Transcripts For CNNW CNN Presents 20110530 : vimarsana.com

CNNW CNN Presents May 30, 2011



that is a monster tornado. >> reporter: battle hardened storm chasers in awe of nature's power. >> oh, my gosh. this is awful. dude, the trees. the trees are debarked! >> reporter: residents running for cover anywhere they could. >> in a crowded convenience store some 20 people hunkering down in a darkened commercial refrigerator. >> can we go in the cooler? [ screaming ] >> go! >> oh, dear heaven. >> god! >> reporter: at the same time a security camera in a nearby frozen yogurt shop catches the chaos. workers moving customers to the back and then everything goes flying. the massive tornado mowing down everything in its path. people's lives churned up and spewed out. >> here's the gas station that we were at. >> reporter: this is the convenience store now. >> this would have been where we walked in. >> reporter: all across the city, thousands and thousands of people in shock, taking the first steps on the long road to recovery. make no mistake, joplin, missouri, will rebuild, but it will never be the same. hello and welcome to this one-hour special report on the joplin, missouri, tornado and other deadly storms. "a twister's fury: in the path of "destruction." i'm drew griffin. this evening in joplin at 5:41 r residents and city crews stopped and bowed their heads in a movement silence to remember exactly what happened one week ago tonight. that is joplin tonight. a week ago the people of joplin were in shock. an f-5 tornado, unlike anything anyone had seen, ripped through the heart of that city, mowing down everything in their path. today president obama went to see for himself the devastation and to bring words of comfort and encouragement to the badly wounded community. at least 142 people were lost in those deadly minutes. our dan lothian traveled there with the president. >> reporter: before touching down air force one flew over joplin, missouri, giving the president an aerial view of the devastation. what took months and years to rebuild was destroyed in a few moments. homes, businesses and anything else in the tornado's path. on the ground it was a somber president surveying the breathtaking damage up close, meeting with officials, survivors and promising not to abandon this city. >> what i've been telling every family i've met here is we're going to -- we're going to be here long after the cameras leave. we are not going to stop until joplin's fully back on its feet. >> reporter: there is plenty of pain here, but also plenty of hope. roadways were lined with thousands of people, some waving flags or holding signs with messages like, god bless joplin. at a memorial service on the campus of missouri southern state university, that escaped the tornado's wrath -- >> we will be with you every step of the way. we're not going anywhere. >> reporter: -- president obama thanked the people of joplin for their courage. >> you banded together, you've come to each other's aid, you've demonstrated a simple truth, that amid heartbreak and tragedy, no one is a stranger. everybody is a brother. everybody is a sister. >> reporter: recovering from one of the worst natural disasters in u.s. history will not happen overnight. but missouri governor jay nixon is optimistic about the future. >> joplin will look different. and more different still in two years, and three, and five, and as the years pass, the moral of our story will be the same. love thy neighbor. god bless. >> dan lothian joining us live. the president has a lot of comforting to do lately. storm after storm, disaster after disaster. >> reporter: that's right. i mean, we saw the president several weeks ago when he was in memphis, tennessee, after they had a lot of flooding there, and then in tuscaloosa, alabama, we saw the president there touring the region after more than 40 people were killed in a tornado. and, you know, meeting with the residents there. today the president reflected back on that. he said at the time when he was in tuscaloosa, that was the kind of devastation that he had never seen in his lifetime. he says, this tragedy here is just as heartbreaking, but in some ways, he said, it's even worse. >> all right, dan lothian live in joplin. last sunday's twister left a mangled path of death and debris. initially said to be five to six miles wide. our casey wian wanted to check it out for himself. what he found was a bit outstanding. >> reporter: show us the initial damage from the tornado. >> initially those trees start through there. and the stuff over here, that's a trailer for the business here, the working trailer. >> reporter: so, this is ground zero of the joplin tornado, and we're going to drive its entire length from west to east to get a good picture of just how widespread the damage was. here's the first downed power lines. major electrical transmission lines. one reason much of joplin is without electrical power. so, less than a mile into our journey, you see the first homes that have lost part of their roofs. you with see everybody on this house a sign warning looters will be shot. we can see some of the power company crews are working on repairing these downed electrical lines. that will be vital to this area's recovery. we're now about three miles into our journey and you can see behind me that by the time the tornado got here, it destroyed almost everything in its path. including one of the iconic images of this disaster, st. john's hospital. now about four miles into the path of the tornado, this is where we first came just hours after it hit and spoke with a family who was trying to salvage what they could, despite a driving rain and hailstorm. >> it was just starting off with hail. i'm used to that. and then it just went insane afterward. >> reporter: here is the collapsed home depot where we first met 17-year-old andrea osborn, who was desperately searching for her father. >> my dad and my uncle are in there, and i'm just -- i'm hoping and praying to god they're okay. >> reporter: turned out they were buried in that rubble. so, we are now about seven miles to the east of where the tornado first touched down. as you can see, there's still lots of damage here, so those original estimates of six miles on the ground are way too conservative. this is where jim and stacy richards lived. stacy survived the tornado by hanging onto two dog crates as her home collapsed around and on top of her. >> that was awful. laying there, screaming and screaming and screaming. yeah, it was horrible. >> reporter: this week they got their insurance settlement so they can rebuild. how far east did it go? >> i'm not sure. i know there's damage over on the next mile section. >> reporter: we're now almost exactly 12 miles due east of where we started this journey and where the tornado first touched down. this is the area where locals say the tornado actually lifted off the ground, meaning its path is about twice as long as first estimated. now the national weather service has revised it's report based on aerial photographs of damage to trees. they now say the tornado's path was 13 miles long. also new numbers to report today, drew. the death toll continues to rise here. officials say there are 146 sets of human remains that have been recovered. without getting too gruesome, that doesn't mean that's the same number as the death toll because there may be duplicate partial remains. also, 43 people remain missing tonight. that includes four people listed as missing but whose family members say they are, in fact, deceased. some good news for this community. very early stages of its recovery, fema says it has approved $6.2 million in loans for 5,600 joplin area households. that's about $1,100 per household. not a lot of money but a start. the city of joplin, now the water is safe to drink. it hasn't been all week. they lifted the boil water order and now people don't have to drink bottled water in the city of joplin. just one sign it's starting to get back to normal. >> casey, i want to ask you about the figure of 146 now perhaps dead. 43, though, missing. where are they? where do they suspect those people are, if they are, indeed, perished in this tornado? >> reporter: you know, no one knows. search teams are still combing throughout this area with dogs. city officials don't know how many dog teams are out there at this hour, but they are still out there looking. you can see behind me, there are still piles of rubble, piles of debris, still homes in various stages of collapse. there are structures all over a 12 to 13-mile long area and a three-quarter to one-mile wide area. imagine the job it takes to go through all of that rubble. they found one body a day or two ago in a pond. so, they could be anywhere. some of those missing may just be missing and haven't contacted their family members. we just don't know. >> casey wian live in joplin, missouri, all week long, casey, great job, thanks. when we return, a store manager tells one customer, hey, you can't leave. an unwelcome order, but it may have saved a life. another couple's lives spared in a room they took for granted until now. ♪ [ 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>> well, yes. i publicly repented on last tuesday with t.j. in an interview that i had been one of those people that just, you know, would hear the sirens go off and i went into the store to -- and just ignore they will, but i went into the store to get milk and the sire rens went off and john got on the p.a. and said, everyone need to get into the produce cooler. my thought is, i'll just get in my home and drive home, which is right down 20th street, which is the path the tornado was taking at that very moment. i got to the front door and he was pleading with me. he says, sir, you don't want to go out there. and i didn't. because i didn't, i'm alive. >> rick, he saved your life, right? basically? >> he did, he did. he saved my life. and about 35 of us were crammed into this little cooler. and he was the last one if. he was telling me, i didn't know this, but that he was actually starting to be sucked out, lifted up, and two of the girls that worked for him held onto him and kept him from -- because they couldn't close the door because of the wind was so bad. he was about to get sucked out. >> john, is this store policy, your policy? have you practiced this, everybody in the cooler? >> this is a company policy, kroger is really good. they have all of these different policies out. they believe in safety first. my store manager, mindy, she's adamant within the store to make sure everybody knows where they're supposed to go in the event of a tornado. if it gets cloudy outside, we go around, check to make sure that people know where their flashlights are at, make sure that the batteries are working in them, they know exactly where they're to go, and to grab everybody on the way to our produce cooler. >> john, give me an idea of what it was like inside that cooler. were people screaming? were they scared? were they calm? >> people were screaming, people were praying, people were crying. i know it seemed like everybody was holding on to everybody. i believe it was everybody's efforts. the employees as well as the customers who were holding onto and keeping each other from any more possibility of being hurt or injured. >> can i ask both of you -- >> at a certain point -- >> yes, go ahead, rick. >> i was just going to say, at a certain point, even the roof of the produce cooler halfway collapses down on us. and it held, though. and we were saved. >> rick, when the door was opened, you came out of that cooler. what did you see? >> to see this behind you, it's just -- it's like the end of the world. it's devastation. i don't know. it was terrible. we were all just in shock. just shock. i don't know what else to call it. i came back, walked home and came back later that night about midnight to see if my car, which was just completely trashed in the parking lot and see if there was anything left in it worth anything and there's not. >> that was the car you were going to drive home in. >> that's the car. oh, it's just crushed down. it's just -- i mean, the roof is completely crushed in. it's just really bad. when we got there, we talk with people and some guards that were there and i brought my son with me and we were walking away. and john was walking back from his house. i said, there's the man that saved my life. we just talked for a little bit. the thing he shared with me that i just found so encouraging and profound he said, he don't think anyone was left in the store. i think they all lived. and i was just so thankful. i mean, that's what leadership is all about. it's just -- you know, i was at the thing with president obama where he talked about the manager who actually gave his life to save those customers in a cooler, i think, in pizza hut. i don't know. i appreciate this man because he really did -- i mean, god spared us, but in the natural, this man saved my life, literally. and i thank you. >> well, heroes come in all shapes and sizes, guys. a nice moment to end on there. john, congratulations for stepping up to the plate when your customers really needed you. thanks to both of you. john, assistant store manager at dillon stores, which i'm sure up or down, they're coming back to joplin, i bet, right, john? >> they are going to rebuild here. and they put out a news about that about everything that's going to be taking place. >> and rick morgan, who will never shop anywhere again. thanks again. >> i -- well, actually, i called nicole, who had talked to me the first time about the first interview i had, and i left her a phone message on wednesday. i said, well, i just spent about an hour in my storm shelter for the first time in many years. >> all right. >> and the tornado didn't come but i'm going to keep spending it there when the sirens go off. i've officially repented. >> rick and john, thank you so much. speaking of that -- >> if it's possible, could i give a real quick shout out. >> real quick. >> i'd like to thank all my family and friends back home for all their prayers and support, and i'd love to thank all the dillon's employees and everybody for all the support and prayers that they've done for us. so, god bless you all. >> i can give a quick shout out to the workers. i was out of -- our house was not hit, but i was -- i had power back in three days. and i'm so thankful for the men and women who have come here and just are working so hard to help restore the city, the volunteers. it's just been overwhelming. thank you. thank you, thank you. >> all right, guys. a quick shout out to both of you. thank you for being on our program. we really appreciate it. congratulations. thanks again. well, the death toll could have been even higher in the storms were it not for the so-called safe rooms in some houses. a safe room is a fortified structure like steel and concrete made to withstand a tornado, and the beelick family in joplin says their safe room saved them from death. t.j. holmes got a firsthand look. >> reporter: you guys are accustomed to severe weather in the midwest and this part of the country. when did this start to feel any different? >> this storm, even though initially to me started like pretty much every other storm that we know. we hear the warnings on the television. we keep an eye out the window. >> reporter: when did your own personal alarm bells start going off? >> you know what, they were downstairs, they were eating, watching a movie, and i was upstairs watching tv, like i said. i looked outside and it was dark. it looked scary, but it wasn't that much different, but something said, go downstairs. as soon as i said it, the power went off. >> and we got in the room. she closed the door and then my ears started popping. >> oh, terrible. >> as if we were going up in an airplane. i had never experienced that before. >> reporter: how many times have you all used this in the past? >> never. been here three years. >> reporter: you have never used your safe room? >> never. two and a half weeks ago i cleaned it out. >> reporter: you were using it as a closet. >> we were. this was a closet. >> reporter: did you feel safe once you got in here and closed the door? >> well, i was against the door and it was shaking so hard. and i just was holding on. i mean, i was just laying against it. you could feel the pressure. >> yeah. see, this is wood on the top so there was a lot of banging going on. >> just sounded like everything was exploding. >> reporter: where in your house could you have survived if you didn't have this room? >> not anywhere else in the house besides down here. >> if our daughter isabella would have been in her room she surely would have died because her whole window exploded in. just glass everywhere. >> upstairs there is a board from the fence that actually goes right through the wall like it was going at 200 miles an hour. >> just wouldn't have been okay. >> everything on the top floor was pretty -- pretty much shot. >> everything had just exploded. everything was everywhere. i mean, it was like a war zone. i turned around and went and told my kids, nothing looks the same, but we are all alive. >> reporter: today what do you think about the attitude you used to have about this room? >> i would never live in this area without a room like this again. it saved our lives. >> from now on we will always keep it cleared out so we can get in here. >> it's a blessing. now take a listen to this. >> the sirens sounded, and the warnings went up. we ferried everyone into the basement of the gymnasium which is where the shelter is. >> coming up next, high praise for red cross volunteers who helped so many victims while suffering personal losses of their own. ttd# 1-800-345-2550 ttd# 1-800-345-2550 ttd# 1-800-345-2550 ttd# 1-800-345-2550 and talk to chuck about ttd# 1-800-345-2550 rolling over that old 401k. with your host, betty white. featuring lifetime aarp member, betty white. and betty white. i'm sorry, betty isn't here. 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