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American Morning
Tornadoes Devastate South; Man Arrested for Texas Fire; Gas Prices Up 27 Straight Days; Wake-Up Call for Air Traffic Controllers; Forty-Five Dead in Tornado Outbreak; Greg Mortenson's 'Beautiful Story" is a Lie, Fraud; Tornadoes Devastate South
Aired April 18, 2011 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: Right now on this AMERICAN MORNING, homes ripped from their foundations, cars and boats tossed across town. The death toll rising in the south this morning. We're live in an area that took a direct hit from two twisters.
ALINA CHO, CNN GUEST ANCHOR: The governor now asking President Obama to declare the entire state of Texas a disaster area. Thousands of wildfires burning over a million acres, the driest conditions in nearly a century. And now, there's word of an arrest.
VELSHI: More rest for the bleary. Air traffic controllers getting a visit from their bosses and a new list of rules after several of them nodded off the job.
CHO: And it's a book that's required reading for some members of the U.S. military. It launched a charity that raised millions and now, there are allegations that the man who wrote it is a fraud. All ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHO: I'm Alina Cho. A lot going on this morning. Let's get you caught up.
Stories of families huddled in the closet as their homes were ripped apart around them. Shock and sadness, reality now setting in after hundreds of tornadoes tear across the south.
VELSHI: And I'm Ali Velshi. Gas prices heading for a record this morning, just 28 cents from the all-time high. We'll tell you if there's any relief in sight on this AMERICAN MORNING.
CHO: And good morning. It is Monday, April 18th. Kiran Chetry and Christine Romans both off this morning. Good morning everybody. I'm Alina Cho. Nice to see you.
VELSHI: I'm Ali Velshi. Good morning. Great to see you.
Lots of stuff today including this remarkable story about "Three Cups of Tea," Greg Mortenson. For those who have read it, and there are millions of you, there's some great controversy erupting this morning. We're going to tell you about that.
CHO: Also, we're going to talk about some news potentially about the royal wedding dress.
VELSHI: That's right.
CHO: "The Huffington Post" thinks they have the answer in terms of who's designing it, so we'll tell you about that as well.
VELSHI: Lots of people curious about that. But first, a big story we want to tell you about. People across the country are picking up what's left of their lives this morning after tornadoes, hundreds of them, tore across the U.S. over the weekend. Witnesses reported 230 twisters from Oklahoma to Virginia. The death toll rising overnight to 45 people after two more victims were reported in Virginia, including an 8-year-old girl who was swept away by a flash flood. But nowhere was harder hit than North Carolina.
This YouTube video shows a funnel cloud tearing through homes and barreling toward a guy in his parked car. It was right in front of him before he knew it. Look at that. He just missed becoming part of it.
This is the deadliest storm system to hit the state in 20 years. Dozens of home were destroyed. Hundreds more were heavily damaged. The governor says she has never seen anything like it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. BEV PERDUE (D), NORTH CAROLINA: I've seen a lot of damage in North Carolina over the years, but this is the most catastrophic I've ever seen. The destruction is massive, lots of tremendous property damage, schools lost.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Bertie County, North Carolina, took a direct hit from these fierce storms. Half of the state's tornado deaths happened there. David Mattingly live for us this morning in Colerain, North Carolina.
David, these pictures, we've all seen a lot of tornadoes. These pictures really are devastating.
DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Ali. And when you look at this county, it's such a rural place, so sparsely populated, you have to wonder how could it be possible that 11 people lose their lives in these storms. Well, the fact is, when these storms started hitting the ground and moving across the countryside here, a lot of people just didn't have anywhere to go. And this house, or what's left of it here, really tells the story. All that is left is the front porch.
You look past here, to where this house used to be standing, there are no walls, there are no -- there's no ceilings, there's no plumbing, there's no furniture left. Everything that made this house a home has been completely destroyed. It's been blown off into the woods back there in the back. Everything just absolutely shredded.
Looking at the debris, there's nothing here that's really recognizable as anything that someone might have lived in at one time. Now, what we're finding out is that because of the high water table here, most people don't have basements or storm cellars. So when this storm started bearing down, a lot of people just didn't have any place to hunker down and find a place for safety. They just had to ride it out and hope for the best. And when this tornado hit the ground here coming through this county, it would hop along six to eight miles and this is the area toward the end of its path. And we're looking at a path of destruction that's anywhere from a half mile to three quarters of a mile wide. And all over the county, as this storm came down and went back up and came down again, destruction like this all over the place.
And just even everything in its path, just looking at this tree, completely ripped up by its roots here, but you look at the tree itself, look at the foliage here. All the spring foliage that was on this tree just ripped completely off of it. And that gives you an idea of the force behind these tornadoes as they came through here. But again, 11 people killed here, about 50 injured. We're looking at about 85 homes that are either destroyed or badly damaged.
Again, had this is a very rural county, sparsely populated. And when we look at that, we're wondering how it was possible that 11 people could be killed. But I talked to emergency officials who say that once they started surveying the damage here, Ali, they're saying it's a wonder that more people weren't hurt.
VELSHI: That's incredible. David, thanks very much. We're going to be covering this all morning and across the south. David Mattingly in North Carolina.
CHO: It's extraordinary, you know, 240 tornadoes through the storm system over the weekend. It's remarkable. Sixty-two in North Carolina alone. So we want to turn to Jacqui Jeras in the Extreme Weather Center now.
Jacqui, I know that you said that after all of the -- all is said and done in terms of damage and deaths are tallied, that this will be historic. I mean, have you ever seen anything like this and is there any explanation for this?
JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, I've never seen anything like this in North Carolina. It's been, you know, 25, 30 years since they've seen an outbreak anywhere near this. And keep in mind what we're talking about these numbers, and you can see behind me on the map, all of the tornadoes, all those red tornadoes are tornado reports. All those thunderstorms are the wind damage that was received and so the Storm Prediction Center and the National Weather Service are going to go out. They're going to survey the damage. They've done a lot of that. And they're going to determine that some of these reports were likely of the same tornado, so these numbers are going to go down. And they're also going to determine that it was likely one tornado or at least the same parent cell that moved through some of these areas. So we'll continue to go through this in the upcoming days. But many of these were EF-3 tornadoes that produced winds around 140 miles per hour. Here's a look at what the radar image was as these storms rolled on through North Carolina. There were 90 reports of tornadoes in North Carolina alone. The most significant outbreak that we've had in recent memory was back in 1984. There you can see 19 tornadoes on average each year in North Carolina. We had 90 preliminary reports this weekend. It was 25 reports on March 28th, 1984, and that's one of the worst outbreaks in North Carolina history.
Now we are concerned about the threat of more severe weather. Not in the Carolinas just yet, but this time of the year, you know, the atmosphere is very volatile in the spring months and we're getting the storm system that's going to move in and likely bring that severe weather threat, we think, to the nation's midsection. A moderate risk already issued. This is for tomorrow, not today, that includes you in St. Louis, Indianapolis, towards Louisville. Then a slight risk from Chicago to Pittsburgh to Nashville all the way down towards Shreveport.
Today we have what we call zonal flow and that's just a flat jet stream that brings storms from west to east across the nation's midsection there. It's cold enough that we're seeing snow this morning in places like Milwaukee and into Detroit. That's a pretty weak weather system, so we'll watch this thing kind of spin off a little bit for tomorrow. We'll watch for that threat of more tornadoes.
And the thing that concerns me, guys, especially about tomorrow, is that a lot of these storms are going to come after dark. So people are going to be in bed, they're going to be sleeping, and you're not going to be able to see those tornadoes. So make sure you've got that NOAA weather radio handy and working certainly for tomorrow if not's all ready.
VELSHI: Hey, Jacqui, we talk about 240 tornadoes. We talked about 90 reported in North Carolina.
JERAS: Right.
VELSHI: You said something there that was interesting. That doesn't mean that that was that many tornadoes.
JERAS: Right.
VELSHI: There's a difference in the way we report about tornadoes now.
JERAS: Right.
VELSHI: So it could be just a few, just a handful.
JERAS: Yes, it could be. You know, a lot of people will report the same tornado. I mean, there's so many storm chasers out there. And, of course, the public and law enforcement, and all these people are out there reporting the same tornado. So you've got to weed through those and get down the numbers and I think that we'll find, you know, maybe a dozen, maybe two dozen, potentially, we'll have to wait and see once all the surveys are done.
VELSHI: Thanks, Jacqui.
CHO: All right. Jacqui Jeras, thank you so much.
Coming up at the bottom of the hour, we're going to talk to the head of Bertie County, North Carolina. That's ground zero for this historic storm.
VELSHI: OK. Tragedy of a different kind in Texas. A man has been arrested for setting one of the wildfires that have burned more than a million acres of land. The man accused of letting his fire at a homeless camp get out of control. He's charged with reckless endangerment, which is a felony in Texas.
Meanwhile, dry conditions not seen in close to 100 years are making fighting the wildfires impossible. Governor Rick Perry wants the entire state declared a disaster zone saying it can't handle it alone. The fires have affected all but two of Texas's 254 counties.
CHO: We have a rescue effort we want to tell you about. A miner trapped 6,000 feet underground in northeast Idaho. Rescue workers desperately digging to find the 53-year-old after a 10 by 20 foot section of mostly rock fell on him inside the Lucky Friday mine. Now yesterday afternoon, crews made it about halfway through the 75 feet of rock that caved in, but they're having a tough time stabilizing the roof.
VELSHI: New in Japan this morning, tens of thousands of people displaced by the earthquake and the nuclear fallout may not be able to go home until next year. Officials now say it's going to take six to nine months to fully stabilize and rebuild the badly damaged nuclear power plant in Fukushima. It will also try to decontaminate the largest area possible in that time and even then, it's not certain how many, if any, would be allowed to return.
The death toll rising in Japan this morning. Police and troops counting through the wreckage. The historic quake and tsunami now responsible for killing 13,843 people. That number could double. More than a month after the disaster, more than 14,000 people remain missing.
A team effort to rebuild Japan, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that the U.S. will be Japan's partner in the reconstruction effort during her state of the -- during her visit to the country yesterday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON, SECRETARY OF STATE: Japan is one of the world's most generous nations and the dozens of countries that have sent support in the past five weeks are honoring Japan's legacy of caring for others.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: The plan is going to include a partnership to encourage American businesses to keep investing in Japan during reconstruction.
CHO: There's a vicious fight on the ground in Libya's western city of Misrata we want to tell you about. Rebels using high-powered weapons to battle Moammar Gadhafi's forces. Six people were killed. Dozens injured Sunday as the gunfight moved into neighborhoods. The rebels clinging to power against some 300 Gadhafi troops there.
And a suicide bomber kills five members of the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division. The man was apparently wearing an Afghan military uniform when he detonated himself Saturday at a forward operating base in Afghanistan's Laghman Province. The same army division lost six troops in a series of firefights in eastern Afghanistan in late March.
VELSHI: And you are waking up having to dig even further into your wallet to pay for gasoline and by the way, not just gas, everything else that it touches. For the 27th straight day, gas prices are up again. It's now $3.83 a gallon. That's the national average for a gallon of self-serve unleaded gasoline. When summer travel season kicks in, that could go even higher and that's just a few weeks away.
On your money this weekend, I spoke to economist, Peter Morici, about the effect that high gas prices will have on the entire economic recovery.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER MORICI, ECONOMIST: If it stays high, if it stays high, most economists are now predicting say 2.8 percent growth instead of 3.3, 3.4 for the first half of this year. That translates into a loss of about 500,000 jobs that just don't get created. Plus the money leaves the country to pay for imported oil and doesn't stay here to buy say restaurant meals, get your clothes dry cleaner. People spend less money on non-necessities.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Not everybody shares this view that it's going up. I just spoke to Tom Kloza. He's the chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service. They collect sort of more data than anyone else does on oil and he says gas prices are going to peak in the next few days and that nationally they're not going to reach $4 a gallon. So somebody's got --
CHO: Isn't summer just around? Isn't Memorial Day just around the corner?
VELSHI: He's optimistic. We have to have all sorts of (INAUDIBLE) on this.
CHO: All right.
VELSHI: So let's hope he's right.
CHO: You know, today is tax day.
VELSHI: I know. CHO: Did you know that?
VELSHI: Oh, I know.
CHO: It's the 18th but it's actually today is the deadline for filing those tax returns. And, of course, usually tax day is on April 15th, which was Friday. It was pushed back this year because of a little known holiday in Washington that's called "emancipation day." You know, we were joking around earlier about when this holiday started and we said this year on Friday.
VELSHI: Right.
CHO: If you need more time, though, you can always submit what's called a 4868 form to get another six-month extension.
VELSHI: However if you owe taxes, that extension doesn't extend your ability to pay them.
CHO: Right.
VELSHI: You still have to pay the amount that you owe, but you get an extension to file. At least you have to estimate very well what you owe.
A wake-up call for air traffic controllers after a series of incidents we've been talking about involving workers caught sleeping on the job. Federal officials say enough is enough. New rules to tackle the problem.
CHO: And a narrow escape caught on tape. A semi truck nearly crushes a group of bicyclists. Take a look at this video. The dramatic video we're going to show you all of it straight ahead.
VELSHI: And slashing the sodium. Find out which fast food giant is cutting the salt to keep you healthy.
It is 14 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHO: Caught on camera, a semi-truck nearly crushes a group of people on scooters. We believe those are scooters, right, Ali? A traffic camera video shows the truck driver racing to make a last-minute left turn as you just saw there. Zooms over the crossroads, the truck topples over. The container smashes onto the street, almost - almost hitting those bikers. Luckily they managed to get out of the way just in time.
VELSHI: Here's a good shot of it here.
CHO: Incredibly, wow. Wow. That was close. Talk about a close call.
VELSHI: Wow.
CHO: Nobody was hurt, incredibly. I mean, you see them just going on their merry -merry old way.
VELSHI: Yes. The guy right in front, he was - yes, got around.
All right. Here's an interesting one. A family traveling home from a birthday party got a huge surprise yesterday when an airplane crashed into their minivan. It happened on a busy street in New Orleans. Luckily, no one was seriously hurt.
Check this out. Engine trouble forced the pilot to make an emergency landing. He tried to land on a grassy median, but smacked into the van on the way down. The hood was sliced off and the windshield was smashed in, but, again, no serious injuries.
CHO: That's incredible. You know, a military aircraft made an emergency landing. The National Guard cargo plane crashed down at an airport in Colorado Springs yesterday. The video shows smoke rising from the aircraft. You'll be able to see that in just a second. The crew made a rough landing as - there - there you see it and there's the smoke. Again, in this case, nobody was hurt. The plane suffered significant damage, however, to its landing gear.
VELSHI: Let's stay - let's stay on planes. This wake-up call for air traffic controllers new rules have been into place today after the series of incidents we've been talking about, about workers caught sleeping on the job.
CHO: Yes. Today, the FAA will begin a cross-country tour of control towers.
Sandra Endo filed this report from Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SANDRA ENDO, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): When planes come in for a landing, the communication shouldn't be like this of a pilot trying to get in touch with an air traffic controller.
TRACON (via telephone): They're not answering the phone line either.
PILOT (via telephone): We're going to need to land.
TRACON: Landing will be at your own risk.
ENDO: But it reportedly happened at least seven times at airports across the country since the start of the year because of controllers falling asleep on the job. But now, the FAA and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood are making immediate changes to the schedules for controllers.
RAY LAHOOD, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: We will not allow controllers to sleep on the job. We simply will not.
ENDO: Under the new guidelines, controllers will now have a minimum of nine hours off between shifts instead of eight. They'll no longer be able to swap shifts unless they get nine hours off in between. Controllers will not be able to work an unscheduled midnight shift following a day off, and there will be more FAA managers covering the early morning and late night hours.
The problem of fatigue has been around for years. Back in 2007, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended the schedules of air traffic controllers be revised to address the issue. Which begs the question, why wasn't more done sooner?
LAHOOD: I was not the secretary in 2007. I'm the secretary today. As soon as I learned about this, these controllers were suspended.
ENDO: Congress holds the purse strings for funding the FAA and a key lawmaker says the issue is not the number of controllers employed, but how they're used.
REP. JOHN MICA (R), FLORIDA: Air traffic controllers, who make on average $163,000 apiece, are professionals, but even the best professionals need some recurrent training and with the changes in technology and procedures and we think it's important that we revisit that.
ENDO (on camera): What do you say to the flying public? Should they have confidence in this system?
LAHOOD: Absolutely. I believe that the airline industry in America is the safest in the world, but we can do better, and we will do better.
ENDO: FAA officials and the Air Traffic Controllers Union are starting a nationwide tour in Atlanta to talk to controllers to hear their concerns, but to also hammer home the issue of safety.
Sandra Endo, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VELSHI: I've sort of taken the view that a lot of people have been looking at this too hard, that people falling - you just can't fall asleep on your job.
CHO: Right.
VELSHI: But Sandra brings up an interesting point. I didn't know that they were scheduling some of these people -
CHO: Nor did I.
VELSHI: -- with just eight hours between the end of a shift and the beginning of a shift. How do you get home, wind down, go to sleep? It's a highly stressful job.
CHO: And as I said, I thought we were the only ones who did that.
VELSHI: That's right.
CHO: But, I mean, no. It's incredible. So, obviously, there have been enough problems -
VELSHI: Right.
CHO: -- that they may need - needed to make some changes. Let's hope it makes a difference.
VELSHI: Right. Very good.
CHO: You know, first the Postal Service used the wrong Statute of Liberty on their stamp, right? They decided to stay with the Las Vegas version.
VELSHI: Right.
CHO: But up next, we've got more news, postage rates are going up, but it's not for every type of letter. We'll explain.
VELSHI: And the sound of trouble. One of America's great orchestras could be about to file for bankruptcy. We'll tell you which one.
It's 22 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHO: Welcome back.
"Minding Your Business," you could also be paying more the next time you go to the post office. The basic 44 cent first-class stamp stays the same. But guess what? Anything over an ounce will cost you an extra 20 cents per ounce. Now that's up about three cents. So mailing a postcard will cost you 29 cents. That's up a penny too.
Hold the salt, Subway is announcing that starting today sodium in its so-called Fresh Fit sandwiches will be cut by 28 percent compared to what it was in 2009. The fast food chain is also cutting salt in the rest of its sandwich line by 15 percent compared to 2009.
VELSHI: You know, in fairness, a lot of our viewers right now don't know about our history.
CHO: That's right.
VELSHI: We were - we were office roommates for a long time and we taught each other things.
CHO: Yes.
VELSHI: You basically tried to teach me to eat better.
CHO: That's right. I'm a very avid calorie counter and I would -
VELSHI: Yes, yes.
CHO: -- I would weigh the benefits of the pizza versus the Subway sandwich.
VELSHI: Right. I don't think you had a lot to work with me and I'm not sure the success was overwhelming, but we became good friends. CHO: Well, you - you should have helped me balance my checkbook.
VELSHI: Right.
CHO: That didn't work out so well either.
VELSHI: We'll have to be roommates again.
All right. Another thing people don't know is I spend a lot of my time in Philadelphia. I live there part of the time, and it's kind of sad. The world renowned Philadelphia -
CHO: Right. Your better half is there.
VELSHI: My better half lives there. Exactly.
CHO: Absolutely.
VELSHI: The Philadelphia Orchestra expected to file for bankruptcy this week. Sad. Philadelphia is a great arts town. This decision was reportedly made by the board of directors as a way to dig itself out of debt. Officials say the musicians will still be paid, the concerts will continue, the orchestra will now be able it to review its contracts with its business partners. I certainly hope it's able to stay alive.
CHO: Yes. We do.
You know, death and destruction from Oklahoma, all the way to Virginia, we've been talking about this all morning long - no place suffering more than a small community in North Carolina.
We will speak to the head of the county that is being called ground zero of a violent and historic tornado outbreak. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: Thirty minutes after the hour. Your top stories now.
What's being called an epic streak of extreme weather, violent storms have now killed 45 people in the south. The death toll rising overnight as people survey the damage in Virginia. Witnesses have reported 230 tornadoes since last Thursday from Oklahoma to Virginia. That doesn't mean that there were 230 tornadoes, but there were reports of them. There may have been far fewer, but they certainly were powerful as you can see from pictures like this and others we've got.
CHO: Another story we're watching very closely, a man accused of letting his campfire ignite one of Texas' wildfires is now under arrest. The reckless endangerment charge is considered a felony in Texas. Governor Rick Perry is asking that Texas be declared a federal disaster area. He says the state does not have the manpower or the resources to fight it alone. The record dry condition is stoking wildfires that have affected all but two of Texas' 254 counties. VELSHI: And let the mad dash begin. It's Tax Day in America. Your returns or the extension must be postmarked by midnight tonight in order to avoid late fees and penalties. Uncle Sam gave taxpayers an extra three days this year because April 15th fell on Emancipation Day which is a little known holiday in Washington, D.C., in the district.
All right. Back to our top story now. These are the deadliest storms we have seen so far this year. One small county in North Carolina absolutely took the brunt of it, Alina.
CHO: That's right. You know, the storms have now killed 22 people in the state. Half of them were in Bertie County, in northeast North Carolina. It's a rural agricultural area, home to less than 20,000 people. Two tornadoes were reported there.
Zee Lamb is the county manager. He joins us live from Colerain this morning.
Mr. Lamb, thank you so much for joining us.
First of all, I guess, tell me, what is the latest from where you are right now?
ZEE LAMB, BERTIE COUNTY MANAGER: Well, we've done a preliminary damage assessment yesterday, and we lost 67 homes that were totally destroyed, another 15 or 20 that were substantially damaged. But we're going to do another assessment. The state will be in today, as well as FEMA, to do a more thorough assessment.
VELSHI: Mr. Lamb, you're there, David Mattingly not too far from you -- kind of interesting that it is such a sparsely populated area and yet there was this much destruction. Why -- how do you explain that?
LAMBE: I think the particular pattern of these two tornadoes arriving together caused it to be a very wide weather pattern, approximately a half a mile wide, rather than simply just touching down and skipping across the land. It hit the land at about a half a mile to three quarters of a mile and continued for about seven, eight, nine miles. And everything in its way was pretty much destroyed.
CHO: You know, as Ali pointed out, when the final tally is done, it might settle around a dozen tornadoes that hit North Carolina over the weekend. The reports, though, that have come in have said 62 tornadoes.
You know, we were talking about this earlier. I don't remember anything like this ever hitting North Carolina. Do you?
LAMB: I understand in the '80s, there was a similar storm that -- tornado pattern that came through North Carolina, but not in the last 30 years. We're used to hurricanes around here. We're used to floods. We're used to small tornadoes.
We're not used to the kind of weather pattern that came through on Saturday that resulted in the loss of 11 lives here in Bertie County. VELSHI: Zee, that's a small community. Do you have all the resources you need? I mean, I'm just looking at the stuff behind you. That devastation is remarkable.
Do you have the resources you need to start rebuilding?
LAMB: Yesterday was all about rescuing anybody that might be available starting -- I mean, that might be around. Starting today, we're going to go into recovery mode.
We've gotten a lot of assistance from the state, emergency management folks, the forestry service. The state highway patrol has been very -- has helped us a lot. The Red Cross is here. We understand FEMA will be here today.
So, we're hoping that the resources will be made available to the people of Bertie County.
VELSHI: And is everybody accounted for?
LAMB: At this point, there are no people that are missing at this point. We did have one person missing as of yesterday morning and our search and rescue teams went out specifically looking for that person and, unfortunately, she was located. She was deceased.
CHO: As you mentioned, 67 homes were destroyed, 20 damaged. Where are all of these people who are displaced staying right now? Are they in shelters?
LAMB: We opened a shelter. We did not have anybody come there for the purpose of staying overnight. We did have a few people come, looking for some assistance.
CHO: So, where are they staying?
LAMB: This is the kind of community -- this is the kind of community where families and friends take in people that are in need and I can only assume that that's what's occurred. These people that have been displaced are staying with friends and family.
VELSHI: Zee, you don't have a siren system there. Again, we have to keep emphasizing: this is a small community, rural agricultural community. How are people finding out about this? Jacqui Jeras said certainly more danger of storms again in the coming days. How do people get information about these storms?
LAMB: Unlike west Texas, I suppose, or Oklahoma, we do not have a siren system. We have occasional tornadoes, but nothing to the magnitude that they have them in those areas. We simply have warnings from the National Weather Service. They are then broadcast on TV and radio in advance of weather patterns that are approaching. And that's really our warning system.
CHO: Zee Lamb, the county manager of Bertie County in North Carolina, ground zero really for this historic tornado outbreak over the weekend -- we thank you for your thoughts. We thank you for joining us. And we're back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VELSHI: A city in Mexico is drowning in raw sewage. One and a half million gallons of waste are gushing into the streets. It's happening in San Isidro and La Providencia. Two hundred homes -- look at this -- 200 homes are soaked, cars are floating in flooded streets of raw sewage. No deaths reported but two children are suffering from hypothermia. And I imagine the whole place is suffering the raw sewage attack.
CHO: Absolutely right.
You know, there's a new way we want to tell you about to protect our troops. Government researchers say that larger helmets could reduce the risk of brain injury to U.S. soldiers. Now, these injuries, of course, are common among troops fighting abroad. More than 300 service members in Afghanistan suffered from head trauma just last summer.
The new study says larger helmets with thicker padding could reduce the risk of these types of injuries. It certainly makes sense.
VELSHI: All right. We're continuing the story of how Alina and I know each other. Again, being Alina's office roommate for a while, I learned that you are -- you like the clothes.
CHO: Well, I --
VELSHI: I like clothes, but you really like the clothes.
CHO: You know, I'm a little bit of a -- yes.
VELSHI: So, two weeks left before the royal wedding -- which we will have full and fantastic coverage of.
CHO: Yes.
VELSHI: And it looks like we may just have the scoop on who is making Kate Middleton's gown.
CHO: And, of course, we're turning to our Zain Verjee in London. She's live for us with the news on this.
Zain, so, this comes from "The Huffington Post." You know, Ali and I were joking about this earlier -- this is a designer I actually haven't heard of.
ZAIN VERJEE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: What, you haven't heard of a designer, Miss Fashionista? Alina, you always look fabulous. It's great to see you. The name of the label is Libelula and the designer's name, according to "The Huffington Post," is Sophie Cranston.
Now, apparently, Kate Middleton has actually worn some of her stuff before. I'll show you this picture of her in this lovely black dress. It is by the same designer.
And, apparently, they want to keep it secret. They want this woman to just create the piece in complete freedom. She's got a great track record. She won a bunch of awards.
Apparently, guys, Kate's designed the dress herself and the dress is almost done. The big rumor, too, guys is that there are actually three dresses. A couple of that are going to be the backup dresses, just in case.
You know, Ali, maybe it's kind of like an Indian wedding or Indian summer or something.
(CROSSTALK)
VERJEE: -- she's going to change three times or --
CHO: Or, in this case, they could be decoy dresses, right?
VELSHI: That's a good idea.
VERJEE: Decoy dresses. Because, Alina, you know the hottest tip has been for the last few weeks, Alexander McQueen's design.
CHO: That's right.
VERJEE: Right, exactly. So, you know -- so this is what's going out. Clarence House, we called them and they said, look we ain't talking about the dress. You'll see it when you see it.
VELSHI: Very good.
CHO: Interesting.
VELSHI: That's good. You know, they do that with cars, decoy cars.
(CROSSTALK)
CHO: Absolutely. Why wouldn't do a decoy dress. I mean, listen, there are so many details about this wedding that have already been revealed. I mean, let her have her dress moment, you know?
VERJEE: Do you think she's stylish, Kate?
CHO: I do. I do think she is stylish, in a very accessible way. She wears a lot of labels that are, you know, that are accessible to a lot of girls her age. By the way, she's 29 years old, you know? So
VERJEE: Right.
CHO: I think she looks great.
VELSHI: That is high praise coming from Alina Cho.
(LAUGHTER)
VERJEE: It is.
VELSHI: Zain, always a pleasure to see you.
You can watch Zain, by the way, every morning, 5:00 a.m. Eastern on "WORLD ONE," right here on CNN.
CHO: Bye, Zain.
You know, the royal wedding, of course, is just around the corner. CNN has got you covered. We're going to take you behind the scenes of Prince William and Kate Middleton's big day. That's on April 29th. You can watch, you can DVR, you can participate. Be a part of our global viewing party and there's no RSVP necessary. We'll see you there.
VELSHI: All right. Just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING: the south just beginning to recover from a string of vicious weather. I know some people think that we in the news overstate things sometimes. We're not. Twisters touching down, it may not be over yet. Lots of damage. More may be in the forecast for the week.
Forty-three minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHO: There's a lot going on this morning. Here's what you need to know to start your day.
A vicious storm system killing 45 people across the South, two more deaths reported overnight in Virginia. Witnesses have reported 230 tornadoes since last Thursday.
A man arrested in Texas in connection with one of the hundreds of wildfires scorching the state. Police say he started a camp fire at a homeless camp. Dry conditions are making wildfires in the state unstoppable. The government -- the governor, rather, wants it declared a disaster area.
New rules to keep air traffic controllers awake on the job will be rolled out today. They include mandatory rest times and a minimum of nine hours between shifts. The changes come after a series of incidents of an air traffic controller sleeping on the job.
Gas prices inching towards $4 a gallon. The national average, according to AAA, is $3.83 a gallon right now. That's up from 27 straight days.
And you have until midnight tonight to file your taxes. Because of emancipation day, a holiday in D.C., taxpayers have three extra days to file this year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHO (on-camera): You're caught up on the day's headlines. AMERICAN MORNING is back in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHO: It's almost 47 minutes after the hour. Let's get a quick check of the morning's weather headlines. Jacqui Jeras in the Extreme Weather Center, and certainly, we have a lot to watch, Jacqui. A lot of tornado watches, right?
JERAS: Yes. Not today. You know, this time of the year, it's like every two to three days, we get these storm systems roll on through. So, yesterday, was quiet, today will be quiet, but tomorrow, is going to be the day that we're concerned about, and there you can see the severe weather threat area. Pretty large again. We're talking from the Great Lakes all the way down into parts of Texas and the greatest concern right here across the middle Mississippi River Valley.
So, that includes you, say in Joplin off towards St. Louis and Indianapolis as well as Louisville and Evansville and Paducah, Kentucky. So, we'll be worried about the threat of tornados in addition to straight line winds. We can see some of those bow echoes developing and see some wind damage as well, and a lot of this is going to come in the overnight hours. So, that's a concern when people are going to be sleeping.
So, make sure you have that NOA weather radio. Let's take a look at some pictures that we have out for you of the Raleigh Area. We've got some new information to bring you this morning. The National Weather Service Storm Survey Teams, there I spit it out finally, were out assessing this damage yesterday, and they determined that this tornado that moved through here, produced a 63-mile long path of destruction.
Maximum winds, 160 miles per hour, and that's when the storm moved through Sanford first. It killed two people there in Lee County, and at one point, this tornado was three miles wide. It then moved on into the Raleigh Area. Most of the damage there was what we call EF-2 damage with winds around 111 to 135 miles per hour, and we did have three fatalities in a mobile home park there that was in the stony brook area. Now, our weather pattern for today, we call it the zonal flow, right?
So, our jet stream in the upper air moves basically flat, west to east. We're going to get that kink in it tomorrow here across parts of the plains and that's why we're going to see that rotation in the atmosphere. So, nothing threatening today, but boy, what a bummer for you, unfortunately, across parts of the Midwest. We got snow coming down for you in Milwaukee as well as Grand Rapids over towards Detroit. It's going to warm up pretty quickly this morning, so we do expect better conditions.
If you're going to be traveling today, expecting some delays because of winds into the northeast, over an hour possibly at the New York metros, Chicago, and Detroit due to those low clouds and snow, and eventually, turning over to rain, and San Francisco, we've got this storm system out west bringing in probably 15 to 30-minute delays expected there.
The big picture showing you the other big threat today that we're going to be watching, we've got new fires burning once again in the state of Texas and critical fire conditions from Texas to Oklahoma over towards Colorado and New Mexico. It's just the drought has been going on so long here, and there's just been no moisture getting in that area, getting a little gusty winds today bringing the threat up a little bit higher.
Alina and Ali.
VELSHI: Hey, Jacqui, the other day you were talking about that tornado in Iowa, which is half a mile wide. We were just talking to commissioner in Bertie County, North Carolina, to ask why it did this much damage. You said this could have been three miles wide. How wide is a tornado typically?
JERAS: You know, it varies. You get little tiny tornados that are, you know, maybe 100 yards wide and that's it. I mean, three miles wide, that is really huge, Ali. I mean, that is certainly in the upper end of the chart.
VELSHI: Which could help explain the amount of damage in that part of North Carolina. All right. Jacqui, thanks very much.
CHO: We have your top stories just minutes away. Also, you may have read his books about building schools for girls in the mountainous region of Pakistan and Afghanistan. You may have been inspired by them. You may even have donated your money to charity because of them. Well now, there are allegations that Greg Mortenson's tale is a fraud. It's 50 minutes after the hour.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHO: Fifty-four minutes after the hour. You are just back from Los Angeles where you spent the weekend with an organization that you care a lot about.
VELSHI: Most people have heard about this. It's an organization that fosters a breakthroughs in space exploration, energy creation, the environment and education. This weekend, we had the vision nearing session where a huge variety of scientists and engineers and philanthropists gather to discuss the challenges that the world is facing right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: The bioresin, that's a big issue.
I thought about it and --
The problems and remarkable solutions and the approach to solutions that we're seeing here today.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When there was the oil spill, we didn't know where the plumes were. We never had that data because the satellites can only see the top few meters of the water column.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Basically what's happened is, many countries subsidize their fishermen because they cannot make ends meet. VELSHI: Ladies and gentlemen, one million and one dollars is what we have just raised.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VELSHI: Well, I am the DJ of the party.
CHO: I was just going to say, why weren't you dancing?
VELSHI: I didn't know the camera was on.
CHO: This is an extraordinary organization. You explained it to me, and basically, you came together as a group, a high powered group, Jim Cameron, you saw the director there.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHO: Richard Branson is a big supporter.
VELSHI: Yes.
CHO: And you talk about all of the potential world problems that need solving.
VELSHI: Right.
CHO: And you create a prize, right? Talk about that.
VELSHI: They did it for the spaceship, the first spaceship to go, you know, commercially manned spaceship to go up into space. You got $10 million to invent that, costs way more than $10 million to do it.
CHO: What you've said is that historically, that incentive works, right?
VELSHI: Charles Lundberg coming across the Atlantic. That was a $25,000 prize to do that. So, the concept is incentivize prizes to solve problems gives birth to all of these industries, these start- ups, and these companies that these inventers come up with, and these are things that end up employing people.
CHO: So far, you've raised $1.5 million.
VELSHI: This was a million dollars just last -- yes, on Saturday night, to carry on the mission, but you know, they'll keep on raising money.
CHO: Oh, sure. You'll gather back again in about six months.
VELSHI: About six months to raise some more money. It's a great organization.
CHO: Great organization. Thanks, Ali, for bringing that to us. Our top stories are coming your way after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
