Blizzards destroying everything in their path. Millions of people throughout the country feeling these storms wrath. Indra petersons tracking the areas hardest hit for us and where the storms are heading next. Welcome to early start. Im christine romans. Im poppy harlow. Its friday, may 4th, 5 00 a. M. In the east. Breaking news in the hunt for flight 370 and a potential turning point as the search moves under water. Australian officials who have now taken the lead in this say the subsurface search is under way with the u. S. Navys pinger locator and other acoustic gear, honing in on about a 150mile stretch of the indian ocean. They are trying, of course, to detect any transmission from the planes black box. The pinger may only have a day or two of battery life left. Meantime, nearly two dozen ships and aircraft again combing the surface, looking for any sign of debris. Overnight officials said all of the leads garnered from satellite images, all of those turned out to be other things. Our Matthew Chance is live in perth, australia, for us this morning. Matthew, i know that they have a submarine, and then they also have two ships that are equipped with this hightech gear out on the search now. What is the latest . Reporter yeah, thats right. The latest is that this subsurface phase of the search operation has really gotten under way with the presence of that British Nuclear submarine the hms tireless. Its equipped with underwater detection technology, but also with two surface vessels as well. Again, one from british, the hms echo, but another one called the ocean shield, which is an australian vessel. Thats equipped with some american technology. In fact, its a towed pinger locator, a tpl, which as the name suggests, is towed at the back of the ship at some depth, and the sensitive listening device tries to detect where the pinger from the black box flight recorder from that missing aircraft might be. Its something that starts, as i say, a new phase in this operation. But the authorities here in australia, which as you mentioned, have taken the lead somewhat because of the geographical proximity of the search area to australia, say that theyre also counting on trying to, you know, get some kind of tipoff from the air. Theyve got, you know, several planes in the air, at least ten military aircraft, four civilian aircraft as well, with people looking out the windows and trying to spot any kind of debris from the missing airliner. So far, they havent found any. Part of the problem, of course, is the size of the search area theyre looking in, absolutely extraordinary size, almost 85,000 square miles of area that theyre looking at. There was a press conference earlier today by the head of the Search Mission, Angus Houston, former air chief marshal here in australia. Take a listen to what he had to say. Were moving into an area weve never been before, and may i say, i think theres groundbreaking analytical work has been simply extraordinary, and it gives us, i think, some hope that we will eventually find the aircraft in the area that were searching. Reporter well, theyre saying that this search area is the area of highest probability based on the limited data that theyve got. Theyre not absolutely certain its there, but all the evidence that they have, which is minimal, from various satellite pings that theyve picked up over the course of the last minutes of the flight is their best guess. A lot of us want to know, what is that data, because Angus Houston, who is heading those australian operations, did say on the basis of the data that has arrived only recently, this is the best data thats available, and theyre sort of narrowing that area a little bit right now. Thank you for the update, matthew. Appreciate it. Well get back to you later in the show. So, there is guarded optimism as the search area for flight 370 is refined. What kind of weather conditions are crews going to face on day 28 of the search . Cnns will ripley joins us live. Hes on a boat off the coast of western australia. Will, whats it looking like out there . Reporter hey, christine. Yeah, you know, the weather conditions both here, close to the western australian coast, and also at the search area, about 1,000 miles from where we are, are described as fair today. And the weather is very important, whether were talking about an underwater search or an abovethewater search, the weather conditions have a big effect because of the technology thats being used. The sidescan sonar thats looking for debris, if you have too many waves, then obviously, thats going to affect the ability to detect whats floating on the surface of the water. Also, if you have too many waves and you have white caps and what not, then a visual search from the air or ship is very difficult because the white caps can be mistaken for objects floating in the water. The actual weather conditions, if you look here, were told that this is probably a bit nicer, a bit more clear than what youre seeing in the search zone, but the key factor is, again, the waves. You cant see them. This is markedly different even from earlier this week when we were getting tossed around in this exact spot on the ocean. So, not very many waves, no white caps, which is the good news. The cloud bank is a bit lower than wed like it to be. Its about 1,000 feet above the ocean, so search planes have to get down pretty low. They can actually get as low as 300 feet above the water to search. But obviously, if the clouds were nonexistent, youd have more visibility. Were told the visibility is about six miles in each direction now. So, fair weather for the search, certainly better than some of the weather weve seen in that area. All right, and time running out to find those devices before the battery life runs out. Thanks so much, will ripley. Meantime, sources are telling cnn that the head of malaysias department of Civil Aviation has just rejected a request from the families of those on flight 370 to release audio transmission between the cockpit and the control tower. Our jim clancy is tracking all of this for us in kuala lumpur. He has been there all through for all 28 days of this exhaustive search. You know, jim, it was with you live last week that we got the full transcript of the transmission, but the families want to hear it. Reporter certainly. They want to be a little bit closer to the investigation. They want to feel hands on. And so, theyre making requests, hoping that, somehow, they will understand perhaps what the investigators have not, by listening to those voices, even in a different language. They want to grasp at anything substantive that they can. But they were told by the department of Civil Aviation that thats not going to be possible, that those are part of the ongoing investigation. Even, we are told, the pilots families have not been allowed to listen to those. Now, they do have a recording, Youtube Video recordings that were posted by captain zaharie shah online. He posted some selfhelp things, a home repair and talking about his simulator online. As a result of that, they do have some data they could use to compare the voices. It really depends how clear were those cockpit voice recordings that were made by air traffic control. What might they be able to reveal . Now, they have told us that the results are that they cannot determine which pilot it might have been that made the comments from the cockpit, including goodnight from malaysia 370. Poppy . Jim, im wondering, for weeks and weeks there was sort of this routine 5 30 a. M. Here in the east coast of the United States press conference, in the afternoon where you are, for updates. And we havent gotten that for a while. Do you have any indication why that is . Is that really just a sign that they have nothing new . Reporter youve hit it on the head. And i was told that by someone close to all of this who said that, you know, theres no point in having a briefing for the media if we have nothing new to tell you. They could repeat what was said by the australians, which they have done in past briefings. They could go back over the information theyve already told us, which they have done. But everyone becomes frustrated. And so, now they have decided that they will only limit the media briefings to times when they actually have something new to tell us, and they havent had anything new to tell us in days. Theres been a real sense here that those regular briefings are not going to be the source of any breaking news. It is only when we get the surprise notification that we are going to hear something truly new, something significant. Poppy . Right, yeah. We can only wait and hope for just some more information. All right, appreciate the reporting this morning, jim. Thank you. All right, new information this morning on the soldier who went on a shooting rampage at ft. Hood. We are live with what could have been going through this gunmans mind that tragic day. And millions this morning waking up to devastation, tornadoes, floods, even snowstorms just paralyzing communities. Indra petersons is tracking it all live for us right here next. At any minute. You could be a victim of fraud. Most people dont even know it. Fraud could mean lower credit scores, higher mortgage rates. And not getting the home you really want. Its a problem waiting to happen. Check your credit score, check your Credit Report, at experian. Com. Americas number one provider of online Credit Reports and scores. Dont take chances. Go to experian. Com. Good morning. Welcome back to early start. Investigators still trying to determine why Army Specialist ivan lopez went on a shooting rampage at ft. Hood, killing 3 people, wounding 16 before taking his own life. This is the second mass killing at the military base in five years. Were learning more now about this shooter. The picture emerging. A troubled, mentally unstable soldier. Cnns George Howell live for us at ft. Hood, texas, just trying to find out more about who this man was and what led him to this moment. What can you tell us . Reporter well, good morning. We are getting more insight into lopezs background. We know that he was basically undergoing a variety of treatments, taking antidepressants like the drug ambien, and he was also being evaluated for ptsd, posttraumatic stress disorder, though he was not officially diagnosed with ptsd. Soldiers who knew him, they describe him as a person with a lot of values, as an extraordinary individual. But yesterday, we did get some insight into a possible confrontation on post that could have played a factor. Take a listen. Were looking into that, trying to figure out what the trigger event was. It was mentioned yesterday there may have been a verbal altercation with another soldier or soldiers, and theres a strong possibility that that, in fact, immediately preceded the shooting, but we do not have that definitively at this point, but we do have strong indications of that. Reporter at this point, again, we know three people were killed in this shooting, 16 were injured. And of the 16, three remain in Critical Condition. We also learned something about the weapon yesterday. I want to talk about this, because again, its a weapon that was unregistered here on base, a weapon that we know that lopez legally purchased. We know that he basically passed all of the standard background checks he required in the state of texas to own that weapon, and he did not have any sort of criminal history that would disqualify him from having the weapon. Ironically, though, it is the same place, the same store here in killeen, a place called glunz galore, where he bought his weapon, the same place where major nidal hasan bought his weapon, the weapon that he used five years ago to shoot and kill 13 people here on post. Sad coincidence, but still just very, very sad. George howell. Thanks, george. All right, well, were getting a different look this morning at Army Specialist ivan lopez from some of the photos on his facebook page. They show him on the beach with his family in puerto rico, and the death of his mother apparently hit him very hard. He was reportedly upset at getting less than two days leave to attend his mothers funeral, but people who knew him, especially those who worked very closely with him, say there was really no indication of what was to come. He was one of my best soldiers in the organization, and he has the leadership. Specialist lopez was an outstanding soldier with great initiative. He showed a great, great leadership and a very, very great military discipline. He was seen just last month by a psychiatrist. He was fully examined. And as of this morning, we had no indication on the record of that examination that there was any sign of likely violence, either to himself or to others, no suicidal i didation. Youve said hello to him, you talked to him . Yesterday. What did he seem like . He seemed pretty fine, happy. He didnt seem like, you know, the type that would do what he did. One of those killed in the ft. Hood rampage has been identified as Army Sergeant timothy owens. Owens family in illinois talked about him to cnns affiliate. He didnt answer the phone, so i left a message, son, call me so i know if youre okay or not. Well, never got no call from him. I thought, oh, god, please dont let it be. He was just a very honorable, you know, individual. And like i say, i dont think he knew any strangers. Everybody that he met i believe that tim got along with them. Heart breaks for them. This morning 3 of the 16 people wounded in the ft. Hood shooting are still in the hospital, and doctors, of course, say it is far too soon to determine what the longterm impact of their injuries will be. One trauma surgeon tells cnn their initial response to the deadly rampage was this i think that the first feeling whenever i found out about the potential of this, you know, when the news began to trickle in, was a little bit of disbelief, you know, how can this possibly happen again type feeling. You know, very quickly, you move to resolve and determination to make sure that youve got all your systems in places to care for these patients appropriately. And we moved to that pretty quickly. Set up our command center and got going. Stay with us throughout the morning for continuing coverage of that deadly shooting at ft. Hood here on early start, and of course, later on new day. All right, millions of americans in the path of severe storms hitting the midwest, the south. Tornadoes, heavy rain, damaging hail. The National WeatherService Reporting a number of twisters touching down across several states. Certainly a wild afternoon. Absolutely. The storm system drenching parts of indiana, some 3 inches of rain falling there in Hamilton County on thursday. It left roads flooded, a number of people in their vehicles kind of trapped, in need of water rescue. Tornadoes reported in several missouri communities. The st. Louis suburb of University City cleaning up from a twister that struck about 24 hours ago. Big trees were no match for strong winds. A number of homes had their roofs simply ripped off. The storm knocking out power to thousands of residents. Missouris governor declaring a state of emergency there as this band of Severe Weather moved right across that state. You could see funnel clouds forming in the sky over kansas city. Oh, wow. Torrential rain caused some very significant flooding along the missouri kansas border. And parts of texas clobbered by Severe Weather, including reports of tornadoes and baseballsized hail. Call your insurance adjustor. The town of denton, about 40 miles from dallasft. Worth, saw two rounds of monster hail just about two hours apart. Our Indra Petersons tracking the storm system. She joins us now. What can we expect today . Is this same kind of system rumbling through . Were still watching that exact system and we have a lot of concerns this morning. Weve already seen about eight tornadoes just from this last system, most of them being around texas, missouri and illinois. But notice, even all the wind damage and hail as that line or that squall line continues to progress off to the east. So, thats what weve already seen. Now, look at the Severe Weather threat again today still is out there. The system has pushed a little farther to the east. What are we looking at . We actually still have tornado watches out there this morning. That is the concern. This is the time frame im most concerned with. Most people have tucked themselves into bed. They are not looking or paying attention to their surroundings, and unfortunately, that Severe Weather is still out there, even from places like tennessee, through eastern portions of texas. Thats the danger zone this morning. The other side of it is the heavy rain. Look at these amounts about 5 inches towards missouri, even towards indiana. So, thats the second side of this threat. Still looking at a system pushing farther to the east today, kind of making its way even into the northeast. The bulk of the snow staying farther north than the great lakes there, but really, the bulk of you looking for light rain. Heavy at times but really kind of diminishing as it pushes off to the northeast, kind of wrapping out of here by tomorrow morning. Thats get news for the northeast, looking for a nice weekend. Keep in mind, by the time we get towards sunday, southeast already talking about some rain. The next system for monday already moving in towards the northeast and the threat for Severe Weather again. So, seasons have definitely shifted. A lot of concern definitely throughout the night tonight in through tomorrow as well still. Thanks, Indra Petersons. Appreciate it. All right, first friday of the month, that means jobs report, coming out in a few hours. What will it reveal about our economy . Is the economy finally having the spring thaw . Will we see significant jobs growth . I think youre going to like what economists thinks going to happen here today. [ female announcer ] hands were made for playing. Legs, for crossing. Feet. Splashing. Better things than the joint pain and swelling of moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. If youre trying to manage your ra, now may be the time to ask about xeljanz. Xeljanz tofacitinib is a small pill, not an injection or infusion, for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. X