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Strong Storms; Tornadoes Hit Near Huntsville; Obama, Netanyahu To Meet On Iran
Aired March 02, 2012 - 14:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN ANCHOR: And hello to all of you. This has already been a day of violent weather. And the worst, we're told, may be ahead of us. Here are some staggering numbers. Seventeen -- as in 17 states, 75 million people are bracing for storms strong enough to disrupt power and travel. Seventy-five million.
Breaking news once again here. You're looking at pictures, again, aftermath from these powerful storms. This is Madison County, Alabama. This is near Huntsville. And already hit by two tornadoes late this morning right around 9:30 their time. At one point, 35,000 people were without power. This is a huge system. This afternoon, tonight, a lot of people need to be ultra vigilant. I want to bring in Chad Myers.
It has been quite the week, I know, for a lot of folks in the middle of the country and now we're talking, what, still Indiana, all the way down to Alabama and everything in between.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: When you talk 17 states, you just go, wow, right?
BALDWIN: It's huge.
MYERS: You go, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and you keep going all the way around. You get to Louisiana, then back up again to Illinois. And especially the Tennessee Valley, Ohio Valley, that's the -- that the core of where the major maxi tornadoes could be today.
BALDWIN: How bad could it get?
MYERS: Oh, easily as bad as what we saw in Harrisburg, Illinois. No question about it. There will be storms. There will be tornadoes that big.
Now, the good news so far is that few things have been hit. Few towns have been hit. Limestone, up in parts of northeastern Alabama. And in Morris Mill (ph), a little bit farther to the north, up near Cleveland, Tennessee, there was some scattered damage, but nothing yet went through a Huntsville or a Chattanooga. No downtown has been hit yet so far. But that's just luck of the draw.
BALDWIN: Let me pause and just ask my -- Christina (ph), do we have him on the line? OK. We have a storm chaser -- and, Chad, please join me in the conversation.
MYERS: Sure. I knew him well.
BALDWIN: We have Jeff -- Jeff Piotrowski, storm chaser.
Jeff, I understand you're -- you are 20 miles north of Evansville, Indiana.
JEFF PIOTROWSKI, STORM CHASER (via telephone): Yes. Yes.
BALDWIN: What are you doing? What are you seeing?
PIOTROWSKI: Well, we've got Tornadoes that track anywhere from about 50 miles west of west Evansville, up towards Wadesville. There is damage about 30 miles to 35 miles north west Evansville. A tornado was on the ground. We did film it for about five minutes coming down Highway 64. The tornadic storm that is producing tornadoes and it is a tornado right now, it's on Highway 64 just to the north of Liverpool (ph) and it's heading toward the general direction of Lynnville.
This is going to be Indiana, southwest Indiana here. So that area to the north/northeast of Evansville is under -- we have multiple tornadoes tracking through this area right now. There is damage and these tornadoes are becoming very large and violent at this time. So we're under a tornado outbreak at this time (INAUDIBLE) in Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee Valley, as well as Kentucky. We're at high (ph) risk and Tornadoes are well underway.
We also want to report that is a significant tornado that came out of Missouri. It is tracking toward the Paducah area. This has had a history for three hours producing very long (INAUDIBLE) tornado. This tornado is going to track back toward the Paducah area. It's had a history of producing significant damage in southeast Missouri. That storm also needs to be watched as it tracks towards -- in the general direction of Paducah.
BALDWIN: So you said three hours -- and before Chad jumps in, just so I'm clear, the picture we're looking at, is this -- this is a live picture, I'm presuming, from your car.
PIOTROWSKI: Yes. I'm going 60 -- yes, I am going east. The tornado is literally to my left. If I turn the camera around, (INAUDIBLE), there will be cars -- you see cars in front of me stopping. There is a significant tornado to my left. I'll do that here. Let me try to see if I can do this here live out the window here. It's off to the left of the road. I'm going to shoot out the back here. You can --
BALDWIN: Please be safe, though. Be safe. Are you --
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, I am. I'm not driving. We've got (INAUDIBLE) to the north.
BALDWIN: You're not driving. OK.
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, yes, (INAUDIBLE). We've got a large (INAUDIBLE) tornadoes on the ground way left to the north here.
BALDWIN: Oh, my goodness. PIOTROWSKI: Yes, do you see it now?
BALDWIN: We see it. Chad, jump in.
MYERS: Hey, Jeff, this --
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, (INAUDIBLE) this tornado that's tracking along 64.
MYERS: Yes, I just looked at the -- some of the things out of Evansville and there was a chaser report that it was 300 yards wide. Was that your report?
PIOTROWSKI: No, it was not. My -- when I saw the tornado was only maybe about 100 yards wide and it was very small and very weak at the time. It was weakening when I got to the tornado, but it had been on the ground for about -- a long time, even before I got to it. It's in a recycle state now. It's back on the ground to my north. And these storms are cycling. The Tornadoes were, you know, an hour, 30 minutes, and then they kind of dust (ph) out and recycle, and that's what's happened right now is this tornado continues to track off to the east along Highway 64 here.
MYERS: YES.
PIOTROWSKI: Anywhere from Evansville, back down to Paducah, this whole area is under a tornado outbreak at this time. There's numerous tornadic sources (ph) developing at this time.
MYERS: This is also about to go over I-164 as well, which is a north/south road, Jeff. The producers would like you, as long as you're not driving, to turn that camera back around. I see some type of an appendage right in front of you.
BALDWIN: What is that?
MYERS: Is that anything you see there, or is that just a skud (ph)?
PIOTROWSKI: No, that's another -- that's another storm due east of me that is -- that's off to me -- that's the storm that came out of Evansville that's also severe and has a tornadic circulation as well. And I'm looking at radar now.
I've got close to six tornadic forms coming at me. Two of them to my east, there's one immediately to my west/northwest, which I'm -- I'm just talking about. And then I have four more tornadoes back southwest/east, 40 miles, moving at me at 65 miles an hour. These are very fast-moving tornadoes and they're going to produce a lot of damage across southern Indiana and central and northern Kentucky, as well as Tennessee and Alabama as we get into the evening hours.
BALDWIN: Jeff, as you -- do us a favor. Turn the camera around. We're just going to do all this on the fly here live on CNN. And if I could just ask, why -- why are you -- why do you do what you do, being a storm chaser?
PIOTROWSKI: Just like -- you know, just like -- just like, you know, April 22nd, last year, you know, it was (INAUDIBLE). We chased that tornado, the F-5, into the city. And a lot of times with these fast- moving tornadoes, like we have today, you know, every second counts. So that ever second you can get a warning out to the weather service as far as, heads up, the tornado's on the ground. This is the -- you know, part -- you know, the town is here or it's crossing the interstate, so the highway patrol can, you know, close the road ahead. That's what we're seeing out here.
You know, my first priority is to notify 911 and the weather service and the communications weather service be (INAUDIBLE) transmitting those reports in real-time every second because, you know, these storms at 50, 60 miles an hour are moving a mile a second and these tornadoes on the ground, you have very few seconds to make that life and death -- you know, life and death decision of taking shelter. And that's what's going on today. As you can see, there's a very large wall cloud and there's a tornado in the middle of that picture (ph), back to the north. It's probably two to three miles north of the interstate now of Highway 64. Tornadoes on the ground in the middle of that wall cloud. It's in the trees back there. You can see it. It's in the middle of that wall cloud.
MYERS: Hey, Jeff.
PIOTROWSKI: But that continues to track to the east.
MYERS: Jeff, is that the Wadesville storm? It was south of Poseyville.
PIOTROWSKI: That is the storm that right now is going to be the -- let me just pull up a town here. That is a -- yes, that is --
MYERS: Yes, that's the same storm. That was a large appendage on that storm and I knew that that storm was on the ground for quite some time. You're going to be --
PIOTROWSKI: It was, yes.
MYERS: You're kind of getting converged here on and I need you to be safe out there. I know you and I have been chasing since 1989. And you've had your share of close calls. You also saved quite a few lives in Joplin when you told them a maxi tornado was headed their way. So I appreciate your work. But, you know, there's a lot of stuff out there and these roads are tough in Indiana. They all don't go in a square like we like to drive around in Oklahoma.
PIOTROWSKI: Exactly. Yes, this tornado now is near Spurgeon. It is tracking towards Spurgeon, is where this is heading right now. And then also due -- almost due east, just north of Highway 64, it's Danville (ph), Holland and they are tracking toward Louisville and Lexington as we get later in this evening. And that area is going to be under the gun as these tornatic storms are headed that way.
BALDWIN: Jeff, stay in touch with us. Please, please be safe. We'll keep an eye on your live stream there as you are traveling through Indiana. Stay with us.
PIOTROWSKI: Thank you very much. BALDWIN: Chad, my question to you is, as he's explaining all these different storms, we always need to get the information to the folks who can perhaps be in the path. Best advice right now is?
MYERS: For the people at home?
BALDWIN: For the people at home.
MYERS: Don't do this.
BALDWIN: Well, I know, don't do this.
MYERS: A pickup truck and an NOAA weather radio does not make you a storm chaser. This man, Jeff Piotrowski, and I have -- from Broken Arrow in KOCO in Oklahoma have been chasing -- he's been chasing probably more tornadoes than -- he was chasing tornadoes when it wasn't cool. And Jeff knows what he's doing. He knows how to stay out of the way.
BALDWIN: I mean general, advice right now.
MYERS: In general, these storms will affect 17 states. And your state, if you're in anywhere from, you know, Illinois over to Virginia, south to Georgia, west to Louisiana, you are going to get some type of severe weather within 20 to 50 miles of your town. You need to make sure you know where your children are, you need to make sure that you have a plan. You need to know that you have a NOAA weather radio.
If you don't have one, go buy one if you have enough time. And if you can't program it, because sometimes they're difficult, the local fire department typically will know how to do it for you. They know what the towns are. They know what the counties are. There are codes. There are different numbers for each town. So the thing just doesn't keep go on and on and on.
But you need to know where your safe place is. If you don't know where it is, figure it out. Typically under a stairwell in a basement. Stairs are real strong. You want to go underneath a big pool table. Something strong. You don't want to get crushed. You don't want to get -- you know, things are going to fall down. Windows are going to fall out. Do -- never go open up a window thinking that your house is going to be saved because the pressure won't changed. That doesn't work. All you're going to do is get yourself cut if you go try to open up a window and that window breaks.
There will be, at times today, there will be 10 tornadoes on the ground at the same time.
BALDWIN: Ten tornadoes on the ground at the same time.
MYERS: No question. And probably four different states going on at the same time. This is a volatile day. We get two to three days like this a year. I know it's winter, but you can't think of it as winter. It's a spring-type storm because we didn't really have a winter. We're already into spring because it never really got that cold. So now this cold air is trying to come down. It's snowing in Davenport, Quad cities, you know, Des Moines. That snow, that cold air is pushing into this very warm air. If you walk outside here, it feels like you're standing in Miami.
BALDWIN: Is it --
MYERS: It's so hot.
BALDWIN: Is the afternoon prime time, as far as the climate goes, for these sorts of storms and tornadoes to pop up? Or is it more likely --
MYERS: Someone was in my ear. Say that again.
BALDWIN: OK, let me -- m question is --
MYERS: Yes.
BALDWIN: Is it the afternoon time when these kinds of storms and tornadic activity really pops up? Is it afternoon? Is it evening? When is it more ripe or --
MYERS: It typically would be between -- I would say between 3:00 and 7:00, Brooke, because --
BALDWIN: 3:00 and 7:00.
MYERS: Because that's when the hottest part of the day -- that's when the hottest part of the day has now arrived. The sun has been beating on the ground for a while and now the air wants to go up. It wants to rise. It wants to bubble, bubble, bubble. And that -- when it bubbles, it just -- it's a big bonus to these storms to have hot air.
Now, the weird part is that this Harrisburg storm in Indiana/Illinois was in the middle of the night, 5:00. That's not typical. That's atypical.
Here we go. I have a lot here for you. And this is the storm that Jeff Piotrowski was following. Here's 164. He was already past that. So Jeff was driving along this road right here, 64, and he was pointing the camera that way. And you could see something hanging down here.
BALDWIN: Yes.
MYERS: But when he turned the camera backwards, that's what he was looking at. And this big comma cloud all the way through here, that's the comma. That's the cone. That's the tornado right there that he was going to target (ph).
I've been told to take this little monitor right there, you'll be able to see the green and the red.
BALDWIN: So what is that?
MYERS: Well, this is a Doppler presentation of what the radar is seeing. And Doppler is the same instance as when you're sitting at a train station or a train track and all of a sudden the train blows a whistle and it's a different pitch as it's coming at you. As the train blows the whistle, you're sitting there waiting, the gates down, the bells are dinging and the train blows its horn. That horn is a different sound, a different pitch coming and going. And so the radar can actually find it coming and going.
And as this -- this is the same storm -- again, it's hard to find that road that I think Jeff was on. That's the road that Jeff was on right there. And so you've got -- you have the red and the green. When the red and the green come together, you have some type of circulation. And there's a circulation and there's even something right there even extra that the radar will do for you. That's called the tornado vortex signature. A TVS. The TVS says that's where the tornado is.
So Elberfeld. Elberfeld, right now, you are in danger. You are the next stop in the tornado's path. And this is the appendage I was talking about to Jeff. That's the rotation. This is the main core. So this is -- it's hailing up here at Fort Branch, it will be hailing probably maybe even tennis ball size hail.
I saw some very large hail pulling out of this earlier. At least the size of a silver dollar. But now with this signature and the hail core here, now here the tornado is always on the bottom side of the storm, and there it is moving into Elberfeld right now.
BALDWIN: So we're working on getting Jeff back up on the phone. We have the split screen so we see you and we see his pictures as he's traveling on this highway there in Indiana. How close is he, Chad, and you, you know, you go back with him. You've been chasing storms -- actually I've been told Jeff now is on the phone.
So, Jeff, just going to ask you, how close are you? Can you see a tornado out your window? How close can you actually get and still remain safe?
PIOTROWSKI: Maybe a crossing coming up here.
BALDWIN: Jeff, are you with me? This is Brooke at CNN.
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, I'm here. I'm with you. I'm sorry.
I'm on Highway 64, continuing to track east. We have tornadoes on the ground again north of 64, in southern Indiana, to the northeast of Evansville, probably 40 miles. We've had continued tornadoes on and off the ground along -- on both sides of 64. And we have a tornado on the ground again north of 64. It's going to be just to the west of Sylvania, Indiana. And this large wall cloud with numerous tornadoes are now on the ground north of 64 is the area that we're continuing to watch.
And we're going to swing the camera around here momentarily if we find a cross over (ph). It's very -- very spectacular shot here. Large wall cloud. We do have a significant tornado on the ground (INAUDIBLE). Id' say it's a quarter mile wide. It's a large tornado now on the ground.
BALDWIN: Where?
PIOTROWSKI: Coming down Highway 64. It's traveling along 64, just north -- thank goodness, it's north of the interstate. And it's moving almost due east down -- moving due east just to the north of -- west of Sylvania, Indiana, at this time. And very soon it will be crossing Highway 161 where 64 and 161 come across in the intersection north/south there.
It also has been tracking near and very -- just south of the town of Holland, India. That is where the tornado is tracking. It is very significant. And it is tracking that way.
BALDWIN: Jeff, how slow or how quick is this tornado moving?
PIOTROWSKI: It's 55, 60 miles an hour to the east. To the east/northeast. It's moving very fast for -- these kind of tornadoes are moving very, very fast.
BALDWIN: And --
PIOTROWSKI: They're moving very fast. They're tacking east very, very rapidly.
BALDWIN: Let me just ask you this, as you're still driving down this highway again. This is Highway 64 east in Indiana. What are we looking --
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, we're going to go north up the -- we're at about four miles --
BALDWIN: You're north.
PIOTROWSKI: In less than three miles we're going north up to Holland. And we're going to have a live shot out of Holland. Just north of the road here as the tornado comes toward Holland. It is on the ground heading toward Holland, Indiana. It is significant. I'm looking out the back window here. Side window. I'd say it's about a quarter mile wide tornado. It's moving at about 45 to 50 miles an hour toward Holland. Holland (INAUDIBLE) right in the path of the tornado.
BALDWIN: Can you see the tornado? Can you see the tornado with your eyes?
MYERS: Jeff, can you show it to us?
BALDWIN: Can you show us the tornado, Jeff?
PIOTROWSKI: It's -- yes, hang on. Let me try it real quick. The tornado is behind me. And I'll switch the cameras. It's all -- do you see it now? It's on the ground. It's in the middle of the -- it's in the middle of the cloud. I've got this camera pointing at it.
BALDWIN: Jeff, you're live on CNN.
PIOTROWSKI: (INAUDIBLE) about three miles.
BALDWIN: And just quickly, forgive me for interrupting, just to our viewers, I just want to be clear, Jeff is not driving. He's in the passenger seat. And he is a storm chaser. He's been chasing the storms. Chad's been chasing the storms. They go back to the -- years and years.
And so what you are looking at, where you just repositioned the camera is what?
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, we're just near -- we're just near south of Holland, Indiana. This would be about 50, 60 miles to the northeast of Evansville on Highway 64, Interstate 64. And it's -- we're coming out in (INAUDIBLE) here. We're going to head north at the (INAUDIBLE) here momentarily. We're going to come out in a big clearing here in just a second. (INAUDIBLE) the trees here coming out.
BALDWIN: We're going to see the tornado behind the trees?
PIOTROWSKI: Yes. Just a second. You're going to see it coming out of the trees. There's the -- it's right behind me. There's the wall cloud in the (INAUDIBLE). It's in the middle -- it's in the middle of that big wall cloud back there behind me. We're going to go north and it's going to come at us. It's on the ground. It's very large.
BALDWIN: I'm looking right with you.
PIOTROWSKI: (INAUDIBLE) -- back to the -- I'm looking behind me and to the north of Highway 64. And we're going to -- here's -- we're up to Holland now. Highway 161 into Holland. We're tracking up toward Holland, Indiana. And the tornado is going to track toward the city of Holland is where this tornado is tracking at this time.
BALDWIN: Chad, what are we seeing? Explain. I mean to me it looks like clouds. Just dark, ominous clouds. But somewhere in there, he said, is the tornado. Yes --
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, you've got a large wall cloud right behind me there. And started to be (INAUDIBLE) and it's just -- you'll have to bear with us for about four minutes. We're in the hills here and it's -- it's about seven miles to my west, moving at me at about probably 50 miles an hour. And I think in about two minutes, the tornado, you'll have a clear view of the tornado coming right at us.
BALDWIN: Let me --
PIOTROWSKI: I'm going north here on 161 toward Holland.
BALDWIN: Jeff, is --
PIOTROWSKI: We're moving toward the town of Holland, Indiana, is where the tornado is tracking. It's a large tornadic thunderstorm and it's had a history of producing damage. So it's down 100 miles and I'm getting off the highway. So I've got cars both -- (INAUDIBLE) the car -- we have -- hang on a second. There's cars parked on the side of the road where it's (INAUDIBLE). That's looking south on 181 (ph) and we're heading north now on 161 up toward Holland. And --
MYERS: Hey, Jeff.
PIOTROWSKI: There's the big ball. (INAUDIBLE) Interstate 2 (ph).
MYERS: Yes. It's on the -- it's very close to the interstate, Jeff. Don't go very far.
PIOTROWSKI: Yes. There you can see it.
BALDWIN: Please, be safe.
PIOTROWSKI: You can see the big bowl (ph) and with all the cars stopped. People are pulling off here on both side of the interstate. People are stopping northbound and southbound to stay out of the path of the tornado. (INAUDIBLE) is going to track up to the north of Holland here. Very close to the town of Holland. It looks like Holland's three miles ahead. That's going to track very close to Holland. And we've got the police here on the side of the road, the sheriff here. It looks like he's just south of Holland. He's talking to some locals. We've got two deputy sheriff's now here just south of Holland watching the tornado tracking (ph) just to the northwest here.
BALDWIN: Jeff, did you pull over?
PIOTROWSKI: (INAUDIBLE) Holland, Indiana, and it's moving east at about 50 miles an hour.
BALDWIN: Jeff, did you pull over? Or -- I'm just trying to -- I'm watching right along with you. Chad and I are watching your picture here. I believe I see some of the people -- it appears to be some cars still driving along and now we see this. What is this, a wall cloud?
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, that's a large wall cloud back to my west. And the tornado's in the middle of that. And the cars are -- yes, there's cars coming south, as well as north getting out of the path of the tornado. We've noticed that all day today that people are trying to stay out of the path of these tornadoes because they are large and fast moving.
MYERS: Jeff, it looks like this thing's trying to get wrapped up in rain. Do you still see it?
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, it's a large wall cloud. You've to the funnel. The cone is coming down. There's more people -- there's other people pulled off. A bunch of people -- more storm chasers. I see the break cloud back west. We're going to be straight west (ph) of Holland. There it is with the break cloud on the ground back west of Holland. The main core tornado is up, but the wall cloud in rotation continues. And again, we're on this for the city of Holland. We're about two miles south of the town of Holland.
BALDWIN: Jeff, hang on. Jeff, let me interrupt you. I have a --
PIOTROWSKI: And this (INAUDIBLE) track (INAUDIBLE) at about 50 miles an hour.
BALDWIN: Hang on. As we look at these pictures, my question to you, Chad Myer, is, when we say wall cloud, we throw out that phrase. Is it synonymous with tornado? Is that totally separate?
MYERS: It's when the storm starts to rotate. It's the first part that actually comes down. It looks like a low-hanging, flat-based cloud. You'll have the regular cloud that goes up, but there's going to be a lower -- a lower ring of the storm. And that lower ring has a flat base to it. It's almost -- almost, I guess, like a -- maybe think of it almost like a parallelogram that hangs down from the storm.
BALDWIN: OK.
MYERS: And from that lower parallelogram -- because a lot of times it's not straight up and down, it's kind of at an angle -- you will get the Tornadoes fall out of that wall cloud when it rotates. So the wall cloud is the precursor. And it's typically the first thing you see.
I'm also seeing on the left side of the screen there, you're seeing my Doppler radar here. There's an awful lot going on there.
I'm going to walk over here just for a second because I believe what we're seeing here, Brooke, is what's called a debris ball. We talked to Jeff a little bit about this. See that right there? That looks like a debris ball to me, which means that the tornado is coming. This -- the whole thing's a mesocyclone. The tornado is right here. And it's actually causing debris to get picked up by the tornado and thrown in the air. The Doppler radar doesn't know the difference between rain, really, the way we have it turned on right here, and debris. Insulation, trees, limbs, all kinds of stuff in the air. And so that right there appears to me that that is a guarantee that this storm, this tornado is on the ground making damage of this.
BALDWIN: So that we're clear, as we look at these live pictures from Jeff in Indiana, we are looking live at a wall cloud. And somewhere within what we're looking at is a tornado on the ground?
MYERS: Yes, and, you know, this would look different in Oklahoma or Texas. There would be less precipitation. You wouldn't -- you'd see it a little bit better. You might have a little bit better of the contract from gray to white. And this is the dangerous part about driving or chasing in a -- he said he was in the hills. He got in the hills. You couldn't see it. And when you get in the hills and you get behind trees, it's not like chasing in Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska where you can see for 40 miles to the west. His visibility is completely limited here. And so if he does get this -- if this tornado does stay on the ground -- we'll wait for it. I think he -- we're going to be able to take this streaming video as long as we can -- we will see this tornado get really close to Jeff.
BALDWIN: So as he is headed toward he said Holland, Holland, Indiana.
MYERS: Yes.
BALDWIN: And I don't know if the picture froze or I don't know what happened here specifically. OK, I'm told it's frozen and we'll just stay with it. Is it just absolutely impossible to predict any kind of trajectory as far as where this storm goes?
MYERS: They have it moving east about 55, 60 miles per hour all day. So it's moving east, right. And it could go a little bit -- track a little bit north of east (ph), but not too much, just because of the way this thing came out. All these storms to the west here are traveling right from west to east, but they're going so quickly. They're going 55 miles per hour. It's just so hard to chase. It's so hard to get out of the way. You know people say do I -- what do I do, get out of the car and go into a ditch, you know? And that's the last resort, yes. You don't want to be in the car.
BALDWIN: Of course you don't Of course you don't want to be in the car unless you know what you're doing, like Jeff. And we actually --
MYERS: There's -- no, go ahead.
BALDWIN: Let me just -- we just reracked a little bit of video. If you're just joining us here, we're talking about severe storms yet again today. And I just -- Chad Myers is with me. We have a storm chaser here on the ground in Indiana. And what we're looking at is the wall cloud and the tornado from moments ago.
MYERS: Yes, except that we're seven miles away from it and we can't tell whether that tornado's actually on the ground there or not. Jeff maybe, from his perspective can, but from a camera through a phone through a satellite through, you know, through our cameras and back to your eyes, it's impossible to tell whether it was actually on the ground or not.
Are we back to live again?
BALDWIN: Yes, we're back live.
MYERS: OK, we're back to live again. So we should soon see those trees star to really move in the distance. OK, I thought -- OK, I thought he was parked. So he's still moving. Either moving to get out of the way or moving to get closer, because that's just what these guys do.
BALDWIN: And, again, just big picture here. We're talking 17 states.
MYERS: Yes.
BALDWIN: Right, potentially facing this severe weather. Seventy-five million people.
Jeff, I know you're back with us. Tell us where you are. What do you see?
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, just north of -- yes, just north of the city here. And -- Holland. And the tornado's lifted, but we still have this large rotating bowl. As you can see, it's coming across just north of Holland here.
This big, large (INAUDIBLE). We have some very strong winds. (INAUDIBLE) just the wall cloud, as you can see, (INAUDIBLE). We're talking about eastbound about 40 miles an hour. (INAUDIBLE) just over the (INAUDIBLE). It has a history of producing Tornadoes. It was on the ground about two minutes ago west of Holland. (INAUDIBLE) this large, rotating ball. You see it coming across the road. This is 181 going north/south out of Holland into (INAUDIBLE). And the tornado (INAUDIBLE). I'm about one mile north of Holland right now. So it's going to spare the city of Holland at this time and continue to track to the east.
MYERS: So it's not on the ground, Jeff? It lifted?
PIOTROWSKI: It's not on the ground right now. No, it is not. Just a large rotating wall cloud.
MYERS: OK. And this happens. This, you know, this happens. You think all of a sudden it's going to hit a town. There was a tornado that was going to hit Aurora, Nebraska, a couple of years ago. And it was a big, giant storm. And I had friends in Aurora. And I thought, you know, what do I do now? You know, I -- just, this is going to be terrible. And literally half a mile before the town, the tornado went away. It just occludes.
BALDWIN: Thank goodness.
MYERS: Mother nature is so -- it so, so impressive. And, but you know what, I'm glad for the people of Holland, but there were people that, from the west of there, that did get damage. There's no question that storm was on the ground for a long, long time. Maybe 40 to 60 miles. So someone got in the way of that tornado.
BALDWIN: And, you know, I asked you this question when we were talking about the storms in Harrisburg, Illinois, the other day and I thought, I loved your answer. I just want to ask it again. So when you talk about a tornado and you're talking about multiple vortexes, vortices --
MYERS: Correct, yes.
BALDWIN: And I said, is it kind of like a bouncing ball bouncing back, you know, up and down. And you said, no, it has much more of a forward trajectory, the momentum, because it's going so fast.
MYERS: Small Tornadoes, you know, we call them F-0s and 1s. Those -- they will bounce around. They will kind of -- remember -- I'm going to take you to the wall. Hey, Rocky (ph). And I will try to describe this multi-vortex again. And I think I can do it better if I actually get to draw it out. But inside of a very large tornado, even though it looks like one solid funnel or one solid triangle hitting the ground --
BALDWIN: It's not.
MYERS: It's not. There are many what you call suction vortexes inside of that tornado. Or parts of the tornado that even though it looks like a big wedge, there are smaller tornadoes inside the tornado. So, let's just say, and we know that this storm is gone.
It's lifted for now. But let's say that that tornado was right there. The tornado, as it moves around, as it moves to the east, will also have pieces moving around in it. So there will be a -- the one vortex will do this and the other -- then it will go -- keep going here.
And then there will be another vortex that was on the other side and it might be doing this and then this and then this. But on the whole thing, it looks just like one big giant tornado came through. But this is why some people get spared because they didn't get hit by that spin. It spun around them and it -- it's very odd, the damage is odd.
I'm going to take you to this 3-D image, because I know my producer's been really wanting to get this one. This is what that storm looks like in three dimensions.
BALDWIN: Oh, wow. Look at that.
MYERS: Forty-five thousand feet tall. The road -- go ahead and stop that for -- stop that for a second, Sean (ph). There you go. I-64, right there, that red line right there.
BALDWIN: And that's where Jeff's driving.
MYERS: Here was the hook right here. And the hook, I could tell as I was looking back over here, the red and the greens went away and it was all red, which means that we didn't have that back and forth motion. The rotation actually went away. But as it was coming here, we know that there was plenty of damage. So let's go ahead and just rotate that, because it's such an incredible image, Sean, to give that -- that pink in the middle. That's the hail core. Hail in this storm was at least tennis ball size in some spots, up near Poseyville, about 40 miles west of here, and then down to the bottom where the rotation is. Mother nature's so spectacular, and to be able to show it in three-dimension like this is truly phenomenal.
BALDWIN: It's incredible. It's incredible. So that's basically the 3-D version of what we're watching live streaming, thanks to our storm chaser Jeff. Again, splitting the screens, these are live pictures as he's driving along on 64, passing -- I don't know he's quite passed through Holland or not --
MYERS: He's north there now, yes.
BALDWIN: North -- yes, north now.
So we're going to stay on this story. Chad Myers, don't go too far from me. We're going to talk about tornadoes. Again, we're -- you know, this is -- we're talking right now about Indiana. We're talking 17 states --
MYERS: Yes.
BALDWIN: Seventy-five million people potentially dealing with severe weather this afternoon into tonight. In fact, I just found out we've got someone on the phone who caught a funnel cloud on video today. We're going to talk to him. We've got to get a quick break in, 60 seconds. Be right back.
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BALDWIN: All right, let's pick right back up where we were. We're talking breaking news. Again, you're looking at live pictures here from one of our storm chasers on the ground right around Holland, Indiana. What he saw moments ago was a massive wall cloud and a tornado bouncing around there. So we're watching to see if and when it hits the ground again. So we've got him standing by for that. We've also got Chad Myers standing by.
It bears repeating, 17 states and 75 million people facing potential, severe weather. Tornado. Chad was mentioning tennis ball size hail in some parts of the country. So we're going to talk -- we're going to continue that conversation.
But I do want to bring in John Kendall. He is on the phone with me from Hazel Green, Alabama, north of Huntsville.
And I know there were two apparent tornadoes in Alabama this morning. And you, I understand, had a -- not the kind of front row seat you'd like to this -- this tornado this morning. Tell me where you were and what happened.
JOHN KENDALL, WITNESSED ALABAMA TORNADO (via telephone): Well, we heard that there was a tornado west of our office. So we went out to the parking lot to kind of get a picture of where it was at. And that wasn't real smart. Started videoing it. But -- and then it kept getting a little closer and a little closer. And my house is actually located about half a mile behind my office. Actually closer than that. It's the subdivision behind my office. So I jumped in my vehicle, ran home real quick to my wife and children were there and so I wanted to be with them to make sure they were OK. But my house got slight damage.
We did get a little bit, but the office where I work was hit pretty hard, and there were probably seven or eight employees left inside the office. They took shelter in one of the interior rooms. It was pretty intense there for a few minutes.
BALDWIN: All right, can't even begin to imagine. As we keep looking at this video. There we go. We rolled it back. John, just walk me through what we're looking at. I see a road. From what I've told, there is a tornado behind the tree. Is that correct?
KENDALL: That is correct. And I'm sorry, I'm on the phone and I don't have power, so I can't watch it.
BALDWIN: No problem. You lived it, so you can just tell me what you saw.
KENDALL: The tornado was west of us, and it actually looked like it was going to go north of my location and then -- I don't know, I'm not a storm chaser, I just know it appeared a lot faster than I thought it would and it was a lot larger than I thought it was going to be.
So it came over -- like I said, I got home and got through that. Well, then my house was a little bit damaged. I wanted to relocate my family to a church that joins our property and has a basement, so I was taking them to that location, got them there safe, went back to my office and we were reassessing the damage.
Looking at moving some computers around and law enforcement started saying there was another tornado on the ground. So we were running to shelter, and me and one of my partners and a lady that works with us, we had to take shelter inside of a ditch, a culvert.
So we had softball-sized hail, a lot of loud wind, and so I almost experienced that again.
BALDWIN: So you basically had to stop and drop into a ditch and I was told at the time when you were in your office, the roof was blown off.
KENDALL: That's correct. Now, I was not in the office when the roof came off, but like I said, we had employees there. About half the building, the roof was removed.
So it was real similar to what April 27 was like last year, except that tornado that came in the path actually lifted before it got to my building. It was kind of eerily similar to the same path that storm in April 27th took.
BALDWIN: So you've sort of been through this before. We're looking at this picture. This is the Baptist Church. It looks like the windows totally gone. The roof was hit as well. How close is that to your office?
KENDALL: That's right next to my office. And there are other pictures I took of a home that's located 200 feet behind my office in the subdivision, and it was, you know, pretty much levelled.
The bottom floor is still standing, but the top was taken completely off. It looks like the tornado was coming down and touched down right within 200 feet behind my office. And I don't know that it was a large one, but when you're in one, they all seem large.
BALDWIN: And what about the neighborhood? How many homes were hit, John? We're looking -- actually, I'm looking at this big wide shot of, gosh, what looks like homes. Tell me what I'm looking at.
KENDALL: I would guess probably 25 homes. Luckily, it was at two cul-de-sacs, so the storm kind of came over the extreme north end of the subdivision, and basically, just went through two cul-de-sacs.
And maybe 30 or 40 homes had some form of damage to those, but I would guess, 20 to 30 homes were really, really damaged where people can't live in them tonight.
BALDWIN: And your family is OK?
KENDALL: Yes, they're fine. They were scared to death in the bathtub, but they're fine. And they're in a safe place now, so we're good.
BALDWIN: Gosh, I hear these different stories of people jumping in the bathtub and that seems to save lives, absolutely. Tell me, what are you, what are people in your neighborhood doing right now?
KENDALL: Right now, luckily, we have great crews in this area. Immediately, Huntsville Police Department was out here. Massa County Sheriff's Department was here. The Huntsville Fire and Rescue, the local volunteer fire department, they were all here within just a few minutes.
We're moving debris, clearing roadways. We had a lot of pictures of some concrete power poles that were snapped in half right in front of the office, and they are already replacing those.
Actually, utilities have been very quick at getting out here. So right now, it looks like just removal of debris. Every house that I know of has been searched, and like I said, I don't know of any serious injuries that took place.
BALDWIN: That is wonderful news. That is wonderful news. We're actually about to talk to the mayor in just a moment, but John, thank you for sharing these pictures and that video of that tornado.
It's kind of stunning to look at. I can't imagine actually seeing that in person. Thank s very much. My best, of course, to you and your family and everyone in the neighborhood.
As we work to get the mayor of Huntsville on the phone. Quickly, Look at these, Chad Myers. He's ready? Let's go to Tommy Battle, mayor of Huntsville.
Mr. Mayor, tell me how you're doing, how the community is doing now and where were you this morning when these hit?
MAYOR TOMMY BATTLE, HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA (via telephone): I was pretty close. We were up in the northern portion of the city and could see the clouds coming through. It's one of those things almost like a deja vu.
It's following the same track that we had in the April 27 tornadoes as they came through. It's a community. Everybody is pulling back together and we're clearing roads and getting utility poles back up and getting utilities back on.
But we have another wave coming in, which will probably come all the way through this evening. So we've just got to make sure we make it through that and then it's back to getting us back to normal.
BALDWIN: Let me ask you this, because I haven't seen much as far as injuries. Thank goodness I have not heard any numbers as far as fatalities go in your neck of the woods today, but how many people were taken to the hospital? How many people were hurt?
BATTLE: Thus far, I think we've been very, very fortunate on injuries. I think we had maybe four or six transports to the hospitals. Have not heard of any fatalities at all, but we're still -- we're still somewhat in the assessment stage of that, too, because we're still getting to some structures.
BALDWIN: I've got Chad standing next to me watching all this weather coming through. He mentioned more storms coming through. When are we talking tonight?
MYERS: You know what? It's going to be the heat of the day. You know, maybe 6:00, 7:00, 8:00 at night, and that would be the worst case scenario. The best part about the storms earlier, even though they were very large, they were in the cooler part of the day.
If the same storm had rolled over four hours later, it would have been bigger. Mr. Mayor, we know up by Newmarket, one of the schools did get hit. Do you have any information about that?
BATTLE: I believe that was one of the middle schools. I don't think there were any injuries out of that, from everything that we've heard. I don't think there were any transports.
The biggest problem is all the debris down around the schools and getting parents there to pick up children, just being able to get them in and get them out.
MYERS: We also heard about some school districts letting kids out early. What do you know about that?
BATTLE: We all, after seeing the first wave come through and also seeing the potential of the second and third waves hitting later this afternoon, we let schools out starting about 12:30 until about 1:30 and trying to get some folks home before the bad weather hit.
MYERS: So are there still kids in school? Some kids have both parents working. Do you send them home, too, or what do you do with them?
BATTLE: We stay with them until the parents get there. We don't leave any children by themselves. But the school administrators will stay until the parents can get there.
You know, this is -- as I said, this has happened before in our community. We have a number of tornadoes come through, so we are a community that stays weather alert.
BALDWIN: Mayor Battle, I mean, we're looking at these pictures. I can't imagine how strong the winds were. We saw what appeared to be an 18-wheeler on its side.
What do you say to people in your community, like this man we're looking at here, what do you say to them to reassure them, to help them kind of pick up the pieces?
BATTLE: Well, all you could do is go up and you talk to them and tell them, we're all in this together, we're going to help each other get through this, and we have a great community of first response personnel, public works personnel, utility personnel who will be working day and night until we can get us back to what we call normal.
And that's just the most important thing, that you talk to a community and you make sure that they understand that we're all in this together and we're going to work together to make sure we get through it.
BALDWIN: Here's hoping your normal comes soon again, and that this is hopefully the worst of it for you all. Tommy Battle, mayor of Huntsville, Alabama, thank you so much for calling in. We really appreciate it. BATTLE: Thank you.
BALDWIN: All right, let me go straight to Chad, two tornadoes on the ground.
MYERS: Yes, you know, the storm that did miss Holland actually did regenerate, refocused its energy and put a tornado back on the ground after we left Jeff and we were with some of the phone guests that we had.
So let's take you back over here. We'll give you an idea of what's going on north of Evansville, north of Louisville. Every time that you see a storm that has a hook on it, and we're going to let this stop all the way to here and there's the hook.
It's got a big C on the bottom of the storm. You'll know that that's where the rotation is. There's even a little marker there with arrows going around. But Huntingburg, that's where the tornado actually did touchdown. There's Holland.
That's where Jeff was. He was driving to the north and Huntingburg had a tornado about 15, 20 minutes after we hung up with Jeff. And now that storm has moved off to the east. It should travel just to the north or very close to Birds Eye, Indiana.
There's another storm here, Hardinsburg, right over here. This storm is the same type of shape and that's the shape. That's the scary shape. It's all by itself. It's called a super cell. Not really attached.
Close, but it's not attached to this storm, so all the moisture, all the inflow goes in here, the storm rotates back here, and that tornado should move to the north or very close to south of Hardinsburg and close to Palm. It's hard to see with this because the storms are moving so quickly.
This is the rotation whether we see the different colors back and forth. It's hard to see with these because now the storms are moving so quickly. This is velocity of the storm. The storm is spinning in these different colors.
This is what you spent your tax dollars on, so that the National Weather Service can upgrade to radars like this. We're talking about money well spent. Here it is. It's keeping people safe, putting warnings out plenty in advance and keeping people alive, getting them out of the way because they know tornadoes are coming -- Brooke.
BALDWIN: And again, we're showing pictures. This isn't live. This is Jeff our storm chaser on the right side of the screen. This is some of the wall cloud he was filming. He was out on 64 near Holland, Indiana.
My question to you, as I'm sort of trying to also check my Twitter, and it's a great question, and that is we've been seeing all this tornadic activity in the last couple of days. Is this odd, or this is par for the course this time of year and it's just a couple days of year this happens?
MYERS: We caught a pattern called, which is called a trough. A trough is like a cattle trough of water. The trough and the jet stream when it comes down and turns back up, that's where the cold air comes this way and the warm air and that's where they clash.
We've been in this trough now for a couple days. So we have one storm that came through two days ago and this one's coming through the trough today, and it's going to cause storms. And it could cause a couple more tomorrow further to the east along the low country of South Carolina down to Florida.
So we are in a pattern. It's not unusual. It's already March -- it's not March 25, but it's still springtime. We never got a snow. We never got a winter. We're just kind of halfway there. Europe got the winter. Let me tell you, Europe got it. We didn't get it.
BALDWIN: So this is fairly normal for this time of year.
MYERS: This is springtime. This is it. We probably would get three or four days like this a year, and this is one of them, only two or three more.
BALDWIN: OK, Chad, thank you. Obviously, we'll go back to Chad in our breaking news here soon as if anything else pops up.
Meantime, we're going to take a quick break and we'll talk about President obama in the meantime. He is not bluffing he says when it comes to Iran and there was a huge meeting coming up about possible plans. We got that for you next.
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BALDWIN: All right, I want to continue where we left off talking about the severe weather. Again, as we keep looking at these different pictures, and this is -- tell me, live? This is live, presumably.
This is our storm chaser, Jeff, continuing along near Evansville, Indiana. As we have been watching, these wall clouds, obviously very, very ominous weather, storm clouds jumping about. We have 3D images from our weather team.
We're watching this storm pass by and pass through as it's on this sort of eastward trajectory. We have Chad Myers standing by, but Jeff, big picture here. We talked to a woman earlier in Alabama, saw two apparent tornadoes this morning.
We are talking about 17 states. That is a chunk of the country here in terms of this afternoon and this evening dealing with this threat of severe weather.
Seventy five million people, so please, please if you are within this midsection and south eastern part of the country, please be safe. Heed the warnings. Hopefully, the sirens continue, but looking here -- what are we looking at? MYERS: I think Jeff is probably on the Bird's Eye storm now and the Bird's Eye rotation. Bird's Eye is in Indiana. It is the town next in line after Huntingburg and after Holland where it actually lifted. I guess Jeff is on the phone. Jeff, is this the Bird's Eye rotation?
PIOTROWSKI: Yes, I do. Yes, we've got what looks to be a very large structured tornado north of 64. That is the Bird's Eye tornado. It is very large now. It is rain wrapped and it is rapidly moving toward north of 64 here.
It's very large, about a quarter mile wide. It is definitely on the ground. We have hills and trees here, but we do for sure have a tornado on the ground in the Bird's Eye area tracking to the east.
I'm getting reports also of another one on the ground. Both of these tornadoes are northwest of Louisville. These are destructive tornadoes moving east at 60 to 65 miles an hour. Damage to the north of Louisville in the next hour with these two tornadic storms.
BALDWIN: So if you're in Louisville, Kentucky, heads up, because this is headed toward you. You said, Jeff, within the hour? Jeff, you with me? Chad, you with me?
MYERS: I'm with you here.
BALDWIN: You're with me.
MYERS: Let's go back here just for a second. This is where Jeff is now, and we may have lost his connection because he said he was in the hills. This is the town of Bird's Eye right here and the rotation just west of the town still traveling to the east/northeast. The next town in line will be English and then after that Milltown and Hardinsburg.
If this is a quarter mile wide, you have to understand that this is a track that would put damage down something like this as it travels off to the east. You know, Brooke, this is going to be one of many, so very many. Here's another radar.
Let me show you how many storms are out there. This is the English storm. It is rotating for sure. Here is the Jasper, the Huntingburg, and this is Bird's Eye right there. That one is rotating. Here's another one to the west of there.
Here is Princeton, that one is rotating. Here's a tornado to the west of Henderson and then down along the river down here, here's Owen Burrow and then here's Louisville so all of these are going to travel across so it's almost like a rake.
You're not going to get missed by very much on these storms as they roll through the Ohio Valley, Tennessee Valley in the south east today. When you see it coming your way, don't wait for a tornado warning, don't wait for a siren, just get inside. Keep yourself safe. Make sure the kids and pets are safe as well.
BALDWIN: Chad, thank you. I'm going to walk back in that cube and talk to Shawn in just a minute here because I want to be entirely transparent, explain to everyone how we get this information. It's actually pretty stunning I think how you can predict and see that path.
So stand by for that. I do want to get to this story so I'm going to move away from the weather just for a quick second here. Because we need to talk right now about the very real chance that Israel might attack Iran. And there are suggestions that could happen this spring.
As it is, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he's in Canada right now on his way to Washington for a face-to-face with President Obama. And today, the president is making it widely known that he would prefer the Israelis pulled off.
I'm going to quote the president. Quote, "At a time when there is not a lot of sympathy for Iran, do we want a destruction, which suddenly Iran can portray itself as a victim? Further, the United States has Israel's back in and continuing.
When the United States says it is unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon, we mean what we say," end quote. We want to take you now live to Tel Aviv to Ronen Bergman.
He is a senior military and political analyst for the Israeli paper, and on this topic, he is the man. So I just want to welcome him here.
Sir, first question, as Israelis decide whether to bomb Iran, whether not to bomb Iran, how sensitive are they to the prospect that Iran might fight back, retaliate with respect to Americans, specifically.
RONEN BERGMAN, MILITARY/POLITICAL ANALYST, YEDIOTH AHRONOTH: The leader of Israel, Brooke, has repeatedly said that he has not yet made up his mind and there is not a fixed day to make such a decision.
But the sense I get in recent conversation with the leaders of the Israeli intelligence in the political level and the military establishment is that for the first time, there is the sense of urgency.
There is the mindset that 2012 is the last time, the last year, the time frame in which Israel has to make a call whether to go for an overt area strike to damage as much as it could the Iranian nuclear site.
The Israelis are very much afraid of the inevitable day after effect mainly the rain of rockets and missiles that is expected to land on Israeli urban cities from Iran and from Iranian proxies mainly the Hamas in the south of Israel and Hezbollah in the north.
But the Israeli public, the Israeli decision makers are far more afraid of the possibility that Iran would have nuclear weapons. If I quote a conversation I had with the minister of defense, Ahoud Barack who said, indeed all options are on the table.
But there's one option that is not on the table and it is not accepted by Israel and this is the C option, containment. He says, Israel will never contain a nuclear military Iran. We would never accept this. This is a threat to Israeli existence.
BALDWIN: Let me just back up, though, because in terms of the timing, I know from what you've written, a huge point of dispute really between the U.S. and Israel is the point at which Iran's nuclear program must be stopped.
So in other words, you know, the point of no return. Can you walk me through that, the dispute there, the difference?
BERGMAN: Yes, the both sides agree on the effects when it comes to the intelligence assessment and the intelligence information on where exactly does the Iranian nuclear project stands.
So there's a consensus there. The dilemma, the debate, the discussion is what to do with the effect. To be more specific I would say that the argument is on where Iran exactly is going to enter what was coined by the minister of defense Ahoud Barack as the zone of immunity. The zone of immunity is that point on the timeline after which Iranian sites are going to become immune to Israel or American strike.
The Americans are saying in the secret discussions with Israel, we have a lot of time. We have a mighty war machine, a lot of fire power, we have the bunker. We have a lot of time, give us the time, we'll deal with the Iranian nuclear project.
America would deal with that. The Israeli intelligence claim that there are only 15 months before the Iran -- before Iran enters the zone of immunity vis-a-vis the American fire power.
And in any case, the Americans are not giving Israel any assurances that they use military strike. So the Israelis are convinced today that they must take the decision by themselves.
BALDWIN: As you report all of this, though, and I'm sure you're on the streets and you're recognized and Israelis have come up to you, I'm just curious as to what sort of anxieties they may have, and also do they fear a more nuclear Iran or is the fear highest when it comes to potential retaliation?
BERGMAN: Brooke, there is no dates when I walk the streets of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem or other places when people don't stop me in the street and ask me one question, and this question is not if but only when.
Not if President Ahmadinejad would launch a nuclear strike on Israel if he has the ability to do so, but only when would he do that? This coincidental poll or meeting says something about the Israeli mindset. I would say the majority of Israelis are convinced that Iran poses an existential threat to Israel.
And this conviction has a strong impact on the Israeli decision process. Back to your question I would say that the Israelis are indeed very much afraid of Iranian retaliation, but we all have to bear in mind that this is a post-traumatic nation, that they fear the possibility of a second holocaust.
The possibility of Iran holding nuclear weapons calls for the traumatic fear of Israelis from another annihilation. So no Israelis bear the possibility of the mindset that Iran would have the ability to destroy Israel.
BALDWIN: As we mentioned, Prime Minister Netanyahu meeting with President Obama Monday. We will be following that. We will continue this conversation, sir. Ronen Bergman, thank you so much for speaking with me from Tel Aviv.
Coming up next, more on our breaking news involving dangerous weather moving very quickly across the country. In fact, we've gotten new video of our own Ashleigh Banfield in the middle of a severe weather warning. Stay with us.
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