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CNN Live Today

Late Tornadoes Cause Six Deaths Across Country

Aired April 29, 2002 - 12:09   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.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Let's move along to weather news now. Violent weather raged across the Eastern half of the U.S., leaving at least half a dozen dead. One of the hardest hit towns La Plata, Maryland, about 25 miles south of Washington, D.C. A tornado there left at least three dead, about 90 injured. Patty Davis is there and joins us now with a live update on what's happening at this point. Patty, hello to you, the damage is just absolutely devastating. We see some of this videotape.

PATTY DAVIS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is. It's amazing. The National Weather Service has just preliminarily declared this an F-4 tornado, and what officials are saying is that means winds of around 250 miles an hour. There's only one category above that. That's F-5 and that's absolute devastation, so, F-4 a very, very strong tornado.

Now you can see the tornado starting in this amateur video. It's a kind of 12-mile swathe starting her in La Plata when it touched ground. It stayed on the ground for 12 miles through two other towns, three people dead, 80 -- at least 80 injured. Search and rescue continues.

Some of the damage, as you can see, homes, businesses. We're told more than 100 homes. Businesses, some of them downtown here, absolutely flattened. A water tower that served the town knocked over. Electricity knocked out. Phones knocked out. We're joined by the National Weather Service's Barbara Watson. Now, you are doing, you're doing the damage assessment here for the National Weather Service and you came up with a preliminary F-4. How do you do it?

BARBARA WATSON, NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE: So far, we've done an aerial survey. We went up with the State Police helicopter and flew the entire route. It actually begins ten miles to the west of here. We're now up to over 24 miles of the tornado on the ground.

Definitely as it moved into La Plata it strengthened up to F-4. There's a solid F-4 path through the heart of La Plata, and continuing on to the east. We need to get out to some of those homes to see, you know, is it F-4 or is it even a little bit stronger than that, and we won't know that until we actually check the homes on the ground, see how they were built, how they were anchored and so forth.

DAVIS: Tell me about some of the things that you saw as you did your tour? WATSON: Well, the magnitude of the damage is obviously very impressive, one of the strongest, perhaps the strongest tornado ever to strike the State of Maryland. And, it's a solid wide width to it and just continuous on the ground for a very long period of time, not just a few building demolished, but many building demolished.

DAVIS: OK, thank you, Barbara Watson of the National Weather Service. As you heard one of the strongest, if not the worst tornado, that has hit Maryland in quite some time. As you can see, people wandering the streets here, assessing the damage to their own homes, assessing what's happened to their downtown, and obviously, you see tears come to some of their eyes. Back to you.

HEMMER: Patty, thanks, Patty Davis on the scene there again south of D.C., about 25 miles.

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