Mitchell Russlander News Today

Do. >> lieutenant there telling us the situation with swift water rescue and they will be very busy in the days to come. take a look at the radar and you see exactly what were dealing with right now here in wilmington, north carolina, right there on the dirty side of the storm, that northeastern quadrant, that is the side that can produce tornadoes. you see the training effect of the storms that continue to push in. floodwaters could linger for several days of course from this storm. and that co...

Mitchell russlander of swift water rescue. he and his team have been working around the clock and he told me how he believes the next few hours will be very important. >> my expectations are nowhere close to where i thought. that has been proven since i got here. it is way more than i expected. >> and when you talk about that, explain to us what is the bigger factor of this storm? was it the storm surge, is it the flooding that has been associated with the storm? what are you you seeing? >> seei...

With the possibility of tornadoes. george? >> thats right, karen. as we understand, you pointed out here, were under a tornado watch. and were in that dirty side of the storm, that northeastern quadrant where you have the trains of storms and the possibility for tornadoes throughout. well have to keep an eye on it. karen, thank you so much. lets now bring in lieutenant mitchell russlander. we understand with swift water rescue, and we know that these are going to be very busy times for you, mr. ...

Phone lines, so it was difficult in the early hours for first responders to have a handle on exactly where they needed to go. that is the work that has been happening now in the daylight hours and since those heavy winds have started to subside. that means that first responders can figure out where they need to go. you also have to depend on the weather clearing will order to bring in aircraft if it is needed. so a number of challenges, not the least of which is figuring out where people need he...

The more rain. it will take several days for all the water to go away. >> mitche lellmitchell, what ha as far as the rescues in play? >> with the storm coming, it affected a lot of people so quick, i dont think a lot of people that were affected thought that it was going to actually be that bad. like i said, it came to a point when we were out all night last night actually even cutting off roofs trying to remove people because the water level rose so high so quick. it is dangerously quick. and y...

Already flowing that it was. so we tried to get everybody up as quickly as possible that still remained, but we still get calls to constantly getting more and more people out. so on it is definitely tough. >> mitchell, a lot of people, they see what you do, they respect and really greatly appreciate the risks that people take, people like you take, you know, to help people in need. but look, there are many people who are watching us right now, people who left wondering when they can come back. w...