The Oakland protest is underway in California and it's already causing problems.

Rumors ripped over Twitter that the strike had shut down the Port of Oakland, the nation's fifth largest port that handled more than 2.3 million containers last year, but those reports appear to be over-blown.

The Silicon Valley Mercury News is live blogging the strike and reports port operations have been considerably slowed, but the port was not shut down as of 9:40 a.m. local time. It's also reported that a line of trucks one-mile long is waiting in both directions from the SSA port terminals.

The general strike is expected to shut down businesses and schools with workers showing support for the Occupy movement by marching on the city's plaza in front of city hall.

Calling it a "warning shot to the 1%," Oakland protest organizer Tim Simons told CNN that the protesters will "take this into the streets and into the workplaces."

The strike was called for after last week's crackdown on protesters at the Occupy Oakland rally. Check out the Occupy Oakland live video stream here.

We will update the Oakland activities throughout the day.

10:15 a.m: Protesters are on their way to shut down the Wells Fargo bank at 20th and Webster.

10:59 a.m: Looks like Michael Moore (@MMFlint) is at the protest. He just tweeted out this picture of a local business with a sign in the window supporting the protesters.

11:38 a.m: The word on the street is that there are about 5,000 people marching and that the Wells Fargo is now closed.

12:11 p.m: According to tweets we're seeing, a lot of Oakland businesses, instead of shutting down, have gone cash only to support the protest. Here's a short list of who's doing that (via SFist).

1:09 p.m: According to @EastBayExpress, the protests are pretty positive right now. There's a James Brown dance party near City Hall, and a drum circle going outside the Wells Fargo.

1:12 p.m: We're seeing tweets that the protests have forced the downtown Bank of America branch to close.

No time stamp on this one, but here's a picture of the protesters' shrine to injured vet Scott Olsen, located in Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza (via Twitter user, tdlove5):

1:31 p.m: The marchers are headed back towards City Hall, and according to Michael Moore's Twitter feed, Citibank has closed up.