georgia. winds as strong as 200 miles per hour ripped through towns. at least 37 people are dead. as many as 17 million people were impacted by the storms. scores of injured people waking up in hospitals this morning. their homes and the homes of their neighbors gone. people now picking through the rubble to find anything they can salvage. president obama is offering federal assistance in the areas battered by the storms. in the little town of west liberty, kentucky, the town felt the full force of a tornado's 1 135-mile-per-hour winds. it leveled building, uprooted trees. cnn evers rob marciano is there getting the first look at some of the town's most extensive damage. rob, good morning to you. >> good morning, gary. they've finally got the roads cleared enough to where larger vehicles can get in here including obviously rescue and recovery vehicles and our satellite truck so we're getting now a first look at -- a live look at the main street. over my left shoulder you're seeing some demolished buildings. the corner of this larger brick and mortar cinder block building is a bank built in the 1960s. the bank has been in business for 100 year, so this town is the county seat of morgan county, off to the right is the municipal building where the police station is, the city hall is and in this parking lot is also the -- is the command center. this is a staging area for supplies, for some of the emergency managers, for law enforcement, as well and obviously there's still some cars that were left here during the storm which came through here at 5:30 friday night with winds of 140 miles an hour, ef-3 and just tore apart this area. this is the mobile teller unit. you see how badly torn up that is. today, now that they've been able to clear some of the roads, you know, this town has been on lockdown and haven't allowed business owners or residents in but now i think a police officer i spoke to last night will allow folks back into town today. kentucky, 17 fatalities so this is a state that's been hardest hit. 4 in this county, 1 right here in town so a lot of the fatalities were spread out over the state so it's not just the towns that were crushed like this one but the little places in between were hard hit, as well so you're just seeing a smidgen of what this tornado outbreak or this tornado outbreak has done. as i mentioned this is the county seat. this is a rural county with agricultural business so this is where everybody comes to do their business. everybody has a bank account in that bank. this is where they come to get their supplies, to get their groceries and it's unusable. this was a wide tornado, a half mile wide so i haven't seen a structure untouched so it's going to take them a long time to pick up the pieces and recover from this storm, gary, and it's not only affecting this town but the entire community that feeds off west liberty, kentucky. gary? >> rob, you were saying earlier that you really have never seen anything like this, these images. tell me about that. >> well, you know, every storm is different, but as far as, you know, in a rugged area like this getting close to the appalachian mountains which is what made this town so difficult to get to and why you're just now starting to see the vivid pictures of it, and it's just unfathomable to me how the storm came through here on friday night. here's the deal, though, yeah, we've got clear skies but it's cold, it's 29 degrees right now and there's snow expected. so we're probably going to get a couple of inches of snow on top of this. can you imagine how much worse that's going to make this entire recovery operation. it's no easy road to ride here for sure. it's going to take them quite some time and some tough folks here in morgan county. they've been very kind to us and they have an amazing attitude, morale is surprisingly high considering what they've been through. >> they'll rebuild west liberty but it will never be the same. so devastating. rob, thanks for joining us. alexandra steele joins us. what made the storms so destructive. >> that was kentucky but, of course, what we've seen in indiana has just been incredible, so let me show you some of the video from indiana, of course, it was an ex-4 tornado and, you know, this is the tornado scale and the scale is based on damage estimates, so you can see it's the enhanced fujita scale, an ef-0 all the way to ef-5 and in henryville, ifrndz tha indiana is an ef-4, staggering. of course, utter destruction with that, of course, brick and mortar buildings completely leveled. so that's the scale of the tornado and, of course, you know, we are only in march. now, granted the climb to go of what we've seen so far this season with it being so warm in the south, all that warm, moist, humid air was there and was available and also, of course, that jet stream, 150-mile-per-hour winds with that and the cold front coming in so really all the ingredients were there for kind of this perfect storm to set up. now, look where we are on the average. only 92, of course, we haven't neared the peak of may, april, may and june. may, we see the most around the country but, you know, rob just mentioned it. it's 29 degrees where he is in kentucky. the biggest problem of all, believe it or not, you know, temperatures were so warm that's what exacerbated and really fired off. that was part of the ingredients, right, with the temperatures so warm. but this cold front moved through, dropped these temperatures from the 60s and 70s where they were to now the 20s and 30s so believe it or not we have snow in the forecast. four places like henryville, indiana and, of course, where rob is in kentucky, as well. this is the swath of the snowfall in the next 48 hours, on the whole maybe 2 to 3 inches of snow developing about 11:00 tonight overnight and then, gary, ending tomorrow morning by about 7:00 a.m. a quick shot but the cold air and the snow on the ground covering everything, everyone out of their hopes without power. couldn't be a worse scenario. >> alexandra, thank you very much. we'll talk to you later in the program. mitt romney has added to his winning streak by capturing yesterday's washington state caucuses. he won michigan and arizona earlier last week. this latest win gives him even more momentum heading into super tuesday, two days from now. as you can see romney captured 38% of the stroet, ron paul, 25%, rick santorum, 24% and newt gingrich with 10%. president obama will address the largest jewish-american community, known at apec. he beats with benjamin netanyahu. iran's nuclear ambitions are sure to top the agenda. elise labbot joins me. do we know what the president is going to be saying today? >> reporter: i think in essence, gary, what he is going to be doing is try to allay fears of not just israel but israel's backers. aip apac is powerful looking for a tough message in terms of what are his red lines that he would approve of israel launching a preemptive strike against iran to fend off its nuclear program or perhaps even take part in such a program. as you know, the administration has been working on this sanctions campaign very tough sanctions against the iranian regime that the administration feels are -- iran is starting to feel the heat and hope that that will get around back to the table and try and negotiate an end to its nuclear program but israel is saying, listen, this is an existential threat to israel. we cannot wait. it's a race against time and i think this is the question now. is israel going to take an attack against iran and can president obama say, listen, the sanctions are working. diplomacy is working. give me a little bit more time. i think it's very careful line that the president is going to be balancing today. >> now, elise, the republican presidential candidates have made a big deal about saying on the campaign trail that they don't believe that barack obama has been supportive enough to israel. do you think barack obama will have that in mind when he speaks to aipac today? >> reporter: you know, president obama gave an interesting interview with "the atlantic" magazine over last week and he said, why is this question always coming up? for the last three years, i've done a lot to help israel in terms of its security, in terms of military aid, everything israel has asked for in terms of security, i've been right there with them, and he wants to, yes, answer these questions to say, listen, the iranian nuclear threat is not just against israel, you know, israel always complains that this sis an, israel versus iran issue. what president obama is going to say, no, this is in interests of the united states and the world to fend off a nuclear program and a nuclear program is unacceptable for the united states. i'm not going to let that happen on my watch so he wants to address not just israel, not just the aipac people but also today, as you said, it's an election campaign. this is a so hot election issue. he wants to be very strong on israel because that's a popular campaign message. >> release labott, very interesting. thanks for talking with us today. best wishes, elise. well, russians are picking their president today. but it's probably going to be the same guy they've had before, so what is it about vladimir putin that makes him so popular? 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[ female announcer ] discover what's next in your life. get this free travel bag when you join at aarp.org/jointoday. people are voting across russia today for president of that nation. vladimir putin is expected to win. a new term as russia's leader. the former president and current prime minister has faced increasing pressure inside the country since december's parliamentary elections. questions over that vote were followed by weeks of anti-putin protests. so who exactly is the man who could potentially become russia's longest serving leader since joseph stalin. to give us a better understanding i'm joined by masha gessin, author of "the man without a face: the unlikely rise of vladimir putin." a lot of media coverage has focused on protests against putin. some believing he rigged parliamentary elections in december but by many accounts he remains extremely popular in russia. why is that? >> thank you for having me. it's a false kind of popularity. first of all, we can't really trust the organizations which are controlled by the state. second of all and more important what putin has done over the last 12 years since he first came to power is dismantle russian political institutions basically dismantle the elections and destroy the independent media. so nobody else has an opportunity to speak to the people, nobody else can actually get popular. it's a scorched earth strategy that he's employed. >> but from what your book says, you believe that his demise is about to begin. how is that? >> i do. the movement is huge. i think the movement is much larger than most people here and even than russia realized. last time there were protests in 98 city as cross the country. in small towns, population, 140,000, 120 people come out. that's 0. points 1 prr.1% popul city and they're really fed up. i think one other important thing about the protest is that everything that used to play well for putin, everything that used to work for him like his many vulgar jokes has now really started to rile people up so it's now working against him. he doesn't realize this. >> masha, certainly he's not a dictator like stalin or khrushchev or brezhnev were, right gentlem right? >> it's hard to rank dictators on a scale. it's dangerous for people in opposition. journalists have been killed. opposition activists have been called and it's a current where there's no real democracy and no independent media. >> meanwhile, i was fascinated by the book, the beginning when you talk about as a little kid he was kind of a bully, right? >> or at least that's the way he chose to portray himself. the thing about putin is that before he was in the public eye he was a secret police agent. his entire early life was secret so he got to write his own story which i think is very telling. if you look at what this man chose to tell the world that he's a street thug basically, he has trouble controlling his temper. >> do you think he's done good things for the nation, though? >> i don't. he has been extremely lucky. he has ridden the oil boom in russia. but along the way what he has done is he's instituted an extremely corrupt system of state capitalism basically amassing a lot of wealth in his own hands and in the hands of his cronies and that makes the economy extremely ineffective so even an oil boom cannot ultimately save it. >> final question for you, masha, are you concerned about your own safety for writing such a book? >> i'm hoping that the regime has a lot of fish to fry right now. it is a large movement and imone of its members. >> masha gessen, the book is fascinating. thanks for being on today. a popular tv show takes a real-life twist. a helicopter filming the show plunges 200 feet to the ground. you hear it, you see it, all caught on tape. we'll show you what happened after the crash next. and it was a turning point in the fight for voting rights. coming up remembering the event known as bloody sunday. 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[ male announcer ] michelin knows it's better for xerox to help manage their finance processing. so they can focus on keeping the world moving. with xerox, you're ready for real business. checking stories across the country, from arizona nerve-racking footage of a helicopter crash captured on tape. >> oh, gosh. >> the entire military aircraft was filming a chase in the car show "top gear" when the chopper went down much amazingly, the pilot and his crew member are okay. they say the chopper's thick exterior saved them. detroit metropolitan airport an arriving delta airplane hit a parked shuttle bus. you're look at video from inside the plane. one of the wings clipped it on the runway. the bus tipped over. you will be happy to know no one was inside the bus. none of the 144 passengers, you'll also be happy to know, were hurt on the plane. enjoy an oklahoma city, 127 members of the 45th infantry brigade have returned home from afghanistan. heartwarming scenes as they received a warm welcome from family and friends who they haven't seen for nearly a year. paid to hurt. other players, an investigation is found that the new orleans saints were actually rewarding some of their players for hurting players on other nfl teams. as much as $1,500 for knocking a guy out of the game. this is sanctioned by an assistant coach. earlier i talked to coy wire and asked him about the mentality that leads to this kind of thing. >> this is a classic case of group think. grew think in psychology is a term describing a group of individuals, a large group of people will come together and do bad, irrational things when as individuals they would see and assess that same situation as being bad and wrong. it's what happens in colts. you get caught up in the moment, in the heat of the moment and something in a sport like football it's an uber competitive sport and the chase, the pursuit of the elusive lombardi trophy sometimes causes guys to lose their heads a bit but that's what makes this game exciting is the will to win and the guys who are willing to do anything to go out there and succeed. >> yeah, but you can win without doing stuff like this. my next question, do you think other teams might have coaches paying players to hurt other players? >> i hope not. you know, i think that now -- >> i mean your days with the bills and in your days with the falcons did you ever hear a coach say i'll give you money if you knock a player out of the game. >> that was the unique experience i had with that and i realize that afterwards when i had other coaches that that wasn't the norm. that's not how things were in the nfl. >> it is now up to nfl commissioner roger goodell to decide what kind of penalty the saints will be hit with. mitt romney, he's on a winning streak running the table on super tuesday as a long shot but can he pretty much sew it up with a few strong showings a few days from now? we'll take a look next. let's get back to politics now and the republican race for president. we are coming up on a very big day, two days from now, super tuesday here are the numbers, ten states, more than 400 delegates, 400 is more than 30%, about one-third of the delegates needed for the republican presidential nomination. joining me now, patricia murphy, founder of citizen jane politics and contributor for "the daily beast." thanks for joining us. >> good morning. >> so how big of a deal is tuesday? it appears right now we have a two-man race between mitt romney and rick santorum. what could shake out -- >> they don't call it super tuesday for nothing. this is the biggest day of the election season so far because there are ten states we already talked about how many delegates there will be and a big opportunity for every person in the race to do what he needs to do. mitt romney needs to break away from the pack, close the door on the other guys. rick santorum wants to keep it a two-man race, super tuesday he can turn that around but he needs several victories, newt gingrich has to win georgia, needs to win some other states to s