Damaging winds, rain hit the West as a winter storm approaches the North
Rain & Snow Potential Map (ABC News)
(NEW YORK) — Storms are hitting Southern California with heavy rain that flooded roads, as millions are on alert for damaging winds on Tuesday. Meanwhile, in the North, millions are preparing for a winter storm.
Heavy thunderstorms in Southern California brought 1 to 3 inches of rain to the area, with the highest elevations seeing more than 3 inches.
Damaging winds gusted between 50 and 70 mph during the strongest thunderstorms. The highest wind gust reported was 81 mph in the hills above Malibu. This toppled trees and caused roof damage.
Issues popped up throughout the region, including flooded businesses in the Fairfax District, stranded drivers in Commerce, and a massive tree that fell on a car in Crestline, according to ABC News Los Angeles affiliate KABC.
A flood watch is in effect for the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles areas again Tuesday night due to the risk of flash flooding, debris flows and mudslides — especially in burn scar areas.
Two more rounds of rain are expected across the Southern California area this week. The first is forecast to arrive Tuesday evening and continue overnight. The second is expected to arrive on Thursday morning to early afternoon.
This rain will be shorter-lived and less impactful than Monday’s event. Winds will be calmer, too. An additional 0.5 to 2 inches is possible through Thursday.
It will remain dry and sunny, with a warming trend through the weekend before more rain arrives Monday through Wednesday of next week.
In Sierra Nevada, heavy snow, strong winds and avalanche dangers have closed mountain roads and forced ski lodges to close as well.
The heavy snow will continue through the week, with snow accumulations of 4 to 8 feet through Friday.
(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — Jurors on the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales listened to a firsthand account of the emergency response from a police sergeant who tried to enter Robb Elementary School with Gonzales.
Prosecutors allege Gonzales, who is charged with child endangerment, did not follow his training and endangered the 19 students who died and an additional 10 surviving students. He has pleaded not guilty and his lawyers argue he is being unfairly blamed for a broader law-enforcement failure that day. It took 77 minutes before law enforcement mounted a counterassault to end the rampage.
Former Uvalde Police Sgt. Daniel Coronado was called as a state witness, but he appeared to defend some of Gonzales’ actions during the May 24, 2022, mass shooting.
“He was yelling at them to be careful, because the shooter was on that side of the building from the information that we had, and I think he was concerned with officers approaching,” Coronado testified on Thursday about first seeing Gonzales. “He was trying to get around to see what was going on.”
Coronado said that he tried to enter Robb Elementary with three other officers — Gonzales, Uvalde Schools Police Chief Pete Arredondo and a third — once they realized the shooter had gone in the school. Jurors also saw body camera footage of their actions.
“As we are making our way through the hallway, it’s dark. There are no lights on. It’s extremely quiet, we don’t hear anything,” Coronado said, noting that the hallways smelled like gunpowder and the walls were “perforated” by bullets.
Coronado said they heard gunfire when they were in the hallway and saw another officer retreat after being hit on the back of his head.
“He yells out, ‘He’s in the classroom over here to my left,'” Coronado said.
Within seconds of the gunman firing from inside a classroom, Coronado said that Gonzales and Arredondo tried to use their radio to request support from SWAT.
“Would that be the opposite of confronting the shooter?” prosecutor Bill Turner asked.
“The opposite? No, I think we were trying to formulate a plan to confront the shooter, and that would be to call SWAT,” Coronado responded.
After they retreated from inside the school, Coronado said Gonzales was covering the east side of the building in case the gunman jumped out of the building.
On Wednesday, jurors heard testimony from Michael Witzgall, an instructor who taught Gonzales a class on active shooting response, SWAT tactics and hostage negotiations.
“We’ve got to stop the killing. There’s no other way I have to say that, folks. You can’t wait for backup,” Witzgall said, speaking to the jurors as if they were his students. “In my opinion, in the way I train people, you don’t have time to wait. You’ve got to make a move.”
During a lengthy cross examination, defense attorney Nico LaHood pressed Witzgall about whether a 40-hour training response fully prepared Gonzales for the real thing.
Dad Christopher Salinas also testified on Wednesday about the physical and mental impact the shooting took on his son, Samuel.
Samuel still has shrapnel embedded in his thigh and the wound has left him in constant pain, Salinas said.
Salinas testified that hearing popping sounds, arguments and slamming doors and seeing the color red triggers memories of the shooting for Samuel.
“Mr. Salinas, is the child that you picked up from the hospital on May 24 the same child that was taken to school that day?” District Attorney Christina Mitchell asked.
“No,” he answered.
Arredondo — the on-site commander on the day of the shooting — is also charged with multiple counts of endangerment and abandonment of a child and has pleaded not guilty. Arredondo’s case has been delayed indefinitely by an ongoing federal lawsuit filed after the U.S. Border Patrol refused repeated efforts by Uvalde prosecutors to interview Border Patrol agents who responded to the shooting, including two who were in the tactical unit responsible for killing the gunman at the school.
ABC News’ Juan Renteria contributed to this report.
A memorial dedicated to the 19 children and two adults murdered on May 24,2022 during a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School is seen on January 05, 2026 in Uvalde, Texas. Brandon Bell/Getty Images
(CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas) — Editor’s note: Some of the testimony described below may be distressing to some readers.
Robb Elementary School’s former afterschool coordinator, Emilia “Amy” Marin-Franco, held back tears and visibly shook in her seat when she testified on Thursday in the trial of former Uvalde, Texas, school police officer Adrian Gonzales.
Gonzales, who was one of nearly 400 law enforcement officers to respond to the Robb Elementary School mass shooting, is charged with child endangerment for allegedly ignoring his training during the botched police response. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed, and investigations have faulted the police response and suggested that a 77-minute delay in police mounting a counterassault could have contributed to the carnage.
Gonzales has pleaded not guilty and his legal team says he did all he could to help students.
Marin testified that on May 24, 2022, she saw a man crash his truck near the school. She was one of the first people to call 911 — first to report the crash, and then realized he was armed and heading to the school.
Jurors heard her 911 call, in which Marin simultaneously tried to get police to respond while encouraging students to hide.
“There is a guy with a gun. … Oh my god. I think he came on campus now,” she told a dispatcher, while telling students, “Come on guys, hurry.”
In deeply emotional testimony, she told the jury, “I kept asking the operator, ‘Where are the cops? Where are the cops?’ And I tell her, ‘There are kids running everywhere.'”
Marin told jurors that she feared for her and her students’ lives as she sheltered in a classroom and heard countless gunshots.
“They were like, nonstop,” she said. “I thought, ‘He’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me, he’s going to kill me. I’m going to die, I’m going to die.'”
She testified that she tried to come up with a plan to disarm the shooter if he were to find her.
“I’m looking at the floor and I’m thinking, ‘I’ll tackle him from his ankles and knock him down with my shoulder. Get up on the counter, when he comes in, jump on his back, poke his eyes out, take his gun away from him,'” she said.
A prosecutor tried to ask Marin to describe what that moment was like.
“The feeling of that type of fear is something that only someone can understand who’s been through a mass shooting,” she said. “You won’t understand if you haven’t experienced it and I don’t wish it on anybody.”
“Is it an ugly feeling?” the prosecutor asked.
“It haunts me to this day,” she said.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Marin was falsely accused of leaving a door open that allowed the shooter to enter. She testified about removing a rock that was briefly used to prop the door open. During a brief cross-examination, defense attorneys used the testimony to highlight how Robb Elementary had issues with doors remaining unlocked.
Earlier on Thursday, Judge Sid Harle sided with defense lawyers and instructed jurors to completely disregard the testimony of former teacher Stephanie Hale, who was a key prosecution witness.
Hale returned to the stand for an hour Thursday morning in an effort to salvage her testimony, but defense lawyers ultimately argued that allowing her testimony to stand would endanger Gonzales’ right to a fair trial.
“There’s no doubt that this was crucial to the [defense] strategy,” Harle said. “I don’t think I have any choice, having denied the mistrial — other than to craft a remedy that will protect the due process rights and hopefully avoid any appellate review that would result in this case being reversed — so I am reluctantly going to instruct the jury to disregard her testimony in its entirety.”
Before instructing the jury, the judge personally thanked Hale for her testimony and emphasized that she was not at fault.
“I want to emphasize that you did absolutely nothing wrong. It’s not on you,” the judge said. “I want to tell you, just from personal experience, memories of traumatic events change.”
When Hale was on the stand Thursday, defense attorney Jason Goss attempted to point out that her original account — provided to state investigators four days after the 2022 shooting — differed from what she told the jury on Tuesday.
Hale testified that she saw the shooter near the south side of Robb Elementary and saw him firing toward her and her students. Defense lawyers alleged she never gave that information to state investigators.
“Seeing a shooter, and being shot at, are important details, you would agree with that?” Goss said.
“It depends on who you are,” she responded. “I don’t know. I guess possibly.”
Goss pointed out inconsistencies in her description of events over the last three years, such as how she learned about the shooter and his location.
“I’m not very good with directions,” Hale remarked about the location of the shooter.
During re-direct examination, Hale clarified that she told the grand jury about seeing clouds of dust near the playground, which suggested to her that she and her students were being shot at. She acknowledged, however, that she did not initially see the shooter with her own eyes.
Hale told defense lawyers that it was “kind of implied” that she saw the shooter based on her comments about seeing the dust clouds.
(NEW YORK) — This year is expected to be the busiest on record for holiday travel, but rough weather in the West and the East may make getting to and from your Christmas destination even harder.
More than 41 million people across nearly all of California — including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego — as well as parts of Nevada and Arizona are under a flood watch on Christmas Eve.
A rare alert for “high risk for excessive rainfall” is in place Wednesday for Los Angeles and the surrounding area, so those traveling on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day should be extremely careful on the roads. Road flooding, rockslides, mudslides and water rescues are possible.
The pounding rain is now underway in Southern California and will continue until around 6 p.m. local time Wednesday.
With rainfall rates possibly topping 1 inch per hour, higher elevations surrounding LA can expected 4 to 6 inches of rain on Wednesday alone.
Winds gusts will reach 40 to 50 mph on Wednesday, potentially causing power outages. Thunderstorms are also possible, as well as brief tornadoes along the California coast.
The rain will take a break Wednesday evening before picking back up overnight.
More rounds of rain will hit on Christmas Day and Friday, prolonging the threat of flooding, mudslides and landslides.
By Friday, rain totals could reach 4 to 7 inches along Southern California’s coasts and valleys, and 6 to 14 inches is possible in the foothills and mountains.
Meanwhile, a new storm is forecast to hit the Northeast on Friday morning.
The storm will bring ice to Michigan, Ohio and then Pennsylvania, potentially causing travel chaos and leaving widespread power outages. Ice accumulation could reach up to half an inch in some areas, which makes driving home after Christmas extremely dangerous.
Further east, the storm will bring snow. Six to 12 inches is possible in western New York, northeastern Pennsylvania and parts of New Jersey.
This storm is also forecast to bring the biggest snowfall of the season to New York City. The snow will fall in New York from Friday night to Saturday morning and could reach 3 to 6 inches.
Expect treacherous commutes on Friday on Interstate-80, I-70, I-90 and I-95.
