oh, yes! oh. >> let's try this one more time. this is it. finally, finally! >> bubba watson, the masters champion, that's all for us tonight. from cnn center, this is "weekend early start." it is sunday, april 15th. good morning, i'm randy kay. >> oh, look at the big -- >> a tornado outbreak pummels the midwest. trucks overturned. a town frattened. now at least five dead. we'll hear from someone on the scene. and a threatening message from a new leader in his first public speech. north korea's kim jong unsays his nation's time has come.

also, it's the 100th anniversary of one of the biggest maritime disasters in history. while the titanic remains silent in her watery grave, fascination with the ship still very much alive. "weekend early start" begins now. good morning once again. now to the severe weather in the midwest where deadly tornadoes laid waste to parts of at least three states. this is what storms left behind in oklahoma city. take a look. homes and businesses severely damaged. it was a similar scene northwest of the city in woodward, oklahoma. at least five people were killed by the tornado there in woodward. this is a tornado chewing through salina, kansas. it was reported at midcontinent airport and at mcconnell air force base south of the city. the mayor of thurmond, says most of his town is damaged by the

storms. no serious injuries. about 100 people had to find another place to sleep last night. one family had just rebuilt their home after a fire. >> we heard the sirens probably a good maybe five minutes before it really picked up and so we were trying, okay -- figure out, okay, get the kids downstairs. we have to get down the stairs. the windows are blowing out, and it was just panicky. there's just glass everywhere. there was stuff off our wall. there's grass just plastered. we had a house fire, and we lost our first house. get through it, and it was, like, really? i don't think i can do this again. >> not far from thurmon is creston, iowa. a hospital there badly damaged by the storms forcing the evacuation of several patients. joining me now on the phone to talk about the damage in iowa is john benson from the iowa office of emergency management. good morning, john. how are you? how are things there in your community? >> well, it's been an interesting evening, to say the least, but it's been fairly

quiet. i think once the sun comes up this morning, we'll have better information about the actual damages that have occurred, but it's been a quiet evening so far. >> tell me what it was like as these tornadoes rolled through there. >> well, i think one of the things that we noticed is that the weather service was very proactive about saying that this was going to be a very serious storm. we were having discussions about the potential on those on friday, so that helped us out, but it's always, you know, whenever you have a tornado or a high wind event, it's certainly one that catches your eye and, unfortunately, with both creston and thurmon, at least in terms of iowa, they're the towns that had to bare the brunt of what happened. >> give me an idea of what happened at this hospital. that was the greater regional medical center in creston. can you give me an idea of what happened there and the damage and the patients' conditions? >> well, i think as you seen on your video, it wasn't a structural failure. we didn't have the entire building collapse.

they did have the windows blown in, and they had considerable damage to the roof. the administration at the hospital made the decision that it was more beneficial to move the 20 patients out of that hospital and transport them to neighboring hospitals in the area. they also did have a hospice attached to that, and they had to move five patients out of there. it's good to say that all of the patients that were transported had no problems. they're all now comfortably resting at their new hospital, so as we go through the day, that will give a chance to the administration at the hospital to actually figure out, you know, if there's any structural problems they need to be dealing with and figure out a way to get that hospital back as it's a vital part of the community. >> what's the power situation there? >> well, as we went through last night, midamerican energy, one of the primary power suppliers across the state. across the state they had about 20,000 outages, but those have slowly been coming off the board. i know with creston, you're

starting to see most of the power come back there. thurmon did evacuate the town last night due to the fact that they didn't have any power, but they'll be working on those issues as we come into the this morning, and we'll expect to see those outages come off the board. >> all right. john benson, we appreciate the update there. certainly wish you the very best as you recover from these deadly tornadoes. thank you. for the latest on the storms let's go to alexandra steele. she's in for reynolds today. are we clear yet is probably the big question. >> well, no, absolutely not. john made a good point, and you have mentioned, this have been five deaths, and certainly that is awful, but, you know, really when you see the gravity of this, it could have been so much worse, and i think that's really because in the 48 hours prior to it, there was such an alertness and an awareness of the severity of what was coming that people certainly heeded the warning. certainly that is some good news. look at this. these are the tornado reports. i just want to show you kind of the line of them. this is wichita, kansas.

denver is over here. kansas, nebraska, iowa really getting the brunt of this thing, and these are all tornado reports. kind of just running along i-35. certainly a pretty scary night. i want to show you that. again, at least 50 tornado reports thus far. again, preliminary. of course, national weather service going out assessing the damage. here's the big picture. this is the tornado watch as of this morning. it is posted there until 6:00 in the morning. tornado watch, not a tornado warning. the tornado warning means, of course, that we seen tornadoes. this is the damage and potential for tornadoes today, and you can see this line. when we come back, i'm going to show you where the hot spots will be today, and you may be a little surprised how much farther north that we could see threatening tornadoes this afternoon and tonight. we'll have much more coming up. randy. >> alexandra, thank you very much for that. now let's check in on the tragedy in woodward, oklahoma. at least five are dead there, and joining me on the phone is the mayor of woodward. rossco hill. good morning, mayor. i'm so sorry to hear what

happened to your community, especially the loss of these five people. can you give me an idea of the extent of the damage there something. >> well, it's typically -- it's still dark here. i've had pictures e-mailed to me, and it's a typical tornado scene. it just flattened about probably the west -- the west part of our town. >> are the buildings still standing, or -- >> oh, some of them are flat, yeah. >> have you lost any key buildings? >> what? >> have you lost any key buildings? any major buildings? >> well, we don't -- i don't know for sure. the emergency people and rescue people are out working, and

they've kind of asked -- i'm still at home. i've been out a little bit, but we're out electricity, and it's pretty dark out where this took place. i've just had pictures with that were e-mailed to me, and there's a pretty good size carpet store that looks like it's been flattened, and then it runs on down a street that we call cheyenne street, and a lot of it is just flattened. we've lost five -- we've lost five lives, and our hospital has got 30 some people and several of those are critical too. this thing comes in the middle of the night, and it just -- it just caught us asleep, i think,

mostly. >> were there sirens, mayor? any warnings? >> earlier in the afternoon we had. >> there was a storm that was headed towards us, and the sirens blew for about, well, over 30 minutes, and when i heard of this storm, i thought, well, i'll step out and see if our emergency alarm is going off, and it wasn't, and i am only assuming that either lightning hit it -- it's a state-of-the-art warning system, and i don't know whether the tornado itself hit it before the alarm could be turned on or if light ming hit it.

i would probably assume that lightning must have got it first. electricity went out in my house earlier for a minute or two, but our sirens, our alarm did not go off. no. >> mayor, i understand that you spoke with your nephew who lives up the street, and what was it that he saw in his front yard? >> well, he said he was -- he runs adairy queen here, and he started up his house, and it turned his pick-up around, and a tree blew by him, and -- but it didn't get his house, and he went on to -- he we want on to his house, and then he got his family and left, but the storm, that thing was traveling about 60-mile-an-hour, and it just blew through town and took just

just the west part of town, and an area where we have some really nice, expensive homes that have just been built in the last three to five years, so -- >> well, mayor, we really appreciate you talking with us. i know this is a very difficult time for your town, difficult morning for all of you. i'll let you get back to the work that needs to be done there, and, again, appreciate your time and wish you the very best. >> i appreciate you being concerned with us. thanks. >> that's mayor rosco hill sharing new information with us telling thaws 37 people are in the hospital there. several critical. just flattened the west part of his town. they've lost five people there. it came in the middle of the night, he said, caught us asleep was his exact quote. here's a rundown of some other stories that we're working on. you have seen the damage from those tornadoes that ripped through the midwest. ahead, one family's story of survival after their town was nearly wiped out. and we'll take you to

kentucky where the bourbon business is suddenly booming. what's behind the growing demand? also, the titanic sank 100 years ago today. we're dispelling some popular myths. plus, on the hunt for tornadoes. we'll talk to a storm chaser who has been very busy, as you can imagine, this weekend, as twisters slammed the midwest. you're watching cnn weekend early start where news doesn't take the weekend off. for their clients' futures.s wod helping millions of americans retire on their terms. when they want. where they want. doing what they want. ameriprise. the strength of a leader in retirement planning. the heart of 10,000 advisors working with you one-to-one. together for your future. ♪ mcallen, texas. in here, heavy rental equipment in the middle of nowhere, is always headed somewhere. to give it a sense of direction, at&t created

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north korea. in a rare public speech from that country's new leader -- in fact, his first televised speech since taking over -- kim jong un talking tough about his military strength and tletsz from the international community. paula hancock is joining us live from seoul, south korea. paula, good morning to you. how unusual would you say this speech was? >> it's very unusual. this is a real break from tradition. the first time we have heard kim jong un speak. it's probably the first time his people have heard him speak as well. it's really a break away from the aloof tradition of his late father, kim jong il. you did not see him making speeches like this. kim jong un spoke for more than 20 minutes to a very vast crowd in one of the squares in pyongyang. there were thousands of soldiers there. there was a very grand military parade there also, and also the military hardware of this country was paraded in front of

kim jong un. rockets, missiles, tanks, and also good-stepping soldiers. what he said was in line with what his father has said before. the fact that military comes first in north korea. this policy that the military is the be all, end all. it's one of thes biggest armies in the world. there was another break with tradition, though. >> kim jong un saying he understands his people have had to overcome these hardships and he said his party would work very hard to try to make sure that there were not not food shortages in the future. his mannerisms as well were different. we saw him smiling and joking with generals as this significant military hardware was being paraded in front of him. so a very different leader, it does appear. certainly in his mannerisms and the fact that he is willing to talk publicly on camera, but

certainly when it comes to the military, he is very much following in his father's footsteps. the military is the most important thing in north korea. at the end of his speech, he said to his people let's go forward towards the final victory. randy. >> paula hancocks, thank you very much. appreciate that update. let's talk tornadoes some more now. a tornado nearly wipes out an entire iowa town. >> we started back in, and wind was blasting out and out and out. >> one family escaped to safety next i love that my daughter's part fish.

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thank you, mr. davies. the midwest's tornado has left three dead including a storm system. it moved across several states. someone caught this twister touching down yesterday in marquette, kansas. take a look at that thing go. in thurmon, iowa, the mayor says 90% of his town was damaged. reporter natalie glucklik with ketv talked to one man who survived the storm. >> reporter: this massive piece of metal blocking larry hill's refrigerator blew in just before dinner. >> that piece of iron came from a building. >> reporter: he and his wife heard the siren and ran for their backyard shelter, but say a twister came too fast. >> so we started back in and wind was blasting out and out and out.

go into the bathroom, like you always say, and while we got here, the roof went here. >> reporter: with no other options as the walls began to blow in around them, the couple took cover in this coat closet. >> i was more or less laying on her. laying on her, and i had to get up. i was starting to shake pretty good. >> reporter: it made its wau into thurmon, iowa. the mayor was right underneath it. >> it lasted three to four minutes probably. what seemed like an eternal. >> reporter: when the mayor surveyed the damage, he saw most of the town did not survive, but all of its residents did. >> we had a couple of trees that fell on some homes and people were unable to get out of them, but no major injuries, which is the greatest thing. >> the good lord was with us. he sure was. >> reporter: as larry hill looks at what little is left of his home, well, there really aren't words. >> it's about more than you can

bare. >> and once again, that was natalie glucklik of ketv reporting. natalie, thank you. a snowy reprieve in southern california. a late season storm dumps up to a foot of snow and gives the resorts an excuse to stay open just a little bit longer. plus, it was 100 years ago today that the titanic sank to its watery grave. ahead, i'll speak to the author of a new book detailing the disaster just hours after the sinking. think you know your titanic trivia? all day we'll be quizzing you. first, how much did it cost to build the titanic? $6.5 million? $7.5 million? $8.5 million? $9.5 million? you got a lot of choices here. the answer coming your way next. durn'it, this thing's runnin' slow.

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before the break we gave you awe quiz asking how much it costs to build the titanic. well, there are your choices. the answer? $7.5 million. hopefully somebody got it right. all right. time to go cross-country for news making news coast-to-coast. a late season snowstorm giving ski resorts an extra weekend of business in southern california. as much as a foot of snow fell on the mountains on the weekend the slopes were set to close. a u.s. coast guard plane diverted from a ceremonying the titanic and sent to a modern day rescue. the plane was set to drop wreaths at the site of the legendary sinking, but instead scrambled that was in trouble. boston's fenway park celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, and to celebrate it invited a 100-year-old fan to toss out the

first pitch. bill hogan jr. was 6 days old, 6 days old, when the legendary stadium opened back in 1912. how great for him? that's so nice to see. all right. now some late night laughs from "saturday night live." republicans appeared to have settled on mitt romney for their nominee, but the venerable show isn't ready to let go of the once crowded field. here the crew pokes fun at romney and the rest. watch. >> rick santorum, it's good to see you. >> it's good to see you, mitt. >> here you go. >> great. thank you. and i have placed your tip in this envelope. make sure you give it to your husband when you get home. he'll know best what to do with it. >> don't spend it on birth control. >> yeah. cheers. >> hope you aren't reminiscing without me. >> hey, it's rick perry. >> hey, you guys remember that weird game show we were on and we were standing at a podium and answering questions? >> yeah, rick. that wasn't a game show. those were debates. >> well, well, well.

>> hey, it's michelle bachmann. all right. >> there was oon a moment when i was the frontrunner, and then it all fell apart when newsweek ran a very creepy cover photo of my face. >> oh, that's right. hey, come, on michelle. show us the news week face. >> i couldn't. >> come on. ♪ chanting news week face >> all right. fine. is this bar serving food? i am starving. >> we can always order a pizza. >> herm! >> oh, no, guys. gingrich is here. >> can't believe you are still in the race. i heard his campaign is completely out of money. >> uh-huh. >> oh, man. look. he is stealing nuts. >> that is hilarious. the real gingrich, by the way, admits that his campaign is running low on cash, but he says he'll stay in the race until romney does clinch the nomination. a tornado touches down and new warnings go up one day after a deadly outbreak.

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i'm randy kay. it is just about half past the hour. the death toll is rising from yesterday's outbreak of tornadoes across the midwest. in northwest oklahoma five people are confirmed dead in the town of woodward. at least two of the victims were children. there were 88 reports of tornadoes touching down in oklahoma, kansas, nebraska, and iowa. when the sunrises in a couple of hours, search crews will begin canvassing for more victims. in southwest iowa the mare of thurmon says 90% of the town is damaged or destroyed. after the tornado more bad weather forced all 300 residents to evacuate to a nearby town. wichita, kansas, is the largest city to have been struck, and emergency crews are still trying to assess the full

extent of the damage there. a mobile home park and an airport are among the areas hardest hit. cnn national correspondent susan candiotti has the latest. what have you been able to see? >> reporter: well, it's been a rough night, certainly, for people here in kansas, randy, because throughout the night you had funnel clouds sited and many of them touching down as they were hopscotching across the state. we also heard sirens going off in downtown wichita throughout that area, and late m night they discovered that a funnel cloud did apparently touch down hitting a mobile home park that's about a half mile away from where we are. they have it closed off that area to us, so this is close as we can get at this point. however, there is, well, relatively good news. unfortunately, ten to 15 of those mobile homes were destroyed. however, good news. no serious injuries reported. the most serious one reported was someone suffering a broken

leg. other than that, a serious property damage, you can see over my shoulder here in the dark that they have a lot of power lines down. they have some polls down. you have seen those as well. of course, randy, they have been hampered by the darkness and the rain that's been going on all night, and certainly when the sun comes up, they'll be able to get a better assessment of the damage. >> susan, what kind of warning was there? did this community know what was coming, what was about to hit them? >> oh, they sure did, and, you know, this is one of those rare times we spent the day yesterday at the storm prediction center in norman, oklahoma, and they were able to get out these warnings at least two days ahead of the storm telling people that very serious damage could erupt from many of these storms. high risk storms. possibly catastrophic damage. fortunately in this area we don't have any early indications of that, but a lot of warnings went out. sirens were certainly sounded in

this area. we heard them a lot. people did have ample warning. we would like to think that most of them took advantage of those warnings, made their preparations as they were repeatedly told to do. in fact, we talked with one woman whose home was spared, but she told our cnn that she wore a bicycle helmet, her and the family, and they hunkered down in their basement. fortunately, they were spared. >> a bicycle helmet. that is some very good thinking there. susan camdiotti, thank you very much. we will check in with you throughout the morning. ♪ top stories now. celebrations in north korea include a warning to the west. our military is powerful and can handle any kind of fight. >> translator: our military has become a powerful military able to handle my kind of modern warfare with complete offensive

and defensive capabilities. the foreign powers are not the only ones with monopoly on military supremacy and the days of their threatening and lying to us with atomic weapons is forever gone. >> that's north korea leader kim jong-un, in his first televised speech since assuming power. it's been 100 years since his grandfather's birth. about a dozen secret service members have been relieved of duty. they're accused of misconduct involving prostitutes. two government officials say the agents and officers allegedly brought back several prost foouts tuts to their hotel. none of the secret service members involved were part of the president's personal detail. one person is dead, another four missing after a boating accident off the coast of san francisco. the u.s. coast guard says 38 foot sailing vessel called the low speed chase was competing in an annual yacht race when it ran aground yesterday. three other crew members have

been rescued. and a member of the disco super group, the bee gees is in a coma this morning. robin gibb has been dealing with colon and liver cancer. his rep says doctors believe he has a secondary tumor. he also has pneumonia. on his website his family says we are all hoping and praying that he will pull through. we are following breaking news this morning out of kabul, afghanistan. cnn has confirmed that the taliban is claiming responsibility for a number of explosions close to our cnn bureau there, so let's get right to mohammed jamjun. he is live in kabul for us this morning. what's the latest? >> reporter: randy, these attacks started a little over an hour ago. we heard in the neighborhood of 25 to 26. we're still hearing sporadic small armed gunfire. we've heard a lot of rpg fire as well. a very tense, very chaotic scene here in central kabul.

i should talk a little bit about this neighborhood. this is a compound that houses a lot of embassies, a lot of businesses that are frequented by westerners. we spoke to one policeman earlier who said there was a hotel in the neighborhood in the vicinity of a round-about that's also come under attack. we do not have any casualty figures yet. the interior ministry and the security forces have not given a lot of detail so far, but it is rare to have this kind of an attack in this part of the city. this is the heart of kabul. the heart of the dip low maltic area in kabul. local yeetd here has been saying they believe that embassies may have come under attack, but, again, security forces here in the entry ministry have not confirmed that at this stage. very rare to have attacks here because this is a very heavily fortfied, very heavily guarded part of the city. randy. >> all right, mohammed. please keep us up-to-date on the very latest there this morning. thank you. an american original and an industry on the rise. why is the bourbon belt enjoying such high times? we're heading to kentucky to find out.

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chances are the last few weeks haven't been kind to your portfolio. what's on tap this coming week? futures point to more of the same with the dow, the s&p, and the nasdaq all trending down. sfwlirchlgt the middle east has oil. africa has diamonds. america has bourbon. in a sluggish economy, that's something to brag about. jobs that will never be outsourced. a product that is wildly popular around the world. here's poppy harlow. >> reporter: it's almost as old as this country. >> nectar of the gods. >> reporter: perhaps not since prohibition has this many people wanted to drink it. what has happened to bourbon in the last few years?

>> we're going through the renaissance. the development of super premium bourbons. i have peek looking at bourbon. exporting bourbon around the world. you know, people from australia and germany and the u.k. and the far east, they're discovering bourbon and liking it. >> reporter: the great grandson of jim beam took us on a tour of their distillery on kentucky's bourbon trail. >> this is bourbon country. >> yes, ma'am. right where we're standing within 65 miles of where we are 95% of the world's bourbon is produced. >> reporter: there are more than barrels of bourbon in kentucky right now than there are people. 4.7 million barrels aging in the bluegrass state. >> we have almost two million barrels of bourbon aging here at our facility. >> reporter: but why the surge in popularity now? >> because it's got a story to tell. it's america's native spirit. it has heritage. it has draftsmanship and authenticity, and people want to hear those stories. >> that's why i got in. >> reporter: or maybe it's the

"mad men" effect. >> doing my best here. >> reporter: bourbon was kind of considered your dad's drink or your granddad's drink. nobody fooled with it much. we're starting to see the growth. it's going leaps and bounds. >> reporter: or maybe it's the women. >> we're learning that, hey, the female market is a big market there, and for years everybody neglected the women because they never thought they would drink bourbon. >> reporter: last year alone almost 1.4 billion dollars of liquor was exported from america. almost 70% of that was whiskey, and a big portion, bourbon. why? because you can't make it just anywhere. in 1964 congress decreed bourbon a distinct product of the united states. just like scotch only comes from scotland. that's what's keeping these jobs in kentucky. >> it is america's native spirit. this is as american as it gets. >> reporter: and america still sells. >> is this the busiest year you've had yet? >> oh, yes. >> reporter: no question? >> no question.

>> reporter: maker's mark shipped out more than 12 million bottles of bourbon last year. jim beam turns out 180 bottles a minute, and the kentucky bourbon trail gets 450,000 visits a year. >> this is one thing you can never outsource no matter what. >> no, ma'am. this is something we do right here in kentucky. we've been doing it for over 200 years, and we'll be doing it for 200 years in the future. >> poppy harlow, thank you very much. 100 years after the titanic tragedy, now there's a new book chronicling the first hours after the sinking and how the media, guess what, completely missed the story. but, first, think you know your titanic trivia? all day we'll be quizzing you, so how long did it take for the titanic to sink? the answer is next.

sfloimplt all day we're asking you about titanic trivia. how long did it take for the titanic to sink? the unsinkable ship went down in two hours and 40 minutes. a trans-atlantic cruise with a back story that goes back 100 years. maybe you've heard of it. the titanic hit an iceberg and sank 100 years ago today. the word's fascination hasn't soured at all in the last century, though. one of the newest books is "titanic, one newspaper, seven days, and the truth that shocked the world." it's a collection of over 200 articles printed in "the daily telegraph of london" in the week that followed the disaster. steven hines is the author and joins me now from nashville this morning. good morning, steven. i want to start with the first article in your book published the morning that the titanic actually sank.

it says the titanic sank at 2:20 this morning. no lives were lost. all the passengers and crew have been lowered to lifeboats and transferred to the virginian. it was really shocking to read all the misinformation. i mean, certainly that was wrong, so all of that misinformation was printed after the titanic sank. >> well, that's right. they didn't have cell phones back then. they didn't have satellite. they didn't have a lot of things. they did have the wireless telegraph. of course, the titanic sank so the wireless was not going to be communicating from there, and the other ships at sea didn't have very much information, so what they did was they went around to experts who speculated tooz what might have happened, and they came away with some very wrong conclusions because they really didn't know, but they were relying upon the experts to tell them about what the probabilities were. >> i want to share another article that was written on wednesday, april 17th. it says the french steamer terrain got into wireless communications with the titanic at 9:00 p.m. on friday, april 12th. that's three days before the

titanic sank. they informed her commander of the exact position and the extent of the icefields. she had followed the route taken by the titanic and passed almost the exact spot where the disaster took place. so is there any proof, and do you believe, that the titanic captain and crew knew of the ice dangers and maybe ignored the warnings? >> well, they certainly knew of the ice dangers, but they didn't have very good safety procedures on board the titanic. in the previous 20 years there had only been 82 lives lost as a result of travel back and forth between england and the united kingdom, so travel on the sea was considered to be very safe. now, the procedure would have been for the crew in the crow's necessary to see the iceberg, and they had these messages, of course, and they would see the berg and simply port around the burg, and that was no problem. that is what had worked in the past. they see no reason why it wouldn't work that particular fateful night. >> i don't have to tell you this, but certainly one of the most recognizable figures from the titanic was that was the

captain, e.j. smith. he, of course, went down with the ship, but there are several accounts of how he died. one is that he shot himself. another is that he stood on the bridge until the ship sank. he jumped overboard trying to get a small child into a life boat. he was found in the water by rescuers, but refused to get on a life boat. these are all the stories floating out there. do you think we'll ever really know what happened to him? >> i don't know. in history you really deal in probabilities. the probability is that he went down in the bridge area which would have been the traditional place for a captain to go down. this was the tradition started by the british that the captain would remain with the ship until it had been completely offloaded or else they went down with the ship, and with regard to what happened, the captain smith, the problem is that there were so many people seeing so many different things, it was dark. there did begin to be panic toward the end, and that's when they lost sight of the captain. the best testimony we have, i they, says that he was probably somewhere in the bridge area.

>> certainly everyone knows the movie. everyone has cried through that movie. i myself included. but is there one fact that you found, a real fact, while sorting through -- not talking hollywood here -- while sorting through these articles that maybe some people don't know. was there something that surprised you, so surprise me. >> well, it surprised me a little bit that in the recommendations that came out in both the u.s. senate hearings and in the british rec committee hearings they didn't say anything about binoculars, and there were no binoculars in the crow's nest. if there had been, it would have been possible they would have seen this berg earlier and have gone around it safely, and we wouldn't be talking about the titanic. when the recommendations came out from both of these committees in the united states and in the united kingdom, they mentioned nothing about binoculars. it's left totally up to the choice of the individual shipping lines tooz what you do with binoculars, and i thought that was an enormous oversight. >> that is really surprising and a very interesting bit of trivia for us this morning. steven hines, thank you so much. nice to chat with you. >> good to talk with you.

also on this day in history, by the way, jackie robinson changed much more than a game when he shattered major league baseball's color barrier in 1947. he changed the course of history. the brooklyn dodgers all-star went on to lead his team to six world series appearances and one championship in his career. special ceremonies are planned at ballparks across the country today, and all major league players will also wear number 42 today in honor of jackie robinson. still ahead, a tornado touches down. panicked residents scramble to get out of the way. storm chasers race to get closer. we'll talk with one weather expert who is always on the hunt for tornadoes.

man: 1939 -- my parents ran across an ad for a hot dog cart. my mother said, "well, maybe we ought to buy this hot dog cart and set it up someplace." so my parents went to bank of america. they met with the branch manager and they said, "look, we've got this little hot dog cart, and it's on a really good corner. let's see if we can buy the property." and the branch manager said, "all right, i will take a chance with the two of you." and we've been loyal to bank of america for the last 71 years.

today about five million people are on alert for more violent weather. it's being spun off by the same storm system that triggered yesterday's outbreak of dozens of tornadoes. we want to check in with someone that we talked to this time yesterday. tony lubbock is a professional storm chaser and meteorologist, and he joins us by phone from russell, kansas. tony, good morning. i'm glad that you made it through the night. tell me what you saw. >> well, we -- myself and my

chase partners ed grub and jennifer grub, saw five tornadoes across central and eastern kansas yesterday from starting about rush center, kansas, all the way out to manchester, kansas. >> and give me an idea. how fierce was it? >> it was -- it was insane. one of the tornadoes we saw was extremely violent. in fact, it looked a lot like the tuscaloosa tornado from last year, and yesterday we were talking about the similarities of these outbreaks, and we ended up on a tornado that had a very similar look to that that, fortunately, remained over the vast open country of kansas. >> so most of this -- a lot of this, at least, was found in the rural areas, right? >> most of the early stuff was found in rural areas. as the night went on, we had several tornadoes that impacted wichita. we had a serious tornado that, unfortunately, led to fatalities in woodward, oklahoma, after

dark. several towns were impacted later in the night. we're still waiting for day break to kind of find out what came about from that. >> how close were you able to get, and did you get some pretty great pictures and video? >> we were able to get within a quarter mile of one of the tornadoes to the northeast of salina, kansas, and we got some pretty amazing video of that as it moved through an open field. we eventually let it stop to cross the road as we were hoping it wasn't going to knock down power lines in front of us, and, fortunately, it did not. >> for anybody watching at home, i want to point out, you are a trained storm chaser, so give us an idea of what you have with you, some of your gear, and how you go about doing this, so just in case you get into some trouble, you are still safe. >> well, yesterday we were relying a lot on the satellites. internet was running kind of slow in some of those rural areas, but we always have uf up to the minute radar and

satellite imagery, data coming to us every minute, so we're very well aware of the situation. vehicle-wise, we have a good four-wheel drive car, well maintained so we know we're going to have a reliable vehicle to get us in and out of situations if we need. >> most people run the other way, certainly, when they see a tornado coming. you are an into it. why? is it just a rush? >> i am. my parents, my mom and my dad, always told me i was born with a weather disease, and i have always been fascinated with what goes on, and to spern experience the weather, it is quite a rush, so it's -- there's definitely stories to be told with that, and i think that peaks the journalistic side that i have always been interested in. >> tony, well, listen, i think it's great what you do. certainly exciting. thank you very much. it was great to talk to you this weekend. >> yes, thank you so much for having me. i appreciate it. >> be safe.

president obama is pushing the buffett rule. that's where millionaires would pay at least a 30% tax rate. he says it's their fair share, but would it make a noticeable dent in the deficit? but, first, it's time for our last titanic quiz this hour. let's see if you can get this one right. how many life boats do you think the titanic, the unsinkable ship had on it. the answer is next. ♪ [ male announcer ] how could a luminous protein in jellyfish, impact life expectancy in the u.s., real estate in hong kong, and the optics industry in germany? at t. rowe price, we understand the connections of a complex, global economy. it's just one reason over 75% of our mutual funds beat their 10-year lipper average. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. request a prospectus or summary prospectus with investment information, risks, fees and expenses to read and consider carefully before investing.

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this is our last titanic quiz this hour. how many life boats do you think the titanic had on it? well, the ship, turns out, only carried 20 life boats. now it's time to take a look at your week ahead, what you need to know for the week ahead. monday is certainly an important day for the suspects in the tulsa, oklahoma, shooting. they're going to appear in court. that was the case where people tlooe people were killed last weekend. we first told you about that. all of the victims were black and all