Nightmare. Nearly a foot of snow in places. Slick roads leading to dozens of accidents. Out west, the possibility of more than a foot of rain and snow by monday that could cause massive flooding and landslides. This morning, what you need to know. Not backing down. President elect donald trump blaming the democrats for being hacked. The same day the intelligence chiefs told him russia tried to h tip the election in his favor. Will he go to war with his spies in office . And the last laugh. The late actress Carrie Fisher laid to rest alongside her mother, Debbie Reynolds, with fishers ashes in an urn made in the shape of a big prozac pill. Her legendary sense of humor giving everyone a smile, today january 7th, 2017. Announcer from nbc news, this is today live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Welcome to today on saturday morning. Im craig melvin. Im sheinelle jones. In a public place and hearing gunfire. That came true for hundreds of people at ft. Lauderdalehollywood airport on friday afternoon when a gunman started spraying bullets at people in the baggage claim area. Five are dead and eight injured. We have the story covered on all fronts. We will hear from people who barely escaped. We start with nbcs kerry can r sanders at the airport. Kerry, good morning. Reporter sheinelle, the airport has reopened. You should check with the airlines when the planes take off today. The alleged gunman, 26yearold Esteban Santiago was known to Law Enforcement. He walked into an fbi office in alaska and told them there he thought the cia was trying to recruit him to fight for isis. With that back drop, top questions emerged. Why was he allowed to own a gun and why was he on the nofly list . His carnage on the day that was a busy travel day at the ft. Lauderdalehollywood international airport. Just before 1 00 p. M. Friday, a horrific scene when deputies say 26yearold Esteban Santiago opened fire at baggage claim in terminal 2. No rhyme or reason. Very nonchalant. It was point and shoot. Anyone in his path. Reporter inside, sheer terror. People breaking through doors and running over children. Reporter crowds evacuated to the tarmac. S. W. A. T. Teams and fbi responding within minutes. Looks like we have five or six victims. Reporter santiago flew from anchorage to minneapolis and on to ft. Lauderdale was believed to check his gun in baggage and then loaded it in a nearby bathroom. Put the gun down by the side and dropped the gun. Laid face down spread eagle until the deputy came. We have the shooter in custody. Hes unharmed. No Law Enforcement fired any shots. Reporter are when it was over, five dead and eight others shot. Dozens injured in the chaos. Then around 2 30, passengers in a different terminal fearing a second gunman. And reports of a suspicious person in a parking garage nearby. Both false alarms. No shooting. Reporter this morning, santiago is in federal custody. The question why still unanswered. I hate to say it, but we all live with that fear that Something Like this could happen anytime. Reporter there were more than 10,000 passengers here at the airport that were stranded overnight. They were bussed to a staging area where uber and lyft provided free transportation. Airbnb provided an k accommodations. The question is how could this have happened . And for the misery of people fearful running around, there were several planes have a landed on the runway here when this began. The passengers on those planes remained in the planes out on the runway for more than eight hours. Sheinelle. Unbelievable. Kerry, thank you. Who is the shooter and why did he do it . Nbcs justice correspondent Pete Williams is following that part of the story for us. Pete, good morning to you. Reporter good morning, craig. Federal investigators dont know if this is an act of terrorism or not. Santiago showed an interest in isis videos, but he had mental problems and claimed voices in his head made him watch them. Late last night, fbi agents were seen leaving Esteban Santiagos residence in anchorage after interviewing family members and searching for clues. Esteban santiago was undergoing treatment for Mental Health prbs and complaining he was hearing voices. A few months ago, he walked into the fbi office in anchorage and complaining the cia was forcing him to join isis. Officials say local police were called and he went voluntarily to a Mental Health facility for treatment. His aunt and uncle in union city, new jersey, where Officials Say santiago was born, say they believe he developed problems after a military deployment overseas. Military records show he signed up for the National Guard in 2007 while he was living in puerto rico where the family is from. The records show he was on duty as a combat engineer for ten months in iraq and returning five years ago. Discharged last august. Family members say he went to alaska to look for work where he had a son and receiving counselling there. Some with him on the flight from minneapolis to ft. Lauderdale said he has an alter indicatica board. It wasnt enough to call police. This morning, it is a mystery why he did this and why in ft. Lauderdale. Officials found no connection to florida. Craig. Pete, quickly here. A guy known to the fbi. Walks into the field office there. You reported that he had the voices in his head. Allegedly. Picking up on a question kerry just posed. How is this guy able to get on the plane with a gun . Why was he not on the nofly list . Reporter the fbi said when he talked to the agents in anchorage in november, they did not find a terrorism connection. Pete, thank you. Anika dean was in the baggage claim area when the gunman opened fire. Annika, good morning to you. Good morning. First things first. I understand you are a mom of two boys. Ages 11 and 13. I know they were on your mind. I know you are thankful for them this morning. How are you holding up . Im doing okay. Im doing well. Annika, take us back inside the terminal yesterday. What did you see . What did you hear . When did you realize what was going on . I was standing at baggage claim three and i heard gunshots. I knew what was happening. Im a teacher for broward public schools. I have been through two active shooter trainings. When i heard the gunfire, i looked in the direction of the shooter. I saw the shooter. I can describe him. Black hair, blue shirt. The gun. I saw the shots being fired. I immediately ducked behind a smartcart and i just laid there. There wasnt really anywhere to hide. I could not escape. I could not run. I was there maybe 30 seconds and an older gentleman laid on top of me and said i will protect you. Wow. Have you been able to find him or get in touch with him . I have. Yes. What did you say to him . His name is tony bartozovitz from rochester, new york. I thanked him throughout the day. Really grateful that he was willing to put himself at risk to shield my body. You know, i was praying to god the entire time that my children would not lose their mother or have a seriously injured mother. The gunman was Walking Around and he was shooting people near me. I thought i might be one of his victims. Im grateful for a man that shielded me. That was a picture of tony that we just had on the screen there. Annika, as he was shooting, did you hear him say anything . Could you tell whether he was saying anything at all . He wasnt saying anything. There was a man to the right of me. I havent identified the man who was near me that attracted the shooter to the area. Ruthie bellman who was there, told me afterwards that he was right next to us. And tony told me that there was a shot fired over us. I had my face to the carpet. I was not looking. I did not want to look. I was just praying. Annika dean, thank you for talking to us. We are happy you are okay. We are praying for you and all of the families involved. The best to your boys. Thank you. We will have more in the next half hour. Lets turn to another story we are following this morning. Two massive storms hitting both coasts. One wreaking havoc and one set to bring biblical rain to the coast. Lets start with nbcs tammy lightner. Reporter good morning, craig. A blizzard warning in the area and with good reason. Overnight, we saw snow, sleet, rain and it expected to last throughout the day. A historic monster storm has brought parts of the south to a standstill. Interrupting the lives of millions. In oklahoma, slick snow covered roads made for treacherous Road Conditions. Snow plows working around the clock to clear interstates. In tennessee, snow plows not used to the volume are having problems. Please dont hit the buses. Reporter this plow skidding out of control barely missing two stranded school buses before taking out several cars. Snow plow. Oh, my god reporter snow and ice paralyzing the south. States of emergency in alabama, georgia and carolinas. Thousands stocking up. Milk and eggs and hunker down. Probably a case of wine. Reporter this Hardware Store sold 1,000 pounds of ice melt, but out of many supplies. Snow shovels we are out of until this afternoon. I dont want to get too iced in. Reporter a concern for some, but not for lib moore who plans to embrace this southern winter wonderland. We dont get it often. We get excited. Reporter less excitement in atlanta where a half foot of snow fell in one day. The amount the city usually gets over the entire winter. I learned the last time. Reporter many cautious after the storm of 2014 stranded school kids and motorists. A large chunk of the northeast already buried in snow. Icy roads causing hundreds of crashes and already one death in maine. Dozens of states under a storm warning or advisory or more than 60 Million People in the path of the Winter Weather system. The roads have been plowed in the area where we are. The big concern is the temperatures are dropping more than they have and the roads icing over. Craig. Tammy, leitner, get inside. On the west coast, a massive amount of snow and rain hitting this weekend could cause deadly floods and mudslides. The worst in at least a decade. Nbcs Steve Patterson is in San Francisco this morning. Good morning. Reporter good morning, sheinelle. Were getting drenched sooner than expected. The front end of the storm expected to slam into us. The brunt is soon to follow. Forecasters are predicting a once in a quarter century level event in the storm. A tenday storm expected to bring more flooding than we have seen in the region in the last ten years. Northern california is bracing for the very worst of it. Some places here will see up to 15 inches of rain. Others, 20 feet of snow. In the storm zone, stretching from Southern Oregon all the way down to Southern California with city centers like reno, tahoe, San Francisco, los angeles, portland all in the cross sdhai for snowfall or sustained rainfall. That means an increased risk for everything from flash flooding to rock slides to mud floes and leading to Power Outages and leading to possible Property Damage and leading to the potential for this to be a fatal storm. People are heeding the warnings. Communities are gearing up with sand bags. People stocking up to weather this thing as it continues today on into tuesday with sunday and tuesday being the big onetwo punch of the storm. Back to you, sheinelle. Stay safe. Indra peterson is in for dylan. We are very busy in the weather office. Looking at a lot of warmth to the south. You can see the cooler temperatures. We are starting to transition over to snow. With that, the low up the coastline. You have two ingredients. Moisture off the ocean. That is one side of the story. To get the bullseye, you will need that cold air to intersect. The two come together at the same time, thats where you look at the bullseye. That is why raleigh will not see the high totals we saw yesterday. Farther north in norfolk with the stronger totals. The low is closer to the cape. They will have blizzard warnings in effect. They could be seeing 1. 5 feet of snow in the region. Look at the totals. Norfolk with 6 to 12 inches. The blizzard conditions with heavy snow and windy conditions on top of it. That is one coast. We will have the next one in a few minutes. Thank you. We will come back to you. Lets get to other headlines. President elect donald trump is starting his day today at trump tower. One day after the nations top intelligence officials briefed him on what they call russias attempt to tip the election in his favor. They declassified a report on the same day stating they have high confidence russian president Vladimir Putin was behind it. Is the president elect buying what theyre selling . Nbcs ron allen is at trump tower with more. Ron, good morning. Reporter good morning, sheinelle. Mr. Trump will strengthen americas cyber defenses. Tasking a team to come up with a plan in the first 90 days in office. The central question if the russians hacked into the campaign, the president elect sounds skeptical. The conclusion is a covert Russian Campaign ordered by Vladimir Putin evolved into the effort to help donald trump become president. The goals to undermine the faith of the u. S. Democratic on process, denigrate Hillary Clinton and harm her credibility. We further assess putin and the russian government develop a presence for trump. Trump dismissing it as a witch hunt. Only saying other countries are engaged in cyber hacking. To emphasize there was no affect on the outcome of the election. The report did not make a political conclusion, it clearly pointed a finger at putin. I would have liked to see the president elect finally knowledge the obvious. Everyone else accepted this. It is time for him. Reporter the Vice President elect trying to make peace with officials said to be anger by the comments by the soontocommander in chief. I know the president elect and i both appreciate the sacrifices that the men and women who serve in our Intelligence Services around the country and around the world provide in contributing to the safety and security of the american people. Reporter as mr. Trump tries to move on, another Signature Campaign issue suddenly back in the spotlight. And mexico will pay for the wall. Reporter republicans in congress now considering whether to build it with u. S. Taxpayer dollars to get the project moving and get mexico to pay later later. In a telephone interview, mr. Trump pushed back. Telling the New York Times were going to get reimbursed. Mexicos leader oppose the wall and say they will never pay for it. Overnight, another tweet for mr. Trump on the issue of hacking. Saying, gross negligence by the dnc allowed the hacking to take place. The rnc with a federal judhuge. He announced he will nominate senator dan coats to the intelligence director. Thank you, ron. We have the top open efficient official who is the leader of crowd strike. Sean, lets start with what is in the report and not in the report. I want to call your attention to the statement from president elect trump. He said there was absolutely no affe effect on the outcome of the election. Sean, did the report say anything about whether the hacking had any sort of effect on the outcome of the election . Let me say a couple things, craig. I read the record. This is an unclassified investigation of the highly classified report that will have a lot of information about signals and intelligence. Many people who look at it is a there is no proof. Im reading the conclusions. The Intelligence Community is going to protect their sources and methods. What i see is a broad Espionage Campaign that has gone on for years. It is not an isolated incident that the dnc was hacked. The second piece that is important is the Russian Intelligence Service is a highly capab capable. Among the best in the world organization. This will go down, i think, as one of the premier stages opint operations in recent history. The last piece addresses your question specifically. The report says there is no indication that the election was impacted. In other words, while there may have been an influence campaign, there is no reporting or proof or evidence that actual vowte tallies were affected. It did not effect the actual election results. Donald trump will be the president. This should not delegitimize that. We need to looking forward understand how critically important this risk is that the National Security of the United States is a bipartisan effort. We have to look at that going forward. There has to be a coalition of United States abilities to make sure we protect the country. Craig. This is just the beginning of the conversation. Shawn henry, thank you. A busy saturday morning. Lets bring in indra again with the check of the national forecast. I want to start off with the storm on the west coast. Look at the two pinwheels bringing the moisture through california. With that, were talking about heavy rain. 20 inches in good morning. Im krystal klei. A large area of snow from the system to the south is pressing our direction. Snow is expected through the southern half of the viewing area today. With were around a first alert. From when now through 7 00 tonight. And were looking at the heaviest snow totals. 7 inches and above along the coast. Dangerous travel potential. So it is important to note. I know you you heard about 7 fef snow in squall valley. Huge rain on top of that. Thank you, indra. Still to come, the download. I look back at the biggest stories including the accident that trapped a toddler under a dresser. But first this is fios is not cable. Were wired differently. That means incredibly fast 150 meg internet. So in the 3. 7 seconds it takes gary watson to beat the local sled jump record fly, gary, fly. Hi