Extreme Weather on the West Coast; New Developments in Case of Missing Hiker
NGUYEN: Talk about severe weather, Reynolds Wolf, you have bear the brunt of a lot of it throughout the nation, and today we're talking feet of snow. Correct?</s>WOLF: Absolutely. Here in Truckee, anywhere from one to three feet of snow, but in the higher mountain passes they got upwards of some places around seven feet of snow. We're still under a blizzard warning here in Truckee and toward much of the Sierra Nevada, although the heavy snow fall has begun to move off. So, looks like things are going to settle to get better. As we mentioned, 10:00 a.m. is going to be the cutoff time, and by that point, we should be in a big-time state of improvement. Roads are starting to clear up a little bit but still I-80 remains closed. I'll give you the full scope coming up.</s>NGUYEN: All right, looking for to that. Thank you.</s>HOLMES: All right. Got a few stories need to tell you about here. First: The previously unheard of Islamic group has claimed responsibility for the killing of U.S. diplomat, John Michael Granville in Sudan. The group put the statements on several Islamic Web sites making that claim. Granville has stood in his driver was shot and killed earlier this week.</s>NGUYEN: Well, Colombia's top</s>HOLMES: And I'm T.J. Holmes, hello to you all. Thank you for starting your day right here with us. It is a big day, big weekend in politics. All the attention now on New Hampshire.</s>NGUYEN: The candidates are there and so are we, live coverage of all the big events this morning.</s>HOLMES: I got another big event going on right now, a big storm out in California. We start with that weather out there making life miserable for folks in</s>NGUYEN: Listen to this. There are reports of early morning flooding and mudslides in southern California. Still though, the worst may be yet to come. People there have been trying to prepare with sandbags and hay bales and so far about 3,000 people were ordered to evacuate.</s>HOLMES: Heavy rains and strong winds made travel treacherous in the San Francisco area. Trees limbs down all over the place and sometimes they're finding targets like that vehicle you see. More than half a million people still without power this morning in northern California.</s>NGUYEN: Up in the Sierras there's a whole lot of snow. Look at this. Forecasters say as much as 10 feet of snow could fall up there. Already the main interstate through the area has been closed. The Red Cross has opened a shelter in Truckee, California to help travelers stranded by all that snow.</s>HOLMES: All that snow is what CNN's Reynolds Wolf is in and he is on it for us in Truckee, California. Good morning to you, again, sir.</s>WOLF: Good morning to both of you. I got to tell you right now if you're obviously watching, not to</s>NGUYEN: All right Reynolds, thank you. To the latest now from Brad Huffines, he is following this storm in California. He joins us live now at CNN center. What are you seeing, Brad?</s>HUFFINES: Well Betty, as that storm now continues to move inland, the heavier snows are now moving into intermountain west and the rain showers now down south. But as that storm pushes across parts of Utah into Colorado, several areas, wind warnings, wind advisories being issued. I want to take you now to Denver, Colorado, where we're seeing a very calm and fairly serene picture right now. Inside of Denver, KUSA courtesy of, you're seeing the really light winds, fairly nice weather there this morning in Denver, but up in the mountains and across the mountains through I-70, some wind profiles or high profile vehicles could see some real problems due to the wind threat that continues to move toward portions of inland and high elevation Colorado. Now as you're looking now at all the winter storm warnings, still as they're spreading from the west coast to the intermountain west, you're seeing snow advisories and winter storm watches and warnings from Salt Lake City up into just about Denver, but again, most of the highest elevations seeing those problems. And the other issue with this continues to be the very heavy rains, two to four inches of rain possible today across the coastal section and valleys of southern California, five to 10 inches of rain in the mountains. And of course you can imagine what that will do to the burned, scorched areas and the mudslides that are going to be likely across parts of southern California as that storm continues to push in. How much rain so far? So far, this is not including what will fall today, up to eight inches of rain in Goleta, California, Cambria, almost seven inches, Santa Barbara even about seven inches of rain. So as you can imagine, the rain that has no place to go will soak in and eventually guys, the mud is going to come down with it, so people in Southern California need to be really careful with this storm. More on that coming up later this morning.</s>NGUYEN: All right, Brad, thanks. Police this morning are questioning a man that they are calling a person of interest in the case of a hiker missing in the mountains of north Georgia.</s>HOLMES: Twenty-four-year-old Meredith Emerson disappeared after she went hiking on New Year's Day. Family and friends have joined rescue teams combing a 400 square mile area, looking for her now.</s>NGUYEN: And CNN's Reggie Aqui joins us live from Blood Mountain in northern Georgia. Talk to us about this latest development in the search.</s>AQUI: Right, well, Meredith Emerson was last seen on New Year's Day here. She came here with her dog to go hiking and that was the last time anyone saw her. Now we do know that several witnesses saw her with a man, that person of interest. We'll get to that in just a second. But first I want to show you, as people begin gathering here once again this morning, you can see that folks are here from the Georgia defense force. They're going to go out and search once again. We're talking about a 400 square mile area that they have to comb through to try and find this missing 24-year-old. Now let's get to these big developments that happened late last night. Now just north of Atlanta in a suburb of Atlanta, police are telling us they got two 911 calls around 7:40 last night. They got a call that someone had seen a man that looked to be the person police were looking for, the person eyewitnesses say they saw Meredith Emerson with the day that she disappeared. Turns out those people who called 911 were right. Police got to a gas station, they went inside a convenience store and found Gary Michael Hilton, the 61-year-old they have been trying to find for the past couple of days. They're interviewing him right now. Exactly what information they're getting from that we don't know yet, and hopefully we'll get more information from the investigators later today. There was a second big break in the case. As I mentioned at the top, Meredith came here with her dog Ella, a black lab on New Year's Day and we're told that her black lab was actually playing with Gary Michael Hilton's dog at the time when they were last seen on the trails here. I just talked to Meredith's roommate a few minutes ago. She was telling me her reaction after hearing that that dog was found 50 miles away from where I'm standing today.</s>JULIE KARRENBAUER, MEREDITH EMERSON'S ROOMATE: We're all obviously hoping that the dog was still with Meredith. But at some point, you don't know if you're an animal that you stay with your owner or do you try and go get help. That's the situation that we don't know. And, you know, I mean it's just like Ella to stroll into a Kroger and say, here I am. It's a little concerning that they're not together, but you can't draw too many conclusions from that.</s>AQUI: And you heard her say that the dog just walked into a Kroger. That's exactly what investigators are saying. They found this dog, they took it to a vet. The vet was able to scan that microchip that some dogs have and they were able to positively identify that dog did belong to this missing 24-year-old. Now I should tell you Betty, after talking to that roommate, I thought it was remarkable how well she has been able to keep it together. She's been out here every day. It's been extremely cold during the day and during the night, hoping and waiting for someone to come back with some good news that her roommate is out here somewhere and that she's somehow able to survive and is in good condition.</s>NGUYEN: It's been very cold overnight. But back to the dog walking into the Kroger store, I got to ask you this, that store wasn't exactly close to where Meredith and the dog were last seen, what, about 50 miles away.</s>AQUI: Fifty miles away and so you can see just how far this is now reaching, because the dog was 50 miles away and then the man, the person of interest, Hilton was close to Atlanta. And just to do some quick geography for you, it takes about 90 minutes to go from Atlanta up here to the mountains. So now investigators are moving to comb out at least three locations, trying to figure out how all these pieces come together.</s>NGUYEN: And a lot of work ahead of them, thank you, Reggie Aqui joining us live today. We do appreciate it.</s>HOLMES: And now disturbing new information to tell you about on the deaths of two American soldiers killed in Iraq. It happened the day after Christmas. The U.S. military says they were allegedly killed now by Iraqi army soldier during a joint operation near Mogul. The military said they don't know why the Iraqi soldier opened fire on U.S. troops. That Iraqi soldier now in custody along with two other Iraqi soldiers. Three U.S. soldiers were wounded in that attack.</s>NGUYEN: Let's move onto politics now because Iowa is so yesterday's news, we want to tell you about New Hampshire. It's now the focus of the presidential candidates with just a couple days left until Tuesday's primary. And as our Dana Bash reports, the granite state is offering a new challenge for one early front-runner.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here's something you don't hear much from Republican presidential candidates.</s>MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And let's rock the house.</s>BASH: Three songs on bass guitar with "Mama Kicks," a favorite New Hampshire band. Mike Huckabee may look like he's just celebrating his big Iowa win. But he's also trying to convince New Hampshire voters to give him a chance.</s>HUCKABEE: This coming Tuesday, you have an opportunity to take a stand and I hope send a message to the rest of America, there's a fresh, new wind blowing in this country.</s>BASH: He's hoping to put to rest questions about whether he can harness his momentum.</s>HUCKABEE: I have been listening to the television pundits who said, well, Huckabee did well in Iowa, but he won't do that well in New Hampshire. Why not? I have not lived here. I have not perhaps run for office here before. I have not spent gazillion's of dollars trying to convince you what a wonderful person I am.</s>BASH: Huckabee's biggest challenge -- proving he can prevail in states like New Hampshire that don't have the kind of big evangelical base that fueled his Iowa upset, so he's changed his pitch. Noticeably absent were frequent promises in Iowa to oppose abortion and same sex marriage, instead an appeal to granite state live free or die libertarians.</s>HUCKABEE: I don't trust the government or the private insurance companies to take care of me. I want to take care of me. I think...</s>BASH: And a staunchly anti-tax Republican base.</s>HUCKABEE: Scrap the tax system, get rid of the IRS, end all of the taxes on our income and productivity and move to a consumption tax that everybody has to pay including all the people who are operating the multi-billion dollar underground economy.</s>BASH (on-camera): Huckabee advisors admit the next presidential contest states that's most fertile ground for the former preacher is not New Hampshire. It's South Carolina, which has a big evangelical base. The reason they tell us he's staying here in New Hampshire until next Tuesday's primary is a practical one because we in the national press corps are here and for a campaign still struggling for cash, they want what political strategists call free media. Dana Bash, CNN, Henniker, New Hampshire.</s>HOLMES: And the New Hampshire scramble is on for the Democrats as well. The big three there, no disrespect to the others in the race, but you see what we're getting at. Those three are all in different parts of the state this morning. Obama is in Nashua, Clinton in Pinnekook (ph) and then Edwards kicks off things in Portsmouth. We'll keep an eye on all of them, bring you parts of those events as they happen. And CNN's Ballot Bowls, we're in the season of football and bowls, so we're having the ballot bowl. We're bringing it back. We're doing it again this afternoon. It's all about the candidates in their own words. Ballot bowl kicks off at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time.</s>NGUYEN: All right T.J. So we all would love to live our lives by the golden rule, treat others like you would want to be treated.</s>HOLMES: Yes. We all do that. We do that around here.</s>NGUYEN: Pretty much. But that's not actually the case for many folks.</s>HOLMES: When we come back, we're going to introduce you to this gentleman, who was a good example of that golden rule. Let's see if you would do what this guy ...</s>NGUYEN: ... which is so refreshing I was going to say. And here's a preview of today's "HOUSE CALL" as well with Dr. Sanjay Gupta.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning everybody. Could you be a medical hero? Today on "HOUSE CALL," we introduce you to everyday people doing small things that make a huge impact, stories that prove that anyone can make a difference. Plus, are you prepared for a medical emergency? Tune in for tips you can use to avoid confusion if you find yourself rushed into the emergency room and your e-mail questions answered in our ask the doctor segment, all that and more coming up on "HOUSE CALL" at 8:30.