ming ham. mark mancuso also on site. jenna: we begin with rick reichmuth. search and rescue efforts are underway right behind you, rick. what made this storm so devastating? reporter: well the size of it, obviously, and the strength. likely an ef5 tornado, a little bit too early to say that officially. from the pictures it looks like way. the set up was prime, we knew it was going to be a very dangerous day for tornadoes and it returned out to be one for the record books, certainly the deadliest day since 1974. a lot of tension going on. this neighborhood obviously hit, you can see all of the destruction, you can see on the horizon the trees that look like toothpicks. the few trees left standing, they have been ripped bear. you can see piles and piles of debris as far back as you go. a lot of that debris coming from a neighborhood that is right on the other side of here that s
power lines and significant damage is reported in several counties across virginia. jenna: we are coming up at 11 minutes after the hour. 11 minutes is a typical warning time that you get for a tornado. think about that, that s not a whole lot of time before a tornado stops. twisters also in tennessee. packing strong winds and heavy rain. you had the golf ball-sized hail as well across the area. a log cabin there burning to the ground after it was struck by lightning and two dozen dead there including a woman dead when a tree fell on her mobile home. so much to pay attention to today. the dangerous weather is certainly not over yet. watches and warnings posted in areas hit by the tornadoes as the powerful storm system sets it sites on brand-new states today. a tornado warning issued for eastern pennsylvania and northwest new jersey. let s go live to abg cue weather
tornadoes. so we need to be very careful not just to jump to the conclusion and say, oh, then it s because of global warming. jon: this tuscaloosa tornado that we re looking at there, thought to be a mile wide, thought to be an ef5 tornado, the most powerful on the tornado-rating scale, winds maxing out at 287 miles an hour, and just one more factoid to throw at you, more than three times as many tornado related deaths have occurred in the last 24 hours than in the past ten years combined. your point though is one month, one outbreak or even one year does not a trend make. and remember in 1974, 317 people died in just two days. that is still much more than what we are seeing right now. much more importantly, what
reading about how an ef-5 tornado, the most powerful on the scale, and it is thought the that the tuscaloosa tornado was an ef-5, rick, is actually capable of sucking the at fault off of a asphalt off a road and stripping it bare from a street. reporter: yeah. it absolutely can. and i wanted to tell you this also. these images that you are seeing here while devastating, and certainly never seen anything like this, there is a community that is a couple miles down the way called alberta, and everyone is saying that community no longer exists. the stores, the homes, everything gone. sost not even this kind so it s not even this kind of rubble, it s bare. we are hearing of those kinds of reports. we re going to try to get back there, but it s very difficult to get around here. and if you leave, it s very difficult to get back. so it s making hard for us to get a lot of these pictures of surrounding areas. they ll be coming in throughout the area, and we re getting
there s reports that a super 8 motel that is completely collapsed, the church, the school challenged as well. some people are visibly shaken or crying, the words they use to describe the devastation is intense. they re talking about it looks like a war zone, apocalyptic. so this little town really hit hard as georgia continues to prepare for even more storms. jon, back to you. jon: yeah, steve, jenna was just describing the power of an ef-5 tornado. i don t know that we know that is what hit there in ringgold. have you heard the rating yet? reporter: we haven t, but what we have heard really is a sense of shock, really, by people, some of whom have gone in to pull out aunts or uncles or relatives, and they say it got tremendously dark, it sounded like a freight train, and they say they ve never seen anything like it. it really looks like something out of a war. spire buildings, hotels, fast food restaurants, the school, the church simply wiped off the