Calling Donald Trump a "liar," U.S. Rep. Frederica Wilson on Wednesday fiercely defended her statements over his call with a fallen U.S. soldier's widow. She is also demanding answers on the Niger attack in which her constituent and three other soldiers died, saying it will be "Mr. Trump's Benghazi."

Wilson gave several interviews in which she discussed Trump's call and also detailed the exemplary service of U.S. Army Sgt. La David Johnson, a Miami Gardens native.

Trump has been under heavy criticism after Wilson recounted her version of the conversation on Tuesday.

"I heard him say 'Well, you know ... I'm sure he knows that this is what he signed up for, but it still hurts,'" Wilson told "The View." "And the saddest part of this, he kept referring to La David as 'your guy.' He never called his name. It was almost as if he forgot his name, and that's what hurt the mother so badly, the wife, she said 'he doesn't even know his name.'"

Wilson said Trump had to be aware that there were multiple people who could have heard the conversation between him and Myeshia Johnson, the pregnant widow.

Wilson, Wilson's driver, the limousine driver, Johnson's aunt and uncle, Myeshia, and a U.S. Army official were all present in the car at the time of the call, Wilson recounted.

When Trump called, Myeshia had recently found out that her husband would not receive an open-casket funeral because of the condition of his body.

Wilson said Myeshia was "grief-stricken."

After hearing Trump's comment, Wilson said she demanded to speak to him.

"And they said 'No ... You can't speak with him. Why did you want to speak with him?' I said 'because I wanted to curse him out,'" Wilson added.

Wilson unapologetically responded when the ladies of "The View" mentioned Trump has denied making the comments.

Earlier on Tuesday, Trump took to Twitter to state: "Democrat Congresswoman totally fabricated what I said to the wife of a soldier who died in action (and I have proof). Sad!"

Trump did not elaborate on what proof he could provide.

"President Trump is a liar. If he was taping the conversation, bring it on!" Wilson said.

A White House spokeswoman said later there was no recording of the call.

Johnson’s mother, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, told The Washington Post that she did hear the conversation and that Trump "did disrespect my son," also corroborating Wilson's account of the conversation.

In demanding answers about the attack that killed Johnson and three other U.S. special forces soldiers, Wilson said she wants to know why it took two days to discover his body, why he was not protected in an armored truck while traveling and why he had weapons weaker than those of the militants that carried out the deadly Oct. 4 ambush.

"This is going to be Mr. Trump's Benghazi because I cannot get the answers. Nobody can get the answers, and until we get those answers ... It is his Benghazi and this whole thing about what he said to the widow is a cover-up," Wilson said.

A GoFundMe page was created Monday in Myeshia's name to benefit her and the sergeant's kids' college funds. As of Wednesday night, it had raised more than $515,000.

On an earlier appearance on MSNBC, Wilson said Myeshia was "crying the whole time, and when she hung up the phone, she looked at me and said, 'He didn't even remember his name.'"

"He was almost like joking. He said ... something to the fact that 'he knew what he was getting into when he signed up but I guess it hurts anyway," Wilson said. "You know – just matter of factly, that this is what happens, anyone who is signing up for military duty is signing up to die and that's the way we interpreted it. It was horrible. It was insensitive. It was absolutely crazy and unnecessary. I was livid."

When asked if she was complicit in politicizing the conversation about the deaths of soldiers, Wilson said she was just answering a question asked by the local press.

"Someone asked me a question. 'Did you hear the call? Tell us what you heard.' I told them what I heard. That's not politicizing anything. That was my constituent," Wilson said.

Wilson also further cemented her position on Wednesday by releasing an official statement.

“Despite President Trump’s suggestion that I have recanted my statement or misstated what he said, I stand firmly by my original account of his conversation with Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Sgt. La David Johnson," Wilson wrote. "Moreover, this account has been confirmed by family members who also witnessed Mr. Trump’s incredible lack of compassion and sensitivity."

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders strongly criticized Wilson's statements.

"The hardest job he has is making calls like that. I think it is appalling what the congresswoman has done in the way she's politicized this issue and the way she is trying to make this about something that it isn't," Sanders said Wednesday.

The controversy surrounding a blurred out brassiere logo Antonio Pascarella said has not only caused business at his lingerie shop in downtown Manchester to dwindle, its now driving him out of town.

"We asked planning and zoning for the permit and they denied it based on guidelines that they have on Main Street," Pasarella said.

Pascarella said he followed the city’s Main Street rules for signs including the business’ name, message and a graphic that that portrays the nature of the business.

"Really what they said was that the image can be misleading, confusing," Pascarella said.

Pascarella said the city’s planning and economic development director, Gary Anderson, approved a tenant permit but when the store’s sign was denied, the owner appealed the decision.

"I think it was more of a personal opinion and not guidelines. If you were in a public position, what you should be looking at is the guidelines that were written for this town," Pascarella said.

"I think we have some work to do on that," Mayor Jay Moran said.

Moran hopes a soon-to-be newly elected Board of Directors can develop a better process for business’ sign approval.

"To me we have to look at the process and make sure it's fair and open that businesses understand the process from the start, there's a process for appealing and is it a decision made by an individual versus decision made by a group I think they need to know that upfront," Moran said.

"It's no more offensive than anything they've got on display and that's what they sell," Patricia Cortes said.

Pascarella said the board’s decision has left him with no other choice, he’s now taking his business to another city that will offer more support.

A majority of Americans, both Republicans and Democrats, say North Korea is the greatest immediate threat to the country according to a new NBC News/SurveryMonkey poll.

That 54% is up from July, when only 41% saw North Korea as the greatest immediate threat. ISIS is seen as the second greatest threat with 19% of Americans, followed by Russia, China and Iran.

Americans, however, are even more decided about their desired path to resolution, with a 64 percent majority saying the U.S. should mostly use diplomacy when dealing with North Korea — up 5 points since July.

The NBC NewsSurveyMonkey National Security poll was conducted from October 13 through October 17, 2017, among a national sample of 5,047 adults. Respondents for this non-probability survey were selected from the nearly 3 million people who take surveys on the SurveyMonkey platform each day. Results have an error estimate of plus or minus 2.0 percentage points.

At the University of Florida, police and students shared a moment of prayer Wednesday night - bracing for what may come on Thursday.

White nationalist Richard Spencer is set to speak inside the school’s performing arts center at 2:30 p.m. It’s an event that has some students fired up, with some saying they feel unsafe and unwelcome.

The school initially said it would not approve an application for the speech from the National Policy Institute before reversing course, saying while they disapprove of Spencer’s message, he has a First Amendment right to speak at the public university.

Spencer preaches a fiery brand of politics and looks to preserve a white majority in America. The leader of the conservative alt-right movement recently spoke of his First Amendment right and his upcoming speech in Gainesville.

"This is where the rubber hits the road, this is where free speech is really meaningful," he said in an alt-right podcast online. "It's not just some abstract concept. I mean every single American citizen, if you ask them, 'Do you support free speech?' 99.9 percent of them say ‘Yes, of course we love free speech.'"

Spencer was one of the organizers of the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia in August - an event that became deadly when a vehicle plowed into a crowd of people and left one woman dead and several others injured.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott and other top state officials are urging people to ignore Spencer and his event. On Tuesday, he even declared a state of emergency to direct resources to ensure the community's safety during the event.

"The values of our universities are not shared by Mr. Spencer, the National Policy Institute or his followers," UF President W. Kent Fuchs said in a taped message earlier this week. "Our campuses are places where people from all races, origins and religions are welcome and or treated with love."

Fuchs estimates the school will spend $600,000 on security for Spencer's planned speech. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the government, in this case a public university, cannot charge speakers for security costs.

Spencer's National Policy Institute is paying $10,564 to rent space for the speaking event.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Route 6 in Farmington is closed between Fienemann Road and Settlement Road because of a serious crash that has sent at least four people to the hospital, according to police. 

Police said the road is closed until further notice and the accident reconstruction team was requested.

When Michella Flores hopped off the plane in Oakland, she thought the worst was over. The Santa Rosa woman had just escaped the Las Vegas massacre at a country music festival that left 58 dead and another 500 wounded — the deadliest mass shooting in the country’s history. 

She had survived by running as fast as she could, taking shelter in a nearby hotel's conference room. The next morning, with the sounds of gunfire etched in her memory, she was desperate to leave Sin City.

"After that, I couldn’t wait to be home," Flores, a flight attendant, said. "I was obsessed with it. That was all I cared about; all I wanted was to be home with my family and my dog."

But her reprieve would be short-lived. Exactly one week later, the Sullivan Street house she shared with her parents erupted in flames, burning to the ground as a spate of wildfires wreaked havoc on the North Bay. Almost everything her family owned — photo albums, clothing, furniture, irreplaceable Christmas ornaments — was destroyed in the blaze.

"I haven’t had a chance to sit down and process everything, really," she said. "I don’t think it’s hit me yet because I’ve been so focused on looking forward and doing what needs to be done." 

And there is a lot that needs to be done in the coming weeks, even though her family has moved out of the evacuation center where they were temporarily holed up.

Flores and her parents, who are in their seventies, have been sleeping in a temporary rental. She will need to look for an affordable long-term place to stay, find daycare for her beloved dog, Bailee and muster up the energy to complete the seemingly endless array of documents that fire victims are required to fill out to receive assistance.

"I’ve always been the person that keeps the priorities in mind, and knowing what needs to be done," she said. "That’s who I am. Breaking down isn’t even an option right now. I don’t think of it because I know it just can’t happen. There’s just too much to do."

Her parents, who had moved to Sullivan Street after their first home was foreclosed upon during the Great Recession, were renters. They did not have insurance. 

"We’re not going to be able to afford to stay in the Bay Area," Flores said, matter-of-factly. "That’s just the way it is. It’s killing my mother; she’s in love with Sonoma County. Santa Rosa has been our home for more than 32 years. That’s something I worry about, how this is all going to affect her." 

Flores, who previously worked as a firefighter and a police dispatcher, credits her professional history with helping her get through the tragedies. Immediately throwing herself into "work mode," she even helped battle the flames as they tore apart her house. Her experience as a first responder trained her to compartmentalize rather than fall apart, she said.

She hasn't lost her dry sense of humor, either. On the phone, she even manages to crack a few jokes about a load of her work uniforms that were left in the washing machine when the fire erupted. 

"Yeah, they got washed, alright," she quipped, letting out a small chuckle. 

Throwing pity parties is simply not her style. It has never been, according to her sister, who lives in Virginia. 

"She’s resilient and amazing, and she’s done amazing things with her life," Krista Flores said. "But I worry about my sister. She’s just always been so busy. She doesn’t take time to take care of herself, and I’m afraid for when it all hits her." 

Michella Flores, who still hasn’t taken a day off work since her horrendous October began in Vegas, thinks the realization of what happened to her will come sooner rather than later. She is dreading staying overnight in a hotel at the end of this month for work. Once there, she’ll be alone, with no one else to look after. 

"I’m imagining that’s when it’s going to hit me, and I’ll deal with it then," she said. "But I’ll only be able to deal with it for a moment. The next morning I’ll have to be perky for the passengers. I can’t very well sit in the middle of the aisle, telling them my woes. ‘Oh my god, I was shot at, my house burned down’....they don’t want to hear that."

Instead, she turns to her dog for comfort, and her spirits have been lifted by a community that has rallied around her parents and provided support. A GoFundMe page, created by her sister, has been flooded with donations and well wishes from across the country. 

"The outpouring has been so great," she said. "I’ve been amazed by people who have been donating. I almost feel unworthy, because of everything happening elsewhere. You know, you look at Puerto Rico and some people don't even have clean water. But I’m lucky, my family is alive, I’m alive. Things could be worse." 

When asked what would be the best outcome for her family, she said they would like to stay in Santa Rosa. But she’s not holding out hope, and she doesn’t expect anyone to hand them anything.

"The world isn’t perfect, but in a perfect world, of course, we would like to stay," she said. "Even though it’s smoky and it looks like a bomb hit the town, I still don’t want to leave. Santa Rosa is still my town. It’ll always be our home." 

Find the GoFundMe page for Michella Flores and her family here. 

Comments, corrections or tips? Contact author Gillian Edevane at Gillian.Edevane@nbcuni.com. Story originally heard through Lisa Fernandez.

The deadline is soon approaching to raise funds for beloved holiday tradition in downtown Hartford so it has enough money to carry on for another year.

“We're back here again, trying to close that small gap that we have," said Jackie Mandyck, managing director of the iQuilt Partnership.

The city’s budget no longer includes money that goes to Winterfest and Mandyck is helping to raise $55,000 for the 40-day city event, which includes an ice rink, decorations and Santa Clause.

"We really hope that we’ll have a lot more heroes in Hartford and that will be able to move forward with Winterfest this year," Mandyck said.

Mandyck said the partnership has just two weeks to raise $55,000 and it will spend the next few days hoping for a holiday miracle in October.

"We have to start building the rink on November 1 so we need to know by October 30 if we have all the dollars available to be able to produce Winterfest," Mandyck said.

"It would be weird without it, I think, without the ice-skating rink," said Sarah Netz, who looks forward to her downtown neighborhood near Bushnell Park being transformed into a winter wonderland.

“A lot more kids come, a lot more families, it's really nice. I love all the festivities they do around here,” Netz said.

She is concerned the popular Winterfest tradition won’t become a reality if the funds don’t come through.

"Hopefully they get it through, hopefully there's more donations like last year," Netz said.

Netz hopes her walks with her dog will look more winter-like again soon.

"I’ll be thankful and happy. I'll appreciate it I just like when it's a community setting and all the families come, It's nice," Netz said.

If you’d like to donate you can head to WinterfestHartford.com.

A famed impressionist painting has been hanging in the Art Institute of Chicago for nearly 100 years, the museum confirmed Wednesday, despite a recent report that President Donald Trump claims to be in possession of the original.

French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s "Two Sisters (On the Terrace)," an oil on canvas painting depicting a young woman and a child surrounded by vegetation on a patio, has been part of the Art Institute’s collection since 1933, spokeswoman Amanda Hicks confirmed to NBC Chicago.

In an interview on Vanity Fair’s podcast "The Hive," Trump biographer and Chicago native Tim O’Brien discussed the painting controversy. O’Brien wrote the 2005 book, “TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald,” which chronicles the now president’s empire as an entrepreneur and reality star.

While working on the book several years ago, O’Brien accompanied Trump on his private jet on a trip to Los Angeles — where he first saw the painting hanging. When questioned about its authenticity, Trump insisted it was the real deal, O’Brien said.

"Donald, it's not. I grew up in Chicago, that Renoir is called 'Two Sisters on the Terrace,' and it’s hanging on a wall at the Art Institute of Chicago,” O’Brien recalled telling Trump. “That’s not an original.”

Trump refused to yield his position, O’Brien said, so the biographer dropped the conversation and moved on to other topics.

Years later, however, O’Brien noted to Vanity Fair the painting could be seen in the background of a “60 Minutes” interview in Trump’s New York City apartment after he was elected president in 2016.

“I’m sure he’s still telling people who come into the apartment, ‘It’s an original, it’s an original,’” O’Brien said on the podcast.

The White House did not immediately respond to request for comment and a tweet sent to the president’s account was not responded to.

Hicks declined to comment on O’Brien’s reporting but added that the Renoir was given to the museum in 1933 by Annue Swan Corburn, who had bought it from Paul Durand-Ruel for $100,000. Ruel had acquired the piece from Renoir himself in 1881.

Trump sued O’Brien in 2006 for defamation over the book but a superior court judge in New Jersey dismissed the suit in 2009. An appeals court affirmed that decision two years later.

There are heavy delays on Interstate 91 South in North Haven after a tractor-trailer crash early this morning.

The crash was near exit 9 and the Office of Consumer Protection was called to respond to the scene.

No additional information was available.

Waterbury commuters who usually hop on the Harper’s Ferry Road exit 25 off ramp from Interstate 84 Eastbound will now have to get off exit 23.

“Exit 23 eastbound is for Hamilton Ave. Route 69. Exit 25 is for Harper’s Ferry Road, a little farther to the east. As of tonight, we are going to resign the exit ramps and have the exit 25 ramp detour onto the exit 23 ramp,” Christopher Zukowski, the project manager for the Department of Transportation’s I-84 reconstruction project, said Wednesday night.

If you’re trying to access exit 25, you’ll “either get off on Route 69 north or south on the right lane or the left lane will be I-84 east the onramp or exit 25 the off ramp,” he said. “The signage will be there, you follow the signage, you get to your overall destination.”

The temporary exit relocation is part of a five-year-long, $300 million construction project to add three lanes in both directions to part of I-84.

The project is about halfway done and 10 months ahead of schedule.

The ultimate the message from DOT is just to follow the detour signs.

A few days after President Donald Trump announced his get-tough approach to Iran, one of its top military commanders helped engineer the seizure of an important Iraqi city from a U.S. regional ally, Iraqi, Kurdish and American officials told NBC News.

Iran brokered seizure of oil-rich Kirkuk from the Kurds by the Iraqi government and the Shiite militias it partners with, according to former U.S. national security officials. The move heightens the risk of civil war in Iraq, and amounts to an embarrassing strategic blow for the United States.

"It is a catastrophic defeat for the United States and a fantastic victory for Iran's Revolutionary Guard, proving that Qassem Soleimani gets his way once again," said Ali Khedery, a senior adviser on Iraq policy in the Bush and Obama administrations.

Soleimani, who heads up the Iranian military's special forces and extraterritorial operations, helped negotiate a deal in which one Kurdish faction would abandon its positions to allow Iraqi government forces and Iranian-supported militias to take the city uncontested, Kurdish and former U.S. intelligence officials said.

More than 60 Connecticut restaurants are coming together to help Puerto Rico and all Connecticut residents have to do is go out and enjoy a good meal to take part.

CT Loves PR (Puerto Rico) is a weeklong event, from Oct. 21 to 28, to help residents of Puerto Rico after Hurricanes Irma and Maria caused destruction to the United States territory.

The local restaurants are serving dishes and/or drinks inspired by the island of Puerto Rico and donating proceeds from those menu items to Unidos Por Puerto Rico, an initiative the First Lady of Puerto Rico started in collaboration with the private sector to provide help for the people affected by the hurricanes.

Organizers of the event posted on their website that many people in the hospitality industry have “sought inspiration and solace in the jeweled beaches, emerald rainforests, and warm people of Puerto Rico.”

Learn more about the event and see which restaurants are participating on the CT Loves PR Web site.

The Connecticut State Capitol was evacuated after the fire alarm went off, but the evacuation is over.

Firefighters went inside the building to investigate. No additional information was released.

A Delaware judge has ordered the man accused of killing three people and wounding three others during a two-state shooting spree to remain jailed on $2.1 million cash bail.

Radee Labeeb Prince was arraigned via video in Delaware Thursday morning on attempted murder and three weapons charges.

Prince was prohibited from possessing a gun after being found guilty of third-degree burglary in New Castle County, Delaware, in 2003, police said in court documents obtained by NBC10.

A preliminary hearing was set for Oct. 31.

It's unclear when Prince will be sent back to Maryland to face possible murder charges.

The 37-year-old shot five co-workers at a kitchen countertop company in Maryland Wednesday morning before driving to Wilmington, Delaware, and opening fire on a man with whom he had "beefs" in the past, wounding him, police said.

The shooting rampage set off a multi-state manhunt. Police cruisers were stationed in medians along the Interstate 95 Northeast corridor, and overhead highway signs displayed a description of Prince's sport utility vehicle and its Delaware license plate. The FBI assisted state and local authorities in the manhunt.

Prince was arrested by ATF agents Wednesday night after his unoccupied getaway vehicle was found next to Glasgow High School in Newark, Delaware. Police say Prince was spotted by a witness leaving the vehicle and walking toward the high school. The witness then contacted law enforcement. 

Prince was spotted walking nearby and taken into custody by the three ATF agents after a brief foot chase, police said.

During the chase, Prince allegedly discarded a .380 firearm which was later recovered by police, according to Wilmington Police Chief Robert J. Tracy. No one was hurt during the arrest.

"A coordinated effort brought this to a very successful conclusion on a very, very bad day," Chief Tracy said.

The rampage began at about 9 a.m. Wednesday when Prince reportedly walked into Advanced Granite Solutions, which designs and installs countertops, and opened fire on is co-workers. 

Barak Caba, the company's owner, told the Associated Press that Prince worked there as a machine operator for the past four months. He was scheduled to work Wednesday.

Five staffers were hit. Three were killed, police said. The two victims who survived were left in critical condition.

The sheriff's office said Wednesday night on its Facebook page that the people who died were Bayarsaikhan Tudev, 53, of Virginia; Jose Hidalgo Romero, 34, of Aberdeen, Maryland, and Enis Mrvoljak, 48, of Dundalk, Maryland. The company set up the Edgewood Donations fund to support the victims families.

Prince then sped 51 miles north in his black 2008 GMC Acadia to Wilmington where he confronted an acquaintance, Jason Baul, investigators said. 

Baul was working at his used car dealership, 28th Street Auto Sales and Service, along the 2800 block of Governor Printz Boulevard when Prince shot him twice around 10:30 a.m., police said.

Prince shot Baul in the head and body, but Baul is expected to survive, police said.

Prince's SUV was still near the second shooting scene when Wilmington police arrived. Baul pointed out the SUV to police but Prince sped away before police could chase him, Tracy said.

The motive for both shootings remains unclear, though Tracy said Prince "knew the people he wanted to shoot."

"How do you get into a mind of a person that's capable of shooting five people that are coworkers? What gets in his mind? What precipitated that? It's tough to rationalize," Tracy said during a Wednesday night news conference following Prince's arrest.

Co-workers said Prince kept to himself and barely talked. They remain baffled by the killings and say there were no signs of any issues.

Four workers at the company said they were only feet away as Prince opened fire and killed their three co-workers.

"They were all family," said Ibrahim Kucuk, a manager at Advanced Granite Solutions. "We've been working together for a long time. It's just tragic."

Friends and relatives of Baul said they don't recognize Prince and didn’t know why he allegedly targeted Baul. Investigators, however, said they believe Prince targeted Baul because of a previous issue related to a criminal case. 

The Baltimore Sun reports, citing court documents, that Prince has had problems with employers before. He was fired from a job earlier this year after he allegedly punched a co-worker in the face and threatened other staffers, the Sun reported.

The assaulted co-worker tried to get a restraining order against Prince in February, but a Harford County District Court judge denied the order, saying the case didn't meet the required burden of proof.

Real estate records link Prince to a home along the 500 block of Kiamensi Road in Wilmington.

Margaret Melton, a woman who resides at the home, told NBC10 that Prince didn't "officially" live at the Wilmington address, but stayed there "on and off when he had issues."

"He lives in Maryland," Melton said. Court records show he most recently lived in Elkton, Maryland.

Another neighbor, who did not want to be identified, said she knows Prince's family.

"That boy had a good upbringing," she said. "It wasn't like he was a madman or he was a crazed maniac, because he wasn't."

Prince faced several gun charges in March 2015 in Cecil County, including being a felon in possession of a firearm and carrying a handgun in vehicle. However, the charges were dropped about three months later. It's not clear why.

Wilmington police said Prince was arrested 42 times in Delaware alone and had 15 felony convictions there.

In King County, Washington, in 2014, he was cited for leaving the scene of an accident and driving with a suspended license. Court records also showed that he was required to undergo drug and alcoholism counseling at the time.Prince racked up four traffic citations in King County in 2012 and 2013, mostly for speeding.

"If there's violent people that are causing carnage in the community and have some violent crimes, we've gotta find a way to keep them behind bars, so they can't go out and re-offend," Tracy said.

The FBI says they are treating the case as workplace violence and don't see ties to terrorism.

U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris delivered a scathing letter to the Federal Communications Commission Tuesday evening, criticizing the agency for its failure to develop an effective cell phone emergency alert system. This comes after Sonoma County emergency officials told the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit that that the current wireless emergency alert system is unsuitable for evacuations because it cannot be geo-targeted to specific areas and can only be sent out to all of the county’s 500,000 residents.

• See original report here.
  

WARNING RESIDENTS
The devastating fires throughout the North Bay exposed a growing problem for emergency planners across the state. As communication technology improves, their ability to alert millions of residents following an impending disaster becomes more of a challenge.

In Sonoma County, there were two groups of evacuees – those who received an evacuation alert, and those who did not.

“I came out and it was a wall of fire,” Santa Rosa native Brett Gripe told NBC Bay Area. The longtime resident escaped his Mark West Estates home of 30 years after his friends fled their burning home on Wikiup Bridge and woke him up in the middle of the night.

“They pounded on neighbors’ doors and woke others up several neighbors. They saved our lives,” Gripe said.

Gripe says he never received a call from the county to evacuate.

“Nothing was on my cell phone or home phone. I’m an old timer I have two landlines.”

WIRELESS EMERGENCY ALERTS
Gripe is one of several residents the Investigative Unit spoke to who never received an evacuation alert. Thursday, Sonoma county emergency manager Christopher Helgren told NBC Bay Area that his staff decided not to activate the county’s Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) system because he feared the alert would reach too many people, causing widespread panic and traffic jams.

“It was an evacuation situation and we wanted to specifically target the residents that were in immediate danger,” Helgren said. “In situations requiring evacuation, until that system has greater granularity so I can target areas that are affected; I can’t use that system for evacuations.

WEA allows county officials to send an alert to all cell phones within a few miles of targeted cell phone towers. Since 2013, the California Highway Patrol has used the system to send out Amber Alerts. FEMA approved Sonoma County’s application to use the system in July of 2016, but the county has never used it.

Instead, Helgren said the county chose to evacuate residents using SoCo Alert, which allows the county to target specific neighborhoods. However residents have to sign up for SoCo alert. Prior to the fire, roughly 15,000 of Sonoma County’s 500,000 residents were registered, roughly 3 percent.

San Mateo County emergency coordinator Jeff Norris says poor registration is a problem facing many Bay Area counties. In San Mateo, only 65,000 of the county’s 765,000 residents are registered.

“We can't notify you if we can't reach you,” Norris told NBC Bay Area. “When reaching people is going to save lives, we're going to use every tool we can.”

In the event of a wildfire, Norris said he plans to evacuate residents by sending a carefully crafted WEA message with instructions and directions.

“The better we make the message… the more likely we are to save lives,” Norris said.

While WEA can be an effective tool to send out a mass alert, very few jurisdictions have the authority under FEMA regulations to use the system. Instead, counties rely on local alert systems that residents must sign up for.

COUNTY ALERT SYSTEM PARTICIPATION
Click on your county system below to sign up.

As for Brett Gripe, the 22-year Novato PD veteran is unsure where he will spend his retirement after building a life in Santa Rosa.

“I don’t know what happens to a town when so many neighborhoods are devastated,” Gripe said.

In addition to local alert systems, county leaders can also reach residents through reverse 911 calls to landlines. But even those systems still will not reach everyone with a landline if residents don’t sign up to receive an alert.

Hartford police are investigating after several car thefts at dealerships in the region over the last four months.

Police said they have noticed a pattern of car thieves are breaking into dealerships, stealing the keys to vehicles and either stealing the cars immediately or returning later to take them.

In some cases, the thieves have driven over and through the dealership fencing as other vehicles have followed, police said.

In one night, 56 keys were stolen, police said. Officers in Hartford recovered 300 cars that were stolen from outside the city in 2015. This year, they are expecting to find 600.

Hartford police have notified 198 dealerships and repair shops and they are recommended that they lock up the keys and paperwork and invest in a surveillance system.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has developed a new crash test program to address passenger-side airbag systems, saying that automobile manufacturers were not prioritizing the safety of front-seat passengers as much as drivers.

The new "small overlap front crash test" sends only part of the front of a vehicle into a barrier, mimicking a collision with another vehicle or a tree. 

It resulted in 10 out of the 13 midsize vehicles earning good ratings. Among them were the Ford Fusion, Honda Accord and Nissan Altima. A good or acceptable passenger-side rating will be required to qualify for the Institute’s 2018 Top Safety Pick award.

The Vokswagen Passat and the Chevy Malibu, on the other hand, had marginal ratings due to insufficient airbag protection. 

"The restraint system didn't do a good job of protecting the dummy's head from contacting the dash," senior research engineer Becky Mueller said in a statement.

NBC reached out to Volkswagen and Chevrolet for comment.

For the full crash results, click here. 

Two people were injured in a crash on Interstate 84 West in Southington around 10:30 p.m. Wednesday and LifeStar transported one person from the scene.

Police said 39-year-old Confessor Rodriguez, of New Britain, was driving a GMC Sierra and went off the road near exit 32, hit a guardrail, went down an embankment and landed in a brook.

LifeStar transported Rodriguez to Hartford Hospital. His passenger was transported to Saint Mary’s.

Police are investigating and ask anyone with information to call 860-534-1000.

NBC Connecticut Meteorologists have issued a First Alert ahead of heavy rain and gusty winds expected Tuesday. 

A cold front will push through the region on Tuesday which will help produce the storms. 

There is still some uncertainty with regard to timing and intensity with the storm system given we're still about 5 days away.

Right now it appears that a period of heavy rain could affect the state Tuesday into Wednesday. 

In addition to the heavy rain and gusty winds there is also the chance for thunderstorms.