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CNN Live At Daybreak

Tornado Damaged in La Plata, Maryland

Aired April 29, 2002 - 05:46   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And now we want to talk more about that severe weather, specifically we want to get an update on the tornado in southern Maryland.

Reporter Howard Bernstein from CNN affiliate WUSA joins us live from La Plata with the latest.

You know I've been reading the "Washington Post" this morning and it quotes a man that says there is no La Plata, it's totally changed now. Is that how you see it?

HOWARD BERNSTEIN, WUSA-TV REPORTER: Well, I don't know about no La Plata. The courthouse still stands. The county government complex in that direction still stands.

But let me show you what is left of some of La Plata. Now I have seen a lot of destruction, saw it last night. But we're here on Charles Street by Church Street. This street is open to emergency vehicles now, and here comes a sheriff's vehicle. But across the way, I want you to see this building that is barricaded up. In the distance, and we're getting a little light now, behind the blue building across the streets, that meadow that's standing up to the 45 almost behind the chimney, that's part of a water tower that was blown down.

As we do go further up the street, this bank across the street has been boarded up. We also see another building which is -- looks like a square building. It is not a square building, there's no roof left on that house. And in the distance behind it, this was a hardware store, which has been pretty heavily damaged by the tornado that roared through here just before 7:00 last night. And this is only a small piece of some of the damage in La Plata.

I have seen some of the neighborhoods in and around La Plata where houses are gone, trees are all over the place, it is a real mess. Power is out, the schools are closed today, and it is going to take days, if not a lot longer than that, to take care of the problems here. Rescue workers have been here all night. I imagine this is going to take a long time.

I spoke with the mayor briefly, and he says yes a lot of his town got leveled last night but of course they're optimistic, they'll rebuild. There were three fatalities in southern Maryland, countless injuries, many medevacs last night, ambulances all over the place. We've got roads which are still closed, power lines which are down and much of La Plata, because of all the damage and the power lines that are down, is locked down right now. That's why we're kind of confined right here. It's just not safe for us to go deeper into the neighborhoods and give you even pictures of more damage so you can get a feel for what really happened here last night, but a tremendous tornado that pushed through here.

I used to work in Oklahoma City and this looked more like a Midwestern type of tornado than what we might expect here in the Maryland, Virginia, D.C. area -- Carol.

COSTELLO: Howard, the three people that died there, do we know how they died, where they were when the tornado struck?

BERNSTEIN: I don't have any idea on that at the moment. I understand two of them were here in Charles County and one in Calvert County, which is off to the east. But this tornado was first seen in Virginia around Culpeper so we were tracking this one for almost two hours as it moved south of Washington, D.C. If you're wondering about Washington or even most of Maryland, no problems. La Plata, Calvert County, this is really where they got hit the hardest.

COSTELLO: All right, Howard Bernstein from CNN affiliate WUSA joining us this morning, we thank you for that.

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