Transcripts For WBAL Today 20110428 : vimarsana.com

and welcome to a special edition of today on this thursday morning. i m meredith vieira. and i m matt lauer. it is nice to finally be here in london. the gang has landed. but, meredith, what is going to happen over the next 24 hours pales in comparison to what s happened in the united states over the past 24 hours. the incredible amount of tornadoes throughout the south. we ooh going to have extensive coverage of the stoifrmt while we sit here, we turn it back to lester holt in new york city. back to you. good morning. the death toll from the twisters is growing. moments ago it jumped significantly. at least 173 people killed in five states. the state of alabama where an emergency has been declared. jim cantore in tuscaloosa. good morning. reporter: a long track mile-wild tornado. that death toll will certainly climb as we go through the day. 128 oh o officially here in alabama. that could be one of the wofrt if not the worst in alabama history. this youtube video captures the massive tornado as it ripped through tuscaloosa. ground zero from wednesday s massive and deadly tornado outbreak that raced through the south. more than a dozen lives lost in this city alone. and the major says that number is expected to go higher. along with our city council offer our sincere condolences to the families who lost lives. we have well over 100 injuries throughout us the kalou soo. we have hundreds of businesses and homes destroyed and hundreds more damaged. reporter: chris england could hardly catch his breath as he videotaped the massive tornado ripping through his town. just the size and how massive it was was unbelievable because you could just tell that it was doing some destruction on the ground. reporter: the entire state of alabama was hit brutally hard with dozens confirmed dead so far. the president declared alabama a state of emergency and has ordered federal aid for the badly battered state. tornadoes lit up the radar maps throughout the overnight as the deadly twisters headed east into georgia leaving death and destruction in their wake. this type of damage, i ve never seen anything of this magnitude with any storm. reporter: in mississippi, more tornados and flooding. businesses, homes, and lives lost. those who survived, standing strong. nothing i can do but start over again. the massive damage on a scale that we haven t seen in tuscaloosa in quite some time. reporter: and although speaking about his own city, the mayor of tuscaloosa could have been speaking for a lot of people wednesday night. there will be no quick solution. we re not talking a matter of hours or a matter of days. we re talking a matter of months in this recovery effort. reporter: and, again, they re in much of a search and rescue mode. this is the deadliesiest since p 4 and unfortunately that death toll is going up. thank you. the threat of more severe weather is hardly ore. al is in our london bureau. al, what s the latest from there? sadly as we had seen this coming yesterday, and our worst fierce came through. here s what happened. strong low-level jet stream, a lot of moisture coming out of the gulf. strong upper level system as well. enhanced jetstream causing shear and that increased the intensity of the tornadoes. look at the radar. you can see them moving across, extreme thunderstorms. tuscaloosa, birmingham. at 6:45 in the evening, that s when the storms rip aid cross. as the warm frontal system pushes through the air we have tornado watches extending from central georgia all the way up into the northeast with more heavy rain. there will be flood watches as well. rainfall amounts we re talk anywhere from 1 to 2 inches of rain from the south all the way into the mid-atlantic states. we ve got rask of strong storms extended from northern florida into upstate new york, and we re looking at flood watches that stretch throughout much of the southeast because of one to two, maybe three, four inches of rain locally in this area. as you can see, again, the heavy rain all along the eastern seaboard. that s what s going on here. now back to you, lester. thanks. the weather channel s jeff morrow is in pleasant grove just outside of birmingham. jeff, good morning to you. reporter: good morning, lester. again, those numbers are staggering. 125 fatalities here in alabama, 11 here in jefferson county. where i am in pleasant grove, at least six people have lost their lives. those numbers almost certainly are going to rise. let s pan over here. i want to show you the house up on top of the hill here, losing its roovg its sides. a lot of the debris from that house ended up down here. as we pan on down here, lester, you can see what s left of this house, i guess you d have to call it because part of that house hit into it, helped to knock it over. and everything kind of got blown to one side. we had emergency personnel here a little bit ago checking to make sure no one was inside there. trailer, bed frames, everything blown by the massive tornado. the one that hit tuscaloosa is the one that hit in northern birmingham and headed all the way up into parts of northern georgia. a deadly scene across alabama like nobody s ever seen in a long, long time, lester. jeff morrow. thanks. five states hit by the swath of strong tornadoes. le the weather channel s chris warren is in the town of ringgold for us. chris? reporter: lester, even here, we re not allowed to get into some of the hardest hit areas. in this county, seven people have been killed. and in all, georgia, nine. take a look here where we are able to have access to this gas station. and you can see the overhang that covers the pumps here is just crumpled up by the force of the strong winds that rolled through. over there, that is where the town of ringgold is located and it was hit very hard. we re not allowed to get in there at this time. you can still kind of see the car wash. and then right over here, this is where there s the convenience store portion of it and absolutely no roof. it is completely gone. so, lester, this is just a sample of some of the destruction down there in ringgold, georgia, where it is just a very, very horrible scene this morning. chris warren in georgia for us this morning. thanks. robert bentley is the governor of alabama. governor bentley, thanks so much for coming on with us. good morning. we have watched the death toll slowly rise since last evening. do you expect to find more bodies in the search this morning? well, of course, we hope not, but i do expect to find more. we activated 2,000 national guardsmen last night, most of those are in the field at the present time, and so we re doing our search and rescue at the present time. we hope that we don t find other, but i certainly expesusp that we will. we re looking at pictures of the tornado that came through tuscaloosa. the city badly hurt. i know you ve spoken with the mayor there. what has he told you about that situation? of course, i m from tuscaloosa. that s my home. tuscaloosa was severely damaged. there are blocks that are just entirely decimated, and the thing that he was most concerned about last night was his entire fleet of trucks that pick up garbage. that s going to be major problem that he s going to have to deal with over the next few days. i know many of the hundreds of people who were injured were taken to the dch regional medical center, but folks there said they had problems with emergency power, they had no water. are you aware with problems with the emergency services? i am. in fact, i speak wioke with the hospital administrator last night. the water is back on. they have emergency generators that will last for 15 days. i asked him if he had plenty of physicians and nurses. he said that he did. those that were more severely injured, we transported to birmingham. those that were minor injuries were seen actually at the university of alabama student health center. so the health situation there is fine and the medical situation is fine. i know you spoke to the president as well. what did you tell him in terms of what you need? well, of course, yesterday yesterday morning early i declared a state of emergency in the state. and then we asked that he declare a state of emergency on a federal level. when i spoke to him last night, he said that he would, and we have people coming in this morning to help us. well, governor robert bentley, we appreciate you spending time with us this morningful i know it s been a very long night. know that you and everyone in the stricken areas are thought of at this time. we appreciate your time. thank you very much. they captured dramatic video of the tornado as it swept through tuscaloosa. chris, how are you doing this morning? reporter: good morning. we re doing okay. how are you guys are doing. we re doing very well. you were in the basketball arena when the lights went off. was that your first indication that your lives might be in danger? yes, sir. we were watching the news and knew we were under a tornado warning but we didn t know how severe it was. we looked outside and around and all we saw is rain. we thought we dodged it. the power went off, so we didn t know what was goichk on. we were in the basement at one of the safest places on campus. my boss and i went up to the third floor to see what we could see. there are windows overlooking the huge parking lot between us and the huge hospital to see what we could see. as soon as we reached the windows, you see what you see there in the video right there. we ve seen this video. you ve worked in the news business. you know your way around a camera. you grabbed your camera. when you framed this, what was going through your mind? i couldn t believe it. you see it on television and movies but i had never seen anything like it in person. i just my boss said let ee , let s go. i turned around and started to go back down the steps but i thought this may be the only opportunity that this is captured and i turned often and stayed up there as long as i thought i could. stayed up there for a minute and a half. i could feel the pressure and feel the glass i was right next to the glass. i could feel the glass having pressure on it. i said, you know, it was time to go. but i stayed up there as long as i could. i m looking at the pictures. we can clearly see big parts of debris swirling in this cloud. were you recognizing what it was, that you were actually seeing things being destroyed before your eyes? you know, i did. i didn t know exactly what it was but i could see power lines being snapped and electricity in the air and different colors coming up through the funnel cloud and you knew it wasn t good. now i m standing here where that toerjd was moving. to see it on the ground is surreal. i didn t know what i would see. it s not good. not good at all. thanks for sharing your pictures with us. christopher england, good to have you on this morning. thank you. thank you. yes, sir. we want to check on the other tom stories. tamron hall is at the news desk. president obama is asking them to focus on more pressing matters at state. nbc s chief white house correspondent chuck todd has the latest from washington. chuck, good morning. good morning, tam ro. later the president will deal with waitier matters like who s going to lead the war in afghanistan and at the pentagon but the president is using the bully pulpit to try to put a high profile end to what s been a nagging conspiracy thee about his birth. my name is barack obama. reporter: he thought releasing his birth certificate would end the birther issue, but even he was still talking about it late wednesday night. i was born in hawaii, the 509 state of the united states of america. reporter: and again in a taping of the oprah show. can i say i was there, so i knew i had been born there. i remembered it. reporter: earlier wednesday he had taken a more serious tone. we re not going to be able to solve our problems if we get distracted by side shows and carnival remarks. reporter: many say he was making a vague reference to donald trump. trump took credit for getting the birth certificate released. i m really honored, frankly, to have played such a big role in hopefully, hopefully getting rid of this issue. reporter: but confronted with the document he had fought so hard to see. sir vrks you taken a look at the birth certificate? no, i haven t. do you want to take a look at it? reporter: trump seemed disinterested. the president himself asked for the release of the long ferm to come out. this wasn t some sort of staff decision urging him to do this. by the way, the big change he will announce on the war front, david petraeus leaves the front and goes to the cia. robert panetta goes because robert eargates is retiring. new details from the shooting at the airport. the man sa there is a circulation in the cloud. we have not had any confirmation of anything on the ground. a slight hint of a hope echoed here in this storm cell. it is right near mount airy. the tornado warning is in effect for carroll county, frederick county, howard county, montgomery county, although this particular cell is to the north. that will be in effect until 7:30 this morning. the storm cell itself is now the danger is part of it, or leased the one point we are looking at that is potentially dangerous, is around mount airy, which is where carroll county and frederick county and howard county meet. result but could sell their or bad frederick as well there is a cell that is near urbana and frederick as well. in virginia, this line reaching right around the potomac river. this is all action that is occurring to the west of baltimore. tornado warning in effect until 7:30 this morning. the reason for this is this one storm cell that is being targeted, one near urbana, and another one near mount airy. it as an indication of a little echo here. these storms are moving at about 40-50 miles per hour. constantly changing scenario here. everytime we see when the these scans go by, we get an update. we see that this is migrating to the north at o carroll county. another strong sellers down near urbana, and that will be moving to the north east as well. that has indications of producing a little bit of hail. both of these producing lightning. we have a situation that could be dangerous. radar is indicated circulation in the clouds that could produce tornadic activity. nothing confirm or report on the ground, no reports of damage. again, a tornado warning in effect for carroll county, frederick, howard, and montgomery counties. stan to give you an idea of what you can do in these situations. you mentioned that the tornado warning in carroll, howard, and frederick county. we should also know that there are tornado watches in effect, and they include anne arundel county, harford county, prince george s county, baltimore county, charles county, st. mary s county, calvert county, montgomery county. john has mentioned that the tornado warnings in carroll, howard, and frederick county. the tornado watch also includes the intended baltimore city. let s get to what you should do in the event of a tornado warning issue, which we are under right now in at least three counties and watches in many others. first of all, you needed to head to the lowest level of your building. if you have a basement, go to the basement. get away from the windows. the bathroom may be the safest place in the basement if you have windows. stay away from the windows. you don t want those blowing out a covering you with glass. those could cause very serious injuries. cover your head and wait for the storm to move past. if you are caught outside, crouched down inside a low-lying area. if you are in your car and all of this is starting to pick up, john, you tell me it is probably advisable to stop the car, get out of the car come and go to a lower-lying area. don t try to out run at the storm in your car. yes, and don t go under a bridge. especially near where the bridge it meets the ground or the embankment, because they re the ones can become more intense. you might be pulled out of there. get into a ditch or something like that, as low as you can, so that you are not target for shrapnel. the reason why we are passing this along, this is a serious with the situation. just last night they had a mass of tornadoes situation in alabama. dozens of people killed, widespread damage. that string of storms has been moving from the western part midwest are part of the country towards the northeast. we are part of the same storm system. these storms reach all the way to georgia. i guess we got an adjustment for the tornado warning that is in effect. in effect until 7:30. they just issued a new one, or an expansion, perhaps, tornado warning for carroll county and frederick county until 7:45. that is because the storm cell of interest is a different wind that is further south. constant shift. i circled baltimore and i circled frederick. the cell they are looking at is near urbana, southeast of frederick. a new storm right at the line between frederick and montgomery county. this whole area, the area south of frederick, numerous storm cells. because of all the activity in the clouds the area of circulation is a safety precaution, the weather service has issued a tornado warning. there have been no reports, to my knowledge, any confirmation of seeing something on the ground, any of this producing damage. even if there is not tornado activity per se, these are rather strong storm cells, produce hail and lightning, a major hazard with any of these storms. lightning kills more people than anything else in this country. here we see lighting to the northwest and west of mount airy, either side of route 70. that is all the activity, the lending activity, in these particular storm cells at this time. i would give wyou want our a store motion to show how rapidly these are moving. these might indicate carnatic activity. they kind of comment tornadic activity. they kind of come and go. the warnings are issued because one of these things could come down to the ground. the object of issuing these warnings is to let you know that the situation is active and does exist. this is a continuing, flowing situation. i ve been handed a piece of copy from the weather underground that the tornado warning has now been cancelled for montgomery county and howard county. ok, all the activity as most of that, primarily frederick and moving into carroll county. even though the warning has been canceled, they are still under all watch. the watch is the general area until 8:00 this morning. if these continue, the weather service may decide to expand the time for the watch and could conceivably change it to a thunderstorm watch. it is unusual to have tornadoes at this hour of the morning, because usually they occur later in the day when you get the heating of the sun to help all the motion get going in the atmosphere. we had a 70 degrees this morning, john. but we have other things going on in the atmosphere, which obviously started this up. these warnings are being issued because of activities detected by radar, when the circulation in the clouds come up several hundred feet, which has the potential of coming down to the service as a tornado. again, these storms do not have to produce a tornado. mother nature does not always follow the rules we make up. very brief, heavy rains, possibility with flash flooding, and lightning. if you are out in the open, don t want under trees don t run under trees. if you are in your car, stay in your car. towns like mount airy, westminster, places like that under this watch and warning situation. these have basically been running from southwest, northeast. between frederick and mount airy, kind of crossing i-1/7 at this stage. it is frederick county and carroll county having this morning and in fact this warning in effect. the howard county and montgomery county aspect of it has been cancelled, and would expire anyway and a couple of minutes. as you can see, these a little further to the north here. these storms keep coming out of virginia. extreme western montgomery county is kind of involved at the edge of these storms. something could be reissued for montgomery county. things are happening so rapidly these storms are rapidly moving to the northeast at this time at. most of the action appears to be occurring along i-270 and along i-70, reaching up from frederick county into carroll county. strong thunderstorm cells that have indications based on radar operations of twisting, circulation, rotation in the clouds. so far, as far as we know, it has been up in the clouds, and the potential is there because the rotation is there. only a few thousand feet up that could come down to the ground and cause dramatic damage. we are talking nearly 10 counties under the watch now. the warning has been cancelled by the watch is in effect for anne arundel county, carroll county, prince george s county, baltimore city, charles county, st. mary s county montgomery county. let me give folks a reminder of what you do in the event of a tornado. even if you are in the watch areas, it is good to know ahead of time. head to the lowest level of the building you are in, move away from any windows. again, stay away from windows. you don t want those calling out and covering you with glass. cover your head, wait for the storm to move past, and if you are outside, crouched down in a lower-lying area. if you are in a mobile home or vehicle, get out of the mobile home, get out of the vehicle, move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. if we could go to what we call our number one computer here, we will show you the warning and watch areas that exist. it may be confusing-looking here if you could monitor that and find out that block of red uc from carroll county is in effect until 7:45. there is a red outline area that you see from the date was word out through frederick county. the bay westward through frederick county. that is the tornado watch in effect until 8:00. this is a thunderstorm watch that will be in effect until 10:00. all this is part of a weather system that has been marching eastward the past couple of days. we saw it on the today show a couple of minutes ago, down near tuscaloosa, alabama. a terrible tornado went through their last night. this not the same particular storm cell, but the same line of thunderstorms. this is where all the action is occurring. this is frederick county. you see all the wet pavement. i am not sure where the camera is looking at this stage. it is raining out there right now. here is i-70, east of frederick. it is actively raining, because you can see all the missed on the cars and the spray from the cars and meals and everything else. i don t see a lot of free movement, but at least at the scenes we are seeing here don t show any outstanding wind at. i can see a little movement in the trees, and undoubtedly come under some of these storms cells, there are gusty winds. just because it is a tornado warning doesn t mean you cannot get a straight line of the 40 or 50 miles per hour. how thin is the line between a tornado watch and tornado warning? watch merely means that might happen. a star might come by that might produce a tornado. you can have a washout and have sunny skies. a warning means something is actually there, either been identified by radar or it is on the ground. there are reports that something is on the ground and actually causing damage. the warning is now. all watch means for people watching the broadcast now, if they are under a watch, i guess from the time lapse point of view, it gives them a little time from when it is what to when it moves to a warning. i will have to pay attention to these storms as they go through. you may not be in an area where it is raining right now. a stormy, eventually that could produce something a storm may come by that could produce something. you may be some where that does not have access to or radio or whatever. you have to keep an eye out for storm activity and be aware. is a tornado was precipitated by rain? well, there is rain in the area. very likely hail, very likely a lot of lightning. winds start picking up and stuff like that. obviously. we re not seeing a lot of wind here. a little movement, but not a lot. we re seeing active rein in frederick and carroll county, a tornado warning until 7:45 this morning. along just went off. flash flood warning just went in a pfeifer carroll county, northwest howard county, and that is the area were these continual storms have been developing and moving in the northeast. they have been hammered all morning since about 3:30 or 4:00 this morning with not a continuous line, but a continuous development of numerous thunderstorms else moving across the same area. again, a flash flood warning is in effect because of the rainy part of the storm cells. in a lot of rain in a concentrated area. carroll county, frederick county, northwest howard county, northwest montgomery county, loudoun county, northern virginia, that flash flood warning will remain in effect until 10:30 this morning. that is another part of these storms that is moving through. let me start the motion on the radar here to get a fix on where everything is right now. we are right in the thick of the morning rush hour, and people watching this broadcast for roughly 20, 25 minutes, are wondering, should i even leave my house and attempt to go to work under these conditions? it is a tough call to make, isn t it? right, it could be. if you are traveling on i-95, at the moment it is not raining. everything is west of 95. all the action is occurring on i-70 and i-270. out west, montgomery and howard counties. leon frederick, towards hagerstown, they are getting beyond at frederick, towards hagerstown, they re getting thunderstorm cells. severe weather has developed out of that. if you re going to travel west on i-70 or move towards westminster, westminster is in line to get the leftovers of these storms. we have not had indication of the severe weather. the storm is also affected our attention this morning are in the process of moving over westminster right now. let me put the leaning back in. i keep stressing that lightning is a big hazard with these particular storms. there is a lot going on, but we are getting lightning strikes just line up along those thunderstorm cells to white between mount airy and frederick, down towards the master it down towards damascus. friends on their way to school right now. with a tornado warnings, my wife starts to freak out. i always remind her, frankly a school building is probably build more durable than a home. they have a basement in solid brick walls. schools and do drills several times a year. we might want to go through those rules once again br. what you should do in a particular situation. head for the lowest level of whatever building you are in. some buildings don t have basements. an interior room or doorway which has some support. that almost sounds like it or the reproduction thing. but you have to think there is extra wood around that to hold things steady. stay away from windows, because those are the first things that are going to go. shattered glass, a very dangerous. cover your head and wait for the storm to pass. if you are caught outside, get as low as you can get. ditch, things like that. not necessarily safe to be an act are brought said to be in a car. would have banned videos of people o we have had videos of people under the interstate bridges. that is almost like a wind tunnel. it can sucky right out of that. that can be very dangerous it can set you right out of that. that can be very dangerous. i see people walking under the highway overpasses parking under the highway overpasses. that is probably not the safest place to be. if the tornado happens to go over the bridge, the wind will go over for the seconds and swing over to the opposite direction. if you are hanging on for dear life one way, you will be hanging on for dear life of the other. we have been talking about the tornado warnings that have been in effect for frederick, choward, carroll county. if you have pictures, go to the wbaltv.com and click on u local. we got that one in it sideways. use your imagination. is fromknow if that this morning. it is probably yesterday. i am guessing. no, this, i am told, by our producer, this is this morning. i nice > nice silhouette. they can tell you exactly where this picture was taken perhaps. get that in turn to. the cloud is building up. i poured movement is building caught up up word movement is building and this up. you of upward movement, a windshield, coming from a different direction. it gets the twisting motion going on of that is what we are seeing on the radar. that is what the tornado warning is in effect. just gotten word here that the tornado watch was set to expire at 8:00 and has been extended this is a watch until 3:00 this afternoon. anne arundel, carroll, of frederick, charles, prince george s, dorchester, st. mary s counties. that is generally our viewing area. until 3:00. until 3:00, we have is general, broad situation where we could see thunderstorms that could develop into a tordo. again, the front was back in ohio. the fact that this remains in effect for so long is that an indication of how big the system is? definitely. as the day heat up, we can add fuel to the fire with the heat in the atmosphere. it gives us that lift, which could develop systems like we see here. again, this morning, we have a tornado warning. this is a tornado warning in effect for carroll and frederick county until 7:45, another six minutes. we see a very strong little cell a brownout every. let me put a circle round the strong little cell around mt. airy. let me put a circle around this. a strong thunderstorms cell has indications on the clouds by radar of rotation. we have had a bunch of these this morning. they kind of come and go. a tornado does not have to sit on the ground for hours on end. it can come and go in about 30 or 40 seconds. i talked on the webcast and if anybody wants to go on the web site this is the anniversary of the tornado in charles county. that tornado was on the ground for a 40 mi.. it did a lot of damage. it was a number of years ago. again, we have a tornado warning in effect for carroll and frederick counties for another four minutes. and howard. no, howard is not in this one. very busy morning schedules. folks heading to work, kids adding to school. i am assured that probably playing it safe is the best advice here. if you re in the warning areas, the watch is in effect until 3:00. if the anybody is late to school, they will understand. if you want to step out this morning, carroll county seems to be pretty well involved in some kind of rain brought the storms are running diagonally across the county from southwest of the northeast. howard county is getting some rain shower activity as well. maybe some rainshowers on the radar on western baltimore county as well. for the most part, the rain has generally stayed west of baltimore, the city, the immediate city area. if you are traveling on i-70, you will run into a brief period of heavy rain. we have a tornado warning in effect for frederick and carroll counties. you can see the line of thunderstorm activity running right around i-70 near mount. . right near westminster and manchester. that is thunderstorm activity that has raised suspicions and shown indications on radar of a possible spending rotation in the clouds. to the best of our knowledge, we have not had any reports at the assignment desk of any damage from storms out there, anything like that, any calls from people seeing anything. we are now in a daylight situation. the problem with what happened in tuscaloosa, a lot of that was nighttime storm activity and it is hard to see a tornado. you have the rapid rain, and they have been a tense situation to boot. have thick nighttime situation to boot. if we could go back to the it live traffic-cam shot on i-70, we took is roughly about 10 minutes ago. it was definitely raining harder. you could see the water kicking up the wheels of the cars. it seems to me, 15 minutes later, that the rain has sto and the rain has started to tighten up a little bit in the area per. that camera may be closer to frederick than it is to mount airy. the line of storms extends through eastern frederick county, this particular line of cells, and covers a good chunk of the central carroll county as well. again, we will mention, in addition to this tornado warning, before we leave our broadcast, we will tell our viewers that the tornado watch has been extended. the tornado watch for our area extends until 3:00 this afternoon anybody who watches the weather, that is what that means. anne arundel, carroll, baltimore, charles, dorchester, howard, st. mary s counties in baltimore city all included in this new tornado watch which is in effect until 3:00 this afternoon. we have some strong thunderstorms in carroll county, in the process of pulling out of carroll county. it raises suspicion because of the circulation in the clouds. 7:44. only a minute left in this particular tornado warning. we have not had any word that this move up from saws has done any damage at this time that this move up storm cells has done any damage at this time. flash flooding is also a possibility. a warning is in fact there is in effect there. we are under a federal mandate. whenever there is a tornado warning, there is a federal mandate to stay on the air and keep you informed and abreast of the situation until of this tornado warnings have been lifted. as john said, the warning is in effect for another minute or so. actually, it is going to expire in 3, 2, 1. it is done. we will be watching this war if something could pop up. we will bring you updates during the the today show if anything occurs. to keep it as a closely guard secret of the royal wedding. reporter: 700 million viewers watched as princess diana was married. nearly 30 years later the designer dress is still world famous. we re absolutely still talking about diana s dress. it s nothing short of iconic and it continuies to be an iconic o fascination. reporter: so determined to keep the mist, diana placed the call to emmanuel herself. following if there diana s foot stps kate middleton has been able to keep the dress under wraps. so what could be hiding in these bags? in less than 24 hours, we ll know. i wish i could tell you more, meredith, because it s all i know. he won t stop e-mailing me, asking me for more details about the dress. i know. he s desperate, ann. thank you so much. cecilia is an author of the daily telegraph. good morning to you. everybody is speculating. i think they were deliberately provoking us. as if we haven t got inbad enough without them titilating us. i think it could be the going-away dress or the dress she s going to wear today. it won t be the wedding dress. that would have been under lock and key for several weeks. yes. a lot of people have speculated that that dress is being put together in house either the buckingham palace or the clarence house. i think they can t take risks. the dress has been ready for months and months. given how much weight she s lost recently, they may have to alter it. let s talk about the possible designer, yesterday bruce took his name out of the running, sophie did also. are they trying to throw us off or are they telling us the truth? denial doesn t mean anything. i think it s all open again. that s the great thing. nobody counted themselves out. we don t know. so the front-runnering we re hearing is sara burton with alexander mcqueen. i think very unlikely. i think what s likely is that because kate s a very loyal person she s always stuck with certain people throughout her life, certain designers, she ll somehow give them all a chance. perhaps alexander mcqueen. burton will design the dress and you know sophie might design the going away dress and perhaps daniela might design the dress she wears to the evening function so everyone gets their moment. david emanuel along with his ex-wife who designed diana s dress were on television. they said the minute they saw the trees being brought into the anally, he has a vision. that it s going to be understated, flowing, romantic. that that s the tone they re trying to set. do you agree with that? i think that s true. it s like essentially she s a country girl. she wanted a country wedding. there s no way she can have that. maybe she s bringing the country to westminster abbey. it wouldn t surprise me if she turns up looking very much like the country bride. we ll find out in 24 hours. thank you so much. we re back with much more live from london with the countdown of the royal wedding but first these messages. 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[ male announcer ] see the stylish new highlander at youtube.com/highlander. still ahead, the people in the u.s. are waking up to watch the big event. plus we re given a rare look at the packing tree and the precision horse guard that will be on display during the wedding procession. one of the voices, i understand, is actually named william. first your local news and weather. 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[ male announcer ] get the venture card from capital one, money magazine s best rewards card if you aim to rack up airline miles. what s in your wallet? so, you re a democrat right? live, local, latebreaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news today in baltimore. good morning. i am stan stovall. here is sarah caldwell and traffic pulse 11. while we are waiting for the bulk of this weather to come into our area, we are dealing with problems not weather- related because of 95 on the northeast side. pulaski highway and white marsh boulevard, we have an accident. we have an accident at route 30, and another problem at dogwood road and rolling run drive. outer loop on the southwest corner at 295, watch for an accident. delays around the beltway on the north and west side. southbound 83 spectrum shawan road through the beltway. so far, j.f.x. looking good. stop and go heading towards the 895 split. that is the latest on traffic pulse 11. more on the forecast with john. take a look at our rate are now. tornado warning has been issued that includes baltimore county and areas around baltimore county, including cattle county at this time to it will be in effect until 8:45. another 45 minutes or so. we see a thunderstorm cell that is in carroll county running from near mount airy, just to the north of mount airy, northeastward into the northeast corner. strong thunderstorm activity in that area. you see a triangle there. let me move things around a little bit. we will try to put information on around here. the location of the rotation 1.1 miles northeast of winfield in carroll county. indications are that there could be a tornado there. this is indicating by radar, not by anybody seeing or reporting. this is moving northeast very quickly. 56 miles an hour. what about now, this thing is expected to be at 8:00 at 7 near manchester, and that a cut 17, bentley springs. this is moving very rapidly. baltimore county, carroll county, tornado warning in effect until it o clock 45 this morning until 8:45 this morning. we will stay on the air and keep track of this. if you are in that area, you should immediately take cover. take cover immediately if you are near that area. most of our viewers are not involved in this, but we are warning for carroll and baltimore county at this time until 8:45. a tornado warning in effect. let me refresh the information here. frederick county is involved, too. frederick county, baltimore county, carroll county, a tornado warning in effect until 8:45. thunderstorms capable of producing a tornado near mount airy, 5 miles north of damascus. this indicates that this is moving at 15 miles per hour. this is a couple minutes old, 546 minutes old. john, while you are let me add a little bit what you were telling us earlier of the flash flood warning. flash flood warning in effect for carroll county and north central maryland, frederick county in north central maryland, northwest and howard county, northwest montgomery county, northeast loudoun county in northern virginia. heavy rain is producing it rapidly rising water across the areas. several reports of one-two inches of rain, and up to an inch was expected. some of those locations it will continue to be affected by the heavy rain brought those include ballenger creek, damascus, at emmitsburg, frederick, green valley, and said, manchester, mount airy, newmarket, taneytown, walkersville, westminster. those that and under a flash flood warnings and they had been since midnight. take action because excessive rainfall will cause flooding of streets and creeks and county roads and farm land along the banks of creeks and streams. not only do we have tornado warnings and watches in fact, but flash flood warnings for a great deal of the central maryland area. ok, and again on the radar, i have annotated what is going on. this cell north of mount airy and extending to carroll county at this time. this has indications of rotation in the clouds. our radar indicates that the entire strong sellers moving northeast at close to 50 miles per hour. the location of this one little concentration of activity could be near miller s, and that up to glenbrook at 8:22. the bulletin issued by the weather service indicates severe thunderstorm capable of producing tornadoes, storm located near mount airy, and northeast of there, 55 miles an hour. locations impacted include wagner smell, westminster, risa, carrollton, and anybody in that area should take cover now. safety measures would be to move to an interior room, lowest floor, a sturdy buildings. get away from windows. if you are outdoors or in a mobile home or vehicle, a move to the closest substantial shelter and protect yourself from flying debris. if you are caught outside, get low. low as you can, cover up, because of a flying debris. weewe have seen pictures of what these things tossed around. it is not just pieces of wood predicate the entire vehicles this morning on the newscast we brought you reports of tuscaloosa, alabama, that s all one heck of a tornado that moved through there. these tornadoes, if you re in your car, the best thing to do is to get out of the vehicle and get to a shelter for up to try to outrun or out-drive the tornado, because you just cannot do it. this kind of the northeast corner of the city and around the beltway there. between randallstown and towson paxil, not just on the south side of sykesville pikesville traffic is moving slowly, pavement is wide. at the moment it is not actively raining there. there might be something to westminster, i am not sure. it is moving away from mount airy. the whole thing is clear of the mount airy area. the direction i ve drawn the arrow is the basic direction of the strong sellers moving, and just to the north and west of that. maybe around the eldersburg and area, northward to westminster, you have rain activity, and then some really intense storm activity to the northeast county, millers, manchester, hampstead. i westminster as well. i grabbed the wrong mouse. let me clear the screen of everything. flash flood warnings in effect for most of central maryland right now. it will cause flooding in streams and creeks. if you are in your car and you are coming across what is typically a creek or a stream area, it does not take much water to get your car to hydroplane, leave the the road, possibly be swept into a creek. just a reminder to our viewers who are wondering what we are up to if they just turned in, we re doing extend coverage because there is what tornado warning in effect, and that covers carroll and baltimore counties until 8:45 this morning. pretty intense storm activity. south of westminster right now. nor the stored in the northeast corner of carroll county, just beginning to be over it to baltimore county. right now the hot spot, i guess, is 1/10 of a mile southwest of greece. the cell is moving northeast at 60 miles an hour. at 8:06, hampstead, and bentleys banks could be affected by this. 8:23, norrisville. we have multiple messages there. it will give me the multiple messages. the hot spot is 1/10 of a mile southwest of reece, moving rapidly there. we have been on seven or eight minutes, and from that time it has moved from mount airy into its current location. 8:23, norris, 8:07. let me move the trying go out of their. as you can see that hampstead is under the orange and yellow area of the snow. that is where the strongest activity indicated by radar is right now. there isn t too much lightning from this. the lighting system network shows lightning not much else other than that. it is getting near the harrisburg expressway right now. rain is starting to affect portions of baltimore county at this time. we just check the harrisburg expressway. let s give you a live view of the area. we are starting to see rain falling and definitely some delays. much of that due to an earlier overturned vehicle that happened in the 5:00 hour. we are tracking delays that extend from 39, maryland line, all the way towards mt. carmel pratt we also want to let you know that there is an accident in reisterstown at route 30. if you are going to travel there, that is an area that is being hit by rain right now. another accident at dog would road and rolling run drive. we are focusing on the west side, area west of the city. right now not seeing anything. a report, in terms of problems in the city delays falling into place quickly. this is at cockeysville. going away from us this southbound traffic. we are starting to see a delay forming with the beltway. this is standard for this hour. every now and then we see droplets on the camera. we are expecting the rush hour to deteriorate this morning. this area in annapolis looking good. the roads by and large look dry here. the areas we are focusing on the west of the city john continues to track this west of the area. another picture of the 795, and doppler. john is coming in to let you know in terms of the forecast as he continues to track severe storms. you know the warning signs of the beltway that warn you of back to traffic accidents, things like that? would they also warned of tornado warnings for the area? that is a good question. i ve never seen that type of warning. normally it is traffic-related. i will double check to see if that is something they are warning of. we are under a tornado warning in baltimore county and carroll county. take cover now. move to an interior room on the lowest floor of your home, the building you are in, at sturdy building, and avoid being near any windows. we don t want them blowing out and blowing glass into your face. that could be very treacherous. if you are in a mobile home or vehicle, moved to the closest substantial shelter. that does not mean that the mobile home is a substantial shelter, it does not mean that your vehicle is a substantial shelter. you need to get to a building that is sturdily built at protect yourself from flying glass. if you are caught outside on foot, crouched down in slow- flying area. that would be a ditch, golly. if you are out on a city street, get next to the curb, right next to the curb, lie there and let the thing passed. we are on a tornado warning in baltimore and carroll county, in effect until 8:45 this morning. we will stay on the air as long as the warning is in effect and keep you abreast of the situation of this fast-moving covering a wide area. many counties have been under a warning this morning. most studies at the daughter of watch for most of the morning. most counties have been under a watch for most of the morning. i refreshed the radar here. to 8:00, when we started the normal at nbc cut- in, this was near mount airy. now this, i will highlighted here causing all the hullabaloo, so to speak is near the hampstead area. here we go. get the right button and we will get things going while you are doing that, we are talking about a flash flood warning and how water can rise very quickly with a rapidly flowing rain. a vehicle in frederick county is apparently in sam s creek. the water has risen very quickly, rapidly. i don t know if it is a case if somebody tried to drive through road and got carried off the road and into the creek. sam s creek road at orchard road right now. if you are going to be traveling in that area, be aware it, treacherous driving situation right now. you need to keep abreast of the water rising on the roadways, try to not drive through high standing water. again, it all it takes about six inches of water to take your car and moved off the road into a creek. it flows very easily, just like a ship, really. as i was going to mention, and 8:00,ut 5 cminutes to north of hampstead. moving to the northeast rapidly. possible tornado, indications that there might be circulation in these clouds. tornado warning is in effect for carroll, frederick, baltimore counties until 8:45 this morning. i was just handed a fresh one here. still until it o clock 45, carroll and frederick counties. baltimore county not mentioned in this latest one. this was issued by the weather service just a couple of minutes ago. let me widen the view just a little bit. we have this one in the northeast corner of carroll county and moving into baltimore county. more activity in frederick county of another storm cell. more alarms going off the. i will get that information in just a second. i am hearing alarms in the background. ride along the potomac river, right for frederick, right up to its taneytown and emmitsburg. this is another line that could prove to be burie that could prove to be very dangerous. there is one that is now out to the northwest of northeast of hampstead in northern baltimore county, adding towards pennsylvania, the pennsylvania line. very strong storms near brunswick, emmitsburg, it into pennsylvania. the thunderstorm that is the most intense is the one that has now slipped into northern baltimore county. it will soon be crossing the harrisburg expressway. it looks like at that part of that might cross the harrisburg just opted to pennsylvania at this time. i love the name of some of these towns. south of young man s fancy, west , east ofvill hill manchester at this time. we have this little hit here. i will highlight that for you. it is not the strongest thing in the world. just a hint that there might be circulation there. john, we have been talking about tornado watches and warnings and flash flood warnings. you can get damages from very high wind gusts. i think we have a graphic showing the wind gusts in the area here, just to give you an idea this is of our website, wbaltv.com. there s a lot of information on the web site concerning this stuff. as long as you are with us, stay with us. the wind gusts in general are quite strong. some of these are in the 20 s this morning. we have had the gas from 17-22. gusts from 17-22. there is not storm activity east of the bay this morning. we are going to mention that a good portion of our viewing area, most of arguing area, is under a tornado watch. basically, we ve been on the air roughly since i guess about seven minutes after 7:00 this morning, when the first tornado warnings were issued. those were for montgomery county howard county and frederick county, and that lasted until 7:45 this month, and we thought we were moving out of the woods at that point, but roughly about six minutes later, the tornado warning went into effect for baltimore county and carroll county. we have been staying with it at harford county as well. here is the latest for the weather service carroll county is no longer in the one, but until 8:45 this morning, baltimore county and harford county and the tornado warning. at 8:00 at night, the weather service radar indicated at the nist are capable of producing , the weather service indicated a system capable a producing a tornado. these are rapidly moving storms. god forbid we have a situation like in arkansas or alabama last couple of days. the massive storms produced many tornadoes and they hung around for a couple of days, wreaking havoc and taking lives. a major tornado in tuscaloosa, alabama. definitely more than 60 confirmed deaths. the governor of alabama was fearful that there would be many more as the sun came up. they were able to see better to begin the recovery efforts. he was fearful that there were going to be more deaths and alabama. here we see the skycam of view. the cameras are looking at the inner harbor and looking southward. you can see a little rain and the cost in the distance. there is no rain in the city right now. i have circled the part of the storm cell that is suspicious. this is in northwest baltimore county. this tornado warning is in effect until 8:45 this morning. the warnings in the area are baltimore county and howard county. these are moving so quickly at this stage and the game. apparently frederick county is back in the tornado warning category. that is on the national weather service as of 12 minutes after 8:00. frederick was in, then they are out, that they are back in again. there is a line of thunderstorm activity right near frederick. kind of the same area that was hit earlier. while you are doing that, national weather service in getting severe thunderstorm activity capable of producing a tornado six miles south of ballenger creek. it is moving northeast, as you said, roughly 45, fifth miles per hour. roughly 45- 50 miles per hour. here is this little triangle we put in there, just east of frederick. i would say it is near the airport are just east of the airport. let s call it a hot spot right now. the radar is indicating there might be circulation. two miles south of mount pleasant. this is moving northeast, 64 mi. per hour. taneytown at 8:00 that one, westminster added a clause 33 taneytown 8:31, westminster at 8:33. that one is 8:45? we also have a tornado warning and the effect for baltimore county and harford county until 8:45. there is one that is out of new freedom in pennsylvania. stan, i guess we have a phone we have a state rep. on the phone with us right now, the maryland c management agency. ed, good morning to you. what kind of warning to do have this morning? did you have this morning? the storms moving from the central part of the country, the severe weather hitting alabama and moving our way ever since ? we have been monitoring this since by afternoon when the first tornado watches came out. and knock on wood, although we did have the strong sellers come through last eight and a few more today. we have not heard reports of sersevere damage in maryland. we can count our blessings that so far it has not been as bad here. how does this work? we see in the movies and on youtube a lot, it lot of whether chasers and storm chasers. they seem to catch every storm on video. it does fema have weather spotters keeping an eye on things? now, the spotters out there are national weather service people or people who do it as a hobby or application. i am told it is a lot easier to do any tornado alley, where the ground tends to be flat, that it is to do on the east coast. these things pop up and dissipate quickly. is pretty unusual to have a long, 30-mile-long trial. we have had these tornado warnings and watches this morning. what are the other concerns surrounding the weather that you have right now ? i want to reiterate something that you said a while ago. whether or not it is a straight line or a down-burst or tornadic activity, a heavy wind it is heavy wind and it can create damage and cause property damage. people need to be aware of wind, no matter what form it is. let me interrupt stay with us, john wants to the weather service has just extended its tornado warning to include york county, pennsylvania, just north of us, until it o clock 45 this morning. until 8:45 this morning. new freedom along the harrisburg expressway. you can see the storm cell activity from northern baltimore county all the way towards the harrisburg expressway. york county has been added to all of this until 8:45 this morning. ok, ed, we had been warning folks about the flash flood warning in effect quite a bit for central maryland. are you getting reports of problems in those area? we have not yet, we have several more lines of storms that are moving through the area. that is a recipe for extreme flooding. clearly, the media concern is the streams swelling quickly. if you see standing water, stop the car and turned around and take a different route. don t try to drive through standing water. more people died in floods then just about any other type of natural disaster in this country, even though we get concerned about tornadoes and lightning strikes. wow, that is very interesting. we get preoccupied with the tornado touching down and wreaking havoc, but you never think about heavy rains associated. i had no idea that there were more drownings than actual problems for the tornadoes and people themselves. one of the things we always used for public education, we are always showing pictures of people trying to drive through what they thought was fairly calm, standing water. just half of what can take a fairly low-profile vehicle and take it downstream. you have to figure out how to get yourself out or get caught in some sort of raging creek or river and that is a recipe for disaster. which raises the question, you are driving along the normal route, and you are also been confronted with standing water. what do you do? to turnaround in the opposite direction? the phrase we use in the emergency national field is turn around, don t drown. it may be inconvenient and take some miles out of your way, but it is better to wait a few extra bucks for gas than trying to go through a stream you cannot make it through. even if it does not become life- threatening. it can do serious damage to the car. turn around, find another route. what should do if you re out in your car? should you stay in your car? i have been telling folks that you should certainly not try to outrun the tornado. you should exit the car and get to a low-flying area? where feasible, particularly if you are in a suburban or rural aria, get to a low-alliant area. low-lying area. get to as flat ground as you can. make sure that the car would not be picked up by the tornado and .ossibly drop on you pra some people think it is safer to be under a bridge. if you can avoid that, don t go near an open bridge. things can play pinball under the bridge and that can create situations, to break open field, laying down as flat as you can bring o open field, laying down as long as you can. i ve just gotten some great news that the tornado warning for baltimore county and harford county has now expired. it is now over. the warning part of it. i am in carroll county right now, so the warning is still going on. i am still paying close attention to the radar here. even though the warning may be over for those areas, we still have a lot of rain and watches in effect for most of the day to day. people need to be alert and listen to wbal and monitor what is going on and be ready to take action where it is needed. we heard from sarah caldwell vulnerable the warning signs of the beltway that one of accidents ahead. to those also warned of a tornado warnings? i would have to talk to my colleagues at state highway about that. certainly they could. i don t know that we have the system program in for that, but that is certainly something we would look at and think about. a method to get the word out to people who are traveling. part of the problem with these kinds of the storm things as they can be very fleeting and come and go within 10 or 15 minutes. typically when they put signs up about accidents, there can be tied-ups for a good period of time or create long backups. it does make a good point that it could be, that we could use to get the message out, if we could pinpoint and get it up and running quickly enough. i want to thank you for joining us and stay with us for so long. it is a rapidly changing situation. and it is probably a good place to said we do shot a 5-95 segue to a shot of i-95. that is a pretty standard delay come up with the weather coming into the area, the inner loop is what we will see going away from us. those delays are quickly growing, and as the weather comes in, the situation is going to quickly deteriorate. we are also keeping an eye on the harrisburg expressway. we will show you what looks like in the parkton region brough. we are periodically seeing lightning but we re not seeing any delays, thankfully. no. at this shot in new freedom, if you are going to be traveling out of that area, definitely want to plan ahead this morning and perhaps delay your departure. we will take a look of the problems we are tracking at this moment. 195, looking pretty good. as we focus on our maps, we will point out the problems we are tracking. orchard road in new windsor, we are tracking a problem due to a vehicle that got stuck in the water there. perhaps a got flooded. we are looking at a problem. they are trying to get the vehicle out right now. another cautionary note to not drive in standing water if you can avoid it. route 30, another accident did it could be weather-related. some of the roadways are wet. route 30, major roadway in that area. copper co, another accident coming into us there. you can see the harrisburg expressway southbound looking at delays that pretty much extend from the maryland line all the way down, intermittently to mount carmel. you will see delays from shawan road down to the beltway. a lot of this is weather- related this morning. let s keep you posted on one more problem in terms of delays out of 95 on the northeast. these are definitely more substantial than we normally see, are approaching white marsh all the way to the 895 split. we will keep you posted on any new problems that come in. west side, with those delays in both leagues this morning, it will be a rough ride. stan, we go back to you. you can follow the storm s upper right down to your very own state using our interactive radar. all you have to do is go to our website wbaltv.com,, and when severe weather does strike, you can share photographs. we have one on u local this morning. i know more of you will do that. getting pictures of scenes of the areas affected. we are told that the tornado warning for baltimore county and howard county have been canceled. we still have something. if we can go to our no. 1 computer, this is the latest we have. york county in pennsylvania, carroll and frederick county, that is the second storm, second line of storms. those are the current warnings in effect until it acquired 45. grounds keep shifting because the storms are anywhere from 40- 60 miles per hour. we have a combined tornado warning until 8:45 in york county and a thunderstorm warning in effect at the same time for a larger area any york and lancaster county. also, 21 in frederick county, eastern part of frederick county, also, a tornado warning in fredericktown, eastern part of frederick county. if we switched to the radar, we can see in our area, frederick county dick howard county, the line of storms, it looks very clear. the line of storms actually reaches from down in virginia across the potomac and brunswick, frederick, down into carroll county, westminster, just near taneytown, then on up into pennsylvania between new freedom and gettysburg. all of these are pretty strong sells producing pretty good rains and gusting winds at this time lightning, and maybe even a little bit of help. i don t know if it is far enough that it might produce that. most of this is moving from the southwest to northeast, very rapidly. tornado warning again in effect, primarily affecting frederick and carroll counties, york county, pennsylvania, until 8:45. the plans of many storm is moving at a rapid rate up to the susquehanna river. we will concentrate more on the storm in carroll and frederick county. some lightning, not an intense outbreaks, but the winds are what of concern to us at this stage of the game. the tornado warning is in effect until 8:45. this storm is capable of producing a tornado. that language indicates no reports of tornadoes confirmed on the ground red again, radar indicates circulation of their. locations include union bridge, new windsor, uniontown, westminster. we see echoes all the way to the pennsylvania line, on into pennsylvania between gettysburg and new freedom at this point. it is one hour of motion. this is just one hour of a loop of strong activity. you can see how extensive it is. we are talking ed from the maryland emergency management agency, and he told us that more loss of life occurs from flash flooding than actual tornado damage. we should mention that flash flood warnings are in effect for quite a bit of central maryland, carroll county, frederick county, north western howard county, montgomery county, loudoun county, northern virginia. some of those locations that will be affected by the heavy rain include ballenger creek, the damascus area, frederick, green valley, amstad, mount airy, new market, taneytown, walkersville, westminster. we have had reports of the vehicles in the water in frederick county right here the intersection of creek road in old orchard road. something tells me that someone tried to drive through high water and the car got carried off into sanskrit. got to be careful. we heard from ed that if you travel to your normal route, a creek area, and you know that you have flash flood warnings in effect, plan to take a different route. take a few minutes out of the way and take a different route. if you do come across high standing water, the advice he gave this to not drive through it. turn around and be saved. in effect in one until 8:45 this morning. the weather system has been marching across the u.s., cause terrible destruction last night in tuscaloosa, alabama. moving rapidly. you can see the excessiveness of the storm activity. i want to check a little button. in virginia, north of danville, east side of the bridges, all the way to the potomac river and maryland. there is a lot more rain with this system of two hours southwest coming at us at this stage of the game. slowly but surely, that line you see on the radar will move east towards the bay. rain is in the forecast all day today. the tornado watches in effect for much of our area until 3:00 this afternoon. it was originally 8:00 this morning, but it has been extended to 3:00 this afternoon. clouds read all the way back to ohio. that is where the cold front is. we have always to go for things finally quiet down. the main main activity reaches from the carolinas into virginia, right across as into eastern virginia. we have got a well to go. it is that 45 is the tornado warning for carroll 8:45 is the tornado warning for carroll and frederick counties. jennifer franciotti, who is usually with us on our news today program, is on vacation this week, but she is calling us on the phone right now, she lives in carroll county. hey, stan, hey, john. i appreciate you taking time from your vacation to keep us abreast of what is going on in your neighborhood. we have been here watching you guys, so i would have called sooner except that we had to decide what to do without daughter at school this morning. they did not delay schools in carroll county. it has been a weird this morning. starting i will go before o clock this morning with the line of thunderstorms coming through i woke up at 4:00 this morning with the line of thunderstorms coming through. it upset the pets, so you take care of them. you look at the sky and you say, wow, this is not normal for this time of morning. we would normally start to see the sun come up. we are now dealing with tornado warnings. these ominous-looking clouts come through the area. the wind will take up, and massive amounts of rain will stop. then it will blow away. north and east direction. then out of nowhere, some of the clouds will part and you will see signun. you can see another wave of these dark, ominous clouds running. a steady flow out the window, which you are not supposed to do during a tornado warning, but at the same time, you are trying to gauge what is going on. we live on top hill, so we have a great fan is. to see all these we have a great vantage point to see all these storms as they moved to the west. on a typical than a strong, it is kind of fun to sit on your porch and watch it all, i, but this is not fun to watch, because you do not know what it is going to drop. we just had a picture of a minute ago on the traffic, out near frederick just east of frederick. the roads flooded. the road looks like it. there is a storm cellar going through that area. that road is swamped right now. the traffic is slowed down a little bit to accommodate that. i am not surprised. you decided not to put your daughter on at the school bus because of the rain, but you did driver to school. what did you see on the roads? a lot of water. mostly the rain water washing towards the storm drain. i did not see any debris, and that is a good thing. we typically lose power in a thunderstorm. we have not done that yet free got a lot of localized we have not done that yet. a lot of localized starting to overflow the banks and the roadways? now, not at all. i would see that, and there has been no overflow in that section. that is good news. watch that type today it that pipe today, because northwest montgomery county, a loudon county and virginia, flash flood warning until 10:30 this morning. this same area of a thunderstorm activity, which so far has been producing a lot of concentrated, heavy rain. at least the potential for tornadoes. tornado warning in effect for carroll frederick county until it o clock 45, which is just a couple minutes away. we in this business are tories for not following our own advice are notorious for not following our own advice, don t stand in front of windows. know what is going on so i can tell the people. she is a reporter. not that there is a good time for a tornado warning, but this is probably the worst time in the morning, where people are trying to figure out what to do for school and work and everyone is busy and there is the big hustle and bustle. yet they are worried about a tornado warning. as you are driving to your daughter to school, what you think most people decided to do? lots of kirkwall s, lots of windows in my place. i have a lot of windows here. truthfully, a lot of kids get scared and tornado warnings. they are worried about the unknown. at least they are in school, their minds are being taken off the situation, and teachers know what to do. i appreciate you taking time from your vacation to keep us abreast of ford is going on at carroll county. thanks a lot. i am back to work tomorrow. see you tomorrow. if things change, you will call us back, right? you bet. bye, guys. as we look at traffic on i- 70, let s go to sarah caldwell and get a quick check on the traffic situation. jen excuse me, sarah. difficult right abizaid elisse this morning. i had the same dilemma with the kids difficult to ride, to say the least, this morning. i had the same to love the kids and the bus. standing water is an issue in areas west of the city. orchard road, we are tracking a vehicle that gets stuck in the water there at new windsor. reisterstown, several vehicles involved in an accident there. not seeing anything significant on southbound 795. another accident southbound to under 95 on the beltway. delays other grant on the west side. every now and that we look at shots of the harrisburg expressway. especially towards the pennsylvania line, that is where things are getting great, running north of the line. here is the west side. we can see delays that are heavier than normal. we ll show you the contrast in frederick cannon. 70 east of 270 is were the rain is coming down hard as folks make their way east and westbound on 70. a difficult ride. we are monitoring the area roads and keeping an eye on roads north and west of the city. we will let you know if any other problems, and. that is the latest on traffic pulse 11. now we go back to john. the tornado warning for carroll county has now expired. thunderstorm activity continues. i have highlighted an area from the potomac river south of frederick and east of town and has been reaching up to carroll county where we have been getting a thunderstorm activity. we have mesoscale activity crossing new markets and westminster. the storm is moving quite rapidly at this point. the alarms are going off. warnings have been issued up and york county and lancaster county until 9:15 this morning. let me clear this is well north of baltimore. this is getting pretty far north, closer to the actual city of york and getting out of our viewing area. anybody with interest north of the pennsylvania line, a tornado warning is in effect until 9:15 until york and lancaster county s. and carroll county. that was the last along. rapidly changing situation. let me get the radar down on that and show you what is going on. that is the cell around westminster and up towards manchester, tornadic activity or the potential for it. we have the cell around forever, as well. these storms are coming out of northern virginia. look at the lane we could be here all morning doing this, reaching past harrisonburg down- to-earth charlottesville. streaming over the same area, and that is why it is set up like it road train along the tracks. these cells are traveling across the same spots. you get these flooding situations. one cell after another. 30 minutes later, another cell with more rain. we have warnings for frederick county, carroll county, the western part of howard county, montgomery county, and northern virginia. this is not the same storm that is turning around this is a new cell. a new cell along the same line. a hot spot in the atmosphere. a weak spot in the atmosphere. it is cundiff an open wound in the hemisphere and stuff keeps festering up and it is along the same line. near york, pennsylvania, all the way down to charlottesville, virginia. the line just sits there like an express train running up the track. it has been up for almost a week now. going back to the tail end of last week. the tornado hit st. louis and hit arkansas. this is the same line of storms. large-scale system. we have had several of the spring. there is our view of 70 east of 270. that is kind of on the western edge of our viewing area. we can focus in on that. there we are in the radar. the video picture shows the road is pretty much a wash in rain. we have rain activity out there and they have been hit and hit and hit a number of times with similar activity. we have tornado a tornado warning for carroll county, frederick, and baltimore counties until 8:45 9:15. i will get all these straight. carroll county, baltimore county come 9:15 this morning. also open lancaster and york counties in pennsylvania. the storm activity reaches up to near york. these storms continue to move from the southwest to the northeast. they are moving in a good clip. anywhere from 50 to 60 miles per hour. at 50 miles a clip, the role of cells we will not be out of the woods for some time. they reached down all the way to charlottesville, virginia. you said the tornado watch will remain into effect until 3:00 p.m. or so. in a broad, general area, as opposed to the baltimore area. that is where most of the watch was up for last night. the activity has slowed down. we will keep the potential for tornadic activity with us for a while. we see the tornado warnings in effect for carroll county and baltimore counties. that is until 9:15. up until pennsylvania, you see a yellow area extending from the maryland tornado watch. that is a thunderstorm watch. there is a target there is a tornado watch their reaches into lancaster county in pennsylvania. these go on until 9:15 this morning. always good to remind folks what you should do. it is good to be prepared. you should head to the lowest level of your building. interior rooms or doorways are the safest protection in your home. stay away from windows. you do not want blowing glass into your face. cover your head. storm to pass. crouched down in a gully if you re outside. a goalie or a ditch a gully or a dish. if you re in a mobile home, you should get of the mobile home, get out of your vehicle and move to the closest substantial shelter. something they ll hold up better than a mobile home or a car and protect yourself from flying debris. lots of trees in very high winds. that is like you don t want to get carried off by a tornado. let me give you some perspective on the storm. let s go back to the radar. i have added the satellite imagery. i have circled baltimore as a reference point. you can see most of the activity has been streaming southwest to northeast. individual cells within this line of storms have been moving 50, 60 miles per hour. you can see these dots of yellow in their, yellow and orange. these are the individual storm cells. you may see hints of a tornado. we will let you know what is going on if you live in that area. on the satellite image, you can see the shapes diminished west of the bay and there is a much gray over the city. sunlight is trying to come through. west of hagerstown and out towards cumberland, they have partly cloudy skies this morning. we have this one band of rain. it is reaching down around charlottesville, virginia, and reaching into maryland around frederick and westminster and up into pennsylvania. it has been sitting there all morning long. they have gotten lots of rain and individual storm cells and a number of them have shown indications that there could be tornado activity, at least attempting to start. the radar is looking into the clouds. 4000, 3000, 2000, maybe 5000, 6,000 feet. the doppler radar can see the wind circulating as well as the rain itself. the radar has shown that we begin to see the circulation that indicates maybe a tornado is trying to get started. that is when the warning gets out. when the report indicates something starting to circulate. it has to reach a certain speed before they put a warning out. the wind rotates and the issue a warning. that means the cloud is trying to get going. more felt than star. so far we have had i have lost track of how many tornado warnings have been issued. we have had no confirmation or sightings. it is a dangerous situation. there s the potential to develop. one could start circulating and come down from the ground and be gone into its minutes. most of the counties in central maryland have been affected either by a tornado warning or by a tornado watch. at one point, in anne arundel county, prince george s, baltimore county, charles, frederick, montgomery county, and baltimore city were either under a watch or a warning. the fluid situation. ever-changing. we ll stay with you throughout the duration. it is a fairly mandate for us to stay on the air and continue to update you and when you empower you up to date on the weather situation when there is specifically a tornado warning so we stay on top of the situation. let s go back to sarah caldwell and check on the traffic situation. this commute is not over yet. there are some accident still clearing. many are west of the city. some flooding at west orchard road. a vehicle is stopped. crews are trying to pull that vehicle alpert route 30, not just a single vehicle. several vehicles involved in this accident. perhaps a bit slick. some delays remain in place. 16 miles per hour on the outer loop west side. that delay stretches down towards edmundson. this is normally when the delays start to dissipate. eastbound 70 looking at some brake lights as you make your in towards 29. southbound harrisburg expressway, delays from mount carmel and down from shawan road down to the beltway. tapping the brakes on the north side. over towards dulaney valley. southbound 95 has improved on the northeast side. most of the problems are on the west side and not southbound 83 this morning. southbound 83 at york road, not looking as gray as it did on the last check. north of the air it is work we continue to see some problems. no delays in this area. this is southbound traffic. not much until you get around mount carmel. 70 running east and west down. still looking good at 29. some delays prior to this. tapping the brakes as you approach the beltway. we will continue to monitor these areas for delays. looks pretty good north and southbound. these roadways are not affected. everything running smoothly in the annapolis region. high winds could be a problem as you pass over the bridges. i would imagine that 9:00 p.m. is where most folks are where the should be. i think some people probably delayed their departure because they were not sure how these storms would evolves. it looks like things are moving in some areas. we have delays on the west side and on the harrisburg expressway. we will see what happens. if you have heavy rain, that would slow that down. heavy