 Dave Wood from Caltrans District 3 is it correct all right and tell me who you your title Dave Wood Donner Pass Area Superintendent Caltrans all right Dave Wood thanks for joining us today up there at Donner Pass tell me a little bit about what you're seeing right now up there well we have a tremendous amount of water in every form we have snow stacked up 40 50 feet high in storage areas that's slowly melting we have standing water at the side of the road we have overwell overwumped rivers and drains and behind me you have old Donner Pass road which is the old highway and we have a snowblower out there trying to clear out about four feet of water as there's a school down the road that's endangered okay so the Donner trail school okay so a combination of the rain that's been coming down and the snow that's melting as a result of the rain is causing this flooding is that right absolutely we have record setting amounts of snowfall in January and now we're getting tremendous amount of rain it's like standing in the shower out here and it can possibly melt the snowpack very quickly right now below six thousand feet it looks like spring time the snow is almost gone wow and so I'm assuming that besides the location that you're at the highways in general going up and over the pass are a problem as well with the rain well we have enough pitch on the the freeway here that it runs to the sides but there's places where it just overwhelms the drain it keeps going down stream there's enough standing water on the road it's actually possible to hike the plane going uphill or down okay so obviously with the trucks and the other cars I would think that the key advice here would be for people to slow down right absolutely the number one thing you could do to be safe up here is slow down after that be prepared know what you're getting yourself into weather wise by checking the weather go to caltransquickmaps.com you can check the traffic there and any restrictions such as chains or cables necessary and and turn off anything any device or anything that's going to distract you because you need to be paying attention to conditions it's pretty fierce we're in the middle of the wilderness out here and Mother Nature's in full force absolutely and I understand and tell me if you know anything about it I heard you guys have a new a new app I'm sorry a new application for your phone yes that's the caltrans quick map I was talking about that's downloadable to mobile devices you just can't go anywhere in California anymore without checking quick maps first all right sounds good and so in the next let's say the next 12 to 24 hours what are you guys expecting up there we're expecting to four and a half inches of rain that will turn into snow Thursday afternoon into Friday and it's safer for us to have it turn into snow but we're already stacked up snow 25 feet in places on the summit we're running out of places to put it at least the snow gives us more time to deal with the water and the runoff if we get all rain and it starts melting the rest of the snow back right and your camera person there is showing me the snow packed up along the side can you have him or her show me what's going on behind you well we have a snowblower in the background they were blowing water out of a drain to try and get it off the roadway the schools down the road from us here and snowblower is very effective as a water pump and we just have to clear this drain out make sure it's running in capacity to get the water off of this road yeah hey good work up there keep up the great work thanks for the great advice and one thing before I let you go I love the cowboy hat I want one well thank you me too available online I think it was 32 bucks delivered between the cowboy hat and the mustache everybody absolutely no that's a great idea so people can actually buy one of those things are they safe I'm sorry I can't hear you cuz it's traffic so are do they actually protect absolutely it's a safety rated hat I wouldn't wear it otherwise get out that's fantastic hey Dave Dave Wood up there at Donner Pass thanks so much