Using Curbside Pickup here in the bay area some stores did not see the large crowds that were anticipated, but that depends on where you did your shopping today kron fours gayle ong talked to shoppers in walnut creek. She joins us now live with more gayle. Vicki and can i actually spoke to a manager at lululemon where the wait time was about 45 minutes and part of the reason was because they were following Covid Protocols and up staying under the Maximum Capacity to avoid those lines Health Experts are encouraging people to stay home and shop online get your deals that way at least one person i spoke to got that message. Looking at the lines and thinking were glad that will be done most of our shopping online on black friday lines out the door at Broadway Plaza in walnut creek still stores doing their best to make sure everyone stay safe in the age of covid19 theyre doing a very good job with the social distancing a lot of people Wearing Masks out here a different story in the morning at Hacienda Crossings Shopping Center in dublin. Best buy didnt see the overnight lines as shoppers offer Curbside Pickup this year taking advantage of deals on electronics, the new 500 playstation 5 was sold out at the bay street shops in emeryville people lined up in the afternoon. But a spokesperson for the Shopping Center says its been very calm. Many stores started their black friday deals early to encourage Online Shopping to avoid crowds. Back at Broadway Plaza tradition was hard to discourage still people showing up definitely a concern of ours because the cases have risen quite a lot in the couple the past couple weeks. But we felt you we wear masks and do our part its definitely. Safer and most of the shops around here so requiring you to wear masks and do the proper coronavirus protocols i got a mosque you go to mosque. We are in the stores know this know some of those great retail experts say while sales at brick and Mortar Stores will be down Internet Sales will be up. Were you to car surfing right so thats why this to kind of keep social distancing. Trying to follow you know what they need to do. Well black friday is the unofficial start of the Holiday Season. Health experts are recommending people shop online do Curbside Pickup like that customer we just heard from many stores and Small Businesses they have been adjusting to curbside in Online Shopping early in the pandemic here in walnut creek gayle ong kron 4 news. Thank you gayle to the south bay now Santa Clara CountyOfficials Say they warned dozens of businesses for failing to comply with countys covid19 safety protocols during the Holiday Shopping season. Officials say 76 businesses failed to submit and post a row by social distancing protocol to inform the public on the stores policies. The county Compliance Team will continue visiting high traffic shopping areas throughout the weekend. With a number of covid cases surging here in the bay area and beyond today, the San FranciscoHealth Department announced its rolling out a new tool to help with Contact Tracing the city now turning to a Virtual Assistant to help with the fight our kron fours dan dorn live for us in San Francisco tonight, he joins us. With more on this new tool to help combat. The virus. Thats right can the Health Department says that this new tool is actually a part of the states Contact Tracing platform which is already being used in other counties like santa clara, the Health Department has already had 200 people working 7 days a week as contact tracers. But as these numbers continue to go up theyre using everything at their disposal. As covid19 cases surge across the bay area, San FranciscoHealth Leaders are taking a new approach to identifying positive cases and stopping the spread. To supplement efforts through Contact Tracing the Health Department is deploying a Virtual Assistant we are utilizing all of our tools, including this ensure that we can still reach everyone so our goal and the way were operating as of now is to continue to reach everyone people who came into contact with someone who tested positive would receive a text from the Health Department alerting them of possible exposure and exposure in this case would be being within 6 feet of someone who tested positive for at least 10 minutes. Health Officials Say the information put into the system will help them better understand how the virus is spread from person to person answering these questions really shortens the time that we need to speak to on the phone so this is the most effective and efficient way to make sure using our resources overall in the best way to support San Francisco, although the tool has been getting used in other counties, San Francisco is now taking advantage of it. If someone tests positive for covid19 they can use this system to share results, including any symptoms. Health Officials Say engagement is crucial please pick up the phone when we reach out. Well if you are contacted by the Health Department over the whether thats a phone call or a text message they will not be asking for any Payment Information your immigration status or asking for your Social Security number reporting live in San Francisco. Dan thorn kron 4 news dan thank you coronavirus cases are also surging in Los Angeles County and today. Health officials issued a new stay at home order banning most gatherings this week the 3 week order which takes effect on monday bans all public and private gatherings with people not in your household, Church Services and protests are exempt because those are constitutionally protected rights the order comes as the county averages more than 4700 new covid cases over the past 5 days and almost 2000 people there are now hospitalized. There are now nearly 13 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus here in the u. S. In this new surge is spreading quickly. California reported a record high 12,000 new cases today. And across the country hospitalizations are spiraling out of control as well with more than 90,000 thats new record for the 16th day in a row. A nationwide more than 264,000 people have died from covid19 while here in california. The death toll topped 19,000 today. And there have been nearly 1. 2 million infections. Doctor Anthony Fauci says this could be the start of a dark Holiday Season is the surge in coronavirus cases is likely to persist or even get worse through december, january and february fauci says the country is in a vulnerable position heading into the Holiday Season because of factions are too high to control surges when they arise. Doctor fauci celebrated thanksgiving with his daughters over zoom and says he plans to do the same thing over christmas. Happening now the highway patrols maximum enforcement period is officially underway. All traffic may be a lot lighter these days as a result of the pandemic as you can see in this live picture the bay bridge toll plaza officers say some drivers are taking advantage of the open space on the roads by putting the pedal to the metal speeders and drunk drivers are on the chp is radar this weekend as kron fours rob fladeboe reports for us tonight officers hope the increase patrol presence will be enough to get drivers to follow the rules of the road. Urged to stay close to home amid the still surging pandemic there was some beach traffic here on highway 17 today, lots of people shopping for Christmas Trees and black friday deals as well since its thanksgiving holiday maximum enforcement period began wednesday evening. The south bay chp has made 5 arrests for driving under the influence. But even one the lie is one too many says the chp is officer ross led if we have anybody is out then. Then in make that choice and decision to drink and drive and put their lives and the lives of of. The general public, the passengers. Anybody on the line. It is too much for us, its not just drug driving that has the chp stepping up patrols statewide. Theyre also watching for distracted driving and speeding traffic across the region has generally been relatively lighter than usual in recent days as a result of the pandemic between that and the recently imposed curfew in some places less traffic led to a tendency to drive a little faster says officer lee with less traffic cars moving faster so we want to really remind people and be a visual presence out there my people slow down. Just because theres less volume of traffic and not many cars on the road does not mean that the speed limit his change or the becomes any safer to drive a highspeed anecdotal evidence suggests more room on the road is also led to an uptick in reckless driving. The chp is looking for that too. Well helping motorists in need the maximum e forcement period ends at 1159 sunday night there were 42 fatalities during the enforcement period statewide last year. 27 of which were in the chp jurisdiction along with 867 arrest for dui the overall numbers regionally and statewide so far this year were not immediately available. Along highway 17 rob fladeboe kron 4 news. And now to the east bay where the chp is investigating a deadly crash overnight Authorities Say just before 1 oclock this morning. A toyota got hit by a big rig in the middle of interstate 80 at Market Street in oakland. The chp officers say they found the driver dead outside his car. Officers dont know whether the driver was inside the car with a big hit it or if he was outside the car. The driver of the truck was not i jured and stayed on scene after the crash. Also in the east bay Oakland Police say 2 people are hospitalized after a car crash late last night it happened around 9 oclock along east cypress road and nights in avenue when First Responders arrived on the scene they say they found one of the victim suffering from major injuries had to be airlifted to John Muir Medical Center in walnut creek. The other victim suffered minor injuries was also taken to the hospital. Police say both vehicles suffered major damage in the crash which is now under investigation. All right, lets switch gears now to our 4 zone forecast as we get a live look outside at downtown San Francisco, beautiful night and warrants a little chilly in some spots. Oh my goodness it is going to be cold the freezing mark in some parts of the bay area even inside the bay tonight. Theres a chance we could see a little frost so bundle up get that fire going chilly temperatures ahead as we look toward the weekend unfortunately, no rain right now to speak of and since were and that cold air is already in place very dry. Temperatures going to drop off in a hurry. Storm clouds moving well to the north you see the jet stream taking that cloud line all the way up to the Pacific Northwest and that is as close as it gets to us High Pressure just too strong right now on that ridge only weaken a little bit over the weekend so still a lot of sunshine coming your way maybe a few more clouds in the latter half of sunday. Winds not a big deal in fact yesterday we were howling some winds over 60 miles an hour over the mountain tops. Now we are calming down around the bay area that is going to lead to some very cold temperatures in fact youre down to 41 degrees in nevada right now 42 napa 45 in santa rosa. You get the idea some chilly temperatures now overnight lows. Theyre probably take a big dip all the way down to freezing in some parts of the north bay even some patchy frost inside the big guys. Thank you lawrence coming up tonight on kron 4 news at a going to the Supreme Court to be able to worship during the pandemic the request from some. State churches for the nations highest court to weigh in on californias pandemic rules plus another setback in President Trumps failing attempts to overturn the election. The new legal developments from a key battleground state and thousands of people in Southern California theyre without their power toni we have the power to harness californias Abundant Solar and wind energy, but its not available all day long. Use less energy from 4 to 9 pm for a cleaner california. Tonight powerful winds are posing a fire danger across Southern California putting utility crews and residents on high alert the santa ana winds are whipping up this weekend, a red flag warnings are in place as the conditions are extremely dry. The fire danger forcing Utility Companies to shut off power to thousands of people something were familiar with all about and weve done that a lot here in the bay area reporter Christina Pascucci has the very latest. We are pre deploying. Strike teams. Crews water tenders aircraft throughout the county. And fire station 89 in a gore hills to Santa Clarita as one 50 la county fire has deployed strike teams in response to gusty winds whipping through los angeles elevating fire danger were seeing ones in the sustained between 1015 miles per hour. But we see gusts up to 25 miles per hour. Its pretty rough out a lot of debris blown out trees and branches in one going across the road on cars back and forth and freeway the conditions are very similar to what we saw in the woolsey about but there was even hotter. A wind event that was more of a truce and the elevated temperatures as well la county fire strategically deploying units to one of the biggest wild land urban interface areas in la county and were a malibu interface all the way up through Ventura County and then over in the Santa Clarita up through lancaster and palmdale areas. It is there are areas where we think we might have the most of having the first round we have more fire trucks out here. More stations that here so i know theyre on it they have a plan. So cal edison wants to proactively mitigate fire danger so as of 04 00pm today, 12,000 of its 5 million customers are without power mostly in current in la countys making every effort to reduce the number and needed shocks. We actually have crews on the ground who are inspecting weather conditions up to 50,000 more customers could be impacted through tonight, mostly in la and San Bernardino counties visit s iii dot com forward slash psps for more information on that. Power is expected to be to these customers within 24 hours after the wind event ends and after the crews inspect the mind to determine if its safe to re energize. That was Christina Pascucci reporting for us tonight, check this out strong winds in Orange County toppled an outdoor set up at an anaheim church it. The winds blew away a massive tent in the parking lot there. Yeah, the church has been holding out or services him because the pandemic chief meteorologist Lawrence Karnow is tracking the strong winds and fire danger down there i joins us now with more lawrence yeah we have the strong gusty offshore winds here Southern California seeing the santa ana Winds Continuing there tonight. And theyre talk some very blustery conditions its not ended yet there are some places in Los Angeles County where some of the warnings have come down, but still you get a little further to the north you get into ventura up towards Santa Barbara you can see the red here you see the conditions up there not good as were seeing some 40 in some 50 mile an hour that red flag warning extended all the way until 6 oclock in the evening on saturday and humidity dropping down into the Single Digits in some spots not only there but also as you head down into Southern California towards san diego.