the fifth hickey. we came to the chernobyl exclusion zone to investigate a very strange story this place has been deserted for a quarter of a century recently some people started receiving posts notices telling them to pick up letters at this post office in crete yet i'm holding one of those here and indeed the stamp here proves that it came from the ghost town here. frankly speaking i do not know what to look for. when it's not where you describe. these notices have no addresses nor names of those let sentinel. thank you thank. you. thank you no we're. going to be honestly speaking i don't think we're going to find anything here. most of the things that remained here and in the apartments were later buried. but i knew i didn't keep them because they were very radioactive. and the rest was stolen by scavengers. look here's a letter which someone for you to send from here. there is a photo inside. it's lucky you. would miss all the times i've been here i've never seen anything like this. but. this is th

brian hickey from our nbc station in sacramento has more on the storm's damage. >> we've got a funnel! >> reporter: this is just one of several tornados that touched down in butte county wednesday evening. today, residents are cleaning up the mess left behind. >> there used to be a three-car, four-car garage there. it's gone. >> reporter: part of that garage is still here, a twisted mess. the other part of the garage, completely gone. this is where it all went. from the garage through the corals, the wind carried all that debris and scattered it over a quarter mile. a mess that will take days, even months to clean up was created in just seconds. >> and just, we're kind of in shock over the amount of damage and the speed that it occurred. it seemed to me i didn't hear anything crashing for more than five to ten seconds. >> reporter: near the town of durham, almond growers are counting what is left of their orchards. >> we probably lost not quite half. we've got a little 20-acre block there. so there's probably eight to ten acres gone. >> reporter: ron was just down the road when he spo

>> i got a call that morning from colonel hickey and he said that they captured the fat man what we calledwe were elated and felt if he were captured he would know saddam hussein's location. the colonel told me he to get the forces ready and once we learned where his location was, there were, we worked hand in hand with a special operations forces being commanded by a guy i'll call john. and two additional teams were brought up, some air assets and all of this planning took place not in sophistication pan technical means, but on a piece of butcher paper with magic marker pen drawn out and we'd worked together on so many raids. eight o'clock everything was set. a giant cordon around so that saddam could not escape. two farms were seized. what we think is two guys tried to flee and put saddam in his hiding place, and then after a time, he was brought along for the raid and he pointed to the location, it was a foot path, got down in the hole, saddam was at that location and he was pulled out of the hole and successfully captured. >> mike: what a remarkable mission and colonel, it's all chroni

checking in with brian hickey this morning, it's a winter wonderland out there. >> reporter: yeah, heyre at blue canyon we've got a good 8 to 10 inches of snow up here. snowball coming at you. you wonder why they had to cancel stage one of the tour of california, it was because of this. look at all the snow on the ground. close to two feet up around sugar bowl if you look at the webcamera there. of course the resort is closed like many of them up there. donner ski ranch i know is still open that would love to have you come up and frolic in all of this powder. here is interstate 80 in blue canyon. it is clear and so you are free and clear to get over interstate 80 and come drive through this winter wonderland, if you will, in the migds ddle of may. it's not unheard of to see snow in any month in the sierra, but to have this much snow, this is significant. this is a lot of snow up here in the sierra for this late in the spring. we're just about a month away from the start of summer if you're keeping score on the calendar, so don't put those skis away just yet. definitely be ready for win

it is like a winter wonderland where brian hickey joins us live this morning. feel like we can ski almost year round now. >> reporter: definitely putting the wonder in wonderland. a lot of drivers wondering what is going on up here in the sierra. we're at blue canyon and there's about 8 to 10 inches of snow on the ground here at blue canyon. up around the summit, i was looking at sugar bowl's webcamera still running, although the ski resort isn't, about two feet of snow on the picnic tables up there, a lot of snow. here's video from overnight when we first got up here around 3:00 in the morning and it was still coming down a little bit. it's tapered off now but chain controls are all the way down to baxter. and now kingvale. to get over the summit, you need chains. it is may 18th, right? i'm just checking here. it can snow pretty much any month of the year out here but what's significant is the amount of snow. i was camping at my grandpa's house back in the day and we got a couple of inches on the kick on memorial day. that's typical. but this, two feet of snow

brian hickey is live there and has more. the weather doesn't look too bad there?eporter: it's beautiful here. we've ditched the gloves and jackets. the amgen, what was supposed to be stage 2, i guess is now the unofficial stage 1 and the official start of amgen after a weather fiasco. heavy snow made for miserable conditions and downright impossible conditions for psychists to take to the roads along the tahoe region. we spent the night at squaw valley where the race was supposed to start. everything is iced over. everywhere you go, the streets are covered in ice. there's no way they could have held this race out of the tahoe -- tahoe basin. last night, around midnight, the decision was made, word went out to nevada city, we would like you to start the race. this city has become a lot of activity here as all of the amgen are descend trend -- are descending on the city. today allow was supposed to be 1 3 miles. now it's only 63 miles. for all the trenters in the race that's gonna be a big deal. there's no -- sprinters in the race that's gonna be a big deal. it will

our reporter brian hickey joining us live with the work that caltrans is doing aimed at keeping carsf a cliff. brian? >> if you have driven over highway 50, there's lake tahoe, there's that huge cliff to right. there's that wall. that's what they are replacing over at echo summit at highway 50 where this work is going on. those rock walls were built in the 1930s. they were designed to hold back model ts, not bus, big rigs and the like, motor homes. so they are reconstructing all of those barriers around there to make it safer. imagine going down icy, snowy rodes and all you have is an 18- inch view. they are going to raise that to 32. they don't want to block the view of the lake. to do this, they could have drug this out over three summers or get things down in cc myers' fashion, in a few weeks. sometime today echo summit will be closed. you can still get to placerville. you won't be able to get to lake tahoe. if you are heading to ha toe in the next couple of weeks, perhaps to watch the amgen tour, you will have to come here, exit 88 and that will ling you to 89 -- link you to 89.