condemnation from fellow republicans. rick santorum says the comments are absurd. the white house is also being drawn into the uproar. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." let's get right to the breaking news, a huge tornado outbreak stretches from alabama to indiana and beyond. millions of americans are under tornado watches. tornado warnings as well. professional storm chasers have been following these twisters all afternoon, providing dramatic images of an unfolding disaster. new tornado reports are coming in literally by the minute. with indiana, kentucky, tennessee and other states all seeing multiple touchdowns only in the last hour. we also have this video from evansville, indiana. it's far from over. storms are on the move. the destruction could go on for hours. let's bring mayor jim coppinger of hamilton county in tennessee, where chattanooga is located. mayor, set the scene. tell us what's going on inur county. >> well, we did have a ouchdown of a tornado that has been confirmed. as a result of that, we do have multiple injuries. fortunately today we have no fatalities to date. we do have people we are currently trying to make contact with, as you can imagine there's a lot of debris. we have large trees down that are covering over the access roads to get to people. so, you know, we're working diligently at this hour to make sure that everyone is accounted for and hopefully we will eye scape without any serious injuries or fatalities. >> did it hit a populated area or more of a rurp area? >> well, actually it's right at the city limits of the city of chattanooga, just beyond there in an unincorporated area of our cot. it does -- originally looked like a direct hit at a boat dock marina then into a populated area. >> were the folks prepared. did the warnings go out? what was the basic preparation. >> unfortunately this was a weather systems that -- that actually there was a prediction later on this evening and tonight of severe weather, but this was a cell that kind of popped up in the area and as a result of that, i mean, pe re notified to t best of our ability. then again this kind of devastation, when you take a direct hit, it's really hard to prevent any injuries, certainly not any loss of property. we had information loss of property. >> we're getting information in from the -- bill at this timele, telling us at least 40 to 50 homes have significant damage we know about. at least 24 reported injuries there's no reported fa sails right now. is there any new information beyond that? >> not at this time. obviously the number of damage to homes and injuries to people, we expect that number to climb but not significantly. we've been in this event about three hours now, so hopefully we're making inroads. >> does it look lie the severe weather in your county is over with, or is it still unfolding? >> well, it's still unfolding, actually. we're just hopeful that there's some weather changes to where it doesn't have as significant an impact as it did earlier today. >> if you could stay with us for a few moments, i woulde grateful, mayor. b marciano, our meteorologist, is in the chattanooga area. i'd like for him to bring us up to speed, and ayor, he probably las a question or two as well. rob, where are you? and what are you seeing? >> reporter: like the mayor described, we are northeast in, a community of about 20,000 people, a really nice suburb, basically, of chattanooga. you mentioned 40 to 50 homes damaged. in some cases like the one behind me completely destroyed. the gentleman who lives in this home thankfully, and his wife were not home. that would have been a tough one to ride out. there he is, a navy veteran, but you see beyond the foundation of that home. across that lake, more damage. the path of this thing is about 200 yards wide, wolf. not only are we see substantial damage, but trees are snapped in half. 1234e6 by my guess, at least an ef-2, if not an ef-3 storm. there are basically two ways to get to some of the damaged area. the first a access road we encountered, we were not allowed down. that was scary, because emts were setting up triage, ten not so serious, and i'm happy to hear from the mayo that he doesn't anticipate many more than that, but mr. mayor, tell me about your constituents. i've only had a few minutes to talk to just a handful of them, and they're certainly rattled. there's an urgency to get these roads cleared, and -- in order to get the vehicles where they need to go. how are your emergency personnel keeping up with all these trees and power lines down on the roads? >> in answer to your question, we did have a tremendousmot of response and resources being dedicated to the area. we do have a number of people chainsaws.ported with the obviously oupublic works crews are out on the scene in order to try to remove some of the heavier trees that are down, and again we asked to be able to get to everyone. one of the main arteries up there, i was just told the road has been opened from start to finish, so that's going to help us significantly. we'll just continue to work diligently, as long as it tax to get back to as close to normalcy as we can, but that will take days, weeks, months. >> mayor, this is wolf blitzer in "the situation room." you can see rob marciano is on the scene for us. if you have a question for him, i know you're probably not close to where he is, go ahead and ask him a question. he's or meteorologist, or severe weather expert. he can probably give you up-to-date information. >> i am in the emergency operation center, we do have direct contact with the national weather service. as you can imagine, if you've been in a emergency center, there's a number of screens up making the predictions for us. part of his outlet is certainly one of them we rely on to make that determination of predicting what will happen out into the night. but again, you know, it's a cooperative and coordinated effort, such as the national weather service helping us to make those decisions. >> there you can see rob marciano. chad myers is also with us, mayor, our severe weather expert, our meteorologist at the cnn center. chad, i know you have a question for the mayor as well. >> now things that are slightly torn apart, you'll get hit again. did you get people out of the areas that have been hit and not let them clean up? are you going to stop that process? what's going to happen in the next couple hours? the dangers that arise every day. be certainly to take cover. in the event we get a warning, we'll certainly put them on notice and make certain they take shelter. >> chad, if you could just give us an update, and if the mayor could hang with us a couple minutes, just where these storms are now, because they're spread over not just chat nothinga, but in a whole bunch of states. >> the first ones that popped up were near chattanooga, huntsville, a lot like they did on tuscaloosa, but now we have storms along the ohio river into west of memphis, and all the way far south as almost houston. the storms along the southern part of the like are not tornado yet, but certainly could be. let's focus in on the worst of the worst. cincinnati, ohio you had tornado warnings to your west. storms are certainly rotating there. the west of louisville, though louisville you don't have a warning yet, what i expect for you would be wind damage event as the storm as lined up, as lines come together, that's a good thing. it will make wind damage. when storms line up, and they get to fight each other, you don't get tornadoes like when they're all by themselves. look at that storm, all by itself. it's rotating, and there's probably already a tornado on the ground there. here's birmingham, huntsville, another storm west of huntsville, all by itself, rotating. it's like when you take -- i use this analogy a lot, but if you have 30 dogs and give them one bowl of foot, all the dogs will stay pretty skinny. one dog you gave the same -- that dog will be the big fat dog. when you don't have to share, when these storms don't have to share with 30 other storms, they become the big dog. they guess to be the mezzo-cyclone, that storm that rotates right now we have 18 tornado warnings across six states. >> privilege devastating. chas, i know you have another question for the mayor jim coppinger in tennessee, go ahead. >> well, the entire effort this morning, i know it caught some people by surprise. are you at all encouraged by the fact that the injuries that you have are relatively minor, or at least no fatalities? that really did pop up in a matter of just an hour. >> anytime you get this kind of severe weather, i don't know what they're estimated at yet, and you have the devastation you're seeing there, then obviously, now, we're saddened by any injuries to any citizens sustained, but then again, i think we are fortunate we didn't have any loss of life at this point. the short answer is sometimes when you see these weather events occur, it's obviously miracles and got shines upon us sometimes. i think we avoided some of the serious fatalities today when you look at the devastation that occurred. >> i'm going to let you get back to your work. >> they're very lucky they didn't have the damage or at least the injuries and fatalities they could have. because people took the precautions properly, they did the right things and got in safe places. we have to do that same thing tonight. it happened in the middle of the night around 4:30. these tornadoes that hit your community, it was already daylight, morning, people were awake, not in their beds. is that right? so we are accustomed to that, the citizens take it extremely serious when there's weather advisories that go out. glen, because people do train for they, i think that as a result of that today, we didn't sustain any fatalities at this point. mayor coppinger, thank you very much. good luck to all the folks out there. i want to go back to -- rob, you took some still photos, and tell us what we're seeing. i don't know if you can see what we're putting on the air right now. >> reporter: no, i can't, but saw it firsthand. it depends on the photo. some of these homes are one and two-osteohomes, and brick fa solids that have been built to withstand storms. some of those storms have been torn up very badly. i two suspect just in the subdivision that we're in. this was at least a mile long, and in areas that are well built. how often doi see there? a 12 by 4 right through a door. this is just part of a carport. mr. benting who lives here, a 78-year-old navy veteran, he will talk to us on camera, but right now he wanted to gather his emotion and take stock. his wife, god bless her, was out of work when she was and lets was having a bite at crystal's hamburgers. he's grateful he wasn't in the home. he's been living there for 30 years. folks who live in this community and probably across the lake have lived here for quite a while. the buzz of chainsauce certainly is prevalent, the scream of sirens and emergency vehicles. that in the last few minutes has somewhat calmed down, so maybe the urgency of getting the injured out, searching through homes, maybe that's beginning to ease up. we certainly got some comfort when you spoke to the mayor about what he anticipates as far as further injuries coming out of this area, but it is hard to imagine what this storm was like when it came through just three hours ago. >> think about a family, their whole life inside that house, ripped apart by this tornado. how sad is that. but at least they're okay. rob, we're not going to leave this story. a lot more going on not in chattanooga, about you throughout the midwest and south. we've got reporters and crews picking up, including some storm chasers as well. stay with us for the breaking news coverage. also in "the situation room," rick santorum, he weighs in on the controversy swirling around rush limbaugh and markets about a contraception advocate. my interview with the presidential front-runner coming up. you'll hear what he has to say. also cnn is inside iran for the first plamary elections in three years. our ivan watson is there. we'll go there, and we're following the breaking news, the huge tornado outbreak that's happening right now. we'll stay on top of this unfolding disaster. very well fitting dentures. i like to eat a lot of fruits. love them all. the seal i get with the super poligrip free keeps the seeds from getting up underneath. even well-fitting dentures let in food particles. super poligrip is zinc free. with just a few dabs, it's clinically proven to seal out more food particles so you're more comfortable and confident while you eat. a lot of things going on in my life and the last thing i want to be thinking about is my dentures. 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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. my high school science teacher made me what i am today. our science teacher helped us build it. ♪ now i'm a geologist at chevron, and i get to help science teachers. it has four servo motors and a wireless microcontroller. over the last three years we've put nearly 100 million dollars into american education. that's thousands of kids learning to love science. ♪ isn't that cool? and that's pretty cool. ♪ we're continuing to following the breaks news. we've got a storm chaser that we'll be speaking to momentarily just west of nashville. dramatic developing under way, but there's other important news we're following. ivan watson is with us. what's the latest? >> reporter: the polls closed nearly two hours ago. already top iranian officials are applauding what they say was a massive voters turnout, the interior minister saying this turnout show you that iran has infuriated and disappointed its western enemies. lines 9 voters casting ballots in ornate mosques. morn that 3,400 candidates are competing for some 290 seats in parliament. >> i'm just going to vote out of chance. they're all good. it doesneny difference. they're all the same, all hezbollah, religious, very nice, kind people. >> reporter: which group do you think will win this election? >> reporter: as people line up into polls stations, into mosques like this, they file past banners that have slogans celebrating the accomplishments of iran's 33-year islamic revolution. for days, top iranian officials have urged voters to flock to the polls. candidates from the ruling establishment are calling this election vital. during the 2009 elections we faced a great plot perpetrated against us by western countries, says this lawmakers running for reelection. they tried to sideline our system of government, so these elections are very important to show the people's support for this system. after the last presidential election, street protests erupted when opposition candidates accused of government of rigging the results. security forces crushed the demonstrations, and the candidates themselves are still under house arrest. the opposition green movement is boycotting this election. as are some ordinary iranians. >> i don't want to take part in this election. >> reporter: why not? >> i say everyone has his own viewpoint, for example, someone says, okay, i i like the system or someone says i don't like. >> political analysts say the election field is dominated by conservative candidates known as principlists, which is fine for voters. she is a supporter of mahmud ahmadinejad and his political allies. i want to election politicians who will create more jobs for young people and improve the economy, she says. rival governments may be beating the war drums in the middle east, but this iranian woman says she just wants more jobs. wolf, iranian state media is already claiming record turnouts of 64% of voters eligible participating. you're hearing a very different line from activists from that green movement crushed by the security forces in 2009. we spoke with one art student, doesn't want his name published, of course, for his own safety. he said, quote, what you see on iranian tv is all propaganda. i'm not voting today, because my vote doesn't count and never has counted. an engineer here in tehran lamented that the lead serious of the green movement are still under house arrest. he went on to say i feel like a coward that i can't go on tv and tell the world what is happening in iran. i am ashamed. be careful over there. a massive tornado outbreak, multiple twisters. new details are coming in of injuries, extensive damage from this ongoing emergency. i'll talk to a man who survived the storm. but you said it was greek. mmhmm. so is it greek or is it yoplait? exactly. okay... [ female announcer ] yoplait. it is so greek. like a ramen noodle- every-night budget. she thought allstate car insurance was out of her reach. until she heard about the value plan. dollar for dollar, nobody protects you like allstate. take the privileged investing tools of wall street and make them simple, intuitive, and available to all. distill all that data. make information instinctual, visual. introducing trade architect, td ameritrade's empowering web-based trading platform. take control of your portfolio today. trade commission-free for 60 days, and we'll throw in up to $600 when you open an account. breaking news, i want to update or viewers on what's going on. you saw our own rob marciano do reporting for us from one area that's been pretty much leveled as a result of these tornadoes. authorities have evacuated him and our crew from that area. apparently it's still too dangerous for them to behere right now. so stand by, we'll reconnect with what's happening in the chattanooga area. joins us on the folks is eric fox, a storm chaser. correct le if i'm wrong, you're on i-40 just west of nashville, tennessee, is that correct? >> -- >> eric, hold on a second, our cell connection is not so good right now. maybe if you -- let's update or viewers. a whole series of tornadoes, not in just one state or two, but at least half a dozen. it looks like at least for certain parts of the country, the disaster is certainly just beginning. >> and the sun's out. that's a problem. the sun makes the ground warm. the warm air wants to bubble up. here's i-40. that's the cell, and that pink box does mean tornado warning on it. i have checked the rotation, it is not that impressive, but they have been coming and going all day long, so let's start from the top and go on down. you had a storm with a tornado on it very close to richmond, indiana. now into cincinnati. every sometime you see a pink box, the storm is rotating enough that the weather service believes a tornado could get on the ground, or a tornado has already been spotted. when you hear the word "watch" a small word, only five letters, not a significant as "warning." so if you take that warning and think about that's the biggest word, it's the more important work as well. you did have some wind come through, but the tornado is now down to the south in the southern suburbs, and elizabethtown, this is impressive, and i say that, wolf, because it's all about itself. see when they have to fight all against them, they're not getting as big, but all by itself, that one will be a monster. bowling green, not a torna