0 nbc's wendy joins us from there. it's good to talk to you again. what are you hearing from folks in these ongoing efforts to rescue as many people as possible? >> yasmin, good afternoon to you. good to speak to you again. it's incredible, the outpouring of help and support that you are hearing, and seeing people come out in the downtown area. wherever you look there seems to be destruction, and everywhere you turn there seems to be a story, and people sometimes think we are exaggerating that thing, but i'm not kidding you, you can walk one block and find a store yeah then walk another block and find somebody who has drove here, and we just spoke to somebody who drove from nashville that happened upon a law firm that was decimated by the storm, and started moving things and cutting out wires, and it was incredible. you ask them why they are doing it? the community needed help. then we have another wife and husband, and that was his law firm completely destroyed in the storm and all they were trying to do today was to find any missing documents, any files or pictures. this was the town law firm. they are lucky they did have a vault, but they were trying to find anything that could be salvaged. two doors down, still downtown, right? a 70-year-old man, who rode out the storm and survived but his house destroyed as well. you can see the 2 x 4s, and the poster bed, and what he was worried was his two beloved cats, missy and ginger. >> we are finding a few pictures and personal items. we were very fortunate in that they did have a vault built when they built the building, so hard copies under there, everything very important. >> it's heart wrenching, and it's happened before and it will happen again. at 70 i have to start over again. >> reporter: now another perspective, right? just behind me, about half a mile down this road is the candle factory that is flattened in this storm from friday, and there are still people pouring over all of that rubble trying to locate survivors. we know there were 110 people busy at work trying to fulfill christmas orders. you can see the satellite video. the before and after from that factory. we have confirmed -- nbc news has confirmed eight fatalities, 36 people still missing, two rescued yesterday afternoon and are still in the hospital. again, there have been countless numbers of jurisdictions of emergency responders poring over that debris. yesterday, the kentucky governor said the only way will find a survivor, somebody else alive in this place, is a miracle. the coroner along with family and along with people who have grown up here and along with the entire nation, we are praying and hoping that that indeed occurs here. that's the latest from downtown mayfield, kentucky. yasmin, back to you. >> it looks like if you look at that before and after photo -- let's bring that up, guys, so folks can see the candle factory. it looks as if it has been put through a shredder from where it was before to where it is now. it seems like most of the community is basically on the same path as them. as if most of the community has been put through that shredder, and so many lives lost. i am curious, in speaking with the 70-year-old man who said this has happened before and it's going to happen again, how did he ride it out? what was his experience? >> he said he was in the doorway, the inner most part of the house. it's not a large house, but he stood in the doorway hoping that was the most area that he could be shielded. he said he heard the storm coming, and he heard the winds, ducked, prayed and hoped for the best. you know what he said? he said it's hard to believe at 70 years old i am going to have to rebuild, but he's going to do it. >> where are folks like him staying now that their homes are completely decimated and flattened? >> reporter: most of the people we have spoken to have a friend or family members in the area. again, a small town, everybody knows everybody, if you don't know that person, somebody you know does, and they are coming together and acting like a family and community, the way human beings should be, and 25 miles north as far as paducah, kentucky, they have power and hotels and running water. shelter is not that far away, and that's a good thing for these people. the forecast is for chilly temperatures in the next few days, so you don't want to ride out the storm -- i shouldn't say storm, you don't want to find yourself without shelter or sitting in your car because it is very cold here overnight. >> yeah, and then you think about all of those thousands of people where their homes are intact but without electricity, without heat right now in many of the homes and when that will actually get turned back on is -- go ahead. >> reporter: sorry. sorry. it's not just the power, though. all of these power lines -- there's one right there, and it happens to be standing, and what i find very interesting, they have no water here either. no sewage. the town water tower, done. we're not just dealing without power, we're dealing without water, and that's going to be quite sometime before they can supply a community of 10,000 people again. >> just devastating. wendy, thank you for reporting from mayfield, kentucky. from there, i want to go about 100 miles from mayfield where we find the county judge executive where 12 people have been confirmed now deceased. thank you for joining us. we appreciate it. i know you are probably pretty busy considering what you are dealing with in the aftermath of this incredible storm that we have seen in your area. how are folks dealing with the loss of life and having to eventually pick up and rebuild? >> well, thank you for having us on your program today. our community, like many other communities across the state have rallied together, we have a lot of support, first responders, health care professionals, i should say, have all done a great job, trying to make things run as smoothly as possible. our community was a small community, a population of about 31,000 in our county, and the community that was probably hit the hardest by the tornado, and the outlying areas here just out of our communities like mill port that was hit and devastated. we have a total of 12 deaths in our county today, and some of them were my friends, and it's a small community, and that's the case here, but the community has rallied together and worked hard to get things moving in the right direction as much as possible. >> who were they, curtis? tell me about your friends you lost? >> the names have not been released yet because some kin may not have been notified, for example, one of the people that was killed, he and i had gone to eat not too terribly long ago, we had gone out for dinner and just spent sometime talking and he has been a friend of mine for a number of years, and then suddenly and unexpectedly he's gone. i know some of the other folks that lost their lives in this tornado -- because of this tornado as well. we have millions of dollars of property damage. the tornado that came through, as i understand it, was the same that hit mayfield and then came over austin springs, and then there was a swath that appeared to be a mile wide. it was very unforgiving. i am 58 years old. i have been in public service for the past 11 years, and in my life i have never seen a catastrophic event that you could compare to this in our community. >> how was your experience? where were you? >> i was at home and i live on the other end of the county, and i have a son and daughter-in-law and two grandchildren that live here, and once i found out the tornado was headed here, i was concerned, not only as a father or father-in-law or grandfather, but as a public servant who has constituents in this area. as soon as the tornado went through, my dispatcher contacted me and told me we had multiple people trapped in our homes, and i went to the community that was about 30 minutes from my residence. when i got here, there were law enforcement entities and first responders all on scene working together, and more importantly i saw people stand in the pouring rain and walking down the streets in the pouring rain, just trying to assist their neighbors. there was a great outpouring of love and support, and we have continued to have that. we have had a lot of items donated and monies donated, and we are appreciative that we live in the kind of community where people care about each other, and there's a lot of empathy and concern, but a lot of heartbreak also. >> are you getting the help you need from the federal agencies? >> we are. the governor called me yesterday morning and told me that we would get whatever assistance we needed from him and from the state. they have been very good to help us. we also received -- i received a call from our state representatives, and then we had congress, senator mitch mcconnell's office, senator rand paul's office reached out to me offering assistance. as we move forward we will probably be reaching out to those folks to get all of the help that we can get because we will need it here. the national guard came on site this morning, and i think that was about 10:00. they have been doing some point control and helping us to provide some security in our community. we have not had much of a problem with looting at all, thankfully, but we have the national guard here to help with that point control and even with cleanup. we are fortunate and grateful. >> curtis mcgee, i am thankful that your family is okay, and your daughter and son-in-law and grandkids, your entire family that may have been affected, i am thankful they are doing okay, but i am sorry for the loss of your friend and the loss in your community as a whole and i know you need the thoughts and prayers of this entire country. we wanted to remind you we are awaiting a news conference, and we want to have that live when it starts. we want to turn to other news as well. from washington, as we await the january 6th report from mark meadows, he defied the subpoenas and is suing investigators in an attempt to withhold critical information under the guise of executive privilege. bring us up-to-date on what we can expect from this report? >> we expect the contempt report to come out any minute now, and that's because they have to give mark meadows 24 hours before that vote to hold him in contempt, and i am checking my phone to make sure we do not miss it during this hit. it will include some of the back and forth they have had to deal with with mark meadows, and they have been going at this for him for months now. he was in the first wave of a dozen or so subpoenas of high profile individuals back at the -- in october, i should say. that's going to be there. they will include documents and e-mails they were able to get from mark meadows before he said this week that he was not cooperating anymore, and bennie thompson, the chairman of the committee actually brought to life in a letter telling mark meadows lawyer that the committee will move to hold their client in contempt of congress, and that former vice president mike pence and president trump had to eject the certification process. we can also expect the committee to move forward with this vote tomorrow night. the house, by the way, already saying they may take a full vote as early as tuesday. >> so let's talk about some of the defenses that mark meadows and his attorneys have been leveling, one of which we expected which was executive privilege. it was also leveraged by steve bannon. however, mark meadows, former chief of staff doesn't hold water there the defense of executive privilege? >> it's a much closer call in this instance because meadows is working inside of the white house with all of this is going on. yasmin, here's the decision point. executive privilege is meant to be construed very broadly in order to protect the ability of a sitting president among other things to get unqualified advice from those around him. so it's typically seen in a very expansive way. the question is, does it extend as far as meadows wants to make it go. does it extend, for example, to campaigning. it doesn't do that, it's meant for the business of the presidency. does it extend in the plans of a insurrection, and i would not think it extends that far. meadows has asserted the view that these documents are not privilege limbed and now it's difficult to say he won't testify against them because there's no reason to believe that the testimony should be under the privilege if the documents themselves aren't. >> here's the thing, joyce. i pose this question the last hour, which is how is this committee going to glean the information they need when it comes to the january 6th investigation, if each of these folks is resisting testimony, folks that were integral to that administration being so far steve bannon, mark meadows, clarke -- we could go on with the names of the folks that are refusing to testify. >> this is a problem that you always face as an investigator. it's not unique to what is going on with the committee. very often, though, the answer is that there are other witnesses who are willing to talk to you. we know the january 6th committee, i think the last estimate is that there are over 300 witnesses. for instance, mark short is cooperating with the committee, and more importantly staffers and people that worked with these key figures, folks that overheard their conversations and saw their documents are testifying and producing materials to the committee. at some point these folks will have to face whether they want to be on the bus or under it, because the committee is clearly driving for the truth. it becomes increasingly risky to be an outlier who is not cooperating. >> thank you. we are awaiting a news conference from the kentucky governor, andy brashear on the tornadoes. he will be joined by the fema administrator, and we will bring that to you as soon as it gets started. there's the governor now. let's take a listen. >> good afternoon, everybody. this is kentucky's most devastating tornado event in our history. we have lost far too many of our brothers and sisters. the damage is devastating. an entire blocks -- more than one block with nothing standing. to the people of america, there's no lens big enough to show you the extent of the damage here in grace county or in kentucky. nothing that was standing in the direct line of this tornado is still standing. we currently have 18 counties with damage. as of this morning we had between 36 and 50,000 kentuckians without power, and i will say that is improving. mayfield, where we are today, dawson springs, my dad's hometown, and bremnen were hit hard. bowling green sustained extensive damage. this will be the longest tornado certainly in u.s. history from the point where it touched down to where it finally picked back up. over 220 miles, 200 of them are in our state and our people have suffered from it. it was joined by at least three other tornadoes here in kentucky, and i believe now maybe many more have been living this real time. while i was at the state's emergency operation center receiving reports in real time, western kentucky and its people were at ground zero. 40 hours in, here's where i think we are. first, we're grateful. we are grateful to our first responders who were there all through the evening out in the storm itself showing incredible heroism. they are still at work. we are grateful for all the help that we received from other cities and other states. help from the federal government that has come in so many different forms. we are grateful for the outpouring of love. it's the best way i can describe it, from all over the country, and from all walks of life. i want to thank everybody for standing with the people of kentucky. we feel it. in fact, one of our biggest challenges right now is organizing the amount of people that want to help, want to donate and want to voluntary. you know what? that's the best challenge that any of us could ask for. we declared our state of emergency in advance of midnight before the storm hit. that's the state state of emergency. we have now been granted the immediate federal state of emergency, and we are grateful to homeland security and fema and president biden himself. the national guard has been deployed. we have over 300 guardsmen that are active. they are out in our communities. they are doing everything from going door to door, and many in of the communities they don't have doors anymore, they go to rubble to rubble searching for survivors, and otherwise to have certainty for families that we can advise them of their loss, and they are doing debris removal and law capacity where needed. our transportation cabinet has been out hundreds of kentucky workers, and every large truck we can find. let me tell you, today in mayfield, we even started moving debris out. when you think 40 hours in, that's a testimony to the people and the workers here and also the workers at that cabinet. division of forestry is assisting with tree removal. we have asked and received assistance from all over the state, and from the federal government including help in search and rescue from federal teams as well as other state teams, and for supplies, especially drinking water and generators, we are now working on getting enough water for the hospitals here to operate on a daily basis until service is restored. we launched the team western kentucky relief fund, wky relief fund. 18,031 donations, over $2.3 million, every penny of which will come to help our families here. expenses and grants we are rolling out are going to be for funeral assistance. the first thing we have to do is grieve together and we will do that before we rebuild together. today we can also announce that our state parks are open, to help families that have lost their homes, and we're taking them in, we're trying to guarantee everybody a two-week stay so they are not worried about tomorrow, but they can worry about finding their relatives and making sure their kids have enough to eat. we have opened lake barkley and that's in this region, barron river and rough river which can help the people of bowling green, and autobahn which can help the folks in mulenburg county. we have 104 adults and two kids at penny rile, and dawson springs, that's a town that is half leveled. it's open to first responders and volunteers as well. let me thank all of them, every single one for what they are doing. they have helped us clear roads and ultimately even knocked on doors where they stand to check on people. we want to thank the rest of the country for your attention, help and for your prayers. we have needed them and we are still hoping as we move forward for miracles, to find more people and to have a lower death count than what we expect. i wish i understood why we have gotten hit with the pandemic, a historic ice storm, flooding and now the worst tornado in our history all in a span of 19 months. what i do know is that in kentucky we are good people. we care about one another. that's why people are out in the storm helping their neighbors or people they don't know. that's why other counties, you can look on peoples' shirts, they were here and here immediately trying to help. that's why we opened 13 shelters but only have six open anymore because we take each other into our homes. we will grieve together, and we will dig out and clean up together, and we will rebuild and move forward together. we will get through this. we will get through this together, because that's what we do. we are blessed today to have both, the secretary for u.s. department of homeland security, and the head administrator for federal emergency management agency known as fema with us, less than 40 hours after this event began. federal government has been there every step of the way, even helping us to know what we can ask for and saying yes. i want to thank