Storm Basement News Today

>> reporter: that particular couple youre talking about, its a couple with a six-year-old daughter. they got warning about the ststorm coming to them from the news. they decided to take shelter in a storm basement, and i want you to hear from them how they survived this storm. >> me and our daughter were sitting on that pallet. this door here is what kept us alive, basically, along with him because he was holding it with a lanyard, just a lanyard. >> ive never felt anything like that in my life....

Lane and we knew we had to take 0 cover really quickly. within about a half a mile we noticed a convenience store was there and that was the closest thing we could get into quickly. >> beverly, we know youve lived there your whole life so youve seen tornadoes. this is nothing knew from you. >> caller: no. >> we have been hearing from storm chasers what was new for them was the amount of people hitting the road usually told to hunker down, seek shelter, go downstairs into a storm basement. why th...

Chris turnerer our photo journalist is working hard today. they are picking threw are the rubble. where there is a storm basement they look in. where there isnt one you try to get a head in there to listen to see if you hear anything. sometimes you hear them shouting things to see if anybody shouts back. we have been in the neighborhood. all of the homes were checked once but in a very preliminary way and they didnt have as many people in the immediate minutes and hours after the storm. so they ...

>> yeah. they realized that they were trapped. >> yeah. >> i imagine, just the water coming in, probably a little bit frightening. >> but we got -- we turned around and we went from house to house and people were going, is anybody there? its like, no, theyre out, were out, you know, we helped them make sure that our neighbors were out. the ones that we knew were home. >> reporter: one of the remarkable things, when you hear people recount what happened on may 20th, they often talk about may 3rd,...

Literally wrapped into the tree. it goes on and on and on. earlier we were 3/4 of a mile here in the plaza towers neighborhood. as residents came back to their home to find things a remarkable story from rina phillips, her neighborhood is flattened, all houses are destroyed. she was in the house when they heard the storm coming. eight members of her family, including a 2-year-old gra grandchild went down to the storm basement. listen how it played out. >> it was loud, windy. and you know, but on...