Hikers struck by lightning while hiding in a cave during a storm. They join us tonight to tell us how they made it to safety. Good evening. This is nbc bay area news tonight. Im jessica aguirre. Were going to begin with biden banking on the bay area. The president is in town raising money as we speak. This is his third visit to the bay area this year. The president and air force one touching down at Moffett Field just before 3 20 this afternoon. Then the president descending air force one with his aviators, greeting a crowd of around 40 supporters on the tarmac. The president did stop for a moment to take some photos, even taking a selfie with his family before giving a hug to a castro family woman, who called it a thrill to meet the president. I just felt immediately connected to him. I think he just comes across as such a super caring person, and he just he attracts that energy of just familiarity. So, yeah, i shared with him that in 2012, i changed my citizenship from mexico to the United States so that i could vote for him. Now, after President Biden and his motorcade headed for atherton for a private fundraiser. That event was held at the home of philanthropists mark heising and liz simons. Thats where we find nbc bay areas Terry Mcsweeney now. I know the president left moments ago, but he spoke to 100 people that were there. What do we know about that, terry . Reporter we heard it from the Pool Reporter, what the president was saying. He was standing underneath a 100yearold oak tree, talking to the people lined around the pool. It must be a nice place up there. He was talking about the accomplishments of the biden administration. He was talking about standing up for ukraine, talking about immigration, saying people who are coming here are not trying to get an economic leg up. Theyre here looking for dignity. He had much to say about his accomplishments, and he says he wants to keep doing that. And he was very pleased with the turnout. He says you can tell the quality of a person by the company they keep, and he was referring to the people there, thanking them for being there and helping his efforts. Yeah, and that company they were keeps was expensive company. It was an expensive fundraiser. Do you have any names as to who was there . We know the tickets were up to 100,000 for some tickets. Reporter the entry level was 5,000, up to 100,000 per. The Pool Reporter says that the people who were here for this event were lined around the pool they had their back to the Pool Reporter. They could not see the faces of the people there. They couldnt tell as far as names go who was at this event. We dont get to name drop, okay. Where is the president headed next . Reporter going up to San Francisco right now. Hes going to be spending the night there. Tomorrow hes got several events. Hes got a couple fundraisers, but he also has a meeting with a science tech advisory council. We believe thats in San Francisco, but that could be down on the peninsula. In any event, after the fundraisers and the meeting with his science and tech advisory council, hes going to be taking off for more fundraising and some other things down in arizona. Okay. Good to know. Thank you, terry. Well see you tonight at 11 00. Reporter all right. See you then. Other headlines were watching tonight, the looming Government Shutdown is now casting a shadow over one of San Franciscos biggest events. If a deal isnt reached by this weekend, fleet week could be in trouble. That event is supposed to start monday. If that shutdown happens, the navy ships will be here, but theres going to be no public tours. The blue angels would also be grounded, so no air shows. Fleet weeks organizers say for now, theyre planning for the full event and that they will adjust the schedule if necessary when they get more information. And that info could come as soon as tomorrow. Also tonight, can San Francisco force people to undergo drug treatment in order to receive their welfare money . Thats the new proposal from mayor london breed. Breed wants to require lowincome and unsheltered residents to undergo drug testing and treatment to qualify for those benefits. And if you refuse, youd be denied all city cash assistance. The requirement would only apply to county adult assistance program, which provides benefits to single adults between the ages of 18 and 65. That includes many homeless and many formerly homeless. Last week alone, 80 people were contacted and touched out on the streets, asked if they wanted services, provided treatment on demand, and only one agreed. People are not accepting help. And so now its time to make sure that we are cutting off resources that continue to allow this behavior. Now, the program would be paid for by the San FranciscoHuman Services agency, and it still needs to be approved by the board of supervisors. Supervisor matt dorsey spoke at todays News Conference in support. He was there with mayor breed. Board president aar peskin released a statement blasting the proposal saying in part, quote, if she cant find a way to prevent several hundred brazen criminals from sling deadly drugs, how does she think shell fun the resources to drug test thousands of welfare recipients . The answer is she cant. Okay. Targeted by thieves, so target is out. Three bay Area Target Stores will soon close their doors for good. The big box retailer says rampant crime has made it impossible to keep those stores safe and profitable. Target says theyve beefed up security and locked up items so theyre not easy to steal, but nothing has been enough to deter thieves. So the retail has made the tough choice to close ores. Here in the bay area, three stores will close october 21st. Oppers in pittsburg we spoke to say theres disappointed but also say they see shoplifting all the time. Ive seen it happen. Ive seen people run out with products, and security just kind of says, hey, and thats all they can really do. Thats sad, you know. The crime rate is getting ridiculous. Closing one of my favorite stores. Im sad to hear that. Reporter the mayor of pittsburg says she is disappointed. She said she has been working with target closely to tackle the problem and says the city is actually opening a Police Substation in that very Shopping Center next week. Tonight striking at the heart of crime in oakland with a strike. Some 200 Small Businesses across the city fed up with crime threatening their survival shut their doors for two hours today as part of a strike they hope will send age to city leaders. Businesses like kingston 11 cuisine in uptown oakland has been burglarized four times in the past three years. The most recent time, earlier this month. The chef and owner of that restaurant says experiences drove him to help organize todays strike. This time they broke through the front door and also took our cash register, about 500 in cash and about 3,500 in damages. The only thing thats going to make a difference in terms of what were doing is numbers and attention. During the strike, a lot of Business Owners gathered outside le cheval, a vietnamese restaurant, and it announced its closing for good at the end of this week due to brazen and frequent crime. We did reach out to city hall for comment about the strike, but we have yet to receive a response. Joining me is dr. Lisa hill, a professor of criminal justice at cal state east bay. Shes here to talk about the stress of living with this constant crime. Dr. Hill, thank you for being here. You really come to this from two fronts. So lets start with the collective community stress. Its reaching a boiling and breaking point for so many people in oakland. Absolutely. People are angry, but i think whats behind the anger is actually fear. Some of these people, this is their livelihood. Some of these businesses are their passion. So they feel disempowered to deal with the rising crime. Then some of them feel that they havent been supported in the way that they would expect from their local police, from the criminal Justice System in general. So the police and specifically the district attorneys. So that actually goes to my next point. You just hit the nail on the head. That business strike, is that really going to send a message to the city leaders, or is it really a way for the people and the Business Owners to feel that they have some sort of control and theyre taking action instead of just sitting there like sitting ducks . I think its going to raise awareness that, you know, these Business Owners are, you know, fed up with the crime. I think its a shortterm solution. You know, for a crime to take place, theres really three things that need to happen, and thats motive, means, and opportunity. And i think some of these strikes are dealing with the latter half, and thats the opportunity and maybe even the means. But what needs to happen is to address the motive, and i dont think thats whats happened. The motive behind crime. Some of these bay area organizations, companies are dealing with, this is a trend across the country. In general, Violent Crime is down. Thefts and burglaies are up across the country, so this is a trend. What do you say to people that dont feel safe in their homes or dont feel safe traveling down around the stores and dont feel safe having people come into their store . How do you calm that to be able to move forward with some of these, you know, solutions and putting these forth and not living from a prism of fear all the time . Right. Thats, you know, the reality. Theres some things that can be done, you know, on the day to day. You know, no areas that are high crime. You know, buddy system. Not going to the gas stations and tellers, you know, in the evening. So just knowing your surroundings. But a longterm solution is really looking at, you know, reforms of the criminal Justice System. Its not just the police and district attorneys because they come in after the fact. You know, it really i think some of these cities are dealing with some of the plagues in other urban cities like low socioeconomic. They need job training programs. Really looking at schools and, you know, its a bigger issue than with just crime. And if you want to deal with it as i alluded to previously, were going to need to look at reform across the system. You know, Police Agencies are their numbers have been reduced. Public defenders, just across the system, district attorneys, probation and parole numbers have been reduced. So ultimately we want to fortify those numbers back to where they were previously to deal with crime. But theres other areas. Like i said, the School Systems and job training, you know. The data is clear that what reduces crime rates and recidivism is jobs. Loading up on the front end, all right. Absolutely. Not just waiting for the back end to pick it up. Dr. Hill, we really appreciate your expertise. Thank you for sharing that with us today. Youre welcome. Thank you. All right. Still to come, yosemite hikers say they were hit by lightning while hiding in a cave. They join us to tell us how they miraculously made it out alive. A trillion dollars silicon success story, and it startedn a san i now to a terrifying situation in yosemite. A group of friends forced to take shelter in a cave during a storm at the top of the parks half dome. Two of them were even struck by lightning. Miraculously all of them survived, and theyre back home now. The ordeal documented in this viral tiktok video. It started this past thursday when six friends made their way up half dome. Once they got to the summit around 12 30 in the afternoon, they noticed a storm was rolling in. Two members of the group started to make their way back down the cables. The other four took shelter in a rock cave they found at the top. Thats when things really went south. Lightning started hitting the rocks around them. Two people in the group struck by lightning, at least nearby, one in the leg, the other in the back of the head. They still managed to make it through the storm. Then they had to climb back down a very slippery half dome to make it out of there. Joining me now is jordan dean and jordan swendener. First of all, thank goodness you guys are okay. Im guessing when you started out that day, it was going to be an adventure, but not an adventure like this. No, not at all. Yeah. I think were all just geared up for a normal hike at half dome. Yeah, theres a lot of comments on tiktok on the weather and that kind of thing. But we really were under the impression, just like everybody else there were hundreds of us that the weather was going to be great. You climb up, and all of a sudden things take a turn. So you seek shelter in this cave. Tell me about what happened when you were in that cave and when that lightning started to move in. Were you just like, what the hell . Yeah. I think we were on the top. We were going to everybody was trying to go down, but they all kind of got logjammed on the cables. So we were too close to the top. We decided to take shelter in a cave that wed seen just in a picture, you know, taking a picture. And i think the first Lightning Strike really kind of like shook us. It jumped from the rock into my knee. It felt like somebody punched me really hard maybe. But, yeah, the second one was much worse. Much worse. After the first one, we thought, okay, everyone. Everyones fine. Everyones okay. We dont think its going to strike again. And just a few moments later, one just you see it come just straight through the rocks. Were trying to say, is everyone okay . And our friend looks over, and one of the guys, james, he kind of falls forward. And he was like, buddy, wake up, wake up. And he was just unconscious. Thats when he started punching him in the chest. Thats when my friend josh was sitting next to me on my right, and i see him. He just is staring into space, not saying anything, not moving. And he just kind of leaned against the rock. I was like, josh, josh, are you okay . It took him a while to come to. But the first thing he said was, are we in denver . Thats when we knew, like, no one was okay. Shortly after was when the other guy came back to, and he didnt know who we were, how we got there. He didnt know anything. I have a question. You know you described he looked like a zombie. At this point, are you guys calm, or are you freaking out because i would have been terrified and probably crying hysterically. What are you thinking . Are you thinking youre going to make it out . Are you thinking, were just going to wait this out . Whats running through your mind . At that point i started crying, and i started freaking out because i didnt know what to do. We were just stuck on this mountain, like, not knowing if any of us were going to make it out of there. It was hard, too, having no control. Like i think im usually feeling confident, and that was one of those moments when youre like, please dont strike again, you know. We were just helpless, and we didnt know what to do. The lightning stops, and then what . Whats the plan after that . At this point two of our friends are on the cable at this point, and were using walkietalkies to make sure theyre okay. And were telling them, we just got struck twice. Were hoping theyre not going to get struck because theyre on the cables at this point, just holding on as the water is rushing down. One of them said they could feel the shocks in the cables, and they would take their hands off to try and not get shocked. I couldnt imagine if a direct hit hit those cables. It would be devastating. Part of the story is that and theres a lady out there thats recovering in the hospital that i would love to know if shes okay. But she fell during the storm, early on. So that was kind of the first real crisis is we didnt know this was going on, but they heard the screams on the cable, and theres folks that have reached out and talked to me that they were right next to her. They called 911. So the first lady that fell, she slid out of sight down the side of the mountain. But she did hit a ledge, and so was able to yell back and forth to have folks call 911. How did you guys get down finally . Yeah. So it was just like, okay, now the storms over, and its time for us to get down. That was kind of another terrifying thing is that as were climbing down, it was so slippery. Going up, it was shockingly easier than going back down because it was just so wet. And there was some girls that had been on the cables that were kind of paralyzed with fear, and they were not moving. When we got to them, we kind of had to work around them to say, were going to keep going down, but you need to wait for rescue. One of the gals, shes also out there somewhere in the hospital, but she lost her grip and slid off the side, and we watched, yelling somebody help her. The rescue workers were there, so they saw it. So one of them had to tend to this gal while they were trying to get the other gal. So we just kind of slowly, you know, tried to make sure we make it down. Heres my double question really quickly. Do you still see this all just replaying in your mind like a bad dream, and would you go up there again . I still have nightmares every night about it. Every time i close my eyes, its like youre back in that cave again and trying to get off the cable honestly. That sounds terrifying. Im so glad you guys are okay. Its like a movie of the week with you two. What you endured is really, i mean, crazy. So im glad you guys are okay. You really won the lottery this time with what you guys went through, so were glad youre good. Thanks for sharing your story with us. All right. Well be right ba. Think about wt they wentha we know about the garage where the first Apple Computers were built, but what about the san jose dennys where nvidia, now a trillion dollar company, got its start . Thats such a good idea. Reporter thats nvidias ceo, jenhsun huang. They planned out the company while sitting at a booth at that same restaurant. Today the ceo of dennys presented huang with a plaque reading the booth that launched a trillion dollar company. Jeff, im telling you, weve got to go down to that dennys, sit in that booth and see if weve got some of the same vibe. Its only ten minutes away from work. Weve got to do it. Breakfast is always good, but thats going to make it extra good. Well get you into that microclimate forecast here and show you whats coming our way as we head through tomorrow. Its just a little bit of patchy fog in the forecast with temperatures in the 50s. And through the afternoon, its going to be excellent here. Numbers not too hot. Up to 81 in santa rosa. 83 concord. 80 in san jose. 70 in downtown San Francisco. The one thing we are watching, a new edition of the forecast is a spotty chance of a few showers on saturday. Its not going to be a washout this weekend. I really think sunday is going to come in pretty good for us. All right. Thats going to do it for us. We will see you both at 11 00. See you then. Byebye. Hollywood kwtsz, only access is behind the scenes with reba as she takes the chair