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CNN Saturday Morning News

Storm Tears through St. Louis; Syria Tense Following Protests; U.S. Drone Strikes Libya

Aired April 23, 2011 - 08:00   ET

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

T.J. HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, folks. We're at the top of the hour here on the CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

These are the pictures we are just now getting in from the St. Louis area. We've been telling you about this for the past couple of hours since we started on CNN SATURDAY MORNING about the tornado, the suspected tornado that hit St. Louis, in particular the airport which is now closed, but we knew when daylight comes, it would give us our best indication of exactly what happened last night and look at that.

These are aerial pictures coming to us from one of our affiliates, KMOV and my goodness, Deirdre, can you go ahead and take that picture back full for me because -- to our viewers. I'm seeing some of this for the first time with you as well. These just started coming to us.

But these are neighborhoods, these are or should I say were homes. This is in Bridgeton. This is about 20 miles northwest of the city of St. Louis and this is in the general direction as well of the airport. The airport sustained major damage. These are some of the first pictures we are seeing of just a terrible night last night for folks in the St. Louis area.

The airport right now is closed indefinitely. But we knew that there would be some damage in neighborhoods. We only saw nighttime video before this. But thanks to our affiliates who are up this morning and up over the skies or in the skies there above St. Louis, giving us an idea. You see this damage.

And Karen Maginnis is here with me as well. We'll keep the pictures up as I talk to our meteorologist here.

But, Karen, we always say, suspected tornado, tornado sightings and we have to wait for the officials to come in and do this and that. Take a look at that and tell me that's not a tornado.

KAREN MAGINNIS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Both myself and our meteorologist, weather producer this morning, Monica O'Connor, took a look at these pictures and we were asked by the producers on our news floor do we think this is a tornado? Certainly looks like it.

And the verification will come later on today. They'll look at the damage and see if it fits with the signature of the damage of what is capable of a tornado. These houses are not flattened, certainly they are destroyed and I would be distraught if this were my home as well.

But they are going to look at this damage, look at how much damage was done and therefore, they will figure out what the EF number is on this. EF is Enhanced Fujita and we go from zero to five. Five would be -- you would hardly see a trace of anything.

We saw a week ago, T.J., EF-3s across North Carolina and to Alabama, also Mississippi. I'm looking at these, I'm guessing these are EF 1s and EF-2s and the Lambert airport is shut down. Last time it was shut down was back in 1982 and that was thanks to a blizzard.

But T.J., this time of year, right around Easter, we almost always see the significant outbreak and yes, on the Doppler radar, last night, they were looking at a tornadic super cell and I dare say, the investigators are going to say, this was, in fact, a tornado and this was, in fact, damage caused by a tornado. There you can see, the Lambert field, the main terminal there looks like a lot of the windows have been blown out.

HOLMES: And we were told in some cases 50 percent to maybe just about all, in one of the particular terminals there, windows had been blown out. These are some newer pictures, daytime pictures as well.

But this has been the focus at least so much of the attention this morning is this airport. This airport is shut down indefinitely folks, nothing going in, nothing coming out. We had the spokesperson on with me a short time ago saying that they are on a backup generator right now. They are without power.

The other thing we should emphasize is that as of now, we're told that there are no serious injuries to report. There were a number at the airport, a number of injuries, but we're told no serious ones to report.

Again, these are brand new pictures we are getting in, looking along with you this morning. We had reports you see a couple of planes sitting there, looks like a few things strewn about, but some of the people were on those planes last night Karen when this thing was hitting.

Now we always try to get to a safe spot, try to get to a lower level and all these things. Can you imagine being out there on the runway, on the tarmac and people reporting that literally their planes started rocking as this was happening last night.

MAGINNIS: It would absolutely be terrifying. They're saying that terminal one had the most damage. There you can see, now these roofs, they're very easy to lift off, whatever kind of sheathing is over top of the roofline.

So when you see actual structures that are pulled apart, you know that that was a more intense portion of the system. Yes, there we go. You kind of see they zipper of or they get blown back.

Also, there was a Reds and Cardinals game and it started raining and the storm was moving across that area right about that time. They pulled the tarmac across -- a tarp across the field there.

Here's a wider view from our affiliate KPLR and KTVI and last night during the storm, they reported nearly 50,000 people without power and in a nearby county in Illinois, they were saying that there were about 10,000 people without power. So this hopped, skipped and jumped over several states.

HOLMES: It's amazing to see. Again, as we continue to look at the airport here, we were showing the pictures from the neighborhoods a moment ago, but it's always, Karen, so fascinating to see a home destroyed in one spot and then a house right next door sometimes, maybe two houses down or the neighborhood over, looked like it hasn't even been touched by a storm.

MAGINNIS: I spoke with one of our meteorologists who's over at CNN international and she used to work in this particular market. She said that the former police chief of St. Louis had his home destroyed. He was trapped in his basement. He got out. He is fine. But he looked across the street, the home across the street from him was perfectly fine.

HOLMES: All right. We continue to show you these pictures. I do want our viewers now to listen in to my conversation a little earlier with the spokesperson, Jeff Lea, from Lambert International Airport in St. Louis giving us the very latest, an update, and I'm sure things may have changed by now. This is what he told me just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF LEA, ST. LOUIS AIRPORT (via telephone): Well, it's pretty extensive. We are very fortunate that we only had five people transported to the hospital. And those appear to be minor injuries. We might have had another 10 to 12 that were treated for scrapes at the airport. That's amazing given the number of people that were at the airport and the type of damage we have.

Again, as you mentioned, we have high percentage of windows that were blown out in our C concourse that serves AirTran, Cape Air, Frontier and American Airlines. We also had a number of windows blown out in our terminal one, which is our historic terminal that was built in 1956. And then, a lot of the pictures you're probably airing this morning are some of the damage outside of that terminal which we had a lot of cars impacted. I know we had a shuttle van that was hanging off the terminal parking garage.

HOLMES: Yes.

LEA: A lot of sign structures that were blown down, three light poles. Right now, the airport is still on the backup generator. So, basically, we're on our emergency system. You can understand why we just cannot open the airport at this time.

HOLMES: Sir, one more thing to you here. How many people, do you estimate, you had in your airport terminal between the passengers, you have a lot of people working there as well. How many people were there? And it seems remarkable that you had as few injuries as you had.

LEA: It is quite amazing. We do know that we had certainly the tornado sirens were heard. We do know that we had a lot of our staff, personnel and colleagues that were assisting the passengers and visitors to take cover, if you will, and to move into the interior part of the airport, to go to safe zone and we think that had a great part in reducing the number of injuries.

As far as the number of people, I certainly don't have an account. But I'm sure it was, you know, hundreds to thousands that were at the airport.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right. I want to turn immediately now to our affiliate KSDK. They're sharing some of the live pictures as well. I also want to listen in, our local affiliate, our local reporters of course they know these areas and know them well. Want to listen in to what's going on live on our air at one of our affiliates right now.

(BEGIN JOINT COVERAGE, KSDK) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a more inclusive to the different types of damage. So it's a more involved scale. In fact, here it is right now.

You know, an EF-2 would be winds of 111 to 135 miles per hour. I think we're probably going to be looking at some EF-3 damage here based on, you know, EF-2, EF-3 seems to be reasonable guesstimates at this early stage based on those chopper pictures. To get to an EF-4, you've got to get winds up to 166 to about 200 miles per hour and then once it goes over 200 miles per hour, it's an EF-5.

And again, the description of an EF-5, that 200 mile per hour threshold is the destruction of engineered or well constructed residences slab wiped clean, OK, complete destruction. But all walls would certainly fit into an EF-4 and there's a couple of homes in there where it looks like almost all of the walls are gone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The damage looks explosive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, so some of the damage it looks like, you know, there were glancing blows, but some of the damage looks like someone dropped a bomb on these structures.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. And that's -- you know the tornado in and of itself, is -- when they come in, you know, you don't know how wide they're going to be. Sometimes they're only maybe 50 yards wide. This one, obviously, is going to be one of the larger width tornadoes to cause this kind of damage. Casey Nolan (ph) is in this area right now.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Casey, we're looking at the aerial pictures still and you see what appears to be residents. They seem like they're walking along lost. I can't imagine what they're going through right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. And I was going to tell you, one of the other things, right there first of all, that car that's flipped up, that's the gentleman we were hearing from earlier and something he was emphatic about saying was that he -- you guys were talking about the warnings, he said in no uncertain terms, the warnings saved his life, his daughter's life, his sister's life and he believed everybody on the block. He was adamant about getting that word out. Something we heard from him in the 5:30 hour or 6:00 hour.

One of the other immediate concerns they had, as soon as this happened, there was a gas leak, if not more than one, natural gas leaks were going on in this neighborhood. That, coupled with in some of the other neighborhoods where they have the power lines that are strung, the power lines were down, so you had potentially live wires and gas leaks going on at the same time. They talked --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we, obviously, lost our connection with Casey Nolan there. But --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You see the residents walking down the streets and --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean really, the pictures tell the story of the devastation from last night and as Scott mentioned, you know, we'll wait to hear the specifics of what, you know, the magnitude of these tornadoes. But, you know, based on what you were saying, I mean it's likely that we're looking at an EF-3, EF-4 tornadoes. But as a practical matter, lives have been altered tremendously. The good news so far, is that there were no fatalities. But the devastation is going to be with this community for months, if not years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. You look at that home right there, and I'm finding a hard time finding a wall.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Even an interior wall there. You see the cars that were in the garage. But you just -- you look inside and it looks like you've got a complete collapse of the roof and the walls and everything else in there.

And just, you know, a mess. And I don't know, you know, you just don't see much in the way of walls standing. That one still has some of the interior walls, it looks like, but it looked like it came from the back side and just sheared off a lot of the -- maybe the second story. This is probably a two-story home, it looks like and the upper story seems to be missing at this point. That's going to be my guess.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: At this point do we have any idea of how wide the tornado might have been?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, just from looking at this, it's hard for me to gauge and I have been down this street a few times. I would say, you know, you may be looking at a football field width or more, I would think it's safe to say from this damage, which would be one of the larger tornadoes. It certainly was a circulation which would support that last night on the radar screen that we were looking on the radar screen with all of this. But, you know, there's just a lot here.

I'm sure the Red Cross is out there assisting the folks. You can only imagine to have this happen, not only to go through it and survive it and be thankful that you survived it, but then to walk out and realize, you have no home left. You have to pick up the pieces here and try to salvage what you can.

You know, this is a long process. This isn't something that you can throw a tarp over the roof, get a new roof next week and things will be better. This is going to be a long rebuilding process for the folks here and a challenging emotional time for them. I don't think you can discount the challenging effects of the emotional toll that it takes on folks, too. I mean this is just a devastating scene that we're looking at.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And as Scott was saying, if you feel the urge to, as they call gawk and drive along and -- please do not. We're doing our best to supply you with these images and pictures and video because the rescue crews and -- they need to do their job and, you know (INAUDIBLE) people who are there, you know, we want to as soon as possible give them some type of normalcy. So please don't go along those areas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, we've seen our share of tornadoes in this area, but I mean, from my recent memory, this has to be one of the worst.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. This is definitely going to go down, I think, as one of the more substantial. This seems to be even a larger swath of damage and more substantial damage, perhaps, than what we saw in Sunset Hills on New Year's eve. Of course, they're still trying to recover from that. You see the big X on the garage right there. The emergency crews go through and they mark the buildings once they've checked to make sure everybody was safe out of that building.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, when he pulls out, then you really get an idea of how massive that funnel cloud must have been.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That tornado is huge and then it just went right across 70 and right on up to the airport and caused a great deal of damage as it went through the airport and then continued on into Ferguson. We have reports in downtown Ferguson, the business district, really hit hard by the tornadoes as well. You look in the backyard right there just for a second, there's one of those little tikes play things and it's still standing and not moved and the house next to it is missing some stuff.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And of course now we're looking at Lambert- St. Louis international and some of the damage there. And we're probably looking at some time next week before Lambert-St. Louis international is functional again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had heard that, you know and what we've been told is we know there are no flights in or out today. They don't think that they're going to be flights in or out tomorrow.

They may be able to do something on Monday and I think this -- the terminal, I believe this is terminal one, if I'm not mistaken, the old main terminal is what most of us are familiar with, versus the east terminal which is where Southwest is. There are some vacant slots down in the east terminal and so they may be able to shift people, shift some of the flights down to the east terminal and resume some limited service as we head towards the beginning of next week.

But again, you know, the damage there is just tremendous and they've got to secure the building and make sure the building is structurally sound before you can begin that process.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Fifty percent of the windows were blown out, so extensive damage to the roof in the terminal, not to mention the planes that were out there, as Courtney was mentioning, they have to make sure that those planes are functional enough to be able to take off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Look at that. Look at the --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You look at your walkway there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's like an accordion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your walkways, your -- I'm not sure what the official terminology is, but --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A lot of glass broken out in the back there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of those things, if they've sustained injuries it's not going to be usable. They're tossing stuff out of the concourses right now into the big dumpsters that they've brought in to facilitate the cleanup. This is going to be a long process at Lambert.

I know somebody, I did hear the airport director, there was a question posed, could we shift some people over to mid-America airport and last night, when I heard that interview with the airport director, she said you know they're not really as established for dealing with large volume of passengers over there to the way Lambert certainly is.

And, you know, the east terminal or terminal two, is probably a better option using the available gates down there. But then you also have to find facilities for the ticketing agents because the ticketing agents and all your counter folks that are working up at the front desks, those folks are all in pretty much for the other airlines outside of Southwest, pretty much, are all in the main terminal there.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Well, you're watching -- if you're just joining us, you're watching live extended coverage of our Good Friday storm follow-up. This is daylight. And now we're getting a better look at the damage and the devastation that these storms left behind. Scott was saying, it was so widespread and it affected so many -- (END JOINT COVERAGE)

HOLMES: To our viewers, you have been listening in to our affiliate coverage there, but you're continuing to watch CNN SATURDAY MORNING here, T.J. Holmes along with Karen Maginnis, our meteorologist, keeping an eye on this.

She just made a point about those tornadoes, 24 tornadoes reported last night throughout the region, throughout the country yesterday, a rough night in many parts of the country. But you have been seeing are the pictures out of St. Louis which certainly was hard hit last evening.

That is Lambert International Airport in St. Louis where it is closed indefinitely after a tornado, what is by all beliefs, accounts believed to be a tornado from last night, hit the airport and surrounding neighborhoods.

Some of the pictures from those neighborhoods are just heartbreaking as we're seeing people go back out into their neighborhoods this morning.

Some of the first daylight pictures we are seeing of people coming back to their neighborhoods and their homes, folks, are in some cases gone.

We will continue to follow what is still a developing story for us this morning as the extent of the damage to the St. Louis airport and the surrounding area is just becoming evident.

Important to note that at this point we do not have, we do not have any reports of deaths. Some reports of minor injuries at the airport, but so far, that's all we're getting. Hopefully, that's all we will hear throughout the morning and the day as this becomes more and more clear to us.

It is 20 minutes past the hour. We are only going to be going away from you for just a couple of minutes and we'll be right back with our continuing coverage in 60 seconds actually.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right, 21 minutes past the hour. We continue to follow what's happening in St. Louis at the airport that got hit there, hard, and surrounding areas by severe storms last night, tornadoes no doubt. We are expecting a press conference, 11:00 Eastern time, to get the very latest on what's happening there. That's going to be from the airport. When that happens we will certainly take you there live.

But the airport as of right now is closed indefinitely. This is an airport that sees 150, 160 plus thousand passengers come through it every single year, at least last year, that was the number they had. Some 13 airlines, over 250 flights day in and day out. Today there will be zero. It is closed indefinitely. According to the airport spokesperson, they are running on a backup generator right now. So power is not even back up and running to the airport. You certainly don't want to be taking chances with that equipment, trying to get flights to land.

Other points here to make is that no serious injuries have been reported. There were some injuries from last night at the airport. A few people, five according to the spokesperson, had to be taken to the hospital, but those are not described as serious. We are still waiting to see about possible injuries in the surrounding areas because we have been sharing with you pictures, the latest we're getting here this morning, these daylight pictures, showing surrounding neighborhoods and homes that are gone, just devastated.

And even the most devastating part of some of these pictures to see the residents, to see folks standing in what used to be their driveway, standing in what used to be their living room, standing in what used to be their garage. It's not there anymore. Some homes certainly look like they have been destroyed. Others did get severe damage.

Some of the pictures you're seeing here and I was talking to Karen Maginnis, our meteorologist, who's joining me here as well, you see buildings, one is just fine, looks like it has no damage. You go even across the street, next door, the neighborhood over and some places haven't been touched at all, it seems.

Karen, I know you're getting more information now. I'm going to share with our viewers in just a moment some of the stories that some of the witnesses from last night are sharing. But Karen, you're getting some new info about the possible warnings that people got last night and when this all was taking place.

MAGINNIS: This occurred at Central time, when I mention these times it will be Central time. 7:36, the local National Weather Service issued a tornado warning. That was at 7:36. We think the tornado, if it were, in fact, a tornado, they'll have to survey this and assess it, I'm pretty sure they're going to say this was one tornado that may have touched down several times, but 7:36, a warning was issued and then about 10, 15 minutes later, another warning was issued, this in St. Louis County and they had a report of an actual tornado on the ground and they had trained weather spotters that indicated a tornado was on the ground at 7:56 p.m. so that's about 20 minutes later.

And then they extended the tornado warning for St. Louis County and it was indicated on Doppler radar and meteorologists indicated that they witnessed a tornado and they're saying just this damage, in terminal one, it has sustained the most damage at Lambert-St. Louis international airport. The windows in the main terminal, 50 percent of them were blown out. Cars were damaged.

And what you may have seen earlier were these dumpsters, people apparently on these concourses dumping out debris from these concourses and from these terminals to kind of clean up afterwards. I want to mention one more thing about these airplanes. There's all kinds of debris, as you can see on the rooftop there. If any of those pierced the fuselage or the wing or damaged it or dented it, it has compromised the fuselage, that plane is not going to be in service any time soon. It's going to have to be repaired and this is an international airport, so there is the ripple effect of this particular airport being closed, on down the line for connecting flights.

HOLMES: It's a very important point to make, Karen, because a lot of people think, I'm not flying through St. Louis, I'm not going that direction. Well, it could affect you in some way, form or fashion.

So anybody flying through the Midwest, you need to check your flight status, check online and know for sure because right now, nothing is taking off from Lambert international in St. Louis., again closed indefinitely. No idea right now when it might be up and running.

Another point Karen you just made as well, which was a good one, which could take people back to a situation we saw just a couple weeks ago when a piece of the plane out in Arizona came off mid-flight and people talk about that and say hey, that had to do with something in the skin of that plane being compromised.

Well, if all this debris is being thrown around at high rates of speed hitting these planes, you need to check these out and make sure that these planes are structurally sound before you put them back up into the air. That could delay people getting up and out of St. Louis at this point as well.

Talked to a gentleman this morning, he was on the plane, folks trying to head to Albuquerque when his plane started rocking from the gate. They had to be evacuated out. They took them off the plane. Everybody on his plane safe, but still this is what they were going through last night. A lot of people were able to talk to last evening who were at that airport. Listen to them describe some of what was going on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The sky went totally black. The wind picked the car up, maybe an inch or two, dropped it and blew out the windows. It happened real fast. Piece of plastic came in and hit her. I threw the phone and grabbed her out of the car seat and put her in my lap in the front seat and just bent over and held on to her.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The sirens started going off and so we hurried in and almost instantaneously all the windows just started blowing out like at one time. Then the next thing we know we heard crashes and all the poles were falling and they told us to go down to bunker underneath the airport and the lights were going out and they turned a generator on.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HOLMES: And you were just listening to some of the witnesses there. We are expecting to hear from many more people, including one of our affiliates reporting, that a man in one neighborhood whose home was lost, he really did credit some of the warnings that they were able to get with saving lives.

Let's hope that a lot of people heeded those warnings, a lot of people paid attention and they got to safety, but right now folks, no word of any serious injuries or deaths. We hope it stays that way.

On your right, picture of the international airport in St. Louis which is closed indefinitely. On the left, pictures from some of the neighborhoods who have been devastated this morning after tornadoes and strong, severe storms whipped through the St. Louis area.

We are going to take a 90-second break here, folks. We continue to collect this new information that comes in. We will have the very latest for you in 90 seconds. Stay with us on this CNN SATURDAY MORNING.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: Well, we are at the bottom of the hour now. Welcome back folks to the CNN SATURDAY MORNING. I'm T.J. Holmes.

I'm here along with our meteorologist Karen McGinnis and what we are watching for you now is just coming to light to us literally and figuratively just how damaging this storm was last night for the St. Louis area.

There are reports that last night in the surrounding regions, at least, that there were at least 24 reports of tornadoes. Looking at some of this footage, looking at some of this damage, there is no doubt in anyone's mind here or anywhere else that ever sees these pictures or covers tornadoes that in fact they were hit by a large tornado.

What we know, a couple of significant developments, one is that the international airport, Lambert International in St. Louis right now, is closed indefinitely. They are running on a backup generator as we speak. And they don't know when they might be able to get planes in or out of St. Louis.

So that is important that you need to know even if you're not flying to maybe you're flying through, maybe your plane is flying through the St. Louis area, you need to pay attention to your flight schedules. That's one thing.

Something else, no serious injuries to report; some minor injuries reported from the airport, some people were taken to the hospital, but no serious injuries. Also right now, no deaths to report from this scene. But we have been reporting on this since 6:00 a.m. Eastern Time this morning. We had night time pictures.

We always know when the sun comes up and we get the daylight, that it will start to give us the better picture of exactly what happened last night and we're sharing these pictures with you. Some of them we're seeing, we are seeing them for the first time here at CNN and we're sharing them with you as we see them. But give you an idea of the destruction.

Some neighborhoods, homes gone and the house next to it, across the street; the neighborhood over, houses not touched. But that just comes to define sometimes how these storms behave.

We'll get back to the story here in just a moment. I do want to share with you as well what we're hearing from some of the passengers from last night.

At that airport, some of them were literally on their planes when the planes started rocking and they had to be evacuated from the planes to go back inside to seek some shelter.

Take a quick listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're actually sitting on our plane ready to back away from the gate and he said, we're going to be sitting here for about a half an hour because there is a storm coming through and all of a sudden our plane started to shake like it was a turbulence so they evacuated us off the plane.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Suddenly we started hearing different booming sounds and all the alarms start going off. And people of course are getting a little spooked. And then, TSA members come running down and saying get into the bathroom, get into the bathroom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: All right, just a couple of the stories you're seeing -- you're hearing, but you're also seeing these pictures.

We are continuing to follow what's happening there. We're not going to go far away from this story at all. But we are seeing these new live pictures.

And again, that picture on the right, can you show me that, Deirdre (ph), in a full shot here again. I'm seeing some of these for the first time just like you, because this is coming to us from some of our affiliates and they're coming to us live. But neighborhoods we are watching have just been devastated. And there just gives you one idea, just showing you a wider shot here, but some of the tighter shots we have been seeing, just homes gone and people are starting to walk around. It's so sad to see people walking literally through rubble that used to be their homes.

We'll continue to share this with you. I'm going to step away from this story for just a moment. We're not going to be gone it too long folks because there's other developing news we need to tell you about.

On an international level now, a surge of deadly violence in anti-government protests across Syria. We need to share this with you now and I need you to watch -- watch it and also listen to it here.

(VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: This video is from one of several cities where protests were held yesterday in Syria. At least 43 people were killed according to activists. Amnesty International though, says it believes almost twice that number were killed.

CNN's Arwa Damon is covering the developments in Syria, but she's in Beirut right now, the reason being, Syria is not allowing CNN and CNN's reporters in to cover what's happening in that country. But Arwa, what can you tell us about today, at least. We heard possibly there would be funerals and even more protests, but what do we know about what's happening in Syria today?

ARWA DAMON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, T.J., we do have reports of funerals taking place for those who were killed in yesterday's violence. What we do know from one human rights activist, is that when security forces opened fire after one of the funerals, during which demonstrators following the funeral were chanting anti-regime slogans, at least two more people were killed.

And this is exactly why activists say that this regime, despite all of its talk, it's pledges of reforms, despite that the fact that the president did lift the state of emergency, they say that this regime is not truly intent on changing because if you just look at what happened today and yesterday, it would seem that the regime is not changing when it comes to the use of deadly force against those voices who dare call for change.

The regime, people say, is not really genuine when it does put forward these reforms. They say that the president, the Assad regime, is going to do whatever it can to stay in power and is going to resort to deadly force.

Activists were telling us that they fully expected the Syrian security forces to use deadly force against them, but they will also say that the fact that they are continuing to do that just proves that the Syrian authorities are going to continue in this ongoing trend of violating people's human rights, of trying to silence these demonstrators who say that they are calling for a free, fair and truly democratic Syria.

The measures thus far, they say, are only superficial. They want to see real change, they want to see political reforms, they want to see a multiparty system. And increasingly, T.J., what we are hearing are not calls for reforms anymore but for entire regime change.

HOLMES: All right. Our Arwa Damon following what has been unfortunate developments in Syria, but serious and important ones. Arwa, we appreciate you with the update this morning. Thank you so much.

To our audience, we're not going to go too far away from that story as well. Internationally we had a lot of developments going on, but also right here in the U.S. and really in our own backyard, quite literally you can say, look at this folks, look at this picture. This is the scene I'm talking about. It's one thing to see the devastation, and your hearts go out to people.

It's another thing to now see folks walking through rubble that you can only imagine this was maybe his home, he is trying to collect what he can at this point, maybe some -- some of the important things in the home, trying to find some of those things that are irreplaceable. Yes, you can build again. Right now it might not feel like it to a lot of these folks.

Daylight is giving us a better picture of exactly what our folks in St. Louis went through last night and you can see them out in their neighborhoods today just getting started, trying to put their lives back together.

It is 37 minutes past the hour. We're going to take a two minute and 30 second break and we will be back with the very latest from St. Louis.

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HOLMES: All right folks, we are 20 minutes to the top of the hour. These are live pictures we continue to watch out of St. Louis. If you are just joining us let me get you caught up on what was certainly a harrowing night for folks there and now with the light of day we're just getting a grip on exactly what happened last night.

But last evening, severe storms in the region, people did get some warnings, so right now we don't have any reports of serious injuries or deaths, but the damage is severe in St. Louis after -- what we're waiting to hear the word of official -- that officially it was a tornado, but there's no guess, and no doubt in anybody's mind watching these pictures, we've covered tornadoes before and certainly with our meteorologists either, that this, in fact, was a tornado that hit the St. Louis area.

In particular, the airport -- you're seeing the pictures here now from the airport, Lambert International there -- where they are now closed indefinitely. No flights will be taking off or landing there any time soon. They are still as of a little bit ago, after I talked to the public information officer of the airport, they are still running on backup generators at the airport.

So they are -- they still don't have power up and running. There were a number of people, hundreds, maybe into the thousands, into -- at the airport last night when this tornado started to strike. Again it hasn't been named a tornado officially but the assumption is that it was.

But still amazingly, as much damage as the airport sustained, no reports of serious injuries at the airport. A few people did have to go to the hospital, some people were treated for minor injuries at the airport, but as of right now that is not the case. No serious injuries or death.

Deirdre -- can you switch back to the other live picture now I am watching here on our big screen? But this just breaks your heart. It's one thing to see people's homes being destroyed and your heart goes out, but we're seeing people trickle out now, and literally standing in the rubble of their own homes.

It was very striking just a moment ago to see a man who looked like -- Karen pointed this out to me -- it looked like he was stacking China, people trying to salvage whatever they can at this point.

I want to bring in Shawn McLaughlin, is he on the line with me now? Shawn McLaughlin is the news director at our affiliate there KMOV TV and he is joining me here now. Sir, are you with me there, Shawn?

SHAWN MCLAUGHLIN, NEWS DIRECTOR, KMOV TV (via telephone): Yes, good morning.

HOLMES: Hey, good morning to you.

What has it been like for you guys? Have you -- have you got a handle on what parts of your town or what parts of your city and the surrounding areas were actually hit? Is the damage concentrated in certain parts or is it just all over the place?

MCLAUGHLIN: Well the heaviest damage is definitely concentrated in the area of the airport and the area surrounding the airport which is the northern half of St. Louis County. It's really just in the past hour, hour and a half since day break, that we've been able to get our helicopters up and through the aerials get a solid look at the -- at the damage, which is, is you know, devastating, not incredibly widespread at this point.

You know, a couple of -- a couple of subdivisions, a couple key neighborhoods really got pummeled, you know, a lot of lingering smaller damage across the area.

HOLMES: Shawn, were you guys, I'm sure you all and your meteorologists were there keeping an eye on the storms moving through last night. Did people get the warning, a good enough warning or at least a decent warning last night?

MCLAUGHLIN: Yes. You know, this was one of those ones where all the weather people had it right.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: Yes.

MCLAUGHLIN: You know, we've known for a couple days this was coming through. You know, two, three hours ahead of time, it was becoming real clear this was a dangerous storm. And I remember a meteorologist on the air, you know, just watching this particular cell that did all the damage, talking about the potential severity of it and the potential for a lot of destruction and then -- so people had adequate warning.

You know, I think that's what we're seeing today, is despite the incredible damage, amazingly no one hurt, no one killed at this point. HOLMES: All right, Shawn, if I can ask you to stick through me though a commercial break. I need to take a two minute, 30 second break here, to our viewers, let you know that, and so Shawn hopefully you can stick around with me. I want to pick up my conversation with Shawn right after a break and ask them more about what's happening.

And again, folks, it's amazing. We are not getting reports of serious injuries or death, but the damage not widespread, but boy, it is intense where it did hit.

We're right back.

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HOLMES: And again, about 13 minutes to the top of the hour here. If we just zoom down, we're trying to give you an idea of the destruction we're seeing in St. Louis, folks. They got hit and hit hard last night by severe storms. Tornados suspected, but no reports of injuries or deaths. No serious injuries, I should say, or deaths at this point. Some minor injuries at the airport reported.

Also want to let you know that from the airport we're expecting a news conference at 11:00 Eastern time. That's coming up in just over two hours from now. When that happens, we will take you there live, but the airport is one spot that was hit hard last night. Lambert international, which is closed indefinitely, right now; important information for you to have, closed indefinitely, don't know when it might be up and running again.

As I go back to these pictures, these are live pictures coming to us from our affiliates, I want to bring Shawn McLaughlin (ph) from KMOV, he's a news director there. Want to bring him back in to our conversation. I was talking to him just before the break about what's happening there.

You were talking about, sir, people did get good warning. This is -- your meteorologist, you said everybody got this right there, all the weather folks. You knew this was coming.

But last night, were there sirens going off and how experienced, remind our viewers who may not know, how experienced people in St. Louis are with tornadoes, tornado warnings?

MCLAUGHLIN: You know, we're pretty experienced. We get tornadoes here. But you know, it's not the Oklahoma, Kansas, Texas variety. They're usually smaller, they're isolated and they rarely hit the city.

You know, we go through the drill as most mid-western cities do. You know, the warnings were good last night. I think people knew what to do. We're kind of in the mode. We had severe weather earlier in the week, you know, where we had a couple of tornadoes touched down in the outer parts of the market. So it was -- I think it was real top of mind for people which probably helped a lot in this case.

HOLMES: Shawn, as well, just give people some perspective here, downtown St. Louis, the airport is a little outside of downtown, several miles and also these neighborhoods we are watching -- I don't know if you see some of our pictures -- but the neighborhoods that were hit. Just give our people some perspective exactly where most of this damage is and at the airport compared to downtown St. Louis?

MCLAUGHLIN: The airport is about 20 miles north and west of downtown St. Louis and the areas of the heaviest concentration of damage we're seeing right now are all in the neighborhoods immediately around the airport, so in an area about 10, 15, 20 miles north of downtown St. Louis.

HOLMES: Describe for me, if you can, we saw from Bridgeton I believe it is, sir, some of these neighborhoods and these looked like some pretty large houses. Are these new developments we're looking at? Can you give me some perspective?

MCLAUGHLIN: Well, it's a combination. We started knowing last night -- the problem last night was, first of all, it was dark. Second of all it was just really difficult to move crews into neighborhoods because there were a lot of power lines down, roads blocked off. We're getting calls of people trapped in their houses, trees on houses, people couldn't get out.

We knew we were in for a pretty tough situation, you know. And again, as daylight came out, we got a good sense of it.

Yes, it's a mix of homes. It's generally not a lot of new development in that area. You know, homes built in the 1920s to the 1950s maybe. But those are the areas we're seeing hit the hardest. Again, the areas that were hit were hit very, very hard. It's typical tornado where the houses are destroyed, three of them in a row. And then you hit the one next door, there's hardly any damage at all.

HOLMES: Yes, before we're going to take a quick break here but Shawn, my meteorologist here, Karen Maginnis has a quick question for you.

MAGINNIS: All right. I just wanted to know, are you aware of any National Weather Service people out who are surveying right now? And if so, do you have any reports that have come back from them?

MCLAUGHLIN: We haven't received any yet. We know there is a team of four meteorologists from the National Weather Service who are going to be on the scene in the next couple hours to begin surveying the sites and determining whether they were tornados and what strength they were.

MAGINNIS: All right. Thank you.

HOLMES: All right. Shawn McLaughlin from KMOV; again, I know it's a busy, busy news day for you guys and I know you all have been covering. Thank you as well for taking time here, but also for these live pictures that are coming to us courtesy of your chopper that's up. Thanks so much, Shawn. And look at that, folks. That is a vehicle upside down there. It's always amazing to just get the idea of the destruction and the power of these storms that are able to do that. Homes are destroyed.

We are keeping a close eye. We're not going to go too far from this story in St. Louis, but as a continuing developing story, tornadoes that hit last night, devastating the airport and many neighborhoods but still, no reports of deaths. Let's hope it stays that way.

But we are also watching breaking news on an international front. We were showing you international news out of Syria. Just a moment ago where there have been developments, people killed in protests there.

But also we have breaking news out of Libya to tell you about. I'm going to take a quick break. In just a couple of minutes we're back with that breaking news out of Libya. We're going to be joined by our Pentagon correspondent.

Stay with me, folks.

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HOLMES: All right. Getting close to the top of the hour.

We are watching breaking news on several fronts including out of Syria and, of course, what we're seeing right here in St. Louis after those severe storms and tornadoes, but also, more breaking news we are getting from the Pentagon.

Barbara Starr, Pentagon correspondent, is on the line with me now. Barbara, we got word earlier this week that the President OK'd the use of drones in Libya. What do we know now?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, T.J., good morning. The Pentagon telling us a short time ago, the first predator drone strike in Libya did happen. It happened this morning our time, early afternoon on the ground in Libya. This is one of those U.S. Air Force predator drones that carries weapons now firing against the target in Libya under the NATO flag, if you will.

The Pentagon, however T.J., not saying publicly what the target was, offering any details about it; they're holding those cards very close to their vest.

HOLMES: Barbara, why? Remind our viewers why the U.S. would choose to use drones and what their special capabilities are?

STARR: Well, the thing about the drone, T.J., is first and foremost, of course, it's unmanned. It's remote controlled, so you have no risk of a pilot being shot down over enemy territory. They can fly low. They can fly and shoot very, very precisely. That's the targeting challenge in Libya right now and that is what is making this so tough for NATO. What we are told is in recent days, weeks the forces of Moammar Gadhafi have sort of changed all their tactics. They've basically moved into the cities, in more significant numbers, mixed in with civilian populations, making it very, very tough for NATO to target them and ensure they don't inadvertently strike civilians.

So the drones can get down low, fly slow, stay up for a very long time and try to get a really good picture before they fire their weapons. But make no mistake, this targeting challenge is proving very, very troublesome to NATO and could be even more problematic in the days ahead as they try and make progress on all of this.

HOLMES: All right. Our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr; Barbara, we always appreciate you being willing to jump on the line here with us on CNN SATURDAY and SUNDAY MORNING. We appreciate the update.

Again breaking news on a number of fronts including out of Libya where she just told you the first drones have been used there by the U.S.

Also out of Syria, where protesters have been attacked by government forces and several have been killed, but also, out of St. Louis, just the devastation there this morning after severe storms and tornadoes have done that, have done what you see on your screen this morning.

A quick break. We're going to reset at the top of the hour. I'm right back.

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