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American Morning
Tornado Disaster Zone: Five States Devastated; Storm Survivor Stories; Stalled Stimulus Plan; Interview with Mayor Shelvy Linville of Macon County; Angelina Jolie in a Mission in Baghdad
Aired February 07, 2008 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, CNN exclusive. Angelie Jolie on a mission to Baghdad. Her role helping refugees on this AMERICAN MORNING.
And good morning. Thanks very much for being with us. It is Thursday, the 7th of February. I'm John Roberts in Lafayette, Tennessee. Good morning, Alina.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, John. I'm Alina Cho in New York. Kiran has the morning off. Just heartbreaking to listen to all of those stories, and I know you said you've been up and down that street around the neighborhood. So many people who've just lost everything.
ROBERTS: Yes. Let me set the scene for you. We're in Lafayette, Tennessee, which is in Macon County. It's northeast of Nashville, by about 35 miles or so. This county is the one that took the hardest punch from the storm system that came through Tennessee. The house behind me, it is still standing but all of the windows are blown out. Most of the roof has been stripped off, half of the wall is gone.
We chose this location for you because you can actually see something. And the rest of this neighborhood, the houses have been so leveled the debris just scattered all across the neighborhood that you really can't see something until the sun comes up. So we'll show you a little bit more of this neighborhood as the morning progresses.
But right now, this is the house behind us here. Still, it's uninhabitable. It may have to be knocked down, and there's so much destruction not only here in Macon County, but all the way across Tennessee, through Arkansas, through Alabama. It was just an amazing series of storms that went through. We're still waiting for a final number of tornadoes. There were some 70 sightings across five states, but there's a good chance that there were multiple sightings of the same tornado, so the final number should come in to be about half of that. Fifty-four people were killed, and that number could still rise. Thirty people killed here in Tennessee.
President Bush plans to visit tomorrow, probably beginning in Jackson. There's some word that he may come here as well. Here are some of the scenes that we saw yesterday, obviously waiting for a member of the U.S. military to come home. This is what they're coming back to if they haven't arrived back yet. We keep hearing from people just how fast this storm blew through. As Rob Marciano was telling us, it was coming through about 50 miles an hour. The whole storm system, of course, the winds and the tornadoes, much higher than that.
In Arkansas, 13 people were killed. Four of those after a tornado cut a six-mile path near the small farm town of Atkins. Seven people killed in Kentucky, Allen County just across the Tennessee border. The path of destruction there estimated to be about half a mile wide and four to five miles long. And in Alabama, four people were killed. Three of those deaths came in the hard hit area near the towns of Moulton and Aldridge Grove.
The tornado that hit here in Lafayette, it first touched down in the southwestern corner of Macon County, and it really didn't -- you know, these tornadoes sometimes they lift up, they set down, they lift up, they skip along, they set down somewhere else. This one was pretty much on the ground. The mayor of Macon County was telling me for 20 to 30 miles. So you can imagine the path of destruction. You see it from the air. It's just like somebody took a lawn mower and cut through that entire area.
We're going to be here all morning, Alina, telling you some personal stories. We'll also be talking to the mayor of Macon County, Shelvy Linville. He'll be filling us in on what's going on, and we'll talk to some of the folks who managed to survive against all odds.
Right now, back to you.
CHO: Just incredible. Fifty-two deaths across half a dozen states. We look forward to all of the stories that you'll be bringing us throughout the morning, John. Thank you.
Meanwhile, a CNN exclusive this morning. Actress Angelina Jolie making a surprise visit to Baghdad, Iraq, right now on a humanitarian mission. She's getting a first hand look at refugees and says she wants to know why there isn't a better plan to help them. CNN's Arwa Damon caught up with her just a short time ago. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGELIE JOLIE, ACTRESS: This stuff is to get a better picture of the internally displaced people and to discuss with the local government, our government, NGOs and with local people. This situation to try to understand what is happening because there are over two million internally displaced people, and there doesn't seem to be a real coherent plan to help them. And there's lots of, you know, goodwill and lots of discussion but it's taking a lot of -- just a lot of talk at the moment and when you get a lot of pieces that you can out together.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: Arwa Damon joins us live now from Baghdad. Arwa, I know that Angelina Jolie is attending several events today. What is she hoping to accomplish by going there?
ARWA DAMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alina, she said that making the trip out here was actually an easy choice to make because she was incredibly frustrated at the lack of information that she was getting about Iraq's internally displaced people. She said that she was only being presented with a bunch of ideas, papers, but no real answers. So she's coming here looking for that. She said that there's a lot of goodwill out there but that no one is really getting anything done. And she wants to figure out just what those roadblocks are and what she can do to try to help.
CHO: Arwa, a couple more questions. Do you know who she's meeting with while she's in Iraq today? And do you know how this trip came about?
DAMON: Well, from what she said, this trip was her own initiative. Again, it was the quest for real answers and she believed that she could only get them on the ground here. She's already met with General Petraeus who is the top U.S. commander here, a number of other senior U.S. officials. She's set to meet with Iraq's minister of displaced people. She's also set to meet with the prime minister himself.
And to all of them, she is putting forward the question of what are the problems and what do we actually need to do to get done? She's trying to stress the importance of dealing with the crisis within Iraq when it comes to internally displaced people.
CHO: Well, she has traveled internationally, extensively as a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador, so no surprise that she ended up there eventually. Arwa Damon, we thank you for joining us. We'll check back with you later.
And for now we're going to send it back to Lafayette, Tennessee. And back over to you, John.
ROBERTS: Alina, thanks very much. We've got reporters this morning across the tornado disaster zone. It stretches across five states. I mean, it's just a huge swath of destruction. We're here in Lafayette, Tennessee. Dan Lothian is in Atkins, Arkansas. Ed Lavandera in Jackson, Tennessee, where that college got hit. And Rob Marciano is in Aldridge Grove, Alabama.
We start with Ed who's in Jackson. It's about a three hour drive southwest of here along I-40. What's the scene like there this morning, Ed? Good morning to you.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. Well, you know, today will probably be another day of cleaning up. Perhaps the students of Union University will get a chance to come and gather some of their belongings. And it is still a mess here and it is also a time to reflect and share the stories of what they survived.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA (voice-over): When the tornadoes winds started whipping, the hands of Union University's clock tower stopped spinning, a terrifying moment frozen in time at just past 7:00 p.m. It's when Matt Taylor found himself trapped in the rubble of his dorm room. MATT TAYLOR, UNION UNIVERSITY STUDENT: The last thing I remember seeing as I looked up on my way -- because I was on my stomach holding a gumball machine being dragged across the floor and I saw couches and tables going over my head and I'm not going to make it to that room. And the next thing I knew, I mean, I was under all this rubble.
PASTOR DONALD LANTZ, UNITED PENTECOSTAL CHURCH: And this storage closet here, we had four families in here, lined up in this closet. We had to move everything out and barely got in here just in time.
LAVANDERA: Pastor Donald Lantz was supposed to have been in the middle of a Tuesday night church service when the tornado struck in front of a packed congregation. But just hours before the twister came, he looked to the ominous skies and decided to cancel. So instead of 150 people in harm's way, only a few families were inside when the rumbling started.
LANTZ: The lightning for some reason flashed all of a sudden and you know how it lights up the whole sky. And when it did, we've seen the tornado and it was coming basically straight for us. And by the time we got in the storage room and got everybody in, that roar was on us. And when I shut the door, it was on us that quick.
LAVANDERA: In minutes, the roof was peeled off. The lighthouse, United Pentecostal Church, the steeple toppled over. Donald Lantz is grateful he cancelled services. His congregation lives to pray another day.
LANTZ: I'm not depressed, worried nor down. It's not a tragedy. It's a testimony. It's great that all these lives were spared. It's a great day, a great day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LAVANDERA: And back here live on the campus of Union University. You can see the live pictures of the mess that still needs to be cleaned up around this campus. You know, John, as you look at all these cars, this is essentially the student parking lot, many of these cars flipped over, blown out of this parking lot, many of them damaged, undrivable at this point. And that's kind of the interesting situation these students find themselves in. They've been told that classes will be cancelled until at least February 18th. They've been urged to go home, spend some time away from here, but many of them unable to drive and leave, John.
ROBERTS: Yes. And that's the story that we see repeated across this five-state area. There's so much destruction. I mean, there are vehicles that are flipped over here as well. Some of them are covered by the debris of homes. People really had no way to get around and so they're relying on the cooperation and the graciousness of other people to try to get them some help.
Ed Lavandera for us in Jackson this morning. Ed, thanks. Jackson is about 150 miles southwest of where we are. Now, we want to take you about 150 miles south of where we are, which gives you a good idea of just the extent of this destruction. Rob Marciano is watching the extreme weather. He's in Aldridge Grove, Alabama, where that storm system came through. Rob, what's it like there?
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, not one but two killer tornadoes came through this area, John. This is the most severe outbreak they've had since at least 1989, with two twisters ripping across the state. Four fatalities, one up in Jackson County, and three right here in Lawrence County. As a matter of fact, three took place right across the street in what used to be a home. A couple and their 19-year-old teenage son thrown from the house and did not survive. Their house is gone, pummeled, and some of the debris from that house came all the way across this street and slammed up against this huge oak tree.
Look up there. That's the roof. Look at the power this storm -- how it took that roof and the plywood, all the roofing materials, and completely embedded into those branches, just pinned to that tree with the storm. Meanwhile, that brick house over there, definitely severely damaged. There was an elderly woman in there. She did manage to survive with a broken arm and some cuts and bruises.
Eighty to 90 homes in this county have been damaged. As of yesterday, 20 people had been taken to the hospital. Certainly, a bad situation as you begin to regroup here and try to get themselves together across Lawrence County. It is certainly colder here. The storm has moved well to the east.
I want to show you where the center of that storm is. Check out the radar. The folks in the northeast have been dealing with it. Mostly snow across New England. Winter storm watches and warning still posted there through about 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., as you can see that thing rapidly moving off towards the north and east. There's still a little bit of snow behind it.
It wasn't snow across the Midwest. There was heavy rain, so we have flood warnings and watches out for a number of the rivers across parts of Illinois, Ohio and northern Indiana and southern Michigan today. Chicago seeing several inches and some cases in Wisconsin, 12 to 20 inches of snow with this system.
And guess what? There's another system coming on the way. There you go. There's some of your snowfall totals. Madison, 13.3 and Des Moines, Iowa, 11 inches. So it's certainly a cold aspect to this storm. Got another system coming down the pipe as luck would have it. The Pacific Northwest under blizzard warnings, under avalanche warnings. High winds and heavy snow expected to be there, so the active weather pattern, John, continues to cause headaches across much of the country even as this incredible tornado outbreak finally winds down and we start to now analyze the situation -- John.
ROBERTS: Yes. I'll tell you, Rob, people in this area have had all the wild weather they can stand for an entire year. And I noticed on that brick home there to your left, there was a check mark on it. We're seeing similar things here in Lafayette as well. X's on the front of homes. Very much like Hurricane Katrina, Rob, where we saw them going house to house searching for people who might be inside, checking them off once they discovered that the house was clear.
MARCIANO: Yes, it's a sight that's unfortunately is becoming all too familiar in the world of weather -- John.
ROBERTS: Yes, and they're still searching for people here because they still are missing. Rob, thanks very much. We'll get back to you a little bit later on. We'll also be going down to Atkins, Arkansas, in just a little while. We'll check in with our Dan Lothian there. But right now, back to New York. And here's Alina Cho. She's got more of today's news. Good morning, Alina.
CHO: Good morning, John. Thank you. We'll check back with you later.
Fresh weather concerns new this morning. Heavy snow will impact travel through the Midwest. At least 500 flights have already been canceled at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. They've had a mix of snow, sleet and rain. Delays on the remaining flights are running up to an hour.
The economic stimulus plan is on hold again this morning. A vote last night blocked the Democratic-backed plan which would have extended cash rebates to senior citizens and disabled veterans. The vote was just too short of the 60 needed to break the Republican filibuster. The stimulus package already passed the House and has been approved by the president.
Researchers are pulling the plug on a major study on diabetes and heart disease after some patients died unexpectedly. The 4-year-old study involves more than 10,000 people. The therapy was aimed in reducing the blood sugar levels of type 2 diabetics facing a higher risk of heart attack and stroke. There were 54 more deaths reported among people receiving the intense diabetes treatment. All those patients were switched to the less intense blood sugar control regimen.
New this morning in the race for president. The Clinton campaign says it's raised $3 million since Super Tuesday. Now this follows word that Clinton gave $5 million of her own money to her campaign in late January. Some senior staff members including her campaign manager are voluntarily working without pay.
Senator Barack Obama's campaign raised $32 million in January, outraising Clinton by more than 2-1. Now, despite the cash advantage and despite having won more states than Clinton on Super Tuesday, Obama still calls himself the underdog in the race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Senator Clinton is a formidable opponent. She's got a familiar and well-appreciated name. She's got a political machine honed over two decades. And so, from my perspective, this makes her the front-runner in every single contest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: Now, there are 10 more primaries and caucuses just this month, including the primaries in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., next Tuesday.
And Republican front-runner John McCain making another appeal to the party's conservative base. McCain will address the Conservative Political Action Conference today in Washington. He's trying to assure them he can be trusted as a conservative standard bearer for the GOP. The Arizona senator is trying to calm critics like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter who have blasted his conservative credentials and threatened to boycott the candidate if he wins the nomination.
Take a look at this as it stands right now for the Democrats. Hillary Clinton has 823 delegates, Barack Obama, 741, 2,025 are needed to win the Democratic nomination. Over in the Republican race, John McCain has 683 delegates, Mitt Romney 270, Mike Huckabee 176. One thousand one hundred ninety one are needed to win.
Now I'm going to send it back over to you, John,
ROBERTS: Alina, thanks very much.
Still to come this morning. It came literally out of nowhere. Survivors of the deadly southern tornado say they had just seconds to spare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The only thing we could do was pray and lay on top of our boys. After about three minutes, it was all over and everything was gone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: What's next now for all the survivors, homeless and heartbroken? We are live with the mayor of one devastated community coming up next on AMERICAN MORNING live from Macon County, Tennessee. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Just total destruction here in areas of Lafayette, Tennessee. We drove through battered communities and saw how tornadoes flattened entire blocks, smashed buildings and tractor trailers, flying homes, and even a church reduced to piles of concrete, lumbered, twisted up pieced of metal. There's that church there that came down. Boy, it will take a while to rebuild that.
This county, Macon County, Tennessee, is one of the hardest hit in this incredible natural disaster. Shelvy Linville is the mayor of Macon County. He joins us this morning. Mr. Mayor, give us some idea of the extent of this. You know, we drove around yesterday and we saw entire neighborhoods that have been completely flattened. Just how widespread is it?
MAYOR SHELVY LINVILLE, MACON COUNTY, TENNESSEE: John, it's unbelievable. Actually the tornado touched down in the southwestern portion of Macon County, at the Columbia Gulf Station. And the remarkable thing about it was it appeared it stayed on the ground the entire time and just cut a path directly through Macon County. It hit the western portion of the city of Lafayette and continued on northeast then exited out into Kentucky. And --
ROBERTS: Now, this Columbia Gulf Station that you were talking about -- this was the pump -- the gas -- the natural gas pumping station, the pictures of which we saw on Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning with those huge flames, 300, 400 feet in the air.
LINVILLE: That's right.
They pumped that gas from New Orleans to, I believe, to Virginia. And it's just a gas line that runs through Macon County and goes on through the other states.
ROBERTS: So the tornado touched down there and just stayed on the ground all the way through here?
LINVILLE: It did. We flew the path yesterday, and the remarkable thing about it that I noticed, it didn't appear that it ever lifted. A lot of times you'll see tornadoes just lift and maybe go a couple of miles and touch down again. You can follow the path of this one, the whole entire distance. It just took a path right through diagonally through Macon County and it's total destruction.
ROBERTS: So we know at least a dozen people dead here in Macon County. That's the greatest death toll in any single area from the storm system. Do we know if potentially that number is going to rise?
LINVILLE: Well, we hope not. Our confirmed fatality is 13.
ROBERTS: Oh, 13 now.
LINVILLE: Thirteen now. And there were 68 injured that had to be transported to local hospitals. And, of course, in the missing, we think we've accounted for all the missing. There was four still left as of yesterday we hadn't accounted for, but we think we've got those accounted for now. And, of course, we don't know. There's so much rubble out there. Yesterday consisted of a search and rescue mission all day long, just going through houses. And we had different teams on different roads going through as many houses as they could, just to check that and see if there was anyone in there maybe deceased.
ROBERTS: Did you have any idea how many homes have been affected here?
LINVILLE: No, sir, I don't.
ROBERTS: Too early to get a count on that?
LINVILLE: I really don't -- it would just be a guess at this point.
ROBERTS: So what do you need at this point, Mayor?
LINVILLE: Well, we need assistance. We need state assistance. Of course, our governor came up and toured the area with us yesterday and promised us assistance from the state. I had a telephone call yesterday from Bob Corker, and I understand he said that he was going to see, try to do everything he could to get us some federal disaster aid, and --
ROBERTS: The president's coming tomorrow to Jackson, maybe here as well?
LINVILLE: I understand President Bush is coming to Tennessee tomorrow and a good possibility he will visit Macon County.
ROBERTS: Well, Shelvy Linville, you got a huge job in front of you. We wish you God speed and strength as you approach this.
(CROSSTALK)
LINVILLE: Well, thank you. I appreciate you all being here and appreciate your concern.
ROBERTS: Wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Mayor, thanks very much. Mayor Shelvy Linville of Macon County. Now, let's send it back to Alina in New York -- Alina.
ROBERTS: All right. John, thank you.
News overnight from the parents of Britney Spears. She's been released from the hospital and her parents say her life is at risk. We're going to have more on that story coming up. So stay tuned.
And we've been watching and listening to storm stories throughout the south. More than 50 lives lost, thousands of homes damaged. Coming up, how you can check on your loved ones in the storm zone and how you can help. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHO: Welcome back to the "Most News in the Morning." Britney Spears out of the hospital this morning and her parents say her life is in danger. Spears left the UCLA Medical Center Wednesday afternoon without that police motorcade that's escorted her there last week, but with the paparazzi swarming, of course. Spears' parents released a statement last night. It read in part, "We are deeply concerned about her safety and vulnerability and we believe her life is presently at risk."
They say there's a court order in place to protect Britney that's being "blatantly disregarded." By the way, a judge in Los Angeles has given control of Spears' estate to her father and a lawyer.
Well, we've been watching and listening to storm stories throughout the south. More than 50 lives lost, thousands of homes damaged.
Internet correspondent Veronica De La Cruz is here with some great online resources to help you connect with that loved one you may have disconnected during the storm. So many thousands of people there worried about their relatives. VERONICA DE LA CRUZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
CHO: So how can they find them?
DE LA CRUZ: I will let you know. We're going to concentrate on that university, Union University, which you've seen all of the damage, all of the devastation. We're going to start with an I-Report from Ken Childs, an I-Report that really shows what's left behind.
This is the Web site of Union University, by the way, Alina. You know, I don't know if you remember, that Web site was down pretty much the majority of the day. They finally got it back up last night and they've created this emergency blog. It's a place where friends and alumnae have gathered, to let each other know that they're OK. So this is one of those places, one of those resources. They're also talking about the cleanup effort which is on hold as of right now.
There's also a relief fund set up in the Web site. You can log on to www.uu.edu if you'd like to help out. This next Web site we're looking at right here, this is our very own Web site. It's called "Impact Your World." There links to charities like the Churches of Christ Disaster Relief Effort because I also have the latest information on storms, photos, the disaster, a map pinpointing all of the areas hit, which is actually really important to a lot of people wondering if their loved ones were affected by the storm.
Another resource for you, the National Weather Services Web site. They have a map of storm activity. There's a town by town breakdown of damage, fatalities. I want to show you this. If you scroll down this page, it actually shows you where the damage happened. Yell County, for example, shows that there was barn damage.
CHO: Oh, my gosh.
DE LA CRUZ: Polk County, three fatalities.
CHO: Pretty detailed.
DE LA CRUZ: Pretty comprehensive list. Again, that is NOAA's Web site, spc.noaa.gov. And then finally, you can go back online and check out the Red Cross Safe and Well List. That is a place where you can register. Let your loved ones know that you're OK.
SO far, Alina, more than 300 registrations have taken place there in the past 24 hours. So, once again, you can head to our Web site at CNN.com/American morning and check out all the Web sites that we just mentioned.
CHO: Amazing. The 300 people were able to go online and do that.
DE LA CRUZ: I know.
CHO: I mean, you know, they've lost everything.
DE LA CRUZ: I know. CHO: But I guess the hope is that more people would go so the relatives will know.
DE LA CRUZ: Any evacuation shelters as well. You know, they've definitely gone ahead with this process to make sure that people can post that they're OK.
CHO: Veronica, thank you.
DE LA CRUZ: Yes.
CHO: I'm going to send it over to you to Lafayette, Tennessee, John.
ROBERTS: Alina, thanks very much. They are still trying to come to terms with the extent of devastation here in Tennessee. Decades of memories for many people wiped out in just an instant.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got in the basement. I told my wife, I said, I don't know how much of the house is gone but part of it is gone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Coming up, survivor stories in their own words. We are live from Tennessee, Arkansas and Alabama on this AMERICAN MORNING.
And John McCain is on a new campaign of sorts today. How and why he is wooing conservatives this morning. Plus, the top stories of the day when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: There is an image of some of the destruction this morning in Lafayette, Tennessee. A town that was just so hard hit by the series of storms that swept through. Lafayette is in Macon County, Tennessee, where 13 people died. That's the greatest number of fatalities.
You can see the proximity of the destruction from where we are this morning. And if we take this other picture here, you'll see that the house behind us, this structure behind us, is pretty much still intact. Though I would I assume it's inhabitable. All of the windows have been blown out. Most of the roof has been stripped off. Part of the wall here, on this one side behind me, has been knocked down as well.
And that's the scene all across this county as this tornado cut a path of destruction at least 20 miles long.
Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. It's Thursday, February the 7th. A special edition as we cover the destruction from these series of storms that wore through on Super Tuesday.
Hi, Alina.
ALINA CHO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, there, John. I'm Alina Cho in New York. Kiran has the morning off.
And it's just incredible to look at that home behind you. A representative of what you're seeing really across that region. I know they're starting to assess the damage, but they're also still searching for survivors.
ROBERTS: They are, this morning. It is Mayor Shelvy Linville of Macon County who was telling us just a little while ago, they haven't even got an account yet on how many homes were destroyed, how many structures were damaged. That's going to take them a couple of days as they try to, first of all, sift through the debris to make sure that they've gotten all of the missing and then make an assessment of just what the extent of the damage here was.
We spent some time talking with storm survivors when we came in yesterday, people who lost everything, and those who barely escaped. And many people here tell me they have never seen a storm like this before.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LOUIE TUCKER, TORNADO VICTIM: That boy (INAUDIBLE) part of it was inside his house.
ROBERTS (voice-over): Louie Tucker can be considered one of the lucky ones in Lafayette. The tornado vaporized his garage and tore up his roof, but amazingly, left most of the house he's lived in for 38 years intact.
TUCKER: I've never heard nothing like it, really. I never heard nothing like it.
ROBERTS: Could you hear pieces of the house coming off?
TUCKER: We got in the basement. I told my wife, I said -- I don't know how much of the house is gone, but part of it's gone.
ROBERTS: Oh, sorry.
Across Macon County, more than a dozen people died. And recovery workers think the toll could go higher. In this neighborhood, they brought in dogs to look for one of the missing. The person lived in a mobile home across the street that was flattened. Rescuers fear the swirling winds may have blown the victim a hundred yards into this pond.
ROBERTS (on camera): The path of this storm cut a swath of destruction. People who've lived in these parts for a long time say they can't ever remember seeing before.
Unlike tornadoes that we see all across this region every year, this one was incredibly capricious. Totally destroying some homes and leaving others almost completely intact. And people that we talked to said it was the speed of this storm that really surprised them.
(voice-over): Louie Tucker and his wife knew there was bad weather in the area. They'd heard the forecast, but there are no warning sirens in Lafayette. And the tornado was on in a heart beat.
TUCKER: The television didn't go off until just about the time it happened.
ROBERTS: And you scrambled down the basement after that?
TUCKER: Yes. We've seen all that red back in yonder where the pipeline was on fire.
ROBERTS: Oh, my goodness.
TUCKER: And it started roaring.
ROBERTS: Louie is used to rebuilding. He worked for the power company here and has seen his fair share of rough weather and big trouble. But when it hits home, your home, even experienced hands can tremble.
TUCKER: I've worked through tornadoes, vast storms, floods, but I've never been affected like this.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROBERTS: His emotion's not just for what he lost, but for the greater community around him here in Lafayette. Louie is a fighter. He says rebuilding Lafayette is going to take time, but the Good Lord willing, they will get it done.
Alina?
CHO: Just heartbreaking, really. I know we've been saying that all morning long. John, thank you. We'll check back with you later.
In the race for president, the candidates are now focused on the next round of primaries and getting their message out to the voters, including a new push for Senator John McCain today.
John Dickerson is our political analyst and chief political correspondent for Slate.com. He joins us from Washington this morning.
So, let's talk about the Republican race first, John. Coming out of Super Tuesday, John McCain is finally admitting he's the frontrunner. Take a look at the delegate count there. McCain has 680, Mitt Romney 270, Mike Huckabee in third at 176.
But McCain, as I alluded to in the lead there, is the facing a big test. He's going to go before a conservative group today. One that is -- he basically turned down an invitation to speak before them last year. So what can we expect today in terms of how he'll be received? JOHN DICKERSON, SLATE.COM: Well, he'll probably be received politely. McCain is not great at the big speeches. And so that will be a little bit tricky for him. He'll try to draw some bridges, though, and say here are some areas where we agree. He'll talk a lot about judges. Making the case essentially for conservatives that, you know, if they put a Democrat in the White House, the next Supreme Court pick will be ruled by a Democrat and not by a conservative.
So, he'll try to build some bridges with those conservatives and he'll talk a great deal about Ronald Reagan, the patron saint of conservatives. And he'll hope to get out of there without causing too much of a stir, or getting booed, or anything like that.
CHO: But can he really do that? I mean, what does he has to say, John. Because by all estimates from staunch conservatives, they say McCain has never been a member of the club. So, what does he have to do to convince them because this is going to be a tough crowd?
DICKERSON: Well, he's not going to convince them. I mean, he's going to convince a certain group. But there's always going to be anti-McCain caucus. What he needs really is to tamp down on this story, get through in the next primary, so he can get to the nomination.
But there's nothing he can say in a single speech that's going to make everybody say, "Oh, finally, now, I get it." I think his ultimate point is one that he can't make from the podium, which is, "look, where are you going to go? That if you really care about social issues, you're going to care who's on the Supreme Court next. And you're not going to put Hillary in the White House if that's what you're worried about."
No. He's not going to say it that bluntly from the podium. But that is essentially is what it comes down to. If you're worried about national security, you're going to pick somebody who has some experience in those areas. The kind of experience he has. These are the kind of harsher points he might make to conservatives. Certainly, not again from the podium, but the kind that they might make once we get into a general election.
CHO: Well, he certainly can't convince Ann Coulter who says she'll vote for Hillary Clinton if McCain is the nominee.
But let's move on to the Democrats and look at the delegate count there. As it stands, Hillary Clinton in the lead with 823. Barack Obama at 741. But the -- in the "money race," as you well know, John, Obama is winning. Just yesterday, Clinton admitted she gave her campaign -- loaned her campaign $5 million of her own money. Some senior staffers are going to be voluntarily working without pay.
So, what does this say about the momentum? Money, clearly, is an indicator, is it not?
DICKERSON: It is an indicator. And it's extraordinary where we've come from. You remember several months ago, Clinton was the inevitable frontrunner, with all of this extraordinary money and this huge machine. Now she's in a scrappy fight. I'm not sure it hurts her in terms of the story line where we are now -- that she's in a scrappy fight, she's battling.
Momentum is a tricky thing. They both have enough bragging rights coming out of Super Tuesday to be able to claim a kind of momentum. But it's not great for her at a tactical, real world level because Obama has got more money to spend in his future states on advertisements and on the ground game. And so from sort of a real world level, it's not great for her.
CHO: John Dickerson of Slate.com, we thank you for joining us. We'll check back with you later. For now, we're going to send it back to Tennessee and John.
John?
ROBERTS: Alina, thanks very much. It's coming up on 20 minutes to the top of the hour. CNN exclusive for you today. Angelina Jolie in Baghdad this morning and she talked with our Arwa Damon exclusively about the growing humanitarian crisis there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANGELINA JOLIE, U.N. GOODWILL AMBASSADOR: I don't see borders and I see lives and I see children. And this is, you know, an environment where there's a war but there's also humanitarian crisis.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: One-on-one with Angelina Jolie only on CNN this morning.
Plus, we've been sharing stories from the five states blasted by dozens of tornadoes on Super Tuesday and Wednesday morning. We'll take you live to Arkansas next. How a young survivor made it out of his house with just seconds to spare.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Pictures of the destruction brought by these tornadoes across Arkansas just the other day. 13 people in the state of Arkansas dead. A lot of that damage in Atkins. Trees uprooted, homes destroyed, cars flipped over. There is so much damage. Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky as well.
It's going to take a long time for these communities to recover. Some of them literally wiped off the map. The people of Atkins, Arkansas and many towns across the southeast are going to need all the help they can after being hit by this incredibly powerful mid-winter storm system. Real freakish storm system that we don't normally see this time of year. Thousands of people still without power. CNN's Dan Lothian is in Atkins for us this morning.
Dan, what's the scene like on the ground there?
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, really, just amazing pictures. You know, four people died here in Atkins. And the devastation is just everywhere across this community. Take a look behind me here. You get to see a tree just knocked over. A car has been flipped over right here. The people inside that home, they did manage to survive by huddling inside the bathroom. But what's amazing is that in some places around here, while you have some structures, you can tell that a house was there. Other places, everything is gone.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LOTHIAN (voice-over): On this street in Atkins, nothing was spared. The tornado crushed homes, flipped cars and wrapped trees and sheet metal. This is the aftermath. Imagine what it was like if the tornado passed overhead. Blake Martin saw it coming.
BLAKE MARTIN, TORNADO SURVIVOR: You could see the tornado taking on a house over there.
LOTHIAN: So he ran to his grandmother's house along with his friend.
MARTIN: We all ran to the bathroom and I was the last one in and as soon as I shut the door, pretty much my house was like ripping apart.
LOTHIAN: Three generations of the Martin Family live on this property. All three of their homes here were destroyed.
PATTY MARTIN, TORNADO SURVIVOR: You see it on the news everyday and you never think it's going to happen to you.
LOTHIAN: But it did. And it also happened to the Atkins Family across the street. Six family members, including a 4-month-old baby and a disabled teenager huddled in the bathroom, which stayed intact as the house blew apart.
CAROL BROCK, TORNADO SURVIVOR: And they survived, no one was injured.
LOTHIAN: Volunteers moved in to help clean up and assist the victims, many of whom were picking through the rubble, searching for pictures, clothing, furniture, a devastating loss. But the Martin Family unsure if they will rebuild says not everything was taken by the tornado.
MARK MARTIN, TORNADO SURVIVOR: That's really all I'm worried about is my family. This stuff, we can replace.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
LOTHIAN: At least 70 to 80 homes in this area were either heavily damaged or destroyed. Now one thing John that struck me is how quickly the cleanup effort began when we arrived here late yesterday morning. People were already starting to chop down trees. The utility crews were in here and even late into the night, were put to erecting the polls and stringing out wires again. Those electric wires. It's amazing that they really are resilient. This family, though, unclear at this point whether or not they will rebuild.
John?
ROBERTS: Yes. Similar scenes here, Dan. They're trying to string the power wires back up again but they haven't even begun to start the cleanup here. They're still searching for some survivors. Dan Lothian for us this morning in Atkins, Arkansas. Dan, thanks very much.
And joining me now this morning is Pam Whitaker. She lost her home as the tornadoes tore across Tennessee. She's here this morning.
You don't have any shoes on and you had a broken foot. My goodness, what kind of conditions are you living in these days?
PAM WHITAKER, LOST HOME IN STORM: We're living in the National Guard. And we don't have a home to go to. So I don't know where we're going to end up.
ROBERTS: They've got you in the shelter there?
WHITAKER: At the National Guard. We was at the school but we had no lights or nothing, so we transferred to the National Guard.
ROBERTS: So take me back to Tuesday night, Super Tuesday night, an election going on here in Tennessee.
WHITAKER: We never did get to see that. They started with the warnings. And so about 7:00, the wind seemed like it was about 9 miles an hour. The week before, we had a small little windstorm, and the neighbor's roof came off. And when they said it was supercell, I knew it would be long and hard.
ROBERTS: So you knew that this forecast storm was coming in and you knew that there was really bad weather coming.
WHITAKER: Yes, sir. I knew that it was really going to be bad.
ROBERTS: So you got out of there? You evacuated to the shelter.
WHITAKER: I took my mother and my little toy dog, Yorkie, and we went to the hospital and I decided I was going to volunteer, so I worked from 7:00 to 10:00 at the hospital, helping with patients and stuff.
ROBERTS: So you were volunteering at the hospital as the storm came through?
WHITAKER: While I was a victim and volunteering, and so it was -- the hospital maybe holds about 50 patients. They were sometimes having 50, 60. Very bad accidents coming in. And I'm telling you, I am so proud of this town and everybody in it. I appreciate them so much. The hospital is so small and ungodly situations, not enough wheelchairs. Nobody was left unattended and it was amazing.
ROBERTS: So these were all victims of the storm that were coming in to the hospital?
WHITAKER: Yes. I mean, really bad off. I mean, they were just back to back. The ambulances and like I said, we didn't have enough gurneys, wheelchairs or nothing and we was all packed in the halls.
ROBERTS: We should mention that you broke your foot while you were volunteering at the hospital. You got run over by an X-ray machine?
WHITAKER: Yes. They don't even know where it is. It was very much an accident.
ROBERTS: So what happened to your home here in Lafayette?
WHITAKER: I've not been to it. But I was helping with a patient and I was trying to clean his feet off so they could -- which I found out he's my neighbor, I just moved out a few weeks ago. And I was helping clean his feet off so they could see what cuts he had and he was telling about 64 Dockside (ph) Road. And I just went, why? That's my house.
He said, Hon, you don't even have a toothpick or splinter left. And so the church, I think it's Baptist Church (INAUDIBLE) across the street, it's gone and five houses there.
ROBERTS: Everything that you own, all your money, everything was inside?
WHITAKER: Everything. I just cashed my government disability check a couple days before and it was -- the cash was in the house. And I don't have everything since.
ROBERTS: So what are you going to do now?
WHITAKER: I don't know. The Red Cross is really superb. You know, they're right there in. The National Guard is just tremendous, police officers, everybody. I mean, it's just like patients helping patients. And the hospital, they really need everybody's respect.
ROBERTS: Well, hopefully some outside help will be on its way soon. Mayor Shelvy Linville was here with us this morning saying that he is expecting that there will be some help coming from outside.
WHITAKER: Can I say one thing?
ROBERTS: Sure, go ahead.
WHITAKER: Please don't be embarrassed to get in a bathtub thinking it might blow away, because I know one lady, the only thing was left is her bathtub. Don't think about it.
ROBERTS: That's what they say in a tornado. If you can't get into a basement, the best place to be is to jump into the bathtub.
WHITAKER: Yes but a lot of people don't want to get in a bathtub because they think -- I'm weak. ROBERTS: There's an example to save somebody's life. Pam Whitaker, thanks so much for being with us this morning.
WHITAKER: Thank you, sir.
ROBERTS: I hope that everything works out for you. We got to get you some shoes first of all.
WHITAKER: OK. I've got feet, that's all that matters.
ROBERTS: Pam, thank you so much and amazing how strong you are this morning.
WHITAKER: All right, thank you.
ROBERTS: Let's go back to New York and here's Alina.
Alina?
CHO: All right, John, thank you very much. We'll check back with you later. We want to bring to you some news just in to CNN. Breaking news from Pakistan, coming in to us.
Two suspects apparently have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Pakistani police releasing very few details on the arrest but they are being described as very important alleged terrorists. Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack back on December 27th. Something that spark widespread outrage and riots in the region.
Something you'll see only on CNN now. Actress Angelina Jolie is on a surprise visit to Baghdad. And we caught up with her for an exclusive one-on-one interview. Now, Jolie, is on a humanitarian mission getting a first hand look at refugees. She wants to know why there isn't a better plan to help them. Jolie has been serving as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, often traveling to countries in crisis. She tells our Arwa Damon it was an easy decision to come to the war torn country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOLIE: It was an easy choice to make. I felt I had to come here because it is very difficult to get answers about -- especially the internally displaced people. I was very frustrated and just getting a bunch of ideas and papers but not knowing what's really going on.
So today, I'm able to talk to all different people from our government and their government and really get answers as to what is holding up the process just to, really, really assist these people properly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO: Some 2.2 million people are displaced inside Iraq. Jolie will be at several events in the Green Zone today. Our Arwa Damon joins us live in the next hour with much more of her exclusive interview.
Stay with us this morning on AMERICAN MORNING because a lot coming including more survivor stories from the storm zone. Our John Roberts will have more on that.
Plus this -- hundreds of passengers stranded at Chicago's O'Hare Airport this morning. Extreme weather again in the news. That's ahead on AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHO: Four minutes before the top of the hour. Stephanie Elam in for Ali Velshi "Minding Your Business". So stocks on another slide yesterday. What's it look like today?
STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just so we know, we saw the markets open up. We thought we're going to have another rally. We saw that some productivity numbers came in. They were a little bit better than expected. But then, one of the Fed chairman, this is coming out of the Philly Fed.
He is saying inflations still needs to be watched and that cause a freak out in investors yesterday. Made them think that perhaps the Fed will continue to cut interest rates moving forward as aggressively as they have been doing and so the markets did slide off a little bit.
Also, there is news coming out of Macy's yesterday. Their sales dropped, 7 percent in January. They're also cutting jobs there.
SYSCO, another stock that were watching today, because it's cut its forecast moving forward. That hurt NASDAQ. The NASDAQ now back in bear territory. We are looking for a weaker opening again today, Alina.
CHO: U.S. markets open in 2 1/2 hours. I know you'll be watching all of it. Stephanie Elam, thank you so much.
Hundreds sleeping on cots at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. They're flights grounded after another wave of snow hits the area. We're going to be live at the airport in the next hour of AMERICAN MORNING. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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