reporter: you know, first of all, i ve got about a gallon of water in my ear, don. but that tornado, i mean that was bizarre. early this morning like 9:00, it really wasn t that bad of weather. but all of a sudden, one of these bands spun off a couple of tornadoes that came through north carolina, waterspouts. one actually did some real damage at an r.v. park in emerald isle. that s up the coast of it by atlantic beach, a couple hours up the coast. and the owner said he was on his way to work and he just heard the classic freight train sound, and the next thing you know, all of these rvs were being whipped around. fortunately no one was hurt. we ve talked about the death toll here. it s now reached five. a person in north carolina, a man trying to secure his boat yesterday in oriental, north carolina, had some kind of a medical emergency, possibly a heart attack trying to secure his boat. he is the fifth death on the
we talked to some of those families and they described the whistle, the boom, the freight train sound that comes right before the tornado. it hit at 1:00, 2:00 in the morning so of course startled everybody. after it hit, all the neighbors came out on the street and looked and checked on each other and now they re cleaning up. as far as we can tell, nobody was injured in any of that, which is great news. more rain fell than expected, we should point that out. we initially yesterday were looking at two feet plus generally in the houston area, and then that was upgraded. and so they re worried. last year they got, i think, 15 inches or so, i don t remember, and flooded pretty bad. they re expecting bad flooding, but it s a sunday event and then monday, tuesday, wednesday hitting again. this is long term for them. it s not the initial impact, as we say, it s the flood and they re concerned. you can about imagine.
heavy winds toppling trees as the rain-soaked ground was too weak to hold their roots. at least one home destroyed in new york, major storm downing trees and power lines in the albany area. and a tornado ripping homes to shreds. witnesses describe the moment the twister hit. pouring down rain and hailing. and then off to my left, i heard the freight train sound is what i heard. we ran into the bathroom. and then it really just was kind of shaking. i was so scared, to be honest with you. yeah, there was noise. but i was just so scared. i don t know. that storm also knocking out electricity to thousands of customers. coming up, breaking news out of washington, d.c. the top obama cabinet member who says he will go before the benghazi special select committee. plus, terrifying to see for any parent. look at your screen right here. kids trying to escape a swimming pool with a live electric current flowing through it.
it s probably pretty unstable at this point and some of our sheds are completely gone. it s pouring down rain and hailing. all to my left it s a freight train sound. bill: we ll let you know what to look out for. thousands without power across the country, no word on how long it might take to turn the electricity on in virginia and delaware for those folks. martha: there are reports it s owed a staggering amount of money in back taxes from federal employees. $3.3 billion is the amount in back taxes owed by federal employees who are paid by the u.s. government. stuart varney is the host of varney and company. tell us about this. reporter: with the va and
some were praying out loud, you say, which i can imagine is a scene that is unbelievable. but you say you never gave up hope you d make it through. no. actually, it was it was a strange thing. the roof was being, you know, ripped apart. we could hear the power of the storm. it was just like people say it was. like a freight train coming through, but it was shredding the building. the ceiling and tiles were falling, debris on us. but when we walked out it was an odd feeling, like maybe it only happened to the school. but when we walked out, we noticed that everything was gone. and that s when the complete shock set in. that, you know, this was a truly devastating storm and we were very lucky to have come out alive. so while it was happening, this freight train sound, with you not knowing how widespread it was and how devastating it was, and then you walk out and the town you know flattened and