office assistant, " because it's exciting, it's a part of history, it's something that we wanted for so long." construction is scheduled to be finished this september. in tonight's hometown health, the medical community is realizing the increasing benefits of bloodless surgery. surgeries involving blood transfusions are known to carry serious risks. doctors who perform bloodless procedures use hormones and iron infusions to boost the patient's own red blood cells. dr. sherri ozawa/clinical director of the institute for patient blood management and bloodless surgery and medicine at englewood hospital) there are all of these things we can do to make patients healthier, again to reduce the amount of blood they lost, to make surgery safer. and these patients actually did better, the surgery was originally developed to accommodate patients who don't believe in blood transfusions for religious reasons. medical experts say bloodless surgery

for any type of surgery that has been traditionally associated with transfusions. a new study found that some flavored coffee drinks can contain more sugar than soda. the group action on sugar looked at 131 hot drinks, and found some can contain up to 25 teaspoons of sugar. that's three times more sugar than in one can of soda, and more than three times the maximum adult daily intake recommended by the american heart association. starbucks says it has committed to reduce added sugar in its "indulgent drinks" by 25-percent in the next four years. major automakers are testing cars that can drive themselves, but researchers say there is a long way to go before they can take over the road. one major hurdle is giving the cars the ability to make the right decision when faced with dilemmas. (raj rajkumar/carnegie mellon university professor) "the biggest nightmare that people like me think about is that somebody deploys this technology prematurely and it causes an accident

stroller." in the coming years there will be more changes to make cars drive on their own, but researchers say the cars are still a good ten years away. new recommendations are out for parents shopping for their teenager's first car. according to the insurance institute for highway safety, the best mid-size car for teens is the 2012 ford fusion. the best large car is the 2012 buick regal. the snow and ice are gone for now but they cause problems for everyone. a place we don't normally think of immediately is the zoo. wdbj7 anchor nadia singh spoke to leadership at the mill mountain zoo about how it's working to get things up and running after the storm. lucy cook/executive director "our staff had it out yesterday morning trying to get up here to take care of the animals which we have to do 24/7." so you could imagine how panicked the staff here was when they had to deal with storm related power outages, downed

icy conditions. lucy cook/executive director " we've put out the call to the city, to aep, every place we could and we got some responses." but there's still a lot of clean up left to do. zoo leadership brought in contractors to cut down broken trees and clear away large parts of broken trees. bill baker/director of operations " yesterday we spent much of the time in this particular area in getting this all cleared away and getting it safe. it's actually right above one of our main electrical distribution boxes." when we shot this video, parts of the zoo were still without power. other areas were powered by generators. lucy cook/executive director "you can see behind me the heat lamps that we have to have on that help to keep certain creatures warm. we run the risk of losing our refrigerators and our freezers." luckily the zoo is in its winter hours, only opening thursday-sunday until the spring but it must be safe before guests can come. bill baker/director of operations " thankfully primary containment was

any of the exhibits and we were very fortunate in that regard so right now what we're dealing with is getting our infrastructure back up and running." going forward, the hope is to work with the city on a solid emergency plan. lucy cook/executive director " we called out city manager yesterday and they were on top of it as much as they could be given the load that they had to deal with but i think we really hope that we can come up with some kind of regular policy." in roanoke, nadia singh, wdbj7. we've learned that the power is back on completely and the zoo will re-open on friday. temperatures soar to the 60s by the weekend. but meteorologist brent watts says winter is far from over. complete details of your first alert forecast

andall snow melting away the severe downtown roanoke and you can see that the skies it cleared out looking good across erie was sherry the time lapse from wytheville love check out the beautiful blanket of snow on the ground want to happen sue it is the day goes on it starts melting away we at those temperatures up to the thirties and forties today think by the end of the week most of this is going to be gone with the exception of

linger but you be of the 60s by the weekend. right now. danville 29 the cold spot and hot springs with some lighter snow showers the to been moving through the week little disturbance. most of it up up across the great lakes he could see some clout cover that's a streaming into the mountains of spilling over soaks what have partly cloudy to at times mostly cloudy skies to the evening but eventually clearing out overnight. most of the snow again confined to the west virginia mountains. the ski country though enjoy that the course of great skiing weather conditions this winter with all the snow partly cloudy skies tonight temperatures running in the low 20s from hot springs all the way to blacksburg around 28 in roanoke and lynchburg and 26 and get down to about 20 in danville. they here's a look at the temperatures tomorrow morning is why would have to watch out for that black ice in the morning getting down below freezing. but as the morning goes on by about 89 o'clock will start to see this temperatures go up above freezing close to forty by noon and will top out tomorrow afternoon in the upper forties four rona can forty six about forty ninety danville than forty five degrees towards marion blacksburg you can get up the forties and the sunshine religion start to finish tomorrow that'll set the stage really for warmer week ahead we got high-pressure the builds in that's can up push all of that cold weather well to the north of us the jetstream kahneman doing a zonal flow if you will, so everything moving pretty much from west the east some of those southerly winds

towards us saturday and also sunday notices close to seventy down there towards atlanta so really nice forecast you got that spring some warmer whether it's can a be on the way end so here's what's coming up friday not as cool temperatures around fifty degrees and watch what happens of the we get we got the sunshine just a couple clouds near sixty degrees of the weekend60 of the weekend and then on monday and tuesday. this is one the pattern starts weather the comes in here 40s on tuesday, and of by wednesday we have the chance for some rain changing over to some snow this is what we talked about early reposted area forecast discussion him some of the details on that for thinking in fact the back is we'll have a lot of details on a just yet but it's one of those rita have to monitor so that could be our next chance of some wintry weather i've tuesday night hometown hoops weekly is on the way as we check in with the northside vikings, a team that has lost just once all season entering this week's

tournament. l, unless you have allergies. may see it differently. is approved to relieve both itchy, watery eyes d congestion. ther nasal allergy spray can say that. e breathe in allergens our bodies react by ducing six key inflammatory substances that use our symptoms. stllergy pills only control one substance. onase controls six. d six is greater than one. te allergy relief or incomplete. t your eyes decide.

basketball postseason is officially underway, and maybe no team enters the playoffs quite as hot as the northside vikings. zac glover catches up with the vikes, in this week's edition of hometown hoops weekly. zac glover: the northside basketball team can beat you in a many ways. with guards that can both drive and shoot, and with the power of a boogie basham down low, the vikings polished off a dominant regular season at 21-1 on the year. carlos "boogie" basham, northside senior forward: "it's been a good season. you know, the record is good, and plus, the work that we put in, in the offseason, and at practice and everything. everything is going good." kendrick tucker, northside senior guard: "whoever you get the ball to, you know that they're capable of making a good play. so just from the depth of the bench, and everybody being able to play and compete when they step out on the court, it's a lot of fun." zac glover: winning can certainly make things fun, but the vikings say it's not just the end result on the scoreboard that has

memorable. bill pope, northside head coach: "beyond all these things that everyone can see from the stands, i think our strength is that these guys really love to play basketball, and really care about each other." kendrick tucker: "off and on the court, we're just like a big group of brothers. just enjoying each other's company, we talk to each other every day, and it's just like a big family." zac glover: and even though northside hasn't lost a game since early december, they're still looking for ways to improve heading into the playoffs. bill pope: "you have to keep getting better. there's little things that you can tweak those little things things." kendrick tucker: true to what we do, and that's just on defense, just continue to battle at practice, and don't change anything. just stay consistent." zac glover: and the vikings are hoping that consistency can earn head coach, bill pope, his first state championship in more than 30 years on the sidelines at carlos basham: "it to be the first ones to do, and plus, that would mean a lot."

come into practice, you see those two big runner-up pictures, and just to be up on the wall for winning it would mean a lot for us." bill pope: "this team is a special team. they're special, not just because they're good at what they do, but who they are." zac glover: in roanoke, zac glover, hometown hoops weekly. wall street ends the day on a positive note. the dow rose 257 points. nasdaq added 98.

a roanoke county firefighter is speaking out tonight. wdbj7's amanda kenney has his story after he fell through two floors in a fire last week. jean, roanoke county firefighter and paramedic robert mauck is rested and and back to work today after that incident. he's sharing his story tonight, telling us how he fell through those floors and what happened in the minutes following the fall. he explains how important training is and how it may has saved his life. while he's back on the job now, tonight at six we'll tell you why that may have been his last fire call for the latest weather anytime, turn to our webpage at wdbj7.com and be sure to follow us on facebook and twitter

at wdbj7weather. thank you for choosing your hometown news

(donkey sound) (elephant sound) there's a big difference between making noise, (tapping sound) and making sense. (elephant sound) (donkey sound) when it comes to social security, we need more than lip service. our next president needs a real plan to keep social security strong. (elephant noise) hey candidates. enough talk.