the height of the flood. we spoke with the minutes after he was rescued. kelly, on his way to work this morning, did not realize the water gushing onto piper lane in manassas was that threatening. >> i thought it was ok but it was mid door level once i got into it and the vehicle started floating. >> he no longer had control of his white pickup truck. they got to him in a matter of hours. >> there's not much you can do but hope it stops somewhere. >> challenged by the deluge of rain and the creek being overwhelmed, it took them several attempts to get to the trapped driver. >> we had about 10 incidents and of rescued four people. >> with the road turned into a river, crews were eventually able to safely reach the driver a driver who is that he is extremely embarrassed. >> i'm all right. just a damaged ego. >> they are urging drivers to use more common sense. >> just a couple inches of water will flowat your vehicle. if there are high water signs steer clear of the area. >> this is the second-highest percentage of flood related deaths. since this rescue this morning we understand there have been several more in prince william county. owner of the pickup truck tried to stop the truck about an hour ago, but it is still dead. john gonzalez reporting, abc 7 news. >> thanks so much. you'll see how much more rain we will get in the next couple days. adam caskey has a look at the forecast. still wet. >> especially in prince william county and in manassas and eastern fauquier county. that's where we still have a flood warning in effect. this is urban areas and small streams, a flood warning until 2:15 p.m. here is the radar screen. the popping up around the metro area but a few isolated showers popping up as a result of the clearing and the sunshine destabilize the atmosphere. north of strasbourg, virginia along the frederick cancer arundel county lines in the shenandoah valley south of winchester. in louisa county, southwest of spotsylvania there's another shower popping up. if that's all we have at this time. clouds will continue to break apart. we will squeeze in some sunshine. that will destabilize the atmosphere to add to the pending storms this afternoon. there could be isolated flooding concerns in northern virginia, loudoun, fauquier, western fairfax the. that is something you'll keep an eye on. >> a massive sinkhole occurred in prince william county on aden at misty creek. another was in bristow and another in nokesville. there was a 20-mile backup snarling the morning commute. a big tree fell onto interstate 395 near king street. two lanes were closed as their work to remove it. a tractor-trailer crash brought traffic on 95 in dale city to stop and an overturned car slowed traffic a few miles down the road. by noon, all those accidents had been cleared. you can check the forecast any time by logging on to our web page at wjla.com. >>new developments in a pay-to- play scheme bill in the district. d.c. mayor vincent gray's former campaign worker pleaded guilty to criminal charges. thomas gore accused of destroying evidence in a federal investigation. now let's get the latest from jummy olabanji at the court. what's all this unfolded within the past couple minutes. the case was supposed to start at 11:00 this morning but did not start until about 11:40. thomas gore did plead guilty as you mentioned. the judge first went over all the charges and asked if he understood all of them. he said that he did. then the judge said i understand you want to plead guilty to all the charges, to which he answered, i do. the prosecution explain how they came about the charges and the fbi investigation that was going on. the prosecutor discussed in the spring of 2010 that thomas gore and other members of candidate a who we assume was vincent gray transferred money secretly into sulaiman brown's account. they think that other people's names or put on the money orders. they wanted brown to continue verbal attacks on then-mayor adrian fenty. all this is being presented in court. they are using a lot of aliases. say they don't want to expose anyone's identity so far because more charges could be coming. once again thomas gore has pleaded guilty to 4 charges. we will not learn his sentence for quite some time. the judge says they will still be going through some of this stuff. but he does understand what the pleaded guilty to and that he is given up much of its rights by pleading guilty. much more on this story coming up on abc 7 news at 5:00. reporting live from northwest abc 7 news. see was a longtime supporter and friend of mayor gray. he was the main aid in charge of the 2010 campaign. he also served as the treasurer for vincent gray's previous d.c. council runs in 2004 and 2006. much more on that tonight at 5:00. a toddler from southeast d.c. is lucky to be alive after surviving a three-story fall from a building. it happened last night along the 800 block of jessup fig street. the circumstances around the toddler's fall are not clear. no word on the extent of the child's injuries. also police made an arrest in a cold case murder in montgomery county. 29-year-old dennis matt kibbe is in police custody in connection with the death of 24-year-old franklin a multi. franklin was shot to death on stewart lane in silver spring in december. -- dennis macabee sin custody after killing franklin amobe. and there was a home invasion where the couple was tied up, but no one was injured. call police if you have information. there was a prostitution scandal involving the drug enforcement administration. this comes in the wake of the secret service administration scandal. several agents accused of hiring prostitutes in colombia. the dea investigation is not related to the secret service scandal. prostitution is legal in colombia. the montgomery county dispatcher on paid leave after allegedly falling asleep while a woman called for help. >> [snoring] what is the address. >> the woman 's husband was having trouble breathing. the dispatcher was 17 hours into a 24-hour overtime shifts at the time of the incident. officials say the patient did not suffer any adverse effects as the result of the call. that story continued at 5:00. new red light camera is in northern virginia dishing out a large amount of tickets. cameras at south patrick and franklin streets, and two other spots have caught more than 3000 speeding drivers. alexandria police say they are startled by the numbers. $50 for running a red light for each of those violations. >> we are on the build and doing good. we are going to make it. >> coming up emerging from the rubble. one year later. the city destroyed by a massive tornado is rebuilding. a dramatic waterfall rescue caught on tape. and this may be hard to believe but traffic congestion is dropping nationwide. we will show you where d.c. ranks within the gridlock. we are still on storm watch as there's patchy [ male announcer ] strange things happen in the black forest... [ thunder crashes ] [ engine revs, tires screech ] ...where things aren't always what they seem... because thrills hide in the shadows... just waiting at every turn. verbolten -- a new multi-launch coaster coming to busch gardens. brave the black forest. clerks and amazing rescue caught on tape of a young boy hanging at the top of a waterfall. look to this amazing video. 13-year-old william hickman got stuck at wallace falls on saturday in washington state. he was dangling over the fast- moving water more than eight hours. he was huddled on a narrow rock shelf 270 feet up. had been hiking with his family when he lost his footing and slipped into the water. >> it scared me a lot. understandably. it took about two dozen messrs. to save him. they had to sleep overnight in a safe location until a helicopter to reach them in the morning. everybody's ok. nearly 200 people were killed by a giant tornado a year ago that ripped through the town of joplin, missouri taking lives, damaging lohomes, more than 17,000 people affected. brianne carter has the story of a city that went from the rubble to rebuilding. >> a year ago, this was the scene in joplin, missouri, and the deadliest tornado in six decades ripped through the city. now the debris is picked up and lots been leveled, residents trying to rebuild. >> we are doing good, but we are going to do better. we have a long road to travel. the way that everybody is working together and chipping in, we are going to make it if. >> the twister claimed collides of more than 150 people and injured hundreds more. this morning at a hospital where those people were treated, a more normal service to honor the staff and rescue workers -- and more. it's it has been pretty traumatic and we are doing the best we can to get through it. there is strong down a. a ground-breaking ceremony later today for three new buildings including a new high school. a massive pile of rubble sitting where the school once stood. students have been going to class at the shopping mall. >> congratulations, class. >> president obama delivered the commencement address last night to the graduating seniors. >> the people who went through this with you, the people you once thought of as simply acquaintances, neighbors classmates the people in this auditorium tonight -- u r family now. they are your family. >> other events marking the anniversary today include a walk through the path of the tornado and a moment of silence scheduled at 5:41 p.m. central time, the precise time the tornado hit. brianne carter, abc 7 news. >> thanks so much. hard to believe it's been a year already. terrible if. >> this may has been pretty quiet in terms of severe weather across the country. now we have moderated and we just don't have the setup of the widespread severe storms. sounds like summer is around the corner with your forecast. >> the unofficial start this summer is this weekend and you'll notice. already have the humidity and you will have the temperatures by the weekend. here's a time lapse of sky conditions from sunrise until the present time. we have a few light sprinkles and a little drizzle from earlier this morning, which did not amount to much anywhere. they were very light. then the clouds persisted through the early morning, but we are starting to see the clouds breakup in parts of our region. we are starting to see holes in the shenandoah valley, down south close to richmond, middle peninsula area, and especially roanoke. that's probably where we will see the most widespread showers and a thunderstorm. even around here, we will have showers and thunderstorms likely this afternoon and evening. we spoke about the holes in the clouds in the shenandoah valley. here's the results. sunshine. the sons and stabilizes the atmosphere and pops up a few showers. these are pretty weak. in frederick county, virginia, south the winchester, northwest of winchester as well. and just east of dulles airport around fairfax county parkway between the toll road and rte. 50, we have one little sprinkle that popped up along the edge of dulles airport in western fairfax county. that is all we have to speak of right now. later on today i expect showers and storms to become more widespread. they are slow-moving. that's because there's not much wind in the atmosphere to push the storms along. where they pop up, they will be there for quite some time. in isolated locations it could cause usflooding concerns especially in northern virginia. the locations where we have been heaviest rain yesterday. almost four inches in manassas. 72 degrees in washington right now. 80 degrees in charlottesville with sunshine. we will climb well into the '70s. where we see the holes in the clouds it could make it up to 80 degrees this afternoon. there's a slow-moving cold front off to our west, not very strong but it's creeping into town. that will be the focal point of showers and storms into tomorrow. still in an unsettled weather pattern through the middle of the week. a few thundershowers through the night time and we will have some this afternoon. a few will persist into the nighttime. they will diffuse into the morning. more thundershowers tomorrow likely especially for the afternoon and evening. it's going to be humid air again, near 80 degrees. the humidity s to the rainfall potential. >> have we hit 90 degrees this year so far? >> no. a man was caught on tape shoving dog feces into his neighbor's mailbox. they were shocked to find that. the 71-year-old said he did it because of an ongoing feud, but the neighbors say they don't know anything about it. they said that they are trying to laugh it off. in a couple hours a yearly tradition at the u.s. naval academy gets under way. the climb with a freshman form a human pyramid around the monument on campus and they removed a hat at the top end replace it with a midshipman's hat. dozens of students from across the country put their geography skills to the test today. 54 students participated in the national demographics spelling bee this morning in northwest d.c., a preliminary round. the top 10 finalists will compete in the final round hosted by alex trebek on thursday. the winner gets a $25,000 scholarship and a trip to the galapagos islands. coming up on abc 7 news at noon the next story may be hard to believe. the nation's gridlock getting better? how we feared in the capital city. >> next "anderson" -- a guest that left me speechless. why do you have a seven-year-old pole dancer? >> it's good exercise. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- >> hundreds of mothers nurses, and cancer survivors gathered on capitol hill this morning calling on congress to pass a safe chemicals act, which would protect americans from toxic chemicals. >> we would like to see the act come up for review. it is due in the next month or so so we're keeping our fingers crossed that we can get the attention. >> members say 18 senators are behind a bill which would upset their expectations for businesses when it comes to using chemicals. there is legislation that also aims at getting toxic chemicals out of everyday products. 7 is on your side with news about traffic troubles. a new study finds no congestion dropped 30% in the last year. but drivers in the d.c. area are still wasting plenty of time stuck in traffic. d.c. came in no. 6 in the nation followed by seattle austin, boston, and chicago. >> lackluster employment combined with high fuel prices in the last year has actually driven delays on d.c. roads down about 22%. that is the good news. i guess the bad news is d.c. drivers are still wasting still44 hours per year in traffic -- still wasting 44 hours per year in traffic for. >> not what we want to hear. we want to hear your commute if it is better, the same, or worse than it was a year ago. if take our bellpulltake our web poll. a look at the holiday weekend aaa predicts more than 875,000 people in the d.c. area will leave town this weekend. that's up 2% from last year. people average anair travel is down 5% for this holiday weekend. still ahead, adam >> tonight at 5:00, a talk with the famous hometown girl bringing her message back to television. katie couric talked with us about your local routes and her favorite things about growing up in northern virginia. and we will look ahead at the new show that she will bring to abc 7. that interview tonight at 5:00. >> ♪ >> the new dancing champions will be crowned in just a couple hours. the final week kicked off with a bang. the remaining contestants william levy, katherine jenkins and donald driver, needed two dances, one chosen by the judges and the other was a freestyle. only one of them will win the coveted mirrorball trophy tonight. osterman jenkins has two perfect scores from last night. cynne simpson will be live on the dance floor after the winner is announced in hollywood. watch for her reports on abc 7 news at 11:00. >> maria menounous, i still love your dancing. >> she did make the "maxim" magazine hot list today, so that's consolation. >> here is our forecast. few more showers and thundershowers for the rest of the day, isolated downpours possible. same story tomorrow. hot on the