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CNN Saturday Morning News

Tornado Devastates Kansas Town; Severe Weather in the Midwest; Kenya Airways Plane Crashes

Aired May 05, 2007 - 09:00   ET

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

BETTY NGUYEN, CNN CO-ANCHOR, CNN SATURDAY MORNING: Well, good morning everybody. From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I am Betty Nguyen. This is Cinco de Mayo, the fifth of May. It's been a stormy day for a lot of folks.
T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR, CNN SATURDAY MORNING: It has, a rough day, a rough start to this morning for some folks after a rough night. Hello to you all. I'm T.J. Holmes. So glad you could be here with us to start your day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We heard the sirens go off, and we went down in the basement and huddled in the hallway between the bathroom and the offices down there, and listened to the house be lifted away above us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN: A late-night twister leaves a Kansas town searching for survivors this morning.

HOLMES: Several people injured and the National Guard is mobilizing. It's a breaking story we've been following all this morning. We will get you caught up.

NGUYEN: And speaking of that breaking news, check it out. A Kansas town devastated by a powerful tornado. Downtown Greensburg, Kansas, took a direct hit. There are reports of at least one fatality at this hour, some 55 people are injured. We heard from a local affiliate a little bit earlier that as many as 63 are injured. Witnesses say 75 percent of the town was heavily damaged or destroyed. Search crews are going door to door looking for survivors, and emergency officials say 30 people were pulled from the rubble of a partially collapsed hospital.

On top of all that, I want you to look at this dramatic image of the massive tornado as it struck. This is what you call a wedge tornado. Storm chaser who took the photo estimates the twister was at least a half-mile wide.

HOLMES: And rescue crews and relief workers are on the scene trying to help the victims of that tornado. Joining us now on the phone from Wichita is Andrea Anglin with the American Red Cross. Ma'am, thank you so much for your time. Tell us, how massive is the relief need, specifically in Greensburg? VOICE OF ANDREA ANGLIN, AMERICAN RED CROSS: Well, this is a really huge operation. Their town is about 14 to 1600 people, and we already have about 400 people in our shelters. And they are evacuating the town due to the fact that there are no utilities, no electricity, and no running water. So we expect that that shelter population will get even larger. So this is just, you know, you said 75 percent. We're actually hearing, too, it could be as much as even 90 percent of the town either damaged or destroyed.

HOLMES: Oh my goodness.

ANGLIN: So this is a real tragedy.

HOLMES: So it sounds like, you said 1400 to 1600 people in the town. It sounds like if up to 90 percent of the town has been damaged, and then this is going to touch everybody. How are you going to be able, I guess, to get people where they need to go as far as shelters? You said you have a shelter, you expect the 400 number to grow where are you going to put everybody?

ANGLIN: Well, right now we have three shelters in a neighboring community about ten miles away. We have been able to partner with a bus company, and they've been taking people from Greensburg to the shelters in the nearby community. So, you know, we have plenty of space in that neighboring community to house people, you know. And the Red Cross, we have trained volunteers, we have almost 100 of them on the scene right now, and we will just keep recruiting people from our volunteer range to get our job done.

HOLMES: That was going to be next for me. How many do you have there on the ground, and I guess, how many more do you need?

ANGLIN: Well, right now we have about 70 that were from our chapter and some neighboring chapters, and then I think about nearly 100 altogether. This is going to be a pretty big operation, we expect, so it just depends. Once we have volunteers who just left a few minutes ago to do damage assessment. They will work with FEMA to come up with some numbers of how many families were affected and to what extent, and then we'll really have a better picture of what we're looking at.

But, you know, we have volunteers in Kansas, and if we can't get a position in Kansas, the Red Cross is full of volunteers and we'll get them from other parts of the country.

HOLMES: How should the people, the victims as well as just folks watching here who may want to help out and may even want to volunteer, what -- can you tell those folks how to get a hold of you? Again, the victims as well as others who may want to help out.

ANGLIN: If they're a victim, then they should call their local Red Cross Chapter or if they are in Greensburg. We'll certainly be in contact with them in some way at the shelter. If people would like to help, you know, if you'd like to volunteer at your local Red Cross. If you would like to help specifically with this or other disasters, you can make a donation to the Disaster Relief Fund at the American Red Cross.

HOLMES: All right, Andrea Anglin with the American Red Cross out of Wichita. Ma'am, I know you've got a tall order on your hands today, and again, word from you, you're hearing that maybe as much as 90 percent of this town damaged or destroyed, touched in some way by this tornado. That is a massive figure and a scary one. We are starting to get more pictures, daylight pictures of the devastation there, getting a better idea of it. But ma'am, thank you so much for your time today, and good luck to you there on the ground.

NGUYEN: Well, the outbreak of severe weather also produced tornadoes in northwestern Oklahoma, but with less damaging results. You can see one of those twisters forming before it touched down near the town of Arnett last night. Now, this churned mostly through open fields for about 20 minutes before running out of steam. But a second twister formed right after that and damaged two buildings and a home.

The storms also knocked down power lines and trees, but there was no other major damage to report and no one was hurt in any of this. So let's take you now to meteorologist Reynolds Wolf at the Severe Weather Center. Reynolds, I know that the storms that blew through causing so much damage to Greensburg not over just yet.

REYNOLDS WOLF, CNN METEOROLOGIST: No, not by a long shot. We do have some good news, and we also have some news that isn't quite so great. Let's start with the good news, first. Good news is that the tornado watch that was in effect for parts of Kansas and parts of Nebraska has expired. It's no longer in effect. That's the good news. Bad news is, we're going to see many of these storms fire up once again into the afternoon and early evening hours. So we're not done just yet. As it stands, though, through Lincoln and just to the southwest of Omaha we've got some very intense storms, not severe by any measure, but still fairly strong, producing not only deadly lightning, but also hail, strong winds, and at the same time we're going to have quite a bit of rainfall.

Many of these places already saturated. So in low-lying areas, say near Broken Bow or back over towards Columbus, we are going to have flash flooding occurring, it's imminent. Also for West Point, you're going to have some scattered showers, Sioux City not bad for the time being, but you've got this whole swath forming to your southwest that's going to roll right through your community. As we look at the big picture, it is just a giant bull's eye across the central plains. The late afternoon hours, I'd say between 3:00 this afternoon into the early evening, say 6:00, 7:00, even 8:00, that's when we're going to see much of the activity erupt, and certainly something we're going to watch for you very carefully throughout much of the morning and of course during the evening hours as well. Back to you.

NGUYEN: Just looking at that map, the large swath there of these storms just blowing through the midsection.

WOLF: Oh, no question about it. Well see, Betty, the thing is, we just have all the elements are coming together for this severe weather event. I mean, we've got a lot of moist air that's been coming in from the Gulf of Mexico. We have daytime heating, which keeps the atmosphere very unstable. Then with this double-barreled low drifting across from the Rockies that are going to help create lift. Now take a look at something else I've got for you, these temperatures.

Now again, on a stormy day like today, why in the world would you be concerned with taking a grander at some of these temperatures? Well, the reason why is because it gives you an idea of the contrasting air masses that we have. On one side, well, you've got temperatures that are going to be mainly into the 80s today, very high humidity. If you had the humidity levels here, they would be very high from Memphis to Dallas, northward to Kansas City. On the other side of the coin, from Denver to Billings, you've got temperatures mainly into the 50s. And look at the dividing line that we have right into the Central Plains. That's where it's going to line up today. That's going to be the big trigger spot for you in terms of severe weather. That's the latest we have for you. Back to you, Betty.

NGUYEN: All right, thank you for that Reynolds.

WOLF: You bet.

NGUYEN: Want to toss now, or at least take you to Darin Brunin. I understand he's in Wichita, Kansas. Darin you were there as a storm blew through. What did you see?

VOICE OF DARIN BRUNIN, STORM CHASER: We were actually following the large tornado up Highway 183 south of Greensburg. And it appeared to be a very large tornado when we saw it.

NGUYEN: We've been looking at pictures of it. It looks like a wedge-shaped tornado. When you say "very large," the word that we're getting is somewhere from a half mile to a mile wide. Is that what you saw?

BRUNIN: We're definitely thinking a mile wide. When it hit Greensburg, we were probably three to four miles south of it, and it was just, it was huge. And you could tell it really meant business.

NGUYEN: Yeah, it did, especially looking at the damage that it caused. As you were heading into the path of this storm, a lot of people were obviously getting word that it was coming into their neighborhoods. What was the warning like? Did you hear lots of warnings on the radio as you were headed toward the storm?

BRUNIN: Well, being a storm chaser, we did have live radar with us. Chasing at night it really helps. We knew there were warnings, and we actually talked to some residents in the community, and they said that they had plenty of warning, from what we could tell, at least 20 minutes.

NGUYEN: Was this a slow-moving storm? It caused so much damage. We're just trying to understand how big, how massive and how quickly it moved through the area.

BRUNIN: Yeah, it was definitely a slow-moving storm. I mean, you have a big tornado like that that moves slower, it can tend to do a lot more damage because it's over an area for a longer amount of time.

NGUYEN: But how long was it over the town of Greensburg?

BRUNIN: I couldn't answer that. I mean, I would say, you know, a minute or two. You know, it was moving slow, but, you know, it was still moving along at a decent pace. You can get storms that move a lot slower than that.

NGUYEN: So as you watch this and you're headed to where this tornado is moving into, that being the town of Greensburg, when you got there, what did you see?

BRUNIN: Well, actually, before we got to Greensburg, probably five miles south where the tornado had crossed, right on Highway 183, we actually ran into a resident who was waving his arms at us. We actually picked him up and took him to some of his family so he could get in contact with them. But as we approached Greensburg, we arrived before most of the emergency responders. And it was really a scene of shock, you know, disbelief. You know, there were people walking on the highway just in shock, you know, not even knowing really what had happened, you know. It was injuries and dogs limping around. Before we got to Greensburg there were a herd of cows on the highway that was severely injured. So it wasn't a pleasant sight to see at all. It was very horrible.

NGUYEN: I can only imagine. We spoke with a storm chaser a little bit earlier, and he was saying that, essentially what you're saying, people were just walking down the street like something out of a horror flick. He kind of related it to like a zombie movie. People really didn't know what had happened. All they knew was that parts of their home and their town was just picked up and destroyed, leaving them injured.

So you talked about the people. Well, what about the buildings? What about the downtown area and the communities? What did you see in the wake of any kind of damage there?

BRUNIN: It seemed like the western part of town was hit a little bit harder than the eastern part. Still some houses standing, or more houses standing, I should say, in the eastern part of town, but in the western part of town, it was just, I don't even know how to describe it. It was just --

NGUYEN: Was it leveled? Did you see anything standing?

There was still structures standing, but we did run across homes that were completely leveled and some clean foundations, which would hint at a very violent tornado.

NGUYEN: Mm-hmm, yeah, especially with such a large wedge tornado that blew through there, and you saying fairly slowly, as in the case that some tornadoes will move by, and it caused so much destruction and the fact that they've just been on the ground for so long, even though a minute or so doesn't seem like a lot, when you're talk being really forceful winds that can do the damage that we're seeing right there. Darin Brunin, a storm chaser joining us live by phone from Wichita, Kansas, thanks so much for your information.

T.J., as we are looking at this video here of some new daylight video coming into CNN, you can see just the bricks on the ground, you can see parts of buildings that have just simply collapsed. Don't know exactly which building this is in particular, but we do know that 80 percent of the hospital there in town was damaged. One portion of it, in fact, collapsed, and there were patients inside at the time.

HOLMES: And the crazy number we just heard a minute ago, we've been talking, 75 percent of the town is what emergency officials are saying. But someone from the Red Cross we just talked to a short time ago said they're hearing maybe 90 percent of this town may have been touched in some way, damaged or destroyed by this tornado. So either way, 75, 80, 90, heck --

NGUYEN: It's a high number.

HOLMES: Fifty percent, whatever it is, it's unbelievable for this small town. We are keeping an eye on this story with those folks in Kansas, who went through a nightmare last night and waking up on that nightmare today.

NGUYEN: Still this morning.

HOLMES: Just devastated by that tornado. That story continues to develop at this hour and we will continue to bring you the latest. .

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: We're continuing to keep an eye on the situation in Greensburg, Kansas, where the word is that at least one person has been killed and dozens more, up to 60, at least, have been injured after a massive tornado tore through the town of Greensburg, a town of about 1400 to 1600 people. We're continuing to get some of the first daylight pictures, pictures continuing to come into us of the devastation there. Estimates from the Emergency Management and American Red Cross is that 75 to 90 percent of the town has been touched.

This is the high school, we're being told, that we were just looking at there, a high school that has been heavily damaged, at least. But some of the daylight pictures giving us a whole new perspective of what they went through last night. Again, several injured, several possibly still trapped under buildings that have collapsed, and including the hospital that is there that we were told earlier is pretty much destroyed.

We do want to hear now -- we just showed you a picture of that high school. We do have sound now from a student that we want to take a listen to that we just got into the CNN newsroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have no basement, so my mom stayed with our next-door neighbors in their basement, and we had no idea until like 3:00 in the morning last night when she finally called, so we were worried.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We came to help clean up, but we don't even know where to start, so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And that is pretty telling. That last word we heard from that student came to clean up, and look around, and it just seems hopeless in some of those situations, impossible to really clean up when there's such devastation and such damage. We are keeping an eye on this story all morning. Make sure you stay here with us for it.

NGUYEN: Well speaking of devastation, the desperate search for a missing Kenya Airways plane appears to be over. The "Associated Press" reports a government official from Cameroon confirmed the jet crashed in the southern part of the country today. The airline says it lost contact with the flight soon after it took off from Cameroon en route to Nairobi. There were 114 passengers and crew on board this Boeing 737-800, including one American. And so far, there is no word of survivors.

Want to get the latest on the ground from Marie Lora who is in Nairobi. What have you learned about why this plane went down?

MARIE LORA: Well, Betty, we first heard reports that the plane was missing at 6:15 this morning in Nairobi. That's when the plane was meant to arrive here from Douala in Cameroon. There hasn't been any news between 6:15 and 11:05 local time, when there was a distress signal detected by the Cameroonian authorities, distress signal from the beacon of the plane somewhere south of the country close to the border, where there have been already two rescue missions in the area.

The first one immediately after that distress signal was detected, couldn't locate the aircraft. So it is still missing. The second rescue mission is still going on right now using a helicopter. So as of now, no news of the plane or of all its passengers.

NGUYEN: We are looking at video right now of just worried families going to the airport in Nairobi, as they're waiting for this plane to arrive. And obviously, we're getting word that it is not going to arrive. As we talk about what caused this crash, can you give me an idea of what the weather may have been like when this plane sent out that distress signal?

LORA: Well, there are reports from local journalists in Cameroon that weather was very bad when the flight took off a little bit after midnight local time in Cameroon. There is reportedly a lot of clouds and some rain, and that might be one of the reasons of what happened. Apparently, it's just also something that is hampering the rescue efforts right now in the area, and that might explain why they haven't been able to locate the aircraft just yet. NGUYEN: And the area where the aircraft is believed to have gone down, describe that to me. Is it something that is very difficult to get into? Is it a lot of vegetation there? Is it deep in a crevice? Just describe the area to us.

LORA: Well, according to the CEO of Kenya Airways, who is getting his own information from the Cameroonian authority, it is actually a forest. Of course, if it's a forest and the weather is bad, that makes it even more difficult to find this plane. Also knowing that the distress signal that was detected earlier this morning has only been detected once and not since. So it makes it very difficult.

NGUYEN: Yes, it does. We appreciate your time with us, Marie Lora, a journalist there in Nairobi. Again, a plane has gone down. It was bound from Cameroon to Nairobi. It was a Kenya Airways flight. It had at least 105 passengers on board, 9 crewmembers. And we understand that the plane was just six months old. As we get more information on the cause of that accident and more information on those killed in this crash, of course, we'll bring that straight to you.

HOLMES: Meanwhile, the National Guard is helping out with the victims of that devastating tornado in Kansas we've been telling you about. It's a breaking story with new developments really every few minutes coming into us. Stay right here with us on CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Want to update you now on the breaking news situation, Kansas town, pretty much devastated by a powerful tornado. At least one person reported killed from this twister. It hit the town of Greensburg, in the southern part of the state. Dozens of people are injured. Emergency Management officials say a good chunk of the town, 75 percent, and in some cases, 90 percent, either damaged or destroyed. The Red Cross says the damage, again, as high as 90 percent.

Rescue crews going door to door trying to make sure everybody is accounted for. Emergency Management Agency says 30 people were rescued from a partially collapsed hospital. A storm chaser estimates the twister that hit the town was at least a half-mile wide. We have been getting new pictures and different reports all morning. Another one here from a local affiliate, Megan Strader from KWCH.

MEGAN STRADER, KWCH: Seeing the devastation in the broad daylight, if you thought it was shocking at night, it's nothing compared to what it is today, and one of the buildings hardest hit was the high school. The gym roof is completely gone. Other parts of the school the roof has collapsed. The structure is almost completely ruined. We did catch up with a group of students walking around there who said it was really tough to see their school in that kind of condition.

Now, while those students were walking out, police were still stopping people, really trying to enforce the off the streets rule. They really just don't want people out looking around until they get a chance to really get in and clean things up. And they're really trying to push that for people who are riding their bikes or walking around and trying to catch a glimpse of what happened last night.

NGUYEN: Want to get you a look now at how this is playing out on the web, because a lot of video is coming in via the web. So let's go to CNN's Nicole Lapin, who's been watching it for us all morning long. What are you seeing, Nicole?

NICOLE LAPIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're seeing a lot of destruction, Betty. We're seeing damage on roofs, we're seeing trees fallen down. We actually just heard from a farmer, who said that he found gas pumps on his property. This is amazing stuff. Look at this silo right here. These are live pictures from KWCH. Let's listen into their coverage right now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right behind the grain bands and if they had blown the other direction, it could have blown on top of those homes. So if you can see the five metal grain bands, a semi overturned right next to the co-on, and that was overturned in a large area of water. And that's the other problem they've been having is the large amount of rain on the roads, especially ones that are not paved. And that's added to it. We know the power has been out to the entire town of Claflin (ph). We take a look and there is another power line that is down outside there, and Terry tells us that there are a number of several trees down and lots of ditches that have been flooding.

We want to go back live to Greensburg, where eyewitness news reporter Megan Strader joins us. She's been talking to people there and also talking and covering the school situation. Megan, what is the very latest that you can see?

STRADER: Well, you know, it remains shock. Everyone is absolutely in shock as to what happened. And especially when they drive by their high school. The high school was one of the hardest hit buildings with the roof of the gym completely flying off. It's calling out a lot of looky lous (ph), trying to get a look of it. Other parts of the building have simply collapsed in. A lot of the stone structure has just fallen to the ground. We did meet up with a group of students who skipped their state forensic meet today to come back and help, and when they got back into town, they just couldn't believe what they saw.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have no basement, so my mom stayed with her, our next door neighbors in their basement, and we had no idea until like 3:00 in the morning last night when she finally called. So we were worried.

STRADER: And, you know, that's kind of a blanket statement around here. Everyone is still a little worried, kind of what they're going to do with their homes, how they're going to go on. But like I said earlier, everyone is staying pretty much positive, simply because they lived through it. And they're very thankful for that, Kim.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that is something to be thankful for. Thank you very much, Megan Strader, reporting live from Greensburg. If you are just joining us and wondering what all the commotion is about, here is the situation, the very latest. There was a mile wide, at least mile wide wedge tornado that struck the town of Greensburg last night ...

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