conditions. let s go live to california where the snow is lingering. no melting yet, right? a little bit. because the sun is out, finally, we re back to the sun. what we re used to here in southern california. but a lot of the accumulation is here. we got about 1 to 2 feet of snow in this area alone as you mentioned in higher elevation areas, almost 6 feet of snow. that s a lot of snow. and southern californians are just not used to this type of weather. there have been a lot of headaches, a lot of people that have been stranded and, unfortunately, we re still waiting for interstate five to open up. this is the highway right behind me. as you can see, it is still empty. we ve seen some of those snow trucks trying to clear not just the highway, but you also have to remember that they re trying to clear the on and off-ramps, the exits. there s a lot that goes into play here. i ve seen people who are waiting
more rain and more snow in the higher elevation areas, fred. that is terrible. thank you so much, camila. britley, they re not out of the woods yet. meantime, millions of americans in other places are bracing for, at the. reporter: least, severe wind gusts. absolutely. we re watching the next system roll into northern california. eventually that s going to slide on down into southern california where camila is. this is a big problem when it comes to getting a lot of rain in a short amount of time. you wind up with the ground crumbling, snow and travel concerns across the higher elevations. the first system pushing east causing the threat for thunderstorms, already seeing a few of them fire up here across the central plains, but eventually bringing in the threat for severe weather. we have a few hours until that really gets started. we have warm, moist air, plus the lift from the front itself bringing the area highlighted in red. tulsa, just north of wichita fighting hawks, that
they can t make enough progress to open the road. the entire day, i-5 has been closed. this is a major highway between los angeles and san francisco. and yet, everyone around me asking, when will they open it? we can t do anything about this weather. people in southern california are just not used to this time of snow. i mean, if i take a few steps, you will see how deep the snow is. you talk about eight feet? that is in the high elevation areas. seven or eight feet of snow in the lower elevation areas, maybe three, four feet. scientists saying this could be historic. something we have not seen in southern california ever when it comes to a single event of snowfall. so it is just unbelievable in terms of what we can see over the next couple of days. now, in l.a., further south, a little bit east, it has been a mess because of the rain. a lot of flooding, cars have been stranded. and again, a similar scenario.
essentially stuck if they were here when the highway was closed. we talked to a lot of the drivers that have been stranded with nowhere to go, having to sleep here overnight. some of them even sleeping in their cars. here are some of those drivers. i ve been driving for, like, 16 years, but i ve never seen it like this in california. i try to avoid it or get around it, and it caught me. i didn t think it was going to be dumping this much. this blizzard came out of nowhere and now the i-5 closed down and now we can t leave. reporter: i just want to walk a little bit to show you how deep the snow is. we ve been here the last couple of days. we are stuck here. there s nowhere to go at the moment. in the higher elevation areas we could get 7, 8 feet of snow. in the lower, maybe 3, 4 feet of snow. there s a lot of wind in some of the most impacted areas, maybe
elevation areas. one person at least killed, crashing into a flood control canal. l.a. fire actually forced to rescue at least four people, even some pets surrounded by those flood waters. but again, the snow really the story here as this view so rare to see other the san bernardino mountains, the santa cruz mountains, even as far south as san diego. this is going to be the continuing dangerous storm. for people in southern california who are maybe just not familiar with trying to-and-a-half gate through these snowy conditions can navigatt advised through the end of saturday, will. will: thank you so much. growing backlash over woke agendas on college cam ifs puss have led are major universities campuses. the university of texas pausing all new diversity, equity spin collusion rules following governor abbott s crackdown while unc votes to ban