Transcripts For CNNW CNN Newsroom 20120303 : vimarsana.com

CNNW CNN Newsroom March 3, 2012



over on him and her and they say they're going to have to amputate her toes and his leg and he's in critical condition and he's waiting for a flight to the university. >> we'll have more on the damage from this storm system in a moment. other news we're following, nearly two years after the worst oil spill in the u.s., bp has agreed to pay nearly $8 billion for those affected by the 2010 gulf of mexico disaster. an explosion on the deepwater horizon oil rig killed 11 people, took three months for workers to contain the oil spill. fishermen, hotel owners and gulf coast residents were all impacted by the disaster. the republican presidential candidates hope to build some momentum today that will carry them into super tuesday. washington state is holding the caucuses right now. ron paul is the only candidate still campaigning there. the other three hopefuls have moved on to ohio. it is one of ten states holding primaries or caucuses on tuesday. players from the new orleans saints could be in trouble for a cash pool that paid players to injury opponents. an investigation by the nfl found that then defensive coordinator greg williams ran the program. he now says it was a mistake. as many as 27 players funded a pool that doled out $1,500 to knock out an opposing player. the payout was $1,000 when someone had to be carried off the field. the nfl says players involved could face suspension. all right, now back to that severe storm. one of the hardest hit areas of indiana was a town of henryville, north of louisville. josh levs joins us now with incredible images that we just got from that area. >> yes, it's coming to us from the newsroom this afternoon. hello again to all of you folks. this is some of the most dramatic video that we have seen from these storms and these tornadoes that ripped through parts of this country. let's take first a look at this video to set it up. okay. here's what you're seeing here. this is inside a gas station in henryville. a man named mike who had just not long before gotten inside that gas station and got a little bit of video. you can see a little bit out the window as the tornado came through. then he steps outside, let's watch this next video together. there it is, we're going to stay on this video. look at that. this is incredibly powerful. and tells us a story of what had happened. these tornadoes came through and actually flattened the gas station across the street from where he was. he says it was blind luck he came inside this shell gas station instead of another. look how huge that is. we have also heard from him. he told us about the experience. listen to that. >> the vehicles on 160 were being turned over in front of us. we saw the marathon station across the street completely leveled. nothing left of it. it then kept moving to the east and then you could tell it hit the school with all of the turbulence. >> all right. we'll get back to that video that shows. obviously we want to know all we can about this. it's incredibly powerful. some of the most dramatic video we've seen from these storms. >> incredible. really an understatement. thanks so much, josh. jacqui jeras with me now. you look at those images, as well. that is a monster of a tornado. >> it really is. >> we understand now, some 97 or so tornadoes have dotted many of these states along the way. all that kind of intensity. >> not necessarily, all different kinds of intensities. the national weather service out assessing that damage today. and look at that video again, it's so amazing because that was a developing tornado. it was an intensifying process and also multiple vortices. it was sucking in all of the air from around it, taking up all of that energy and tightening. do you see how it's tightening. >> even the man working at that station for him to stand still. he must have really been fighting some pull or holding on to something while he's being fairly steady in taking these images. >> kind of hard to tell how far away he is from that tornado, but i know the gas station across the street was obliterated. so i'm sure he felt something. gas stations aren't necessarily a good place to be, by the way. maybe better than your car, but the bathroom of a gas station is where you'd want to go. and seems to me, fredericka, that people were really aware of the risk that we had out there yesterday. it was a high-risk state. we hadn't had a high-risk date since may 25th of last year. >> usually it's the springtime. but this is very unusual this kind of winter system. >> it's a little unusual to see tornadoes like that in places like indiana, illinois, kentucky, a little more common to see it down here. and this is where we would expect to see severe weather this time of year and that's where we're seeing it today. today is a different situation, though, than we saw yesterday. i don't think we're going to see a lot of tornadoes like that. we'll see smaller, weaker tornadoes that don't last as long, but keep in mind, it doesn't take that strong of a tornado to cause a lot of damage so we need to take the situation very seriously. tornado watch has been put into effect across southern georgia into northern parts of florida. that includes you in brunswick, georgia, jacksonville, over toward tallahassee, all along the i-10 corridor right now, those storms will be moving into your area. and keep in mind, a watch means conditions are favorable for tornadoes to develop. it's when a warning is issued that one has been spotted on the ground or doppler radar is indicating strong rotation and that's what's going on in glenn county right now. and this storm is just to the west of interstate 95 about to cross it. so those folks need to be seeking shelter now. this is also -- there's a lot of rain. these are hp cells or high precipitation which means it's likely they're going to be wrapped in rain. even though it's daylight out and you might be able to see the dark skies approaching, you might not see the tornado in that storm because it's going to be enshrouded in the rain. this is the big line we're watching here from southwest of tallahassee up towards brunswick stretching up toward the hilton head area and that is a very intense line of storms. you can see the orange box here, that's the severe thunderstorm warning. but i would say there's the potential for some of these individual storms within this line to start rotating. so everybody in here needs to be on high alert and be aware of that threat. and again, the watch area that we're talking about stays in effect until 8:00 tonight. this is the larger scale picture or the slight risk that was issued by the storm prediction center for today where they're expecting the greatest potential for that severe weather developing. so this will likely stay together and move farther on down to the south. i think we'll lose a little bit of energy with this tonight as that sun goes down and we lose some of that daytime heating, but some of this could continue overnight and that's so deadly. some of these storms, sometimes people it's dark out and people are sleeping and they don't know what's going on. but just an amazing event. so many reports, 98 yesterday like you mentioned, so far seven reported today. but some of the numbers are changed, they're just preliminary. they might be multiple reports of the same tornado. but you can kind of see how some of these are lined up. >> they come in and try to confirm. >> and they're doing that today. they're out assessing the damage. >> thanks so much. appreciate that. so hard hit from that storm system. indiana, particularly the city of marysville. a new video just in to cnn showing the destruction. a sheriff's spokesman is saying that marysville is "almost completely gone." only foundations remain where homes were standing hours ago. and there's barely a tree left standing upright. if you can see on these images. a similar scene couple miles of west in henryville, emergency crews and volunteers are still looking for survivors in what remains of that town. at least 14 people were killed when the tornado hit ground in southern indiana. at least 17 of the more than 30 storm deaths were in kentucky. where the governor has declared an emergency. the national guard has been called in to help search for the survivors there. jim spelman joining us live with an update on the situation there. so give me an idea, what are they up against as they conduct these searches? >> reporter: hey, take a look at this. this is the very edge of the storm damage here in west liberty. just throwing trees around, taking roofs off of buildings. you can see power lines down here. this is an active search and rescue team. this town is on lock down. but a little bit earlier, we were given special access up main street here with the state patrol as they do their rescues. take a look. >> this is west liberty, kentucky, hit hard by friday night's tornadoes. this is the mobile command center that they've set up here. this town is on lockdown right now as they focus on search and rescue. here's why they need that command center. this until last night, friday night was the police department. this right here is a police car that was flipped on its side. you can just see here that this destruction as this tornado tore through here. it was friday night, right around dusk around 7:00 when the tornado came through. some buildings like this one completely leveled and you can see piles of bricks. you can see here the spray paint here from agencies that have been searching, establishing there's nobody trapped in here. that's really the focus right now. search and rescue here. and it's pain staking work. they have to go from building to building and dig through all the crevices and voids. with communications down, cell phone towers down, it's hard to establish cell phone connections or any kind of internet connection. it's really hard to know exactly who may be still stuck here. so they have to just do these house-by-house building-by-building searches. you can see here windows blown out, others destroyed like we showed you. and on the other side of the street, you'll see the courthouse, sort of town center right here on main street. it's just really devastating that this tornado went right through the heart of this small town here in kentucky. really the worst possible path for such a destructive storm. the latest word, fredericka, is they confirmed one person died here in west liberty. they're having a hard time pinning down any potential number of people who may be stuck in these structures. because like i mentioned, cell phone towers are down. therest no internet. so it's hard to know exactly who may be in there. that's why they have to do the door-to-door searches, fredericka. >> thanks so much, jim spelman, appreciate that outlook. from kentucky, indiana, extensive damage in georgia, as well. this is the airport in paulding county west of atlanta georgia, new information is coming in from this area and we'll have a live report from there right after this. [ male announcer ] if you were building the perfect laptop you'd chose an intel core i7 processor for maximum processing power. you'd use carbon fiber and machined aluminum, to make it more beautiful and more durable. you'd even use edge-to-edge gorilla glass for a stunning display in a more compact form. everything that you would ever want in a laptop. introducing the dell xps 13 ultrabook. everything. and more. ♪ and who ordered the yummy cereal? yummy. [ woman ] lower cholesterol. [ man 2 ] yummy. i got that wrong didn't i? [ male announcer ] want great taste and whole grain oats that can help lower cholesterol? honey nut cheerios. confirmation now of one storm-related death in georgia. a suburb of atlanta. there's a lot of damage in several georgia counties. let's bring in jennifer, she's in paulding county where we see an awful lot of damage. but last report you mentioned miraculously no reports of deaths or severe injuries. however, there is confirmation of one death in a nearby county. are search and rescue teams certain about the damage and the toll there in your county? are they still searching just in case for survivors? or those injured? >> reporter: right now they don't believe they're looking for anyone else. there are no reported injuries, no deaths here in paulding county, and that's the good news from here. so many homes have damage. there's more than 100 homes with moderate to minor damage. about six homes with major damage, and that's on the street where we are right now in yorkville near dallas here in paulding county. right over my shoulder, the home next door, the roof has completely come off. you can even see an air-conditioning unit looks like it was flung right into the side of that home. and if you can believe this, we're actually on the second floor of a home where all the walls around me completely came out. the dresser here is still standing. here's the bed here in this bedroom. and there's still the wall frame but now i'm already walking into the living room. and again, the walls, the ceiling has completely come off. this is actually the room where the family was watching tv when the storm came through and the son actually said, dad, you can't wait any longer, you have to get out now. you have to run down the stairs and get to safety. i want to show you something really unbelievable. the walls in the front of the home have gone down, take a look at this. this is the kitchen table. and the wall is just leaning on that table. and the refrigerator door is actually holding that up. otherwise that whole side of the wall would've completely come down, as well. and this is a lot of what we're seeing here in this neighborhood here in yorkville. a lot of the second story homes completely came off. but what we're also hearing is a lot of stories of survival. for instance, this family, they had three people that got downstairs inside a closet and just closed that door, they had to hang on tight to keep the door from opening up. and they said it took just a few minutes and when they walked out of that closet, the rest of the home around them was gone. the home next door, there was a family there, a husband and mother and a 6-month-old baby. they got into the closet, the husband put his arms around them and kept them safe. the good news here in paulding county, there were no injuries. the people heed the warning even though it was at the last second, they got down to the place in just enough time to stay safe, fredericka. >> that is extraordinary just looking at that kind of bird's eye view there, as well. appreciate that. we'll have much more on the storm damage that swept through at least now 11 states across the country. now let's talk about something else that hits close to home for much of the country. rising gas prices. a lot of us are now paying close to $4 a gallon. can someone do something to keep the price from going up again in the future? our ali velshi has this week's fortune brainstorm. i'm joined now by bill richardson, the former governor of new mexico and former energy secretary under president clinton. governor, thanks for being with us. clearly the president and this always happens when gas prices go up is under political pressure to do something about gas prices. you were the energy secretary. are there short-term options? and should we even be involved in short-term solutions when we talk about gas prices increasing? >> well, we need long-term solutions. we need to have energy diversification for energy security. that means i think the key alternative fuels are natural gas and renewables. we need to move in that direction when natural gas is a bridge. we also have to have more energy efficiency, more fuel efficiency, i think the president has pushed that. short-term, you know, maybe the strategic petroleum reserve. i wouldn't sell barrels in the clinton administration when we did, we put some barrels on the market. and that helped reduce the price a little bit. but that's short-term. other steps we need to take obviously is worked with the consumer countries. with japan, with yoo you were, to get them to work on opec countries. i used to be criticized, ali, when i was energy secretary. i'd go around to the opec countries to the saudi arabias and say the price is too high. actually at the time it was about $25. i'd say increase production. and generally the opec countries in those days were in the mood to help us, but they're not anymore. but there are no short-term solutions, but the fact is, this president, this president there's been an increase in domestic oil and gas drilling. >> governor richardson, thank you. i'm ali velshi with this week's fortune brainstorm. and we'll return to our coverage of the strong storm system that's causing thunderstorms right now in some states. irepor ireports, and the eyewitness accounts next. i love that my daughter's part fish. but when she got asthma, all i could do was worry ! specialists, lots of doctors, lots of advice... and my hands were full. i couldn't sort through it all. with unitedhealthcare, it's different. we have access to great specialists, and our pediatrician gets all the information. everyone works as a team. and i only need to talk to one person about her care. we're more than 78,000 people looking out for 70 million americans. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare. today is gonna be an important day for us. you ready? we wanna be our brother's keeper. what's number two we wanna do? bring it up to 90 decatherms. how bout ya, joe? let's go ahead and bring it online. attention on site, attention on site. now starting unit nine. some of the world's cleanest gas turbines are now powering some of america's biggest cities. siemens. answers. [ inhales, exhales ] [ announcer ] cigarettes are not just dangerous when they're smoked. [ rat squeaking ] they're dangerous long after. cigarette butts are toxic. they release chemicals that poison our water... and harm wildlife. and millions... are polluting our environment. [ sniffing ] [ seagulls squawking ] we're watching a storm system that is moving along the florida panhandle right now. after slamming the midwest and parts of the south this morning. the national weather service confirmed a tornado hit north carolina earlier today. joining me right now is andrew doud from our affiliate wsoc in north carolina which is near charlotte. so tell us more about what people are seeing as they're heading back to these neighborhoods. >> well, frankly, a lot of devastation. we're already starting to see the rebuilding begin here. if you take a look behind me, you can see where police are still monitoring who is allowed in and out of the subdivision. right now they're only letting people who live here through. but if you take a look down here, you can start to see where some of that rebuilding is going on. you can see people putting tarps on the roofs of that house where the shingles were blown off from this storm. from the air, yo uh get a picture of how extensive this devastation is. this storm cut a 3.8 mile path of destruction between two counties. and the neighboring subdivisions were completely destroyed. three people were taken to the hospital as a result of this storm. fortunately no one was killed. but certainly many people have to be lucky to have escaped uninjured, including the watson family who we talked to earlier today who said they were upstairs and the storm that came through did the most damage to the first floor. >> all right. thanks so much for that look there at the devastation. our ireporters, josh levs is back with more ireports for us, josh? >> and a lot of that is that devastation we've been seeing right there. but we're also been getting ireports from some people who witnessed the storm as it came through, including tornadoes. take a look at this video. look

Related Keywords

Werther S Original Caramels , People , House , Lives , Injured , 30 , Damage , Storm System , Condition , Flight , Leg , Waiting , Toes , University , U S , Oil Spill , Disaster , News , Explosion , Following , Gulf Of Mexico , Bp , Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig , 11 , 8 Billion , 2010 , 6 Billion , Two , Candidates , Residents , Workers , Hotel Owners , Republican , Fishermen , Three , States , Caucuses , Primaries , Momentum , Hopefuls , Candidate , Ron Paul , Washington State , Super Tuesday , Ohio , One , Ten , Players , Greg Williams , Investigation , Injury Opponents , Cash Pool , Trouble , Nfl , New Orleans Saints , Someone , Player , Pool , Payout , Program , Mistake , Field , 000 , 500 , 27 , 1500 , 1000 , Storm , Town , Images , Southern Indiana , Right , Henryville , Hit Areas , Josh Levs , Suspension , Louisville , Look , Video , Some , Storms , Country , Folks , The Charlotte , Parts , Tornadoes , Newsroom , Afternoon , Yes , Named Mike , Gas Station , Tornado , Bit , Window , Outside , Story , Street , Front , Vehicles , Shell Gas Station , Experience , Luck , Another , Being , 160 , Wall , Marathon Station , Nothing Left , School , Turbulence , Least , Thanks , Shows , Understatement , Incredible , Jacqui Jeras , Way , Kind , Many , Intensity , Monster , 97 , Kinds , Intensities , Weather Service , Process , Vortices , Hand Handedly , Hair , Energy , Tightening , Station , Pull , Something , The Street , Gas Stations , Place , We Hadn T , Risk , Car , Bathroom , Estate , Fredericka , Places , Kentucky , Winter System , Springtime , Illinois , 25 , May 25th , Lot , Situation , Mind , Weather , We Don T , Doesn T , Atlanta Georgia , Effect , Tallahassee , Florida , Southern Georgia Into Northern Parts , Brunswick , Tornado Watch , I 10 , Jacksonville , 10 , Area , Warning , Ground , What S Going On , Conditions , Glenn County , Watch , Rotation , Doppler Radar , Rain , Cells , West , Shelter , Precipitation , Interstate 95 , 95 , Line , Enshrouded In The Rain , Southwest , Dark Skies , Orange Box , Potential , Thunderstorm Warning , Hilton Head , Everybody , Scale , Threat , Picture , Storm Prediction Center , 00 , 8 , South , Daytime Heating , Sun Goes Down , Event ,

© 2025 Vimarsana