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Deadly Storms: At Least 35 Killed

Aired November 11, 2002 - 11:05   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.


DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And as we are at five minutes past the hour, I want to get back to our breaking news story and that is the situation across the U.S. with these series of storms and tornadoes that have left many dead across the country and we're looking at storms and tornadoes that have cut a deadly path across the eastern U.S. At least 35 people have died in five states, dozens more are still missing this morning. Authorities in Tennessee report that at least seven confirmed tornadoes touched down in that state. One emergency management official says the tiny rural town of Mossy Grove has been wiped off the face of the earth although we were hearing from our Gary Tuchman that that's not exactly accurate. Our national correspondent Gary Tuchman is in mossy grove and gives us a more accurate account of what has taken place in that town. Gary, hello.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The town certainly has not been wiped off the face of the earth. As a matter of fact, many of the towns people are standing right now in front of a Citgo station in the town that suffered some damage, but still stands as do many of the businesses in the town. However, this is very important, many houses have been completely destroyed. We're standing next to a (AUDIO GAP) which is most of its roof, and we're also being told at least (AUDIO GAP) that only had a few hundred people have been killed from the storms that passed through here. According to police, the four people were in a car trying to evacuate when the tornado hit them while they were driving and they tell us that those were the four fatalities. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we're being told 17 people have -- two storms came through here, one early Sunday morning, one late last night.

At least 60 people have been injured, and there are up to 150 people still missing. However it is important to stress it is not believed that most or any of those people have died. They can't be contacted right now because there is no phone service. Thousands of people are still without power and they're just trying to get in touch with those missing people who are still officially missing. Now here in the little town of (UNINTELLIGIBLE), at least four people have been killed. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) has lost eight people in these terrible storms that came through this area. Karen.

KAREN: All right Gary. We're still dealing a little bit with that spotty cell phone service where you are in Mossy Grove. But we did get most of that report and we'll check back with you. Leon.

HARRIS: Well, right now we have with us on the phone Governor Sundquist of Tennessee who's been notified of course I'm sure immediately after these storms actually hit the ground.

Governor, what can you tell us that you've heard so far from your emergency management folks?

GOV. DON SUNDQUIST, TENNESSEE: this is a very serious tornado. I'm headed out in about an hour to go on site, but the most serious area is in a corner of three counties, Mossy Grove community where at least seven have been killed plus a fireman who died of a heart attack. There are 140, 150 missing, not accounted for. That doesn't mean that they're all missing but they're not accounted for. The tornado that hit in this community was an F5. We've only had one other in the history of Tennessee, that was in 1950. It's a very, very strong tornado.

HARRIS: So you had that actually confirmed that it was an F5?

SUNDQUIST: This was what our emergency management organization, that's what they've told me. Cumberland County is not far from there, four dead and 30 injuries and then Coffee County two dead and 20 injuries and then the day before, we had several deaths in a couple of other counties. So we've been hit hard. I'm going out to the scene soon. I've talked to FEMA, Joe Albaugh, and he's coming in Wednesday, and we have a good volunteer organization, a good Tennessee emergency management organization, and we're on top of it.

HARRIS: Well, so you haven't had a chance to see firsthand any damage from any helicopter tours in the area or anything.

SUNDQUIST: I will within an hour or two.

HARRIS: OK. How about what you've been hearing about what's being done to track down these 140 to 150 missing or unaccounted for people?

SUNDQUIST: Well, a lot of them that are missing or unaccounted for is as a result of no power. So relatives calling and asking for people and they can't locate them. So I don't even mean to imply there are that many that are seriously missing or injured, but this is typical when you have serious problems like this, that there are large numbers of unaccountables.

HARRIS: And of course, considering as well the fact that we're talking about some pretty sparsely populated areas, some rural areas out here as well.

SUNDQUIST: That's true. We had several churches collapse. I think that was one of the reasons for one of the deaths of a 10-year- old I think in Coffey County.

HARRIS: Sorry to hear that. That's terrible. How about what you've been able to get done or at least information you have found (ph) out about the restoration of power to these areas? Are you getting help from neighboring states?

SUNDQUIST: You know, I've been governor eight years, and we just -- we have way too much experience with this sort of thing, but we have good teams, and I have yet to have one complaint about any of the storms or emergencies that we've had in terms of getting power on as quickly as we can, rescuing people, helping them financially. We have a good operation in Tennessee both from volunteers and from our emergency management and we've always received incredible support from Washington, the Federal emergency management.

HARRIS: At this particular point, do you need to make a call for any help of any kind from the public at this point or what?

SUNDQUIST: Not yet. We have had great response, have always had great response and the Salvation Army and the Red Cross, Red Cross generally is in there right away and I know I can tell people look, who have lost their homes, you will be put up tonight. You'll be given clothes. You'll be given food. That's never been a problem. It's a great organization and so is the Salvation Army.

HARRIS: Well, Governor, we thank you for the time.

SUNDQUIST: We're the volunteer state so we don't lack for volunteers.

HARRIS: There you go. There you go.

SUNDQUIST: Thank you.

HARRIS: Well, here's wishing all you volunteers lots of luck.

SUNDQUIST: Thank you very much.

HARRIS: Governor Don Sundquist, we'll let him get back to work so he can get out there and tour that area and get a first hand report.

KAREN: Absolutely. Unfortunately Tennessee had plenty of company in the devastation, the pain coming from the storms, including those in Alabama. That's where we find our Charles Molineaux. He is on the way to Carbon Hill. Charles, hello.

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Karen.

Actually, the Red Cross is stepping in here also to help in Alabama. A shelter has been opened up in Walker County, the area which was the hardest hit. It's interesting, the state of emergency because of the tornadoes is statewide but coming out between Birmingham and Carbon Hill where the worst of the damage was, we really got to see how sporadic and capricious this damage was. We saw trees blown down and one church with its roof all chewed up.

On the other hand, you go a little ways and you see houses, trailers, even a yard full of boats that were untouched so we're seeing really scattered damage but in some cases very severe damage, trees blown out on roads or across houses. We do have word of nine people dead in Walker County, possibly as many as 11 or more dead statewide. The state emergency management is still trying to figure out what the situation is. We're looking out on the scene right now of a house with its roof pretty much blown off and surrounded by trees blown all around it. Again, a very spot location where you saw the heavy winds come in, possibly a tornado because you look right across the street and sure enough, there's a very narrow path of destruction, power lines down as you continue looking off. Meanwhile, the house next door to it looks just fine as does the shed and the cars parked nearby so a very precise and capricious hits by the storm system in this area.

The requests from -- for help are coming into the state from places like Walker and Coleman (ph) Counties, Winston County, Fayette County, Cherokee. The estimate from state emergency management which of course is now coordinating relief efforts is six to seven counties have suffered what they're calling severe damage, meaning major roads blocked, major power outages, major trees knocked down, homes destroyed as well as people killed and of course we're still waiting for word on when we're going to see power restored to some of these areas. Actually en route up from Birmingham, we were in the middle of a convoy of Alabama power trucks.

The word from state emergency management is that something in the neighborhood of at least 30,000 people did have their power cut off and this is as a result of both major and minor power lines knocked down. So the entire infrastructure is going to need to be gone over to get it restored as this rebuilding effort is to get underway. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

KAREN: Charles Molineaux, thank you so much in Alabama.

HARRIS: All right, let's go now to our weather center and Chad Myers has been tracking all of this now. He's got the latest on the storm situation in Ohio. We're covering that one as well. Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning Leon. Yes, Van Wert County hit very hard yesterday by damage from a tornado. In fact we even some amateur video, some home video to show you of this what we call wedge-like storm. A couple of different things. We talked about the Fujita scale from F0 to F5 at times. This is what I want to show you now and I want to go to the telestrator because I can show you the scouring effect. Do you see the little circles?

Do you see these, the lines coming in like this around and around and around. That's pieces of aluminum, pieces of shingles, all being strewn around here and actually scouring the landscape. Clear that off for you. As the tornado went across this damage, this area, I mean, how long has it been since we even saw any kind of building across that entire farm field. Well there you go, in the trees, the aluminum siding, parts of the shed, the rough from the barn itself, all then caught in that part of the little hedge row. There's a little fence line, a little tree line there.

Now we're seeing more in the way of scouring. Do you see these little lines coming around here? Again, more pieces going through and around and around and around and here's one of the real telling signs I saw yesterday, why you don't want to be in the school gymnasium or in a theater. Look at this, the roof completely gone. You can see the seats of this theater and the cars are inside and I'm not sure whether that was a movie theater, whether that was a high school theater or what that was, but clearly there the school just or whatever, the roof completely gone from that little complex there, all part of this wedge system. Now, I teased you and I told you about the video of the tornado itself. What do you need to get damage like this? Typically, this is an F3, possibly an F4 type storm to get that scouring and there's a picture of one. That could be a 4. You can't tell because I don't know how far away we are. I don't know how wide the base is.

But this is not that little white tornado that we used to see on commercials. This is a wedge storm. The base of the storm cut off because it is so wide. I'm saying at least a quarter mile, possibly a half mile wide, and to get that type of a wedge tornado, you need winds almost 200 miles per hour. And that's what the folks in Van Wert County, Ohio saw yesterday and to see the video of the damage now from the air clear that the width of that storm was well over a football wide, possibly a quarter mile wide as that storm moved on by. There's the scouring. Do you see the circles going around like a circular sander going across this farm field, around and around and around. It picked up things. It picked up branches. It picked up shingles.

That's why you don't want to be outside in a tornado. Go inside anywhere, get away from these things that are flying around. What was flying around, what was causing all of that scouring? That stuff that you see right there in that tree line, in that hedge row all getting caught up. You can see shingles. You can see the tops of roofs, you can see whatever, parts of barns, and then some of the trees, now you just saw go by and as we zoom out over here on this side, the scouring continues again around and around and around, wind speeds close to 200 miles per hour and we're very happy that there were farms in the way and not cities in the way. Daryn, Leon back to you.

HARRIS: Good point. And once again, a great illustration of why you don't want to be in a car either. You see those cars getting picked up and thrown...

MYERS: Just turned upside down. There's no place -- even though we see commercials of cars rolling over and race cars going over and over and over, when a tornado picks up a car, turns it over and dumps it on the top, there's no room for you inside.

HARRIS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) All right, thanks, Chad. Appreciate that and we'll get back with you later on.

DARYN: We are going to be going live to Arlington National Cemetery in jut a few minutes. President Bush expected to speak on this Veterans Day. Also we've been getting a lot of e-mail from all of you out there about the weather in your town and pictures as well and we're going to look at some of those as we go to a break, this one from Fairview, Tennessee.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired November 11, 2002 - 11:05   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And as we are at five minutes past the hour, I want to get back to our breaking news story and that is the situation across the U.S. with these series of storms and tornadoes that have left many dead across the country and we're looking at storms and tornadoes that have cut a deadly path across the eastern U.S. At least 35 people have died in five states, dozens more are still missing this morning. Authorities in Tennessee report that at least seven confirmed tornadoes touched down in that state. One emergency management official says the tiny rural town of Mossy Grove has been wiped off the face of the earth although we were hearing from our Gary Tuchman that that's not exactly accurate. Our national correspondent Gary Tuchman is in mossy grove and gives us a more accurate account of what has taken place in that town. Gary, hello.
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. The town certainly has not been wiped off the face of the earth. As a matter of fact, many of the towns people are standing right now in front of a Citgo station in the town that suffered some damage, but still stands as do many of the businesses in the town. However, this is very important, many houses have been completely destroyed. We're standing next to a (AUDIO GAP) which is most of its roof, and we're also being told at least (AUDIO GAP) that only had a few hundred people have been killed from the storms that passed through here. According to police, the four people were in a car trying to evacuate when the tornado hit them while they were driving and they tell us that those were the four fatalities. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) we're being told 17 people have -- two storms came through here, one early Sunday morning, one late last night.

At least 60 people have been injured, and there are up to 150 people still missing. However it is important to stress it is not believed that most or any of those people have died. They can't be contacted right now because there is no phone service. Thousands of people are still without power and they're just trying to get in touch with those missing people who are still officially missing. Now here in the little town of (UNINTELLIGIBLE), at least four people have been killed. (UNINTELLIGIBLE) has lost eight people in these terrible storms that came through this area. Karen.

KAREN: All right Gary. We're still dealing a little bit with that spotty cell phone service where you are in Mossy Grove. But we did get most of that report and we'll check back with you. Leon.

HARRIS: Well, right now we have with us on the phone Governor Sundquist of Tennessee who's been notified of course I'm sure immediately after these storms actually hit the ground.

Governor, what can you tell us that you've heard so far from your emergency management folks?

GOV. DON SUNDQUIST, TENNESSEE: this is a very serious tornado. I'm headed out in about an hour to go on site, but the most serious area is in a corner of three counties, Mossy Grove community where at least seven have been killed plus a fireman who died of a heart attack. There are 140, 150 missing, not accounted for. That doesn't mean that they're all missing but they're not accounted for. The tornado that hit in this community was an F5. We've only had one other in the history of Tennessee, that was in 1950. It's a very, very strong tornado.

HARRIS: So you had that actually confirmed that it was an F5?

SUNDQUIST: This was what our emergency management organization, that's what they've told me. Cumberland County is not far from there, four dead and 30 injuries and then Coffee County two dead and 20 injuries and then the day before, we had several deaths in a couple of other counties. So we've been hit hard. I'm going out to the scene soon. I've talked to FEMA, Joe Albaugh, and he's coming in Wednesday, and we have a good volunteer organization, a good Tennessee emergency management organization, and we're on top of it.

HARRIS: Well, so you haven't had a chance to see firsthand any damage from any helicopter tours in the area or anything.

SUNDQUIST: I will within an hour or two.

HARRIS: OK. How about what you've been hearing about what's being done to track down these 140 to 150 missing or unaccounted for people?

SUNDQUIST: Well, a lot of them that are missing or unaccounted for is as a result of no power. So relatives calling and asking for people and they can't locate them. So I don't even mean to imply there are that many that are seriously missing or injured, but this is typical when you have serious problems like this, that there are large numbers of unaccountables.

HARRIS: And of course, considering as well the fact that we're talking about some pretty sparsely populated areas, some rural areas out here as well.

SUNDQUIST: That's true. We had several churches collapse. I think that was one of the reasons for one of the deaths of a 10-year- old I think in Coffey County.

HARRIS: Sorry to hear that. That's terrible. How about what you've been able to get done or at least information you have found (ph) out about the restoration of power to these areas? Are you getting help from neighboring states?

SUNDQUIST: You know, I've been governor eight years, and we just -- we have way too much experience with this sort of thing, but we have good teams, and I have yet to have one complaint about any of the storms or emergencies that we've had in terms of getting power on as quickly as we can, rescuing people, helping them financially. We have a good operation in Tennessee both from volunteers and from our emergency management and we've always received incredible support from Washington, the Federal emergency management.

HARRIS: At this particular point, do you need to make a call for any help of any kind from the public at this point or what?

SUNDQUIST: Not yet. We have had great response, have always had great response and the Salvation Army and the Red Cross, Red Cross generally is in there right away and I know I can tell people look, who have lost their homes, you will be put up tonight. You'll be given clothes. You'll be given food. That's never been a problem. It's a great organization and so is the Salvation Army.

HARRIS: Well, Governor, we thank you for the time.

SUNDQUIST: We're the volunteer state so we don't lack for volunteers.

HARRIS: There you go. There you go.

SUNDQUIST: Thank you.

HARRIS: Well, here's wishing all you volunteers lots of luck.

SUNDQUIST: Thank you very much.

HARRIS: Governor Don Sundquist, we'll let him get back to work so he can get out there and tour that area and get a first hand report.

KAREN: Absolutely. Unfortunately Tennessee had plenty of company in the devastation, the pain coming from the storms, including those in Alabama. That's where we find our Charles Molineaux. He is on the way to Carbon Hill. Charles, hello.

CHARLES MOLINEAUX, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Karen.

Actually, the Red Cross is stepping in here also to help in Alabama. A shelter has been opened up in Walker County, the area which was the hardest hit. It's interesting, the state of emergency because of the tornadoes is statewide but coming out between Birmingham and Carbon Hill where the worst of the damage was, we really got to see how sporadic and capricious this damage was. We saw trees blown down and one church with its roof all chewed up.

On the other hand, you go a little ways and you see houses, trailers, even a yard full of boats that were untouched so we're seeing really scattered damage but in some cases very severe damage, trees blown out on roads or across houses. We do have word of nine people dead in Walker County, possibly as many as 11 or more dead statewide. The state emergency management is still trying to figure out what the situation is. We're looking out on the scene right now of a house with its roof pretty much blown off and surrounded by trees blown all around it. Again, a very spot location where you saw the heavy winds come in, possibly a tornado because you look right across the street and sure enough, there's a very narrow path of destruction, power lines down as you continue looking off. Meanwhile, the house next door to it looks just fine as does the shed and the cars parked nearby so a very precise and capricious hits by the storm system in this area.

The requests from -- for help are coming into the state from places like Walker and Coleman (ph) Counties, Winston County, Fayette County, Cherokee. The estimate from state emergency management which of course is now coordinating relief efforts is six to seven counties have suffered what they're calling severe damage, meaning major roads blocked, major power outages, major trees knocked down, homes destroyed as well as people killed and of course we're still waiting for word on when we're going to see power restored to some of these areas. Actually en route up from Birmingham, we were in the middle of a convoy of Alabama power trucks.

The word from state emergency management is that something in the neighborhood of at least 30,000 people did have their power cut off and this is as a result of both major and minor power lines knocked down. So the entire infrastructure is going to need to be gone over to get it restored as this rebuilding effort is to get underway. (UNINTELLIGIBLE)

KAREN: Charles Molineaux, thank you so much in Alabama.

HARRIS: All right, let's go now to our weather center and Chad Myers has been tracking all of this now. He's got the latest on the storm situation in Ohio. We're covering that one as well. Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning Leon. Yes, Van Wert County hit very hard yesterday by damage from a tornado. In fact we even some amateur video, some home video to show you of this what we call wedge-like storm. A couple of different things. We talked about the Fujita scale from F0 to F5 at times. This is what I want to show you now and I want to go to the telestrator because I can show you the scouring effect. Do you see the little circles?

Do you see these, the lines coming in like this around and around and around. That's pieces of aluminum, pieces of shingles, all being strewn around here and actually scouring the landscape. Clear that off for you. As the tornado went across this damage, this area, I mean, how long has it been since we even saw any kind of building across that entire farm field. Well there you go, in the trees, the aluminum siding, parts of the shed, the rough from the barn itself, all then caught in that part of the little hedge row. There's a little fence line, a little tree line there.

Now we're seeing more in the way of scouring. Do you see these little lines coming around here? Again, more pieces going through and around and around and around and here's one of the real telling signs I saw yesterday, why you don't want to be in the school gymnasium or in a theater. Look at this, the roof completely gone. You can see the seats of this theater and the cars are inside and I'm not sure whether that was a movie theater, whether that was a high school theater or what that was, but clearly there the school just or whatever, the roof completely gone from that little complex there, all part of this wedge system. Now, I teased you and I told you about the video of the tornado itself. What do you need to get damage like this? Typically, this is an F3, possibly an F4 type storm to get that scouring and there's a picture of one. That could be a 4. You can't tell because I don't know how far away we are. I don't know how wide the base is.

But this is not that little white tornado that we used to see on commercials. This is a wedge storm. The base of the storm cut off because it is so wide. I'm saying at least a quarter mile, possibly a half mile wide, and to get that type of a wedge tornado, you need winds almost 200 miles per hour. And that's what the folks in Van Wert County, Ohio saw yesterday and to see the video of the damage now from the air clear that the width of that storm was well over a football wide, possibly a quarter mile wide as that storm moved on by. There's the scouring. Do you see the circles going around like a circular sander going across this farm field, around and around and around. It picked up things. It picked up branches. It picked up shingles.

That's why you don't want to be outside in a tornado. Go inside anywhere, get away from these things that are flying around. What was flying around, what was causing all of that scouring? That stuff that you see right there in that tree line, in that hedge row all getting caught up. You can see shingles. You can see the tops of roofs, you can see whatever, parts of barns, and then some of the trees, now you just saw go by and as we zoom out over here on this side, the scouring continues again around and around and around, wind speeds close to 200 miles per hour and we're very happy that there were farms in the way and not cities in the way. Daryn, Leon back to you.

HARRIS: Good point. And once again, a great illustration of why you don't want to be in a car either. You see those cars getting picked up and thrown...

MYERS: Just turned upside down. There's no place -- even though we see commercials of cars rolling over and race cars going over and over and over, when a tornado picks up a car, turns it over and dumps it on the top, there's no room for you inside.

HARRIS: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) All right, thanks, Chad. Appreciate that and we'll get back with you later on.

DARYN: We are going to be going live to Arlington National Cemetery in jut a few minutes. President Bush expected to speak on this Veterans Day. Also we've been getting a lot of e-mail from all of you out there about the weather in your town and pictures as well and we're going to look at some of those as we go to a break, this one from Fairview, Tennessee.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com