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Ferocious Tornado Outbreak Across the South; From Takeoff to Landing; Tornadoes Kill 230+ Across South; Moments Not to Miss at Wedding

Aired April 28, 2011 - 11:00   ET

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


SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN ANCHOR: Live from Studio 7, I'm Suzanne Malveaux.

Want to get you up to speed for Thursday, April 28th.

It is a ferocious tornado outbreak that killed more than 230 people across the South. Tuscaloosa, home of the University of Alabama, appears to be the hardest-hit community. Thirty-six people are confirmed dead there after a mile-wide twister plowed through the town.

Just watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Destroy a big chunk of Tuscaloosa. Now it's doing major damage in Tuscaloosa.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Unbelievable. It's just hard to watch.

A tornado tore a path from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham's western suburbs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER ENGLAND, CRIMSON TIDE PRODUCTION: I could feel the pressure change, and, of course, my heart was racing, because you see things like that in movies and everything, but you never see anything like that in real life. And to be able to see something like that so close -- and we didn't know -- you know, it turned away from us, but we really didn't know what was going to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: The tornado outbreak touched 13 states. The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center says 164 tornadoes were reported on Wednesday alone. It may turn out to be the country's deadliest tornado outbreak since 1974.

Tuscaloosa's mayor calls the damage there catastrophic. Neighborhood after neighborhood is in splinters this morning. Rescuers are still combing, trying to find anybody who may be trapped in that wreckage.

And the storms rolled into Georgia. That is where 11 people died last night. Many of the deaths occurred when a hotel south of Chattanooga took a direct hit from a twister.

Thunderstorms from this deadly spring weather system stretch up and down the Eastern Seaboard. That is happening today.

Tornadoes killed eight in southern Virginia this morning. The system is now losing intensity as it moves towards the Atlantic.

Well, decimated, just obliterated, that is how people are describing the towns, the cities that were hit by this wave of tornadoes and storms. We're going to be checking in with our correspondents in some of those hardest-hit areas.

Our meteorologist, Reynolds Wolf, he is live from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Martin Savidge, he is in Pleasant Grove, Alabama. Rafael Romo is in Ringgold, Georgia. And meteorologist Jacqui Jeras is at the Weather Center here tracking all of these threats, as well as more storms, more storm threats for today.

Well, the mayor of Tuscaloosa says there are parts of the city he doesn't even recognize because of the tornado damage.

Reynolds Wolf, you're there. Give us a sense. What is it like? What are you seeing on the ground?

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I can tell you that I've been in weather, let's say, for 19 years. I grew up in the state of Alabama. I started early in my career. I actually covered weather and tornadic events in the great state of Alabama.

Suzanne, I've never seen anything like this. The devastation is just almost indescribable. It is just a twisted mess of wood, of metal, of shattered trees, of automobiles, of clothing that once belonged to some of these families.

Here, in Tuscaloosa alone, there are many people missing. However, the death total is right at 36. However, as we make our way over the next couple of hours, the next couple of days, there's every reason to believe that number may actually go up quite a bit.

If you're wonders what it must be like to actually experience something like this, we have some answers. Hopefully they will shed the light on what its like to be in a situation like this.

We're here with this youngster.

Your name is, sir?

MICHAEL PEARSON, TORNADO SURVIVOR: Michael Pearson.

WOLF: Michael, if you could take us back to yesterday, you were actually living close to this exact location. Can you tell us what you experienced? PEARSON: I was in the living room playing the Xbox 360 with my friend, and all of a sudden, we just listened to the news. And the meteorologist said that it was coming towards Caloosa (ph) Avenue.

And we just ran back to the bathroom. It sounded like trains and like somebody threw a flash grenade in it. That's how it was.

WOLF: It's got to be just a surreal experience, to hear a warning like that on the television, and to know that it's coming for you. And was it kind of an out-of-body experience? You realize --

PEARSON: It was like a rush. It was like an adrenaline rush for real.

You just got up and started to run way from it. And as I was leaving, when the windows exploded, like, glass cut me in the back of leg, and then it was crazy, man. This was the first time I ever had something like this happen to me.

WOLF: So, after it struck, from start to finish, how long do you think the process took?

PEARSON: I'd say it was about, like, a minute and a half, something like that. Everything was gone.

WOLF: And then after a minute and a half, just stillness?

PEARSON: Just stillness. Complete stillness.

WOLF: So you get up, you spring to the door, you look outside. What do you see?

PEARSON: Just destruction everywhere, just people crying and running around, trying to see where their loved ones I guess and everything was. And I just didn't know what to do.

WOLF: Well, what about friends and family? Is everyone OK?

PEARSON: Well, I haven't found -- like, everybody in Tuscaloosa, I haven't heard from everybody. But people that I'm close with I have heard from, but not everybody.

WOLF: Well, I know that you mentioned that you had a bit of a warning from the television meteorologist, but in terms of tornado sirens, did you hear anything? Did you ever have any clue that --

(CROSSTALK)

PEARSON: Well, yes, I heard sirens, but it wasn't loud. They say the siren, like, got destroyed or whatever, so I wasn't thinking, like, it was coming right then and there. So, I wasn't too aware until the meteorologist said that it was coming or whatever.

WOLF: And as we wrap things up, what's in store for you for the rest of the day and into the weekend? PEARSON: Just trying to get the rest of my things and whatever I can get out of my apartment or whatever. But that's it. I had to go to class, but I guess class is canceled or whatever.

WOLF: Well, best of luck to you. Thanks so much. I appreciate it.

PEARSON: Thank you.

WOLF: That's the story. We're going to be seeing these kinds of stories unfold for the rest of the weekend.

A lot of people trying to just really kind of come to terms to what has happened in this community and many others alike it across parts of Alabama, into Georgia, the Carolinas, even Tennessee and, of course, Mississippi. It's just been a horrific severe weather season, and we still have a ways to go -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: So, if you could, can you have the camera pan? Can we actually see where you are, just the scope of the devastation there?

WOLF: Absolutely. Let's take a look.

Jonathan, come with me for just a moment. Jonathan Sheer (ph) is the man behind the camera.

One thing I want to show you, Suzanne, that gives you a true testament of just how strong the winds were here, how strong the damage happens to be, we have got a family that's going to be coming by, but I want you to look across the way.

Jonathan, I'm going to sift through these folks and maybe a car that comes between us.

I want you, Suzanne, to take a look at this fence. There was once a fence that stood here.

You see the chain link right here. The winds, in excess of 200 miles an hour, picked up that debris, knocked this thing over, and then right into this old armory that we have here in Tuscaloosa.

This vehicle, that's a Humvee. That's a combat vehicle. It's strong, it's armored, it's supposed to be able to withstand some tough things that happen in combat. But really no contest when it came to this tornado.

You look at these trucks here, these things also ripped to shreds. We have got some that you can't see that are far beyond the ones here in the foreground. We've got a truck that is in excess of five tons turned over on its side, all due to the winds of this massive tornado.

MALVEAUX: Reynolds, thank you so much for showing us that. Obviously, we wish the people there just the best to try to help recover and cope.

Want to go to the devastation in Georgia. At least 11 deaths confirmed in that state.

I also want to bring in our Rafael Romo. He is live from the hard-hit town of Ringgold. That is near the border with Tennessee.

And Rafael, if you could, tell us -- most of the Georgia deaths happened around where you are, around Ringgold, in that area. Are rescuers now still looking for survivors? Do they think that there's still people alive?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's a big possibility at this point, Suzanne, but right now authorities are just going to different parts in this area in Ringgold, and also throughout Catoosa County, trying to find survivors.

Now, let me show you a little bit of just how incredible the power of nature can be.

Behind me, it's an assembly hall. This is Welcome Hill Baptist Church here in Ringgold. You can see how the wall -- one of the walls was completely destroyed by the power of the tornado.

And then it was like the tornado came through this area in a very precise way, because if you look right there, you see the trees that were completely uprooted, completely destroyed. But then we take a look at the church itself, and as you can see, the building was completely spared. They only tell us that the steeple was blown away and is lying in an adjacent field.

So that's the situation here.

Apparently, the tornado came through and spared buildings and houses just adjacent to this area, but the church was completely destroyed. And again, seven people dead here, but authorities are still going through different parts of the county and trying to come up with a -- this is just a preliminary figure -- and trying to come up with a final figure on where the death toll stands -- Suzanne.

MALVEAUX: Are they hopeful, Rafael, that they might find people that they haven't found already?

ROMO: They are very hopeful. And in order to make this process more expedited, they have requested people, just regular folks, to come here and help them to remove debris, to help with the search and rescue effort, to work with firefighters.

And we have seen people coming from other counties. We just saw a gentleman in this area who brought his own equipment to help firefighters here and search and rescue crews remove the debris, and help in the operation.

MALVEAUX: We know when these kind of tragedies happen, there's a sense of community and spirit among many people. We really appreciate those volunteers.

Rafael, thank you so much. Thirty-two deaths are confirmed in Mississippi this morning. That state had a two-day run-in with this whole storm system. The damage is reported in 50 of Mississippi's 82 counties.

Now, Tennessee emergency officials say storms have killed 30 people in that state. One of the deaths happened near Chattanooga, in an RV park.

Nuclear regulators are keeping an eye on the Browns Ferry nuclear power plant near Athens, Alabama, today. Now, the facility's three nuclear reactors automatically shut down after losing power due to those storms. Seven diesel generators kicked in to provide electricity to cool the nuclear material and prevent a meltdown.

Well, a rundown of some of the stories we are covering this hour.

First, why so many people died in this tornado outbreak.

Plus, I'm going to talk live with Georgia Governor Nathan Deal about the storm damage as well.

And then we go to Libyan rebels who are fighting to hold on to Misrata while Moammar Gadhafi is now giving guns to civilians.

Later, are Pentagon cuts easier if your defense secretary is a former federal budget director? We're going to find out, a "CNN In Depth."

Also, air traffic out of control. A pilot, an old friend, shows us what is wrong with modern aviation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MILES O'BRIEN, AVIATION ANALYST: Look at this. You have more GPS technology in your family SUV than the typical airliner does.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRINA RINGO, STORM VICTIM: I thought I wasn't going to be living. I thought my life was over.

I ran out of my bedroom, and the next thing I knew, my front window blew out. And I just ran down to the basement.

I have my life, and I thank God for it. I just got a living testimony.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: The death toll keeps rising from powerful storms that swept through the South. The latest figures now confirm that more than 230 people were killed in six states.

(WEATHER REPORT) MALVEAUX: Tuscaloosa, Alabama, took a direct hit from the tornadoes. At least 36 people were killed when a twister flattened parts of that city.

The mayor says he is amazed that anyone survived. He described the devastation earlier on CNN's "AMERICAN MORNING."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR WALTER MADDOX, TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA: We're facing an overwhelming situation in which we are short on men, materials and equipment. Fortunately, the governor has been outstanding in state resources. Hopefully, we'll have flow and will continue to flow as we continue search and rescue.

Recovery efforts probably will not begin for another 24 to 48 hours. Our focus right now is finding citizens who are hurt, and finding those that are missing so we can then begin the process.

I don't know how anyone survived. We're used to tornadoes here in Tuscaloosa. It's part of growing up. But when you look at this path of destruction that's likely five to seven miles long, and in areas a half a mile to a mile wide, I don't know how anyone survived.

It's an amazing scene. There's parts of the city that I don't recognize, and that's someone that's lived here his entire life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: It's an unbelievable scene. And Tuscaloosa's mayor, Walter Maddox, he's going to be a guest on CNN NEWSROOM today during the 1:00 hour Eastern Time. You're not going to want to miss that.

Also, from takeoff to landing, what goes on between a pilot and an air traffic controller is crucial. Miles O'Brien takes us along for the ride.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Distracted air traffic controllers have gotten a lot of attention lately, with some caught sleeping or even watching movies on the job.

Well, our "CNN In Depth" coverage, "Air Traffic: Out of Control," is taking a closer look at the problem.

Today, private pilot and aviation analyst Miles O'Brien shows us the interaction between a pilot and controller.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Wow. What a nice day for flying. Just some puffy, cotton ball clouds. A little bit gusty, but a good day to be in the air.

It's a quarter of 10:00. This is my airplane. It's a Cirrus SR22. It's a lot smaller than a commercial airliner, obviously, but still flying in the same system as the airliners using air traffic control in exactly the same manner.

We've got flaps at 50, transponder at VFR. It's good.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Clear to Alpha, Golf, Charlie (INAUDIBLE).

O'BRIEN: (INAUDIBLE) Cirrus 122, Charlie, Victor, is taxiing right now for a departure on runway 15. And we'll be headed off to the north and west out of College Park.

Let's do it.

OK. Everything is in the green. We're looking for about 70 knots. We'll go a little faster today, and here we go. Let's go flying.

Cirrus 122, Charlie Victor, just off College Park.

The system is a 1950s architecture based on ground-based radar, spinning antennas on the ground. Radar, by definition, has a latency, a lag to it, because it takes a certain amount of time for that antenna to spin around, about 12 seconds.

In today's day and age, satellite technology, the FAA is now making progress on this modernization to a satellite system. But the truth is, you have more GPS technology in your family SUV than the typical airliner does.

We have all the technology in this airplane for me to receive all the vital commands, re-routes, everything by text, e-mail, whatever, satellite communication. And yet, today, in this country, everything we do, all the commands, it's all done on a VHF radios. And there's a lot of margin for error in that system.

I have a national weather picture here using satellites. You can see there's a killer storm here in the lower central part of the U.S. There's also a lot of convective thunderstorm activity in the Appalachians right now.

It's up to controllers to warn us about this stuff, but it's very nice to have the capability to see it for yourself as well. So, having the layers of safety are what's important. If a controller, for whatever reason, doesn't see what I see, or isn't paying attention, I can see it as well. I can call that to his or her attention, and I can keep myself safe.

So the system has lots of layers. I'm not going to fly into a thunderstorm just because a controller is not doing his or her job properly.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charlie, Victor, traffic is due south of you right now about 10 miles. Also, (INAUDIBLE) is a 737.

O'BRIEN: Cirrus 122 Charlie, Victor, we have it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Charlie, Victor (INAUDIBLE).

O'BRIEN: Cirrus 122, Charlie Victor, (INAUDIBLE) traffic for runway 22, right in clear line.

Aviation is safe if it's done well, if it's done right, and if corners are not cut. And air traffic control is just part of the picture.

We're focusing a lot about that right now. In a way, that's very healthy, because we're focusing on events that have not led to people getting hurt. So let's hope that's a wake-up call for the system.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: Our Miles O'Brien joins us from Chicago.

Miles, you've covered a lot of stories for CNN. It is so great to see you. As always, excellent reporting.

And I have to say, you make it look almost easy to fly a plane there, the way you have the controls. Is it any different -- you were in a small, private plane. Any different in how you would interact, say, if you were piloting a big plane, a jumbo jet, for instance?

O'BRIEN: Well, Suzanne, thank you very much, first of all.

I think a good analogy is the rules of the road are the same when you're driving down an interstate whether you're in a tiny little Kia or you're driving a big semi. Now, the guy driving the semi has a different set of licensing requirements. He has going to stop at the weigh station and so forth, so it's a little bit different operations.

But, you know, the fact is the speed limit is the same, and the rules of the road remain the same. And that's the case in this. Although my plane is very small, I am flying in that same system with the 747s and dealing in that environment in the same way, following the same rules.

MALVEAUX: So, Miles, has there ever been a case when you haven't been able to get a hold of an air traffic controller?

O'BRIEN: Yes, it happens every now and then. Usually what happens is in the course of a flight -- I was flying in that case the day before yesterday from Washington, all the way here to Chicago, with a stop in Pittsburgh. And about every 10 or 15 minutes, as you pass over ground radio -- VHF ground stations, going back to this whole notion of a ground-based system, you get handed off from controller to controller.

Every now and then things get lost in the handoff. And occasionally you'll have to kind of double-check the frequency, circle back to the previous frequency. Sometimes there's a backup frequency to go to. But there's many layers of capability in the system, usually, that allow you to get in touch.

Now, if you can't get in touch with somebody -- MALVEAUX: Right. What happens then?

O'BRIEN: -- you have a flight plan, and you're supposed to fly the flight plan as you have been instructed. And you have a little transponder code you put in there and say, "I'm not in contact with you, I'm not talking to you." And they will look at your flight plan.

It would be their assumption. And the rules are that you're supposed to fly the last flight plan, the last instructions you got. So, in theory, you could fly to that airport without communication.

These scenarios are unlikely, although we've seen them happen recently. And the pilots that were in those situations, as unsafe as that sounds, the system is built to absorb that kind of -- I wouldn't call it an emergency situation, but an unusual situation.

MALVEAUX: And Miles, it's an interesting anniversary to note today. It's the first -- the first space tourists, I believe, blasted into orbit on this day about 10 years ago. Yes?

O'BRIEN: Dennis Tito blasted into space 10 years ago this day, changed space forever. NASA was not happy about it.

Today, it's a whole different story. I have got a story about it, by the way, on my Web site, MilesObrien.com. You can check it out in my blog there if you want. There's my plug.

MALVEAUX: Excellent. Excellent.

O'BRIEN: I'm sorry. I'm sorry I got the plug in.

MALVEAUX: Shameless plug. We love that. We love your work, Miles.

O'BRIEN: Oh, good. Thank you.

MALVEAUX: And a reminder. It's great, because he's going to be back again tomorrow. Miles O'Brien is back with us as NASA prepares to launch space shuttle Endeavour on its final mission. And that's going to be at 11:30 a.m. Eastern, right here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

And, of course, we are keeping an eye on the violent tornadoes from last night. Towns have been leveled, people are picking up the pieces.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just complete destruction. It was amazing and sad at the same time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Here's a rundown of some of the stories we're working on right now. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): The war in Libya has turned a whole city now into a wasteland. What it means for the rebels?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: Then a shake up in the Pentagon could affect the mission in Afghanistan. We're going to be talking about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): Later, the south is reeling. We're trying to make sense of the massive destruction, the science behind the tornadoes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MALVEAUX: We want to bring in Chad Myers. Chad, tell us a little bit about what we are learning now. More damage out of Alabama.

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I think yesterday was so amazing to me because of the number of very large tornadoes on the ground.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MYERS (voice-over): We're going to show pictures of what it looked like right here. Here's brand new video. T his is all day long. We will get video like this, and at times worse than this all afternoon long because the shooters are out there, the photographers are out there. They're doing what they can.

Emergency managers are just getting to some of these towns because trees have been across the roadways. We haven't been able to get some of these towns. This is Pleasant Grove, Alabama. We knew originally the first town that was hit was going to be Coleman, Alabama.

Coleman, we knew that they lost a steeple on the church. The town was basically hit by a small F-2 tornado somewhere around 120 miles per hour. As the day and the night went on, we saw so many what we believe to be F-3, F-4 and possibly even F-5 tornadoes on the ground.

That when, at some point, it was almost - it was a numbing feeling that all of a sudden you see that's probably only an F-1. Let's focus on these three F-4s that we know that are on the ground.

It was a priority session we had all night long, and every warning -- the weather service -- let me tell you. The weather services out of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee and all the way up the east coast.

They were on top of every rotating thunderstorm and at times we didn't know how they did it because it was so difficult to keep your eye on six different tornadoes.

MALVEAUX: And Chad, these are new pictures that we are getting from Pleasant Grove. When you look at these pictures, what is your sense of the kind of power of tornadoes that whipped through this area?

MYERS: There's kind of a scale. It used to be kind of a damage scale, a wind scale, and it's gone back and forth and what it really is. Here's how I see it. If you're talking about an F-0 and you're talking only in the 80 to 100-mile-per-hour range, maybe a little bit less, you're lose shingles and you probably lose a roof.

When you're up into the 2, F-2 range, you're going to lose sighting. You're going to lose the roof completely. You might be able to look down inside the home from above. And then you're going to start to lose walls into 3.

When you can't find the walls, then you're at a 5. So you're at 200 miles per hour at a 5. This looks to me if that was a well- built structure -- it's hard to tell what structures or how they're built. That's what the weather service has to do.

See that. That's a well-built structure. That looks like F-1 damage. Not bad. But when you turn around and see twisted trees up there, that tornado may have just missed that house, but yet, hit that tree directly. That looks like a 2 or 3.

That building is at least 140 to 160-mile-per-hour wind damage. The weather service -- we've talked how many times. Is this a record season? Is this a record season? I think last night put us over for April for sure.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: All right, Chad, thank you so much. Well, obviously, we'll be talking more about some of the new pictures and the damage and what folks are dealing with today when they see this kind of devastation. Thank you, Chad. Appreciate it.

Find out more on how you can help those devastated by the tornadoes, go to cnn.com/impact. You'll find organizations in ways that you can help those in need. That is cnn.com/impact.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MALVEAUX: Kate Middleton will just have one more day to be a commoner before tying the knot with Prince William. In less than 24 hours, she's going to be officially royalty, and you'll get to see all the romantic moments of the wedding here on CNN.

We're going to head over to Buckingham Palace. That is where the royal parties will start to take place. I think they're already starting. That's where we find our CNN royal watcher Richard Quest. Richard, has the party started?

RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Suzanne. This is what most people -- this is what many people will be enduring over the next 24 hours.

Welcome to the tents that are on the mall. Assuming I can get out of this, thousands of people -- not with my bad back. Thousands of people are camping in makeshift accommodations. This is a fine piece of accommodations. How much did it cost?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It cost only 10 pounds.

QUEST: That's $15. They spared no expense here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMAE: You get charged 150 pound a night in my tent.

QUEST: What on earth are you thinking of doing sleeping on the streets tonight?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Because I want to see the queen. That's why I'm going to be sleeping in the tent?

QUEST: Is it worth it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Damn, worth it. I came all the way from Gibraltar so it is worth it.

QUEST: Are you well provisioned for tonight?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely, I have everything I need.

QUEST: You have. Doesn't look like it to me. Some people for whom it's been a little bit too much. You have to keep your voice down, Suzanne. Keep your voice down, because some people are --

MALVEAUX: Sleeping on the street?

QUEST: How on earth he's managing to sleep through all of this is quite amazing, but there we are. Look, the fact is people are arriving now. Here's another tent, very nice. Nice tent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you.

QUEST: You're going to be cold tonight, you think?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, we're fine. We'll curl up.

QUEST: You're getting two people in there.

MALVEAUX: You've invited yourself to all the parties so far. We have two tent invitations there, and obviously, it looks like a huge tailgate party. I know there are some moments we should look out for tomorrow, things we cannot miss. What should we be looking for?

QUEST: All right, the things that you must not miss tomorrow really comes at 11:00 London time, 6:00 in the morning Eastern Time, obviously 3:00 Pacific, and that is when Kate Middleton gets out of the car, the Rolls Royce at Westminster Abbey. And that's the moment when you will see the dress in all its glory. Secondly, don't miss the vows to make sure they get the names right. Diana got Charles' name wrong and Sarah got Andrew's name slightly mangled up as well. Don't miss the fan fare when they sign the register. It's a special 30-second fan fare written for this occasion.

It will wake the dead in the Abbey and finally at 25 past -- well, hello. He's woken up. Finally, don't miss the kiss. It will be done on the balcony, and it will -- not you, dear. The kiss.

It will be down on the balcony, it will be at about 25 past, quarter past 1:00 London, that's quarter past 8:00 east, quarter past 5:00 out on the west. There are other things you must not miss, and this lot. Don't miss them, because they'll all cheer.

MALVEAUX: All right.

QUEST: Like trained Pavlovian dogs.

MALVEAUX: Richard, we're not going to miss any of it. We're not going to miss any of it. We will get up. We'll be up there early with you tomorrow to see all of this. Richard, thank you so much. It's been a blast so far.

We're going to be up at least 4:00 in the morning to see all of this. CNN is going to bring you complete coverage of the procession and the wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey starting tomorrow at 4:00 in the morning Eastern.

CNN's Anderson Cooper, Piers Morgan, Richard Quest, Kiran Chetry and Cat Deeley are live from London. Set your DVER if you're not home. The actual ceremony takes place at 6:00 a.m. Eastern and that is 11:00 London time.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX (voice-over): We want to bring in Chad Myers. We are getting new video out of two locations. Chad, I know you're following this very closely.

One of them is Philadelphia. That is actually Mississippi, however and Tuscaloosa, Alabama. When we look at these pictures, what do we see that is actually new here?

MYERS: This was a killer tornado as it moved across the road as it went north of Philadelphia. It got up into kind of a rural area, and unfortunately three people in that rural area lost their lives even though it's not going through major town.

See those flashes? That's when the tornado actually tears the power lines from the power poles and you'll get sparks from the transformer. You'll see these big, bright flashes on the ground. Sometimes they're blue or sometimes they kind of green.

When you see that, you know that damage is being done on the ground. That's not a lightning strike. That was actually damage from the power line or from the transformer itself. Here you see the storm getting much bigger, and we were watching this on the ground here.

You can actually go to severestudios.com and during chases watch these chasers live. We don't recommend getting out there. This is a very dangerous job. He's within a mile and a half of that tornado. The problem is you can't see it over the ridge line.

Let's listen it to some of this audio. There you see the tornado is gone. We're running out of tape here, so we're going to talk back over it again. The trees are down everywhere. Trees killed many people last night.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MALVEAUX: When you saw that video, could you give a sense how fast that was moving? He's just a mile or mile and a half away. That thing was flying.

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MYERS: It was probably only moving 30 to 35 miles per hour. They did pick up speed to maybe 55 miles per hour later in the evening. But the storms as they move through Mississippi were 30, 35 miles per hour. There were without a doubt -- you could get away from these storms or at least see them coming and get into shelter.

MALVEAUX: Let's take a listen. That's essentially moving - I mean, that is moving across the road.

MYERS: He's closer than a mile. He's 150 yards away. He's too close there, but he knew where the tornado was going and he knew where it was headed. He knew where he was.

MALVEAUX: The people in those homes that are near that tornado, would they possibly survive something like that at all? I mean, this thing just looks so huge, that it doesn't even seem possible.

MYERS: That's only, believe it or not, that's probably about 120 to 125 miles per hour. That's maybe more like 140 miles per hour right there, moving up towards the F-3 range. You can certainly survive the F-3. It's the 4s and 5s that will tear apart any home.

Let's go to video here out of Tuscaloosa. This is literally just in. This is from our affiliate WVUA. They haven't been able to send us anything because for most days, most of the night they were in their own shelters or trapped in buildings.

So they've been out shooting daylight video now of what this place looks like. There are -- as it moved across Tuscaloosa and it was just south of the University Of Alabama and that's not good or bad, that's where it tracked along 15th Street.

You're going to see -- I'm making up this name. A taco del something, it's just small, little shops, maybe like a sub sandwich shops, those are not there anymore. The building is not there anymore.

The foundation and slab is there, but the entire building is not there. So if people were taking shelter in that building, they're lost. They were killed.

MALVEAUX: If someone was in a basement, for instance, would they have been able to survive something like that?

MYERS: Mostly likely if you're talking of a 4 or 5, you must be underground. A 4 or a 5 will take all the walls away from your house, but it will leave the foundations.

Now at times, foundations will -- the house will fall into the basement, but still the winds are lowered. The lower you go, and the underground obviously in a storm shelter with a door like they build in Oklahoma, Kansas and parts of Nebraska and such, it's the perfect place to go.

There are new building codes coming up where people can put safe buildings, safe rooms in their house basically surrounded by Kevlar. That's what a sandwich shop or whatever it was --

MALVEAUX: You were talking about that because you see the booth and seats that remain there, and we saw video, too. It looked like people were leaning over. Perhaps they were praying. Perhaps they're looking for anything that might have survived this.

MYERS: National Guard right now is doing the search and rescue. National Guard knows that there are still survivors in that rubble. There are still pockets in the rubble for people that are missing. They are still alive, and so that's the job now of the search dogs and the search teams to find those people that are alive.

The dogs know the difference between a fatality and a live person, and they will be going through all of this rubble. There's so much. The devastation is so long. That tornado may have been on the ground for 60 miles a quarter-mile wide at times.

You're talking about 30 square miles of devastation that these men and women have to go through to try it to find people that are still alive.

MALVEAUX: You know, it's optimistic and hopeful to think there are people that are still alive and still trapped.

MYERS: All morning I've heard, yes, we're going to find more dead and fatalities, but I just want to be a little optimistic. Yes, we'll find more survivors.

MALVEAUX: All right, we appreciate the optimism, Chad. Thank you.

Aid organizations, they're already on the ground. They are setting up shelters. Find out how you can help by going to our web site, that is cnn.com/impact.

We are covering the battle for Libya as well. A whole city now in ruins and the rebels may be losing a very keep escape route.

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MALVEAUX: We're getting some new video in. WVUA out of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I want to bring in our own Chad Myers as well. This is video you and I are seeing for the first time here, but obviously complete devastation. A lot of people who died from that severe weather and the tornadoes. Want to take a look.

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MYERS: I think what you notice was most striking was the debris in the air. There are pieces of homes, pieces of trees and lives in the air being taken up.

And we noticed this yesterday with reports from Tuscaloosa. As this storm was just exiting Tuscaloosa, there were reports near Huie Town, Alabama, a 20-mile drive -- of shingles falling from the sky. That's frightening.

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MALVEAUX: I understand this tornado was a mile -- a mile wide.

MYERS: It's hard to know when they mile wide. Were they talking at the base as it touched the ground or were they talking up in the sky?

MALVEAUX: What would be the difference? How would that influence what kind of powerful destruction that we're seeing with these pictures?

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MYERS: Well, I mean there are just multivortices in there. There are wind speeds in here in excess of at least 200 miles per hour. The weather service is going out there obviously to tell us minute by minute and hour by hour what this tornado did.

But when you think about a cell that can pick up parts of the house, take those parts up into the body of the thunderstorm and the lift that is necessary to lift these pieces of house up into the sky and then throw that debris 20 miles downwind, the tornado was on the ground and debris was falling where it wasn't even raining yet.

The cells last night were something that I haven't seen so many of on the ground. When this cell was on the ground and we were watching it, it reminded me of Anderson, Kansas tornado. Reminded me of a Red Rock, Oklahoma where it literally scoured the asphalt off the road. This storm had that kind of power.

MALVEAUX: And Chad, when you talk about a cell, what do you mean by that? What is a cell?

MYERS: We are going to get into that in the next hour. We're going to get into why a cell, a thunderstorm cell that we call a mezo cyclone or a super cell, how does it get so big?

We'll call it a garden variety tornado of 100-mile-per- hour storm compared to a monster of 200 to 230. We've seen some at 270 miles per hour, how do you get there? It is a special cell, it's a special situation and special circumstances.

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MALVEAUX: All right, Chad. We're going to have more of that as we come back from the break to explain how that actually happened and the impact it has on these communities.

MYERS: It's called a mezo cyclone. We'll get all into it.

MALVEAUX: All right, thanks, Chad. We'll have more after the break.

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MALVEAUX: Top of the hour. I'm Suzanne Malveaux. Want to get you up to speed. The number of dead in the southern tornado outbreak surged past 230 today. Alabama took the hardest hit accounting for more than half of the deaths.