We are in weather alert mode. Putting out exfrom postings on our feeds. Heaviest rain during the afternoon hours. That band of heavy rain is two hours. 7 00, 9 00, 10 00, that will be the worst of it. Heaviest rain in the morning. Any afternoon storms could produce gusty winds and small hail as well. The dog had a quick potty break. We had the steady rain. Dog walking or if you need one, we have cinnabun needs a heavy rain, breezy. By afternoon shower or thunderstorm. 270 on the radar. Steady rain. Closer to the district. Alexandria, springfield, west springfield. That extends towards fredericksburg. Chuck and i will take a look at the roads. Outer loop at old georgetown road, that crash spun around. Sounds like it is on the shoulder and things are loosening up. Not solid red any longer. Rest of the beltway looks okay. Inner loop at 7, still have the crash on the shoulder there. New crash before popes head road. Crash reported there as. Same situation 95. Reminder that all of that green, blobs, yellow, orange, everything showing where the rain is heavy in spots. Orange, silver, blue lines delays to vienna, wiehle coming up. Team coverage of the rain moving through the area. Molette green joins us with the roads. Reporter were in the thick of it. Rain is heavy and steady. Lots of cars on the road. Lets take a look now at the slick Road Conditions here. We are trying to keep a good distance between our vehicle and the road spray. We have people taking it easy and the folks on the road who are going a bit too fast for these conditions. We are moving right along in the major weather. It is coming down pretty good. Stay with us on news 4 today. Back to you. As the rain continues to move through the area, make sure you have the alerts on in the nbc washington app. You can make weather your home page. Giant fire and Erika Gonzalez has the live coverage. Good morning. Good morning. Before we show you this video, let me let you know everybody made it out okay. We can tell you there was one firefighter that had to be transported to the hospital. Theyre going to make it. The family members. Incredible video. Specifically on the 9300 block. Thankfully all of those individuals are okay. The cause of this fire, at this point we just dont know. From the live desk, im Erika Gonzalez. 6 05. Congress is now asking the department of education to investigate the racist incident at American University at the civil rights violation. Yesterday members of congress who were also akas held a News Conference demanding actions. The sorority told news 4 the message was clear and cruel. This is definitely a hate crime. The intentions were clear. We understand symbolism and the symbols used resonates with peoples the fbi is also voekting this incident. We want you to take another look at the Person Police believe is responsible. They wore all black and covered his or her face. There is a 1,000 reward for information that leads to arrest. Skorp ral Steven Ballard was shot and killed last week after he con frornted. He was 32 years old and leaves behind a wife and 5yearold daughter. He was in bowie, maryland. Republicans are celebrating after the first step of the repeal of the Affordable Care act passed the house. This comes after seven years of gop opposition and is president trumps first major legislative win. The gop was able to pull out just enough votes from reluctant members of t votes to 213. Coming up well tell you how this could change the Health Care Coverage you have now. If you live in alexandria, you could pay more in taxes. They approved a new budget that raised the local property tax 5. 7 cents. Average property taxes will go up 356 per year. The rest of the increases come from Stormwater Management and sewer Line Maintenance fees increasing by 350 a year. The council says the money is needed to deal with outdated schools and to fund metro. The Washington Wizards are on the board in this eastern conference game. It was a blowout. Looks like a whole different team. From the First Quarter they crushed the celtics. The story of the game is how physical it was. This is a video youll see on facebook again and again today. He was ejected from the game. You have to be smart. You got the call. We dont know whether hell be available for the next game on sunday. No playoff games to watch tonight. The caps and the wizards are both playing at the verizon open the app and click watch live tv now. Arrested on a soccer field. A coach accused of assault. Ahead at 6 30, the warning for potential other victims. Storm team 4 weather this will be a slow movement. No pressure will keep us cloudy and chilly. Look at all of the rain on storm team 4. Lots of showery weather. Cloudy and chilly on sunday. This cold pattern will stick around. Extended forecast in a few minutes. Plus, you asked and now we have some answers. Questions about going sugar free have flooded our newsroom all week. We have a food scientist for years, fios has been promising fast internet to small businesses. But for many businesses, its out of reach. Why promise something you cant deliver . Comcast business is different. We deliver superfast internet with speeds of 250 megabits per second across our entire network, to more companies, in more locations, than fios. We do business where you do business. Radar is very active this morning. Good friday morning. We have a lot of rain for the morning commute. Co rest of the day today and a cooler weekend. Melissa. An earlier problem on the beltway. Inner loop at the American Legion bridge, left lane is blocked by a disabled vehicle. Melissa, thank you. 6 13. They have 36 olympic medals between them. Now team u. S. A. Olympic medal swimmers have new hardware. They were honored by the Substance Abuse and Mental HealthServices Administration as part of National ChildrensMental Health awareness day. Both talked openly about their battles about depression. She told us a conversation she had with phelps two years ago was a turning point. Mental Health Illness something you deal with every day. Just because youre feeling better one day doesnt mean youre healed. Its an invisible disease. Ive had a great journey and a great past. I found my snef a couple of states of depression. For me it took me a long time to realize that its okay to ask for help. This conversation with had last night was for parents and families talking about integrated child care. Not just physical issue but mental issue as well. Useful conversation. Heres a way to get your caffeine fix without worrying about stilg your coffee. Einstein launched the worlds caffeinated bagel. Its called the espresso buzz bagel. It has 1 3 cup of caffeine. They decided to launch it on National Nurse week. Can you eat this . Absolutely. Absolutely. Choose the whole grain option. Weve been doing the sugar free challenge. We appreciate the questions. Were talking about some of these questions that people have. Dr. Taylor wallace is a professor at george mason. One of the questions, of course, is the whole idea of naturally occurring sugars versus added sugars. Big difference, right . Right. Is the difference is when you bite into an apple or fruit or vegetable your body has to digest that. Your body has to do the work to get the if you consume added sugars, a soda, the sugar hits your system quickly. Apple better than quickly. Gary nelson asked on facebook i seem to get myself drinking those flavor packs and they claim to be sugar free. How good are they actually . I think the flavor packs are perfectly fine. They dont really add any nutritional value but study after study has shown the artificial sweeteners are safe. On the sugar free challenges can you use sweet n low, splenda . Ive been doing without and its terrible. Absolutely. Theyre perfectly safe. What about the idea if you use artificial sugars and drink sugars more . Well, no, theres no research that supports that. There you go. All right. Dr. Wallace, we appreciate you coming in and shedding light on these issues. Can you hang out a little while . Well do facebook later. Theres a lot more questions. Lets go to chuck bell. Yes, indeed. A lot of rain around on your friday morning commute. Things moving extra work. Low clouds, low visibility and a lot of road spray out there this morning. 62 degrees. The wind out of the east at 18 miles per hour. Strong east to southeast winds could cause high water along the western shore of the bay and the tidal potomac. Meanwhile, temperatures upper 50s to around 60. There is a chance for stronger storms. Heavy rain thunderstorms. Any one of them could produce brief periods of Severe Weather. Here is the first line of heavy rain. Less than 2 hours from being inside the heart of the d. C. Metro area. Before 8 00 the heavy rain coming on in. The heavier rain coming in in the next 90 minutes. Future weather, 8 00 hit with heavy rain on i95 and areas across northwestern virginia. By 10 00 the first ref of heavy rain moves out. A sliver of sunshine by late morning but every amount of sunshine we gets destabilizes the area. Some of those could pack some gusty winds or hail. Know it will be a very impactful weather day. Steady rain in the morning. Hit and miss stron afternoon. A lot of potential for impact. We have an interactive radar in there for you to help you track the storms and find out when theyre arriving in your backyard. Not expecting a lot of rain. Very high chance of shower ri weather. Low 60s. A lot of clouds around. Staying way colder. May have to worry about frost in the Shenandoah Valley by tuesday morning. Rain on a commute is bad news. It slows things down. Makes my list of issues so much longer. Outer loop after connecticut avenue, we have a crash. We are seeing some slowdowns just starting here in the last couple of minutes. Rest of the beltway is okay. Inner loop at the American Legion bridge has a left lane blocked. Montgomeryville, do have a crash. 66 and 95 looking pretty normal. Again, all of the green, the yellow, the orange radar on our roads here. Only see that on channel 4 showing you exactly where things are bad for your morning commute. Klingle road at adams mill roadblocked because of a downed tree. Melissa, thank you. 6 20. One of the most watched horse races of the year is about to happen. We dont know how much sugar is in a mint julep, but you can get your hat on, sears sucker suit. First of three triple crown races happening tomorrow night. If youre not at home you can stream the race live. New this morning,r investigation. The Justice Department taking a closer look at the ride sharing service. Well tell you why. And check out this super kid. A piano prodigy who taught himself to play even though he cant see. Hear his incredible story next. Coming up today on ellen, bradley coop er, ellen airs her watching news 4 today. All month long news 4 is watching super kids. Hes amazing. Jose montano is just 12 years old. Not only did he teach himself to play, he did it while overcoming a disability. Aimee cho has his story. Reporter jose starts to perform, its music to anyones ears. But to truly appreciate his piano playing prowess, you have to consider hes doing it from an uneven playing field. You see, jose was born blind. My ears listen to music and then member mover rise it. Reporter thats all it takes for him to master a piece. Hes had a few lessons but for the most part this piano prodigy is selftaught. I play music with my heart. Thats why i play music, its born of my heart. Reporter that music in his heart is why he hopes to become one day a piano teacher. You have to feel the music. You have to enjoy it and also share with others. Reporter at just 12 hes already figured out the key to success. In northwest, aimee cho, news 4. Talk about feeling the music. So soulful. I can feel when hes playing it. Old man playing the piano. Hes been around a lot. Do you know any local super kids we should be talking to as well from music, to art, to academics, sports, anything out there, wed love to be told about them, about to smell like spring. The cathedral ground is covered with flowers, food, ride, gifts. 78th annual flower mart. I bought a bonsai tree. If you cant make it today, the flower mart is tomb. A massive fire. Several members of one family forced out. New details that sent a local firefighter to the hospital. Arrested on a field rngts. This morning we have a lot of heavy rain to talk about. Very wet morning commute with more heavy rain coming in in just a bit. Chuck and i aibeat or cheat or compemistreat you simplify you, classify you deny, defy or crucify you all i really wanna do friday commute will be impacted by the weather. Im going to show you what the roads look like. Melissa me lay will show you how to get around it all. One of the problems to get around right now. New issue top of the beltway. Take a look. News 4 begins now with storm team 4. Lets start you off outside. A live look at conditions on the roads right now. Flood watches have been issued in some parts of our area and minor flooding has already been reported. We still have hours to go as this large storm whirls into the region. Were talking about periods of heavy rain this morning, scattered thunderstorms maybe this afternoon and how all of this is going to impact your weekend. Weather alert coverage begins with storm team 4 meteorologist chuck bell and sheena parveen. Very rainy outside this morning. We have a lot of heavy very long time. Flood risk going to be starting to increase. Flood watches out towards the Shenandoah Valley. No watches in and around the city. These are severe. Coming northbound culpepper to spotsylvania and quantico. Certainly bring a wash of heavy rain to the eyethat. Temperatures in the upper 50s and low 60s. Briefly in the low 70s. Heavy rain and chance for strong, potentially severe thunderstorms later on this afternoon. Good morning, melissa. Couple problems on the beltway. Live look showing where the rai the drops on the lens of the camera. Outer loop after connecticut, that change. Some delays top of the beltway. Inner loop at the American Legion bridge. 270 southbound, montgomery avenue, it is nasty there. Slow there from a new crash. 95 north. 66 and 95 slow in the normal spots again. Only see on channel 4 the radar, the green, yellow, orange showing you where those roads are wet. Let me tell you, just about everywhere. Un . Melissa, thank you. Time, 6 32. Little more information about a shooting we brought you from the live desk. Police tell us a man was shot near the benning road metro station. Happened very close to the metro station. They do not have a lookout for a suspect. Heres a look at the other top stories. Delaware state trooper will be laid to rest today. Corporal Steve Ballard was shot and killed a of he confronted two suspects at a wawa. He leaves behind a whief and a daughter. Police searching for this gaithersburg man named hard hardi rex tanadju. He may be driving a lincoln mkx with maryland tags. Delta apologizes after a family was threatened with jail time and was ejected. Video of the april 23rd incident was uploaded to youtube this week. The airline wanted their 2yearold to sit in their lap. Delta is offering them refunds and compensation. This morning details coming out of person who parents have been putting their trust in for years. A soccer coach is facing charges for allegedly sexually abusing a player. They arrested Miguel Flores while he was coaching on wednesday. Megan mcgrath is live with details. Megan . Reporter eun and aaron, the abuse allegedly happened in the summer of 2015. The girl was 17 years old then. 47yearold Miguel Flores. He was arrested yesterday at the Center Parkway the center way park soccer field while he was coaching his team. Thats the same field the abuse happened. According to charging documents, they said flores would touch her under her shirt. Police say this happened several times. Because he worked around other children theres a possibility there could be other victims. Detectives believe there may be other victims who sometimes are reluctant to come forward. We dont want them to feel that way. Come forward, talk to investigators, let us know. Reporter and police stress that immigration status is never an issue when witnesses and victims come forward to Montgomery County police. They dont want people to be afraid, they want you to come talk to investigators if you have concerns. Megan mcgrath. Thank you. 6 35. Neighbors are shot after a murdered victim was found yards from their front door. Someone found a man in the woods on berlin hits. Investigate horse will release the family. She woke up to an attacker inside her apartment. Youre about to hear from her. We do want to say for safety reasons were not showing her face and we have altered her voice. I was going to fight and defend myself against this masked man and i was able to get him to stop attacking me and he got away. Now the woman said the trouble started two weeks ago when someone left sexually explicit notes at her door. She filed a Police Report but then the masked man broke in this past saturday. 6 36. President trump claiming his first legislative victory. Not everyone is happy about it. Lawmakers who came out of the capitol after the republicans passed the bill. They loaded into buses to go to the white house to celebrate with president trump. Its not clear how much it costs and how many might be affected. Erika gonzalez is live with the changes. There are some things that will remain from the Affordable Care act, like kids can stay on their parents the American Health care act tracks the mandates. Youll no longer be required to have health insurance. It changes the details for folks with preexisting conditions and the controversial Medicaid Expansion will be frozen immediately. Instead each state will get a fixed amount of money to pay. Under this plan the income people. The losers are lower income, those who have preexisting conditions. Secret software may be helping one of the districts most popular Ride Sharing Services play a cat and mouse game with transportation regulators. According to the Washington Post they say uber was scoping out investigators. It is getting physical. Yikes. The battle on the hardwood goes a little too far. The one play during the wizards game that could impact the future of this playoff series. Plus, system has had all over the country. Radar shows it being a slow. Wet go. Storm team 4 is in narrator the time is always right to do what is right. Ralph northam. Army doctor during the gulf war. Volunteer director of a pediatric hospice. Progressive democrat. In the senate, he passed the smoking ban in restaurants, stopped the transvaginal ultrasound antichoice law, and stood up to the nra. As lieutenant governor, dr. Northam is fighting to expand access to affordable healthcare. Ralph northam believes in making progress every day. And he wont let donald trump stop us. Are you one sneeze away from being voted out of the carpool . Try zyrtec® its starts working hard at hour one and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day. Stick with zyrtec® and muddle no more®. Theres the view. Theres more to life than the climb. Youve gotta stop and look around a little. Let the child inside you out to play. Remember who you are. Life is for the taking, not for taking it easy. Asheville. Discovery, inside and out. News 4 gips now with storm team 4. Now on news 4 today were working for you on this weather alert day. Take a look at the conditions outside right now before you head out. Weve been monitoring the weather for you all morning and we already have started to hear about some storm damage out there. This is far from over, folks. 6 46. Take a look at this radar. Heavy rain arrives in the region. All over the place. Its really impacting visibility on the roads as well. We have a Team Monitoring the storm and the impacts for you this morning. Well have more on the timing of the storm and how long it will last. First, we want to get to the impact. News 4s molette green traveling around the morning in our region. Molette, what are you seeing and where guess what, we just drove upon a downed tree on klingle road near adams mills road. Look at that, all the west bound lanes closed to traffic. Melissa mollet has been talking about this thing. Look at all of those branches that are down there in the roadway. No going by this thing. As we carefully move around were showing you this major traffic impact. Now down the way is a traffic light and, of course, the Winnipeg Jets bound traffic not getting through. Dont see any road crews out here just yet but quite a mess here on the roads here in this area of northwest dc. Klingle road near adams mills road no going. Westbound reason closed to you. Back to you in the city. Well probably see take a look at this video of this devastating flooding. Entire communities are underwater in multiple states. The worst hit areas are alabama, arkansas. Nine people died and thousands had to evacuate their homes. If you havent downloaded our nbc washington app, this is the time to do it. Chuck and sheena have more on the timing. 6 48. Check in with Erika Gonzalez talking about a fire that injured a firefighter. Erika . We dont know the cause behind the fire, but if these flames are any reflection of the damage to this home, i mean, its just incredible. Incredible also to think that all seven family members we understand made it out safely. They are being assisted by the red cross. This was last night in the city of manassas. This was a took them several minutes to get this under control. As you mentioned, we do understand one firefighter had to be taken to the hospital. We understand that those injuries are nonlife threatening. Good news there. From the live desk there im Erika Gonzalez. Thank you, erica. Today the 17yearold accused in the suspected rape is back in court. Prosecutors say the two boys exchanged messages plotting the attack. His lawyer claims the encounter was consensual. University of maryland man has been questioned. Hes described as having a goatee with gray hair and he wears glasses. Police say anyone who may have been a victim to contact them in order to proceed with criminal charges. This morning were getting new reaction from the university biased incident. A note was found inside the kitchen last week. The president of the fraternity said they were shocked and cant imagine why someone would do t. They are investigating the incident. Congress is now asking the department of education to investigate the racist incident at American University as a civil rights violation. Bananas hanging from nooses targeted the Student Union president and her sorority. They held a press conference demanding action. The fbi is also investigatinves. 6 50. The city Council Adopted a new budget and they raised the local property taxes 5. 7 cents. Average property taxes will go up about 356 bucks a year. The rest of the increases come from Stormwater Management and sewer Line Maintenance fees. The council says the money is needed to deem with over crowded schools, outdated sewers and to fund metro. If you missed it at 6 00, you may have seen it online. Jim vance made the announcement after recent announcements about his health. Couple of weeks ago doctors gave me some news, the kind of news nobody ever wants to hear. He said i have cancer and need treatment. So i have been getting that treatment and i have been coming in to work with my partners here whenever i can. And i shall continue to do that. In fact, i will insist on doing that. In the meantime, im doing okay. We know that well be keeping vance in our thoughts and we hope you will do the same. Vance well be fighting there with him. He will be here later today at news 4 at 6 00. 6 51. Get you up to speed on the morning commute. Live look road, you can see how this rain is affecting the morning commute. Had a report of a crash but not seeing it. Outer loop at connecticut avenue looking better than it was. Inner loop is okay as well. Inner loop at the American Legion bridge, do have the left lane blocked. Outer loop before the toll road. Left side blocked before the crash. You can see the beltway starting to see some slowdowns around the area i would say because of the rain. So, again, when you see the screen, this yellow, this orange, this is the only place you can see it on channel 4. The radar on top of the road showing you where it is the worst. Northbound 95 after 198 crash there. Fowler road left lane getting by. 66 and 95. Gw at 395. Street flooding. Slower than normal because of the rain. I love you but can i blame that on you . I will shoulder the blame on yourha start today. The rain will get heavier before we get a break in the action. Look at the line of heavy duty rain coming through parts of central virginia. There is a tornado watch down across tide water virginia and isolated tornado warnings. A very energized storm system. The highest risk for Severe Weather will be down to the south and east of the d. C. Metro area. We still will have a chance later on today so heaviest rain before lunch. Theres the heavy rain south of culpepper and louisea. This is near spotsylvania. It will be arriving in the next hour to hour and a half. Pockets of moderate rain inside the district as well as northern prince georges county. All of those individual rain drops going northbound. Theres rain. Future weather, 8 00. Yellow and red means heavy rain. By 10 00 the heaviest of the rain is along the bay and the eastern shore. We may actually get a little sliver or two of sunshine early this afternoon. Thats not necessarily good news because that will destabilize the atmosphere and by 2 00, 3 00, 4 00 in the afternoon, a possibility of strong to severe storms. Stay weather alert during the day. A lot of extra postings on all of our social media platforms and have your nbc washington app ready to go. Cool and showery for saturday. A lot of clouds on sunday as well. The cooler weather lasts. Chuck, thank you. We are closing in on our week long sugar free challenge. A lot of you have joint in on the challenge. This morning were asking you to through social media using sugarfree and nbc4dc. After this join us on Facebook Live with the doctor. The wizards get two days off before they play again, but we dont know if kelly aubrey jr. Will be able to play again. Take a look at this hit. He gets up and, boom. He slammed into a celtics player there. He was knocked to the ground. This moment cleared the benches as you can imagine. The wizards are down in the series two games to one. 6 55. 4 things to know. Montgomery county police say Miguel Flores is accused of sexually assaulting a 7yearold girl in 2015. He is a youth socr victims. Prump gets his first legislative victory as the house passes the American Health care act. The first step to repeal obamacare. Delaware state trooper stephen balance lashd will be laid to rest today. He was shot and killed while on the job. Ballard was from bowie, maryland, he leaves behind a wife and 35yearold daughter. Take a look at this. Northwest d. C. , the westbound lanes are closed. Follow first four traffic for updates. Watching that this morning. 270 at montrose road, you can see the rain falling across the area this morning. Outer loop after connecticut, better than it was. Rest of the beltway a little slow here and there including outer loop before the toll road. Guys . It is very rainy morning. It is going to be a little bit stormy here and there. Some heavy rain around and, well, the rain is going to put out a fire in the building, thats for sure. We need t fire in the studio. This cake is no longer edible but happy birthday to you. Look how good you look. Happy birthday to you. Blow them out. It may be 50 but im going down with the flames. Come on. The cake is burning. Yeah set off the smoke alarm in here. Birthday is next week, tuesday, right . Enjoy your weekend. Make it a great friday, everybody Award Winning interface. Award winning engine. The volvo xc90. The most awarded luxury suv of the century. [car engine failing to start] [wind blows] yo wh ah he [gas pouring] [slurps loudly] [engine starting] [loud slurping continues] good morning, victory lap. Good morning. Victory lap . Obamacare is no longer living. President trump hails his win in the house during his first trip to new york since the inauguration. Major hurdles await. Why even republicans in the senate are saying its far from a done deal. Weekend washout. New downpours adding to flooding in the midwest. The dangerous storms pushing east today. Heavy rains from maryland to massachusetts. Tornado threats in the south. Al is tracking it all. Fresh from her stint as ambassador to japan, Caroline Kennedy returns set to