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CNN Saturday Morning News

Tornado Outbreaks Ravage South, Midwest; FTC Flooded with Fraud-Related Complaints

Aired March 03, 2012 - 07:00   ET

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

DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: For the second time in less than a week, parts of the Midwest and the south are waking up to nearly unbelievable devastation. Killer tornadoes ravaged entire neighborhoods one after the other and crumbled homes like matchsticks. Here is a look at some of the devastation few there will ever forget. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everywhere you look, there's a story like this. A bus into a building. A mobile home completely flattened. Just major damage everywhere in this area.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) beating around our heads but thank god we made it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I looked up and I was talking to my daughter across the street and I looked up and I just see debris everywhere. And the next thing I knew, I thought it was a dream.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was gas leaks. The houses are all completely demolished back there, completely, to the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The building shook. The lights went off. The noise was incredible and it passed right in front of us.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Golf ball-sized hail. I can't honestly tell you what's going on.

CRYSTAL PENDERGRASS, STORM SURVIVOR: It was just like you were on a weighing scale this way. It kept going like this. The next thing I know, I'm pushing tables, freezers, whatever I had on me off of me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: From CNN Center, this is CNN SATURDAY MORNING. It's 7:00 a.m. here in Atlanta, 6:00 a.m. in Chicago, and 4:00 a.m. out in L.A.

Good morning to you all. I'm David Mattingly.

People are waking up this morning to total devastation. Their homes and their towns leveled by tornadoes that swept through the South and Midwest. In some areas, rescue crews worked deep into the night to find survivors and victims. As many as 28 people are dead. National Guard troops were called up in Kentucky and Indiana to help some of the hardest hit communities.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's just leveled. Absolute destruction.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The tornado hit and destroyed our town. And I'm trying to get to my aunt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just got down. It hit the building we was in and it's throwing stuff everywhere. When we came outside, there was a lot of people on the street that was injured laying there on the road and on the black top.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: This is what it looked like in Borden, Indiana. Look at this. You can see the tornado there. Dozens of people were injured in the storms.

We are watching all the angles of the story this morning.

Our Susan Candiotti is in Henryville, Indiana, right now -- one of the hardest hit areas. Rob Marciano is in Ooltewah, Tennessee, where we've also seen significant damage. And our Bonnie Schneider is standing by in our severe weather center.

One of the first areas hit by the tornadoes, though, was Chattanooga, Tennessee, where hundreds of homes were reduced to rubble.

Our Rob Marciano is in Ooltewah, Tennessee, one of the many communities outside Chattanooga that were slammed by the storms -- Rob.

ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: A suburb of Chattanooga to be sure, about 20,000 people live here. And it's a nice community. There are some nice homes here, well-built homes and in some cases, like the home behind me, stripped down to the foundation.

This was one of the first communities to get hit in the onslaught of tornadoes yesterday across the country. It was a storm that started in northern Alabama, damage to a high school there, injured folks there, came across the border over signal bound across the northern part of the city of Chattanooga and right through this area. And really, about 150 to 200 wide path of this particular twister, which by the way, the National Weather Service will go out like they do in all destruction zones to survey the damage and see just how strong this particular twister was.

We have over 27 injuries. Happy to say, zero fatalities and they think that number will hold. They're fairly confident that they have gotten through most of the homes as far as search and rescue goes. And they think that most of the people are held accounted for.

But, yesterday was a long day. This happened at 1:00. And then later on in the afternoon, as people were scrambling to recover, scrambling to find victims, scrambling to clear roadways of debris and power lines, not one, but two more storms came through.

And we had to evacuate this area as night came down. An incredible hailstorm came through the area. And there was a tornado just south of where this one hit by about two to four miles around 6:00 or 7:00 last night. And in another round of storms came through, and that actually shut down traffic across Highway 24 because power lines were across the interstate.

So, a tremendous amount of damage here across eastern Tennessee. The only bright spot of that story is that zero fatalities. And as you know, David, we can't say that for the rest of the country in this incredible, incredible early March tornado outbreak.

MATTINGLY: That's right, Rob. Zero fatalities. That's really great news out of a very bad situation there. Thank you, Rob.

We may not know the full extent of some of the damage until search and rescue crews finish their work like in small towns like Henryville, Indiana. That's where Susan Candiotti is this morning.

Susan, how bad is it there in Henryville this morning?

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think I have been describing it sometimes as crushing damage to the area. So bad, that they are waiting now until the sun is finally starting to come up so that authorities can continue to search for anyone who might not be already accounted for and can also look at a lot of the damage, get early assessments in the light of day.

Looking over my shoulder, that's Henryville, the high school in Henryville in Clark County that we've heard so much about that was just devastated by that, by the tornado. Let me walk over here and immediately introduce, this is Austin Albert.

Austin, your dad is the principal of that high school. You got out, one could say in the nick of time. Roughly, how soon was it before you got out when the storm hit?

AUSTIN ALBERT, SON OF H.S. PRINCIPAL: I would say 30 or 40 minutes.

CANDIOTTI: And you heard the alarms?

ALBERT: Yes. As soon as school got out and I got to my car, the alarm started going off in the fire station.

CANDIOTTI: You were home when it hit. What did the temperature feel like? And you also saw the hail. Describe all that.

ALBERT: I would say the temperatures before the tornado were fluctuating probably 20 degrees and changed in the split of a second. And the hail was probably baseball or tennis size.

CANDIOTTI: Now, this is just breathtaking damage to your school. More importantly, your dad was still there when the storm hit, as well as a number of other student who is had to ride things out. What was that like for your dad?

ALBERT: I don't know what to say. I mean, my dad, he's a hero. I don't know what else to say. I mean, I don't think I could have done the calls he made. So --

CANDIOTTI: And part of the hard part for him was trying to decide where to hunker down. What did they wind up doing as far as you know?

ALBERT: As far as I know, they went into the high school office area and ended up being safe. Everyone survived.

CANDIOTTI: Thank goodness. The other thing that Austin told me -- thank you, Austin, very much -- is that in some of the safe areas of the school where they might have been, those two were crushed by the tornado. So, again, another reason why everyone is saying thank goodness everyone got out of there with just some scrapes and minor bruises.

Back to you, David.

MATTINGLY: Thank goodness is right, Susan. Thank you very much for that.

Meteorologist Bonnie Schneider is standing by in our severe weather center.

Bonnie, you were seeing -- were hearing that story about how it was such a long day and long night for so many people across the country. Are we in the clear yet?

BONNIE SCHNEIDER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I think we are in the clear from tornadic activity, though there's a slight risk of severe weather today for a good portion of the Southeast. And it was a long day and a long night. When you look at Google Earth, we've actually plotted where the tornadoes were, where the wind damage and hail damage across the states being, of course, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio hard hit. This is where a lot of the tornadoes occurred also in Tennessee.

But what do these numbers mean? How do they calculate?

Well, they may astound you because when you're looking at one day of severe weather, we had 95 reports of tornadoes, 233 reports of wind damage, 458 reports of hail. You tally this all together, that's 740 reports of severe weather breaking out in just one day.

Usually, we see a fraction of this in one day, let alone one day in early March. So, unfortunately, astounding numbers as we continue to tally what occurred on Friday.

Here is what we are looking at right now. We have thunderstorms, and one severe thunderstorm warning popping up over South Carolina. If you are in the vicinity of this thunderstorm, if you're in the Florence area, this is where some of the heaviest rain is falling right now. But we are seeing a steady, heavy flow of rain across the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is kind of a scary night last night. We had tornado warning in Marietta for example, and sirens went off. And a lot of people were alarmed. So, that tornado warning continues.

We are looking at the threat of flash flooding. We have reports of that as well.

So, for today, we are looking at a slight risk of severe weather popping up over the Southeast -- David.

MATTINGLY: All right. Thanks, Bonnie. More on the tornadoes in a moment.

But, first, voters in Washington state are getting ready to decide which of the GOP presidential candidates they favor. Details on the latest face-off, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: You are looking at live pictures right now from Henryville, Indiana. I believe that is part of the high school there after the storm went through doing all sorts of damage. The sun coming up today. People are now taking stock of what was hit and what sort of work they have ahead of them to put everything back together.

We are keeping an eye on the tornado damage of the South and the Midwest. We'll get back to that in just a few minutes.

Plus, we'll be talking with a storm chaser that saw the whole thing unfold right in front of him.

But, first, here are some other top stories. The Republican race for the presidential nomination heads to Washington state today, site of the latest 2012 caucuses. Forty delegates are at stake in the contest, which comes three days before Super Tuesday. Voters will also take part in a non-binding straw poll.

And Washington's caucuses are open, meaning the Democrats and Republicans and independents can all participate if they want to.

BP says it will pay nearly $8 billion to settle claims related to the worst oil spill in U.S. history. A group representing the plaintiff said the amount will, quote, "fully compensate the victims." The three-month long spill occurred after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig which was operated by BP. Eleven people were killed in that blast.

Family and friends will gather today to remember Daniel Parmertor, one of three teenagers killed in a school shooting this week in Chardon, Ohio. Two other students were hospitalized, while another was grazed by gunfire. Chardon High School reopened to students yesterday where the principal led a moment of silence. Grief counselors and police were also on campus.

Shocking charges leveled against the New Orleans Saints now. The NFL says the team's defense had a bounty program that paid players for injuring their opponents. A league investigation showed 27 Saints players were involved. And in some cases, particular players in opposing teams were targeted.

The team's owner says the Saints have fully cooperated in the probe, which could result in fines and suspensions.

And now, chasing deadly tornadoes -- while most people are busy taking cover, some people like to drive right into the path of the storm. I'll talk to one of them, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: This morning, rescue teams are desperately searching for survivors after an enormous outbreak of tornadoes in parts of the South and Midwest. At least 28 deaths are being reported in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.

Extreme meteorologist Reed Timmer joins me on the phone from Glasgow, Kentucky. He's a storm chaser and wants to save lives through more accurate weather projections. That's why he goes out there and takes all the risks to follow these storms and refers to some of your 9:00 to 5:00 job holders, that sounds crazy.

But you actually drive right into those storms, right? Tell us how you do that?

REED TIMMER, STORM CHASER (via telephone): Yes, it's not as dangerous add it looks. We have a vehicle designed to do it for research. It's covered with armor. We can -- we have a hydraulic system itself to the ground, so we can safely intercept tornadoes up to a certain strength.

And we have instruments so we can try to better understand the wind circulations near the ground. On days like yesterday, our main mission is just to relay reports to the National Weather Service and keep people warned in the path of these storms.

MATTINGLY: How close to an actual tornado did you get yesterday?

TIMMER: We're probably a couple miles closer. The storm motions were like 70 miles per hour, even up to 80 miles per hour at times. So, they were really moving. Anytime we came close to being near the tornado, it would blow by us and we couldn't keep up.

So, yesterday, our main mission wasn't really research but to see as many tornadoes as we could, gained visual and relay those reports to keep people warned.

MATTINGLY: Have you ever been caught in a direct hit?

TIMMER: Oh, yes. We have been in a dozen or more tornadoes in our armored vehicle.

MATTINGLY: So, when you get caught in a direct hit like that, from your personal experience, tell me what's going on. For all the people who are in their house and got hit directly by this tornado, what are you trying to survive? What are you living through in something like that?

TIMMER: Well, the whole reason I'm doing it is for research. Meteorology is my passion. It's almost an obsession of mine. And we are trying to better understand the wind speeds that caused all that damage.

There are theories that show the wind speeds could approach the speed of sound on small scales when you get those tornadoes that break into the miniature suction board. We are trying to use our armored vehicle to get up close, if not inside and measure that data and provide it to structural engineers so they can better design homes to withstand those types of tornadoes.

MATTINGLY: But something really quickly I want to understand, if someone is in their home and it's hitting their home, you have experienced this in your armored vehicle. What risks are they put at with all the debris flying around?

TIMMER: Well, I can tell you, a lot of people think tornadoes are beautiful, but they are extremely powerful and destructive and need to be respected. And we have a vehicle that's specifically designed to intercept. But that's first wind gust, when it hits the vehicle, you realize how powerful tornadoes are. And most of the ones I have intercepted were weak.

And people need to heed the warnings and take the necessary safety precautions. I've spoken to a lot of people, when tornado warnings are issued, they just assume it's not going to hit their location. But it's important to try to get underground if possible and if not, in an interior room or closet is the safest place.

MATTINGLY: OK.

TIMMER: I think everybody should have a NOAA weather radio or above ground tornado shelter.

MATTINGLY: Good advice. Extreme meteorologist, and that is not an understatement. Reed Timmer, thank you very much for joining us this morning.

Imposter scams, crooks posing as respected companies and government agencies are there, ready to take your money. It's making the FTC's list of top consumer complaints for the first time.

Also, some other top complaints are against banks, payday lenders and sweepstakes letters. Our financial guru, Clyde Anderson, is here. He'll tell us the topic people complained about the most and how you can protect yourself.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: At this hour, some new tornado warnings have been issued.

Bonnie Schneider, tell us all about it.

SCHNEIDER: Well, David, we have a new tornado warning that was issued for southwest Georgia. Now, this is for Baker County and northeastern Miller County and northwestern Mitchell County.

A tornado hasn't been detected by a storm spotter, but we are seeing indication on the Doppler radar that a tornado could touch down from the thunderstorm that we're looking at right now at anytime, meaning rotation has been detected.

You can see the community of Camilla definitely under this tornado warning at this time. Now, this will go until 8:00 this morning. So, we are monitoring the risk for severe weather even today after yesterday's incredible day of 95 reports of tornadoes.

We'll see that today is not certainly just getting started. We are likely to see more tornadoes as we go through the day. I certainly don't think today will be as active as yesterday, but we still are still not out of the woods yet for severe weather. We are seeing it right now this morning in southwest Georgia -- David.

MATTINGLY: OK. Bonnie, we'll be keeping an eye on that, as well as all the clean-up efforts as it continue to go on across the South and the Midwest.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: Last year, nearly 2 million people, you might have been one of them, filed a consumer complaint with the Federal Trade Commission. That's up 20 percent from 2010.

And financial analyst, Clyde Anderson, is here. He's going to tell us why that was such a big jump.

What happened there?

CLYDE ANDERSON, FINANCIAL ANALYST: Well, you really have to go back and look at the economy. People are hurting right now, and so are the scammers and people that are looking for alternative ways to make money. And so, they are making money off people that are clueless and really just don't know what's going on, and they're oblivious. So, we have to make sure we educate them.

MATTINGLY: And what were some of the top complaints?

ANDERSON: Some of the top complaints I think one of the top complaints that we are seeing a lot of is the imposters. We are seeing a lot of imposters where, basically, what the people are doing, you've probably gotten an e-mail and saying I'm stuck in another country, please send money, wire funds quickly.

And you're seeing people posed as someone you may know, a family member or friend. And so, when they do that, some people respond and wire money thinking this is their family member and this is their friend. They can't get in touch with them and they want to help them. And they send money, and so, they end up sending money to scammers.

MATTINGLY: They send it and they don't get it back. ANDERSON: They don't get it back. So, you really got to make sure. You go and confirm, reach out to that person, see if you can contact them, confirm the story, before you just go ahead and wire money.

MATTINGLY: Now, here is something that I found hard to believe. Last year, the FTC said people paid $1.5 billion in fraudulent street schemes. That's bigger than the economy of some entire countries.

ANDERSON: Exactly. So, it's a big business.

MATTINGLY: How do we protect ourselves from that?

ANDERSON: Really, what you got to do is do your home work, do your research and know, especially things like debt collection. So, sometimes, a debt collector will call you and it may be a real debt and it may not be a real debt. So, you don't know.

They prey on people that have sometimes negative or challenged credit. They call you and say, hey, you owe us money and they bully you and intimidate you and they call you names and they say they'll get you arrested.

So, you really got to take control of the conversation. Make sure that you take control. You ask them questions. Get their information, their contact information, where you can reach them, account information. Who's the original creditor, just ask poignant questions to make sure you're on top of it.

MATTINGLY: So, watch yourself, watch your money even closer.

ANDERSON: There you go.

MATTINGLY: Words to live by.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

ANDERSON: Pleasure is mine.

MATTINGLY: Well, you can join us every Saturday at this time as our financial analyst Clyde Anderson gives us the latest money saving tips. Thanks for doing that.

Mitt Romney has come under fire for his health care law in Massachusetts. But how did that law really change the way people get their health care or the way they pay for it? Some answers as "DR. SANJAY GUPTA, M.D." starts right now.