welcome back to moore, oklahoma, i'm chris cuomo here. the situation far from over on the ground. search and rescue is desperate here. government authorities are calling in help from the federal government, from surrounding communities to help find those who may still be alive. what happened here, obvious, a massive tornado ripped through an area several blocks wide. 20 miles long. you're taking a look at what hit moore, oklahoma yesterday. the power was undisputable. where there were homes, there are now what appear to be piles of straw. the loss was complete. and across all categories. homes obvious, business of course. human loss of life, as well. the numbers are very low. just got off the phone with an official, he says although, although, although, chris, we don't know, we don't know about the dead, he don't know about the injured b. you we do measure

these situations in terms of casualties, so i will tell you, at this point, 51 confirmed dead, 20 of those kids, 145 injured. but there are so many walking wounded. look at the pictures before you. families took to their own before they took care of themselves, they went looking for their kids, you'll see people bloodied, they're injured, but they wanted to find their kids. plaza tower, briarwood, two elementary schools hit just at dismissal time, 3:00 p.m. plaza towers, very bad, hand-to-hand search going through there now. carrying key bring through, listening for sounds, bringing in dogs with their acute sense of hearing. lots of reunions. lots of lives saved here. but the loss is just devastating. we'll hear so much more about it throughout the day. i'm joined here in moore with john berman, you've seen him throughout the morning. he had to leave his shot because authorities wanted to be able to hear the community as well as possible. the satellite truck, the

generators. now word of caution at home. you're going to see things behind us, you're going to see lightning. you're going to see flashes, it looks scary. we're told by those who know better than we do, that the front is moving, it is not a danger to us, not a risk to our truck, so we can stay up and broadcast. it looks much more significant than it is to us. and to be honest, it is a little bit of a scary scene. >> there is weather, and you'll also see the dust being thrown around and debris. little particles being blown through the air, it will get in your eyes and the recovery crews that are working, the power of the storm lifted everything up into the air. let me give you a since of what i've seen over the last couple of hours. a couple of images seared into my head. in one neighborhood, i already saw a tent up in a front lawn. someone whose home is destroyed, has no home to go back to. their tent in their front lawn, that tent is their home. i can't tell how many dogs i saw walking around the neighborhoods, lonely dogs, the

homes gone, pat em who owned those dogs probably looking for them right now. animal rescue a big part of tragedies like this and the loeb solitary flashlights looking through some of the rubble and debris of these homes. it is a sight to behold in the school, the plaza towers school. we are right up next to it. simply flattened like so many of the neighborhoods here. the last 20 hours here, in this town of moore, population 55,000. it's a day that the area will anywhere forget. let's look back. the massive tornado tore across 20 miles of oklahoma city suburbs, in just 40 minutes. from the sky, the mile-wide trail of destruction hard to comprehend and utterly catastrophic. the ferocious storm flattening homes and buildings, flinging cars in the air and leaving two schools and a hospital barely recognizable in the hard-hit town of moore.

>> i've never seen anything like this in my 18 years covering tornadoes. >> decimating everything in its path. homes crushed to piles of debris. what looks like haystacks, where houses once stood. as the injured poured into hospitals, cars tossed like toys from the parking lot of the moore medical center piled up. blocking the main entrance. >> i heard it go over us. i felt our ears popping. it was something that we never experienced, it was really scary. >> nearby, a mother and her 7-month-old found dead where a 7-eleven once stood. they tried to take cover in a freezer during the storm. >> grabbing and throwing debris, trying to get anybody out. >> a massive recovery effort at one of two schools for children buried under the rubble continued into the night. the grim reality setting in with rescuers and their anxious parents. bloody teachers seen here carrying children away from briarwood elementary school. destroyed from the monstrous twister trapping close to 100

students. tears of relief for one mother as she reunites with her first grade son. and a hug to his teacher. >> he was so brave. >> he was so brave. >> for miles, entire neighborhoods destroyed, many describing the horror they faced. >> we grabbed our motorcycle helmets and hid in the closet and prayed like hell and luckily the only room that was spared was the room that we were in. >> debris churned through the powerful black funnel as this storm roared. you can hear the piercing winds reaching up to 200 miles per hour. at a family farm, as many as 100 horses were killed. and most of the barns demolished. >> two of these stalls like this, they came together. and i was in between them. and this just pushed us down, pushed us down the shed row. >> president obama declared oklahoma a disaster area late monday and called the state's governor. >> i know there are families wondering where their loved ones

are and right now we're doing everything we can. >> you saw the filth covering that one man. the debris just everywhere and you saw the hugs, those reunions, chris, you know this as a parent. these are the moments you simply cannot hug your kids tightly enough. >> not being able to get a cell signal or know where your kids are. unimaginable. the picture on the cover of the "oklahomian" a daddy hugging his kid. the mom. we'll show you the picture in a better way. it was in john's piece, her face is bloodied her eye is closed, but she has a smile on her face because she found her kids. at the end of the day that's all that matters to this community as they're trying to get back up on their feet. they've recovered br, may 2003 was devastating, may 1999 was devastating, they'll get their homes and businesses back, but when you lose a loved one, it's over forever. that's why when they tell us to move because they want to be able to hear everything they can. we get up and move to better

location, everybody on the ground is here to help. now we keep being told, john, that the casualty numbers are low, that will be complicated by the fact that area hospitals got hit as well. this is a picture, so you can remember -- if you're going to capture an image, every time you see that one, let it hit home for you. we want to go to pam brown, this is a picture we want to you keep in your mind and in your heart that mother is happy despite everything that's happened to her, because she has her kids. there's pam. good to see you, pam. what do you understand from the situation from where you are? >> well chris, right behind me is a hospital one of two hospitals here in moore, oklahoma. damaged from the tornado. this is moore medical center. and just look at it it's obliterated. obviously this created a big challenge for first responders trying to bring patients to the hospital for treatment. across town where we just were, at plaza towers elementary school, only a couple walls are standing there.

with no underground shelter to go to, dozens of students had to do what they practiced during drills, they crouched down on the ground in the hallways with their hands over their heads as the tornado bulldozed through there. this morning, rescuers are searching the rubble at the school site trying to find more survivors as parents anxiously await. illuminated by flood lights, rescue teams searched throughout the night, sifting through mountains of debris where plaza towers elementary school once stood. in some places the debris was ten feet high, underneath, ever are i parent's worst nightmare. the bodies of school children who tried to seek shelter from a ferocious tornado. many more still missing. the race to rescue dozens of students and teachers began right after the massive two-mile-wide tornado ripped through two elementary schools directly in its path. at hardest-hit plaza towers

elementary, a third grade class huddled in a hallway of their school. >> i had to hold onto the walls to keep myself safe. because i didn't want to fly away in the tornado. >> we had to pull a car out of the front hallway off a teacher and she, i don't know what that lady's name is, she had three little kids underneath her. good job, teach. >> worried parents sent to staging area at a nearby church and searched for answers. at first, several children were pulled from the leveled school alive, but with each passing hour, the operation tragically went from a rescue to a recovery mission. the heart-wrenching reality of the storm's fury hard to comprehend even for those covering it. >> i've never seen anything like this in my 18 years covering tornadoes here in oklahoma city. this is without question, the most horrific -- i've never seen -- >> lance, listen we need to get this information. >> this new video shows raw emotional moments from parents reunited with their kids from

briarwood elementary in the minutes after the tornado hit. searchers were able to reunite many kids with their families. cnn's nick valencia was there. >> was it scary? what was it like? >> it was like a big tornado hit up the whole place. >> you're a tough one for sticking it out. >> yup. >> what was once a place for learning became an unrecognizable place of horror. a student from plaza towers elementary telling cnn's george howell how he survived. >> it was scary. and a lot of my friends were still there when i left. >> what did your teachers tell you to do? you showed me a moment ago? >> showed them what you did at school. >> you ducked and you covered your head with your hands. >> and parents this morning are hailing the teachers at two of the elementary schools as heroes. several of the teachers actually shielded the children, laying on top of them as the tornado came through. other teachers pulled walls off

of children trapped underneath. this morning as we mentioned, it is a recovery mission, plaza towers elementary school, several children is been killed there and rescuers looking for more children there. and also chris and john, just quickly want to pan over to moore medical center and show you the scene one more time. kind of incredible to look at this fedex truck here with the lights still on. and you look at the hospital, as we said, it is, it is obliterated. we've learned that the patients were evacuated from here. after the hospital sustained damages. from the tornado. and the patients were evacuated to a couple medical centers here. and the area. but just an unbelievable sight here to look at this hospital and to look at the damages it sustained from the massive tornado. >> pam la, the sun is coming up behind you, we see the lightning above us. the weather here is something that everyone has their eyes on. everyone concerned. they want to make sure there

aren't going to be more storms coming this way. we want to get a look at the forecast right now. if there are more storms, if the system will continue, let's go to the cnn weather center right now, indira peterson has more. >> we're still looking at a outbreak of severe weather. woo he have severe thunderstorm warnings just south of the area. in fact we've actually kind of zoomed in a little closer and we've seen hail cores, potentially high as two and a half inches just south of you. cell after cell continuing to develop. plenty of instability out here. keep in mind usually we see a little break as some of it starts to wind down and as we go through the afternoon we start to see the activity develop again. as far as today, in fact we've actually enhanced the risk out there. and in comparison to what we saw yesterday. what we're looking at is 50 million, 48 million seeing the slight risk area. but the difference between today and yesterday is that yesterday

we did not have a moderate risk area. but today as we mentioned we have upped that. so from dallas going in towards shreveport and portions of arkansas, we have the higher threshold for the threat for tornadoes. that's the dangerous situation we're watching again today. i want to stress, just because you're not in this moderate area, by no means does that mean you don't need to be vigilant. keep pointing out, granbury texas, barely in the risk area and still a ef-4 tornado went right through that town. please keep an eye out. you need to look around, everywhere today, as long as you're in this risk area. potential danger still going to be with you. >> thanks, indira peterson in atlanta. please, everyone be careful. there are millions of people who should be on the watch for potential danger as the storms continue to move across the country. >> our meteorologists are able to see things, give us a little bit of a heads up.

sometimes it's not enough. but you have to take the word immediately. here again you're seeing scary-looking weather front over us, but not the threat of tornado at this time. so search and rescue can continue. throughout the morning we're going to tell you what matters most here. which is that you should try to help if you can. cnn.com/impact. you can go on our website. you'll see the different organizations that are trying to pass the hat. and finding out specific needs for this area. we want to show you this one image that pretty much captures what we've seen on the ground so far. it's on the cover of the "oklahomian" today, put up the picture of this one family. this was the best-case scenario. daddy's got his little girl in his arms. his face is banged up. his wife is behind him. she's visibly bloodied from the experience. but they have their family, they have ha matters most. as rough a scene as that looks, there's so many families that are praying that that is their ending to what happened here yesterday. >> the girl just melting into the father's arms. we have so many questions this morning here, what is the status of the search, the recovery, the

rescue operation? how many homes were destroyed? when we come back we're going to speak with the lieutenant governor of oklahoma and put these questions to him and find out what is the exact situation in moore, oklahoma. ♪ [ female announcer ] from more efficient payments. ♪ to more efficient pick-ups. ♪ wireless is limitless. ♪ all stations come over to mithis is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds.

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[ female announcer ] from meeting customer needs... to meeting patient needs... ♪ wireless is limitless. we're here in moore, oklahoma, i'm joined by lieutenant governor todd lamb. governor, i'm sorry to have to meet you this way, but i'm glad to be with you, glad to know you're safe. what do you know about the situation on the ground? >> we still have confirmed 51 deaths, 20 of those children and

not to be pessimistic as we start this morning and the sun is rising, but we think the death toll will continue to climb as we find more bodies. the rescue workers worked all through the night with the generators and the lights, we're a tough state, this is a very tough community. behind us is the first baptist church moore, the church was wiped out in the '99 tornado. you can see that's rebuilt and that's what the state will do. >> '99, 2003, and now, it's almost impossible to believe, but you're telling me before we came on camera, the same route that the tornadoes went through? >> that's exactly right. almost the exact same route from '99, '03 and yesterday. and the '99 tornado was the worst tornado in the history of the planet as far as destruction and property damage. and our death toll is already above and greater loss of life than the '99 tornado. >> now you were using the word search, rescue, i keep being told that emergent situation. fluid situation, hard to get in

earth-moving equipment. it's hard to do it in earnest yet. this is still very developing, right? there is hope. >> there is hope and i don't want to fall into the semantics trap, is it rescue, is it recovery. we always have hope, we always have faith. we're a praying community and we'll continue to hope that we find life this morning and throughout the day and will continue to recover at the same time. >> you know that people can be under there. they have been in the past? >> absolutely they can. april 19th, the bombing that occurred here in 1995, the may 3rd tornado we've talked about. you continue to find life for some time. so i have hope, as a lieutenant governor, as a neighbor and at a citizen of oklahoma, we're going to find bodies that are lifeless, and that's unfortunate, but we're going to continue to do that as well. people can help by going to okdisasterhelp.com. and if they're watching this and they need help, they can call

1-800-621-fema, f-e-m-a. or log on to disasterassistance.gov. that's dot g-o-v. if they need help they can go that direction or donate through the other website. >> a the although of addresses and numbers coming at you, we'll put it on cnn.com/impact so you can go there and we'll have the information that the governor has given us right now to put it there. because helping people here is the first priority. we know people are organizing, first baptist for many of us, five different in the area set up. if you're in the area they have water, they have power. which is scarce right now. there's a lot of water pressure is down in a lot of the parts of the community in moore. and as you see, know we're going to have a press conference. the hospitals are banged up. the one a few minutes away. what does that mean as the casualty numbers going up. what is the planning in place for where people can go. >> well for example, because the moore hospital was dinged up

significantly last night. they had to evacuate every patient, put them in the basement or the first floors, they put the doctors in the freezers, that was the most secure area of the hospital. you want to evacuate to a hospital when you're hurt. you couldn't go to the hospital in moore yesterday afternoon. some went north to oklahoma city. there were 85 trauma patients in o.u. medical center, 60-65 of those were children. >> 3:00 it hit, what was the warning? >> the warning was, i want to be very sensitive here. my understanding is that the warning system was good. it was adequate. of course you lost your life, if you lost your child, if you lost your home, you may not think so. but the tornado sirens were activated, they went off very loudly, very audibly. there were shelters available. maybe the shelters weren't as strong as they needed to be in some parts. but also our meteorologists in oklahoma second to none, first rate, top-notch. and we were talking about the

storms yesterday and the potential for the storms yesterday as much as three to four days ago. we knew yesterday we had the potential for tornadic activity because of the fair warning we had with our meteorologists. >> help me understand how it works in terms of where houses are built, what they're built on. because as an east coaster, you think you must have a shelter in your house, you must have a basement. a lot of the homes don't have basements? is that true? >> i heard some reports yesterday that you couldn't build a basement in oklahoma or couldn't get a shelt anywhere oklahoma unless you use dynamite. that's not accurate. our neighbors next to us had a shelter put in their home in the last month. they dug it out in their garage. they hired a company to do that. many homes have basements. but not every home does. it's just a matter of what the homeowner wanted to do, what the builder wanted to do. >> do the schools have shelters in them? >> some schools do have shelters, the old fall-out shelters have basements. scoot that we're so concerned about, plaza towers, they had a

basement. quite frankly. that's why some of the children drowned, they were in the basement area. water came in. and it was what it was. with the tragedy yesterday afternoon. but there are basements, there are shelters, but unfortunately not everybody has one. >> and obviously the focus right now, is in that type of analysis, to figure out how to get help on the ground right now. we're telling you to go to cnn.com/impact right now. you're doing a lot of the search through hand. human power to go through there. >> right and the moore a fire chief said yesterday afternoon at the press conference, thank you, volunteers, but we have enough volunteers and unfortunately oklahoma has a lot of practice at helping each other and we respond and we help one another, we hug one another, we love one another and we have people outside of the state arriving to help. >> we're being told that from a search and rescue perspective, they're not through even half of it yet. that communities are helping themselves, but you haven't

gotten officials on the ground. you have tons of manpower, it just takes time. >> it takes time. this tornado would be like a two-mile-wide lawnmower blade going over a community. so when the schools leveled, neighborhoods are wiped out, businesses are flattened. it's significant and the clean-up will be for some time. >> it's terrible to think about it, but that's what it looks like. governor, thank you for joining us. we'll be in contact, you let us know anything we can do to help. we'll take a quick break from moore, oklahoma. a community in need, this is a story that is just beginning for them to find out who is still around, what families can reunite and how they start to get their lives back together, it will be a lot of information today coming at you, we take a break right now there's a press conference coming up at 8:00 a.m. local time. we'll get more word of what's going on from moore, oklahoma. i'm the next american success story. working for a company

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welcome back to our coverage of this terrible tornado in moore, oklahoma. i'm john berman here in moore, i'm standing in front of the first baptist church. just in 1999, that church was simply destroyed in a tornado. now it's been completely rebuilt. i'm standing here with kevin rolls and jimmy story, base hunters, they're tornado chasers, storm chasers and they shot some pretty incredible

footage of this storm. before i talk to them, want to give you a glimpse of what they saw and heard from this devastating storm. >> oh my god. >> this is not good. dear god, please keep these people safe. lots of debris in the air. >> is that a vortex on the side? >> big, there's a whole roof that just came off. no, not yet. oh, my gosh. >> look, it's already starting to -- listen. oh, my god. car's coming, car's coming. >> please keep these people safe. >> please dear god, listen. >> the storm was simply devastating, we're just now beginning to understand this scope of how many lives were lost and how much damage was done. this was a bad one, guys, how close were you to it and describe what it was like to see it as it was happening. >> as it was crossing north of

the school we were sitting at, which was south moore high school. it was as close to a half to a quarter-mile away from us and the tornado itself was just massive and you could hear the roar was deafening, we could basically feel the ground shaking and reverb rations off of the power of the tornado. >> yeah. i've never seen anything like this. >> we now know we're being told it was an ef-4. which means there are wind speeds up to 200 miles per hour, maybe greater than that. what does that feel like to be as close as you were? >> it's surreal. and words can't describe it this was, in essence, it was my first tornado that i've been on like this. i was up in the cans can ones on saturday. nothing in comparison to the kansas ones. >> i've been driving over the last four or five hours in the dark. you can't digest the scope of the devastation, and i was seeing it in the dark. you guys also took footage right

after the storm. some of the damage that was done here, he want to look at that briefly. >> houses are completely leveled. >> houses are leveled. this doesn't look like it was a development. >> it looks, oh, oh no. this, oh, my god, guys. >> that's got to tear at you when you see stuff like that. >> yeah, it was, it was tearing at us the whole time. as soon as we saw the tornado move to the west side of moore. our hearts just sank because we knew exactly what was happening. we've been on several other storms of this caliber, the joplin tornado in 2011, we filmed that going into town as well. similar to this one as it was, it crossed into town. in a similar fashion. as it dropped on the west side of town. it just -- you know, people are hurting and there's devastation occurring and you're powerless to do anything butabout it except just watch and do what

you can afterwards to help. >> you guys are from here, nearby at least. is everyone in your family okay, everyone doing okay? >> yes, my family is down in the dallas-fort worth area. >> my family, they're up in northeast oklahoma and they're doing good. >> well i'm happy to hear that. i was asking you about the weather here we've seen lightning flashes up in the sky and dark ominous clouds. our meteorologists note that a wide swath of this part of the country could see some dangerous situations today. you think this isn't necessarily threatening based on your experience? >> not in the moore area itself. the threat here is greatly diminished and it's moved south. more into the texas, dallas metro area. in fact and jimmy here, one of our other team members, of base hunters will be chasing down there as well and seeing hopefully nothing bad happens. but it's possible again today down there. >> once you've seen something like this you said you were at

joplin. this feels very much like it could be the scope of joplin. is it hard for you guys to go out the next time? >> it is. you know i'm a little bit afraid of what we may see today, going south. being that i lived down there, i need to head that way, anyway. and be with family. i, my job is with these guys, is to chase these and get good footage and alert the public. >> the public needs to be safe. needs to take precushions, when there are warnings, they need to heed them. so guys, thank you so much for being with us. these guys are talking about the fact that they were looking at people piece their lives back together again. immediately after the devastation hit. the first responders had been out from the moment after this storm hit. and they are picking through the rubble this morning. they're listening for any signs of life. when we come back we're going to learn more about this recovery

operation, could still be a rescue operation. people don't want to give up hope just yet. stay with us, our continuing live coverage of the devastating tornado in oklahoma continues. flying is old hat for business travelers. the act of soaring across an ocean in a three-hundred-ton rocket doesn't raise as much as an eyebrow for these veterans of the sky. however, seeing this little beauty over international waters is enough to bring a traveler to tears. we're putting the wonder back into air travel, one innovation at a time. the new american is arriving. it's the most powerful thing on the planet.

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but there are a lot of people that do ride the bus. and now that the busses are running on natural gas, they don't throw out as much pollution to the earth. so i feel good. i feel like i'm doing my part to help out the environment. welcome back to our coverage of the aftermath of the devastating tornado in moore, oklahoma. people here in this town, the city of 55,000, are waking up and picking through the pieces this morning. as the search continues, hopefully, a rescue effort probably a recovery effort at this point. let me give awe sense of the numbers we're looking at here. 51 people killed. that number we expect will go up. 20 of those killed that we

already know, children. 145 people injured, again, that number will go up, maybe by a lot. and we're asking about a count for the number of homes and structures destroyed. they do not have that count yet. i can tell you how we've driven through it over the last several hours, i don't know how they would begin to count. there were so many homes, structures destroyed. flattened in some cases by the power of the storm. it was an ef-4, there were wind speeds in excess of 200 miles per hour. at one point this tornado was some two miles wide. and it cut a path here through this area that was simply devastating. i keep using that word here. but there is no other way to describe the damage that's been done here. you may see lightning flashing behind me. you may see some dark, ominous storm clouds behind me. although there's some blue sky, also. one thing everyone wants to know is what will the weather hold today, because the storm system is not done yet b. we get a look

at the weather ahead of us right now. i want to go to pamela brown, outside the moore medical center here. a hospital that's been damaged so badly. it gives you a sense of the struggle here. because the hospital is the place you with ant to take people who have been injured in a storm like this. but this hospital nearly flattened. so let's go to pamela, hey, pamela. >> hey, john, that's right. the scene really tells the story of just the depth of the damage from the massive tornado yesterday. in fact right now i'm right next to the hospital, john. this is a bowling ball, hard to believe, this was once a bowling alley. take a look here, bowling balls scattered throughout here. there's carpet right here and then you look over here and anyone that's been bowling recognizes the chairs, the computers and the hard to tell where the steel beams are, those are the bowling alleys, that shows the scope of how powerful that tornado was.

now i'll have my photographer pan over here to show the hospital that you alluded to. moore medical center, we've learned that all the patients and staff are accounted for. it's hard to believe when you look at how the hospital was obliterated. we've learned that the patients and staff were actually evacuated after the hospital sustained damage. amazingly and the parking lot here you see a fedex truck with the lights still on. you see several cars that are damaged here in the parking lot, crews right now are just here clearing up. they've been here throughout the morning overnight, working very hard. not only here, but at sites throughout moore, oklahoma. earlier today we were at the plaza towers elementary school and there were just a couple of walls standing there. rescuers are there as we speak right now, sifting through the rubble there. trying to find any more survivors. john? >> pam la, i can't believe the

picture of the bowling ball, the image, seeing the bowling ball on the ground there. when you look at the buildings, i was driving through, i saw some people going through their homes, trying to see if there was anything left. are you seeing the signs of owners, people who normally work in these buildings? are they arriving as the sun comes up in moore this morning? >> no. it feels like a ghost town here, john. we were driving through this morning. i saw one guy walking down the street with just a blank stare in his eyes. he just looked shell shocked and that's the feeling when you look around here. the houses i saw, they were pitch black. it's as though you know people had either evacuated the area, but it just really feels desolate around here. people just evacuating town and just trying to cope with what happened this is unbelievable. as we've been talking about all morning, john, this town is no stranger to tornadoes, but i

think what happened here yesterday, is something that will never be forgotten. and will go down in history books as one of the, if not the worst tornado that's ever swept through this area. >> no doubt about that. they're comparing it to storms that have happened before. there was a storm, a tornado in 1999, it was actually an ef-5, some of the highest wind speeds ever reported. it destroyed the church that i'm standing in front of. the church that i'm standing in front of was flatten. and it was rebuilt. this town does know how to rebuild. but after a devastation like this, it will not be easy in that battle has only just begun. pamela brown, thank you so much. i said indira. i want to go to indira peterson at the severe weather center in atlanta. let's get a sense of what is in store for today. >> i wish i had better news. we continue to look outside. you were talking about in the distance, you continue to see a lot of storm clouds, we've seen

a lot of lightning. notice at the radar, all instability that's still out there. we did have a severe norm warning with winds from 50 to 70 miles per hour in the area. we're talking about clean-up and rescue, we're still talking about the severe weather in the area. a lot of the wind to throwing around the debris already on the ground. ky only imagine how tough it really is, severe thunderstorm watch in effect just east of the area, but as we continue to go throughout the day, that moderate risk where we have the enhanced risk will start to sag a little farther south. that's in line with what we're currently seeing. we're starting to see a couple of the cells move farther south. speaking of the risk i know we've seen so much damage and it's so tough out there but i want people to stay focused on the fact that the risk is not gone by any means. we're talking 50 million of you today still under the threat for that severe weather. what are we talking about? we're talking milwaukee, detroit, all the way down through st. louis, dallas, where's the moderate risk? yesterday we saw it through oklahoma and pushing in towards

missouri. remember i said that has pushed farther south. today you can see the moderate risk area moving through dallas and shreveport, louisiana. it doesn't matter where you are in this huge swath. anything can happen as you can see the last several days. the conditions are so ripe out there and it's only a matter of minutes that can make a difference here between life and death. >> all right. indra peterson. thank you so much. the message from indra, be on the lookout. a large part of the country still under the threats of the storms even for this area that's been hit so hard already. one of the reasons there were survivors here is that they heeded the warnings that did come. 16 minutes, in some cases which was enough for some people to find safety. others did not. but there were reunions of pictures families seeing each other again that will simply tear at your heart. when we come back we'll show you some of the uplifting images of hope and the families finding each other. and moving on. [ male announcer ] a guide to good dipping.

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welcome back to our live coverage of the aftermath of this devastating tornado in moore, oklahoma. i'm john berman along with chris cuomo here. and this morning residents here are waking up to a recovery effort, a rescue effort. still very much under way. the plaza towers school is the site where so many hopes still rest right now as they dig through the rubble by hand. trying to find possibly any survivors that may still be there. or figure out exactly if there are any bodies left there as well. >> we understand the situation at this school has become a little complicated. it has a basement. lives were lost in the basement from flooding. but in doing search and recovery there, rescue recovery, a lot of that is semantics, they're looking for people, they want to find them alive

potential injury to people who may still be alive there. they are going slowly, but making progress. >> there were survivors at the school and we saw families reunited at that school. but another school was affected by this storm, the briarwood school. we want to show you footage, video pictures that will really tug at your heart. these are families, teachers, kids, finding each other again, after these terrifying, terrifying moments, the storm that was so beautiful, so devastating, these families together once again. let's watch.

>> oh, my god! >> where is she?

oh, my god! >> she's out? she's? okay. okay. >> oh! >> stay with me. stay with me. >> all the fifth graders, right here. >> demarcus, step over the wire. >> fifth grade. >> fifth graders. fifth graders. >> oh! oh. >> he was so brave. he was so brave.

oh, he was so brave. oh. he was so brave. >> look at those hugs. look at those hugs. you simply cannot hug tightly enough in some situations and i want to point out, such a chaotic situation in some ways. so much turmoil here, but also so much order there, those people all behaving, all relatively calm, respecting each other's space and really coming together as a community to try to overcome this incredibly difficult moment. >> you have to just imagine what matters most to everybody is their kids, right? if you are blessed with having children and to not know, the cell phone is not working, and your home is destroyed. you live here. you understand what tornadoes can do. you see that school, briarwood wasn't that -- are you seeing footage from briarwood school. not a lot of physical damage there. you know what happened with plaza towers. if your kid is in there. and the ability -- we kept showing this image it will

rotate through. the mother bloodies, father is bloodiesed. but smiles on their face, they have their kids. this is the picture we're talking about. >> look at that woman right there and that hug right there. one of the things that has to be most difficult is the unknown and still so much unknown. how many people still may be buried, may be trapped since the storm hit, we understand that 101 people have been pulled from this rubble. including overnight. so no one wants to give up hope as either continued. they had us move locations earlier, because the tv generators were making so much noise, he they want to hear people who may be trapped in the rubble. very important to them. this gives you a sense of how they are still holding out some hope. >> that's 1 0 people done in an official capacity that could be communicated, where they could get out a call, where radios are working. these community do it for themselves here as well. people are not going to the hospitals, not going to get

help, even though they are injured, because they are staying to take care of their own, to help find people. and you will start to hear stories coming out of these streets where they were once thriving community of how they stayed there, and pulled each other out. moore, oklahoma, happened in 2003, and '99. it will happen again right now. another interesting dynamic, all weather-generated. know it too well. the temperature feels like it dropped 10 degrees in the last 10 minutes. as you can see, see how it's brightening up. over here where you can't see, a massive front that is carrying this weather with it and warm air with it as well and we're told by storm chasers and meteorologists that the threat here is gone. that front moving, what energy it could pick up, what it could mean for tornadic activity, that's unknown. threat in areas moving toward texas. those areas will have to be on alert. here, about looking through the rubble and finding out who is

still there. >> the storm chasers, their job, heading south. they are worried about more storms could hit south of here. that's where they will be watching. a lot more information we want to get here from moore, oklahoma. and we'll hear from people here on cnn, right in the middle of the effort, the rescue, recovery effort, the police chief, fire chief. we'll hear from them both, and also others as coverage in moore, oklahoma, of the devastating tornado continues.

here we are in moore, oklahoma. chris cuomo with john berman. the morning after. the weather shifting bright skies over us as the front moves over down toward texas. the front that brought the horrible tornado here. tornadoes are measured in terms of the amount of damage they do. unlike hurricanes where they measure the strength of the actual storm. the damage has been rumored to be the worst they have ever seen. moore, oklahoma, 1999, hit, 2003 they were hit. people saying this is the worst. we understand about the storm's path in points, two miles wide, some places, several blocks, but 20 miles long. it was going anywhere between 30 and 50 miles an hour. everything it hit, it destroyed. lieutenant governor told us it is like a lawn mower blade going over a community. it is a graphic image, but it is

accurate. the word tornado comes from the spanish word to turn, and it's the twisting. looking at live picture now from our kfor affiliates, a local afill 80's helicopter, everywhere this tornado went it destroyed. that's a look as it sat down in moore, oklahoma. homes where they once stood, look like bales of hay. the number we're given, 51 dead, 20 confirmed children. we're told by authorities, all the numbers very low. >> this is part of the rescue or recovery operation, no one is giving up hope yet. still digging through the rubble. being told that 101 people had been pulled from the rubble since the storm hit, including overnight. >> and the effort still very much on this morning as the sun does come up here, in moore, oklahoma. >> first part of it was teaming up, second part, finning ways

through to the affected areas, and we were told by local authorities, we had to move john's live shot this morning, they want it quiet as possible so they could hear, hearing survivors a key element in this. they have dogs and other equipment as well. but everybody has a set of ears on them. we are respecting wishes, get out on cnn.com/impact where you can go to help people here. the need is comprehensive, need everything from shelter, clothing, first baptist church. destroyed in 1999, rebuilt, to give you a sense of the community. all morning long, 18 wheelers coming with water, power here, the bare essentials are needed. >> we have seen large rescue and recovery efforts, where you see dozens and dozens of workers digging through the rubble and single flashlights peering through the wreckage of homes on the streets in moore, oklahoma. people up here waking up this morning to simple devastation,

since this storm hit at 3:00 yesterday, it has been emotional, it has been tumultuous, a day this town will absolutely never forget. >> the massive tornado tore across 20 miles of oklahoma city suburbs in 40 minutes. from the sky, the mile wide trail of destruction, hard to comprehend, and utterly catastrophic. >> oh, my god! >> the ferocious storm flattening homes and buildings, flinging cars in the air and leaving two schools and a hospital barely recognizable in the hard-hit town of moore. >> i have never seen anything like this in my 18 years covering tornadoes. >> decimating everything in its path. homes crushed to piles of debris. what looks like haystacks were houses once stood. the injured poured into hospitals, cars tossed like toys in the parking lot of moore medical center, piling up, block the main medical entrance.

>> i felt my ears popping, something we never experienced. it was really scary. >> nearby, a mother and her 7-month-old found dead, where a 7-eleven once stood. they tried to take cover in a freezer during the storm. >> grabbing and throwing debris, trying to get anybody out. >> a massive recovery effort at one of two schools for children buried under the rubble continued into the night. the grim reality setting in with rescuers and their anxious parents. bloody teachers seen here carrying children away from briarwood elementary school. destroyed from the monstrous twister, trapping close to 100 students. tears of relief with one mother as she reunites with her first grade son and a hug to his teacher. >> so brave. he was so so brave. he was so brave. >> for miles, entire neighborhoods destroyed. many describing the horror they faced. >> grabbed the motorcycle helmets and hid in the closet

and prayed like hell and luckily the only room was spared was the room we were in. >> reporter: debris turned through the powerful black funnel as the storm soared. you can hear piercing winds reaching up to 200 miles per hour. at a family farm, as many as 100 horses killed and most of the barns demolished. >> two of the stalls like this, came together, and i was in between them and it just -- it just pushed us down the shed row. >> president obama declared oklahoma a disaster area late monday and called the state's governor. >> i know there are families wondering where their loved ones are, we're doing everything we can. >> book keeping here. we'll hear from the white house at 10:00 a.m. eastern time and then a news conference here in moore at 1:00, and a much better sense of the situation here on the ground. >> you also have to remember in terms of timing, looking at these schools, this happened

just at about 3:00 p.m., that means it was when kids were getting ready to leave school. teachers became instantaneous first responders and made reunions happen. it is sad when you see those parents, but that's the happy ending, when you find your kid. pam brown is over by the local hospital at a bowling alley to get another look at devastation on the ground. pam, can you hear us? >> yeah, i can hear you just fine, chris. the massive tornado came right through where i am, right here yesterday afternoon, leaving nothing but devastation in its wake. hard to believe, but this was once a bowling alley. take a look here. this is a child's bowling ball and surprisingly, carpet right here. presumably where people would have walked in to buy bowling shoes. and look over here, the kiosk, the bowling kiosk, chairs you see, everything strewn all over

the place. bowling balls all over the place and you can see the bowling alleys, right there where you see the steel beams and the infrastructure, how the tornadoes ripped apart the infrastructure. emergency exit door, ripped apart and over here, i want to have my photographer pan over to show the medical center here. one of a couple medical centers in the city. amazingly, all patients and staff were evacuated from here yesterday after the tornado swept through, but the cars, just look at the cars, flattened like pancakes, some of the cars are on top of where the hospital is right here, you can see it's obliterated, across town earlier, this morning, we were at plaza towers elementary school. only a couple walls standing there with no place to go, with no underground shelter, the children had to practice their drills. they had to kneel down, put

their hands over their heads and frozen there as the tornado came through. rescuers sifting through the rubble, trying to find more survivors as parents anxiously await. illuminated by flood lights, rescue teams search tirelessly throughout the night. where plaza towers elementary school once stood. in some places, the debris was ten feet high. underneath, every parent's worst nightmare, the bodies of schoolchildren, who tried to seek shelter from a ferocious tornado. many more are still missing. the race to rescue dozens of student and teachers began right after the massive two-mile wide tornado ripped through two elementary schools direct until its path. at hardest hit, plaza towers elementary school, a third grade class huddled in the hallway of the school. >> i had to hold on to the wall to keep myself safe, because i didn't want to fly away in the

tornado. >> we had to pull a car out of the front hallway off a teacher, and i don't know what that lady is, but she had three little kids underneath her. good job, teach. >> worried parents sent to the staging area at a nearby church and search for answers, at first, several children pulled from the leveled school alive, but with each passing hour, the operation tragically went from a rescue to a recovery mission. the heart-wrenching reality of the storm's fury, hard to comprehend, even for those covering it. >> i've never seen anything like this in my 18 years covering tornadoes here in oklahoma city. this is without question, the most horrific i have ever seen. >> okay, lance, we need to get this information. >> this new video shows raw emotional moments from parent reunited from their kids from briarwood elementary in the minutes after the tornado hit. searchers able to reunite many with their families. cnn's nick valencia there.

>> reporter: was it scary, what it was like? >> it was a big tornado that hit up the whole place. >> reporter: you're a tough one for sticking it out. >> yep. >> reporter: what was once a place for learning became an unrecognizable place of horror. a student from plaza towers elementary, telling cnn's george howell how he survived. >> it was scary, and a lot of my friends were still there when i left. >> reporter: what did your teachers tell you to do? you showed me a moment ago. >> show him what you did at school. >> you covered your head with your hands. >> reporter: actually, the mother of that little boy said she ran to the school frantically searching for her son and actually found him there crouching on the ground with his hands over his head as we just saw there. and many of the teachers, a couple of these elementary schools are being hailed as heroes, we heard stories of teachers actually shielding students, laying right on top of

them as the tornado moved over them and then also pulling walls off of children, trapped underneath them, this morning, we do know that the death toll there at plaza towers elementary school, still stands at 7. as i mentioned, rescuers still there at this time, looking for more survivors, as we mentioned, it is in recovery mode at this point. back to you. >> if you ever wonder how great teachers are, some of the pictures we just showed you, pamela, at the end of the piece, teachers hugging the students after this storm hit at the briarwood school. >> we first saw the picture, i assumed they were parents because of the love, because of the hugs, because of the genuineness. one of the teachers, you will see the picture again, bloodied but smiling, because she has a kid. see her there. i assumed they were parent, but they are teacher and they love their kids, and they did things

that made the difference between life and death to be very clear, a high potential for good news and bad. rescue stories, people who they thought were lost. it's still very early in the process, we are told maybe ten 1 0, 15 minutes ago, halfway through the search. 20 miles long. remember, everything in it, as the fwovr ngovernor said, like mower blade went through it. one of the reasons a tornado is so uniquely violent is the twisting. it comes from the spanish word for twist. the perspective better from the meteorologists. let's get the latest in terms of the weather system that created this, where it is. >> on days like this, people think we had this big tornado out there the threat is over. everything here on out is going to be more diminished scale. unfortunately, not the case today. we continue to see the instability out there currently.

now, good news for moore, starting to push south of the area, but a human swath of risk still out there today, earlier this morning, seeing 50 to 70 mile per hour winds south of the area. you will tell the concentrated portion, higher risk portion is moving to the south. today, that swath of the moderate risk will actually concentrate more toward dallas, now in toward shreveport and arkansas. in comparison, that moderate risk yesterday pushing through oklahoma and through missouri, it has shifted a little. what is not shifted, how big this swath is we're talking just under 50 million of you today still seeing this risk for tornadic activity and severe thunderstorms. milwaukee, detroit, chicago, memphis, shreveport, on through dallas. you have the threat for tornadoes. and that is not the only thing. strong winds, we saw some of that yesterday, large amounts of lightning, large hail, all of this still remains in the poishg. actually want to show you how

big this debris ball is. look at the huge supercell. the debris ball, 2, 2 1/2 miles wide. we are talking about things ejected in the air over 20,000 feet. that is how powerful these storms are, and the threat is out there again today, whether you are inned moderate or slight risk area, anything, unfortunately, still possible. i am the bearer of bad days. a tough one out there. >> all right. thank you so much. the debris is simply everywhere. the corrugated metal. splinters, pieces of fence, littered everywhere, it's devastating. >> makes it very difficult to get through also. you have to remember, the search and rescue operations, all of the different delivery services, for help, have to deal with the roads. power lines that are down, gas mains that are open, those have to be managed for a long time last night, moore didn't have running water. these are very difficult things and creates a lot of frustration

on the ground, and we're going to be able to talk to governor fallin, with us after the break, obviously running the entire show, find out what's going on, a huge task for her, nothing harder for a governor. this is the live picture of the hospital. now, this is an interesting thing. not just showing you the destructive affect, the violence of a tornado, but that's where people go for help in situations like this. it's -- it's a safety zone. are you supposed to move toward the hospital and imagine if you are going to a place that is supposed to be safe and destroyed. >> and not just destroyed. the driveway blocked with cars, you couldn't thrive in. ambulances couldn't get there if they wanted to. the driveway is blocked with cars tossed around like toys. >> equally amazing, all staff accounted for. got the parents out. even in the midst of utter devastation, they did things to preserve life. >> there will be good news today and we'll bring that to you every chance we get. when we come back, governor mary

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and download our free lennox mobile app. lennox. innovation never felt so good. welcome back to moore, oklahoma. chris cuomo and john berman on scene in front of first baptist church. destroyed in '99. back to show the resilience of this community. they have power and water, two things needed right now. a lot of search and rescue going on, tough areas to reach and we'll do it by the numbers, from the worst type of calculation to hear. we're told 50 dead, 51 dead, 20 confirmed to be children that number will go up. this is a disorganized effort. tough to get people on the scene, massive devastation.

be ready for that. 145 casualties made it to hospitals, many are walking wounded. good news number. >> since this storm hit yesterday, 101 people rescued by all types of first responders, fire, police, emts on the grown, pulling people out of rubble. in some cases, picking through the debris by hand. 101 poom have been pulled from the rubble and are alive this morning, a lot of that work was done overnight. and people have not given up hope here. we spoke to lieutenant governor todd lamb. let's not get caught in the rescue of semantics, he is nod ready and people of moore are not ready to give up hope. >> a lot of difficulties on the grown. people who are waking up this morning and they are the lucky ones with their families. they are blessed. but they are in many instances in these community homeless. power lines exposed, gas lines

exposed. the need will be great. go on our website, cnn.com/impact. you will find out how to help the people here, and going forward, please pay attention to that need. >> you are looking at a short time ago, the moore medical center, the moore medical center, one of these buildings and structures so hard hit here, and symbolic in some ways, gives you a sense of devastation, but also a sense of how difficult the recovery effort is, because a hospital is one of the places you want to go for safety. for recovery, and when it's this damaged, very difficult. >> and what we know about the hospital is staff was accounted for, they were able to get patients out, extraordinary, given what they were dealing with. the weather here is overwhelming, it has dropped about 10 degrees it feels to us in a matter of minutes, as this front moved on. andrea, our meteorologist, talking about how the threat is not over. the worst is over here, but the

front carries with it the possibility for more tornadic activity, and thing energy in the air with it, the lightning, creates a dramatic picture and also threat. >> we have been here all night, taking a look at the situations, scenes, vignettes of people picking through the pieces of their homes and the recovery under way here. the storm hit at 3:00 local time here yesterday, want to give you a sense of some of the images and some of the things that have gone on since the awful moment. >> live pictures of a funnel cloud that just developed. appears on the ground in oklahoma city. this all minute after the national weather service issued a tornado warning for metropolitan oklahoma city. entire population of 171,000 people. >> this type of tornado will level towns, honestly, this is getting very scary. oh, my goodness, 3/4 mile wide and moving into eastern -- or

western sides of moore and it is coming into highly, highly populated areas. >> our worst fears are becoming realized this afternoon. we hope everyone heeded the warnings. a populated area and we fear not everyone may have gotten the word, but we certainly hope that's the case. >> just like on the movie twister, horses and stuff flying everywhere. you know, it's -- it's undescribable. >> how are you feeling physically? do you feel lucky? >> i feel pretty lucky. feel pretty lucky. >> this is the most disturbing picture to me, jake. where this is a school and the school took a direct hit. >> i just heard some lady down the street, screaming about the elementary school, so i headed that way, got there, and it's pretty much gone. me and four other guys pulled a teacher out, on top of three kids, the kids were fine. she was hurt pretty bad. put her on a door and put her on a jeep and wheeled out to the

ambulances, so many cars around. >> two blocks away from the elementary school, reportedly hit hard by the tornado. as far as my eyes can see, the homes are demolished. there is debris everywhere. chimneys cracked, houses ripped apart. the outside of the homes completely leveled. the neighborhood is not standing anymore. it's completely gone. >> and there are several neighborhoods, neighborhood after neighborhood, simply not left standing today. driving through here, you get a sense of the devastation, but i want to leave you with one image of hope. where i'm standing right now. in front of the first baptist church in moore, oklahoma. this church i'm standing in front of, flattened in 1999, by a terrible tornado, an ef-5, about is rebuilt and standing today and part of the recovery effort here. there is all kinds of water, generators at work here, people can come here to get what they need to get through this. a sign that this town, moore,

will get through this as bad as things seem right now, and they do seem quite bad, this town will pull through. more from the devastation here in moore, oklahoma, when we come back. at university of phoenix we kis where it can take you.cation (now arriving: city hospital) which is why we're proud to help connect our students

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welcome back to moore, oklahoma. an ef-4 tornado, which means wind speeds in excess of 240 miles per hour. times when the tornado was two miles wide, it tore a path some 20 miles long, destruction,

simply everywhere. i want to show you some pictures from really inside this storm, as it was happening, amazing pu pictures taken by storm chaser ben holcomb. let's look. >> don't know how else -- >> all right. i'm joined by storm chaser ben holcomb. how close were you? >> probably within a quarter mile to that tornado. we had debris coming all the way around it. i was covered in debris. came around, hit our car,

covered our car. >> couldn't be a safe situation. what was it like to be in the middle of it? >> probably not very safe. very intense, very stressful. worst part was knowing people were dying and nothing i could do about it. >> have you been chasing storms since 2007 roughly. where does this rank in terms of storms have you been in? is this the worst you have seen? >> the worst tornado i have ever seen. >> we're getting report 51 people dead. 145 injured, those numbers will go up. as you were heading to the storm, could you see people running away from it? >> a lot of people running away, but we also ran into a lot of people just driving down the road like any regular old day as the tornado coming right behind us, honking at people, tell them to move down the road as fast as we could. >> you yourself were literally covered in debris as you were getting footage. what was the scariest moment for you? >> probably when the debris started hitting the car and as it crossed the road in front of us. >> did you turn around and drive

the other way? that's what i would have dove. what did you do when you were getting hit by debris. >> we bailed south, drove east and watched the tornado rope out and dissipate and headed back to the city of moore and started checking through the debris, see what we could find. >> ben, finally, you're from norman, oklahoma, your family all doing okay? >> everybody is good and accounted for. >> amazing pictures, be safe, my friend. doesn't sound -- sounds like you are living on the edge a little bit. >> looks like texas today is where we'll be, so -- >> be safe. appreciate you being here. >> thank you. >> i want to go to brian todd with the mayor of this town. straightaway to brian. >> john, thanks very much. we're joined by mayor glenn lewis. the mayor of moore. can you tell us the latest from on the ground in the hardest hit areas. the status of the rescue effort? >> the rescue effort is

continuing. we are optimistic we might find one or two people. that's our main concern is for the victims that are still out there. we want to find those people. we want to take the opportunity to say thank you to the med why for all of the good coverage we've had, especially when the storm was coming in, a lot of people took shelter to that, and, you know, fortunate they did. we had a major loss of life here, 51 people, 20 of them kids and if it hadn't had been for the media coverage, we probably would have been in 1,000 or more. >> what are you told about the death toll and overall casualties? expected to go up significantly? >> they tell me it's possible, of course, we're very optimistic. hope that most of it has already passed on that part. and our hearts go out to the families and it's just a devastating day i'm sorry. i haven't had much sleep. haven't had any sleep since yesterday and we'll go out, do our best. right now, we're starting our

recover efforts at city hall and we've already issued traffic signs, having them made. which sounds odd, we do the traffic signs when you are in one of those areas, you can't tell where you at, so we have to put those up so rescue vehicles will know where they are at. >> what about overall danger to people getting back to their homes? >> the biggest danger is natural gas and electricity that's still on in certain places. we don't want anybody -- as have you seen this morning, sprinkling out. don't want anybody stepping on lines and getting electrocuted. anybody out there that doesn't need to be here, we want them to stay home, stay away from the site and let professional rescue people do their job. >> the elementary school that wasplaza towers, did it have an emergency shelter? >> it did not. >> why not? >> because of the cost.

the new ones hit in the '99 tornado, they do have built-in storm shelters. >> reporter: do you think that's something that will change after this? >> i'm sure it will. we'll definitely look at it. the school system and city are two separate entities, i'm sure we'll talking to them and try to get fema moneys to help rebuild these schools. >> mr. mayor, thank you for joining us. mayor glenn lewis, mayor of moore, oklahoma, the rescue effort continuing. as of now, what he's been briefed by the fire chief, only four people, four people listed at missing at the moment in the entire town of moore. that equation could change as well, john. >> they have been working throughout the night, one of the hopeful numbers, since the storms hit, some 101 people -- 101 people -- pulled from rubble by first responders, by emts, by firefighters, police officers,

countless rescue workers that descended on the town. the mayor has all the help he needs. he wants people to stay off the streets to let the people do their jobs. the media has been leaving those areas. we don't want to be in the way as they do those jobs. they continue today. 101 people pulled from the rubble alive, that's the good news. there is some tragic news. 51 people killed from the devastating tornado. that number goes up. 145 people injured. that number will go up as well. the number that brian todd reported from the mayor in moore, he believes only four people unaccounted for. more about that as our coverage from moore, oklahoma, continues. introducing new febreze stick & refresh with command strips from 3m.

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welcome back to moore, oklahoma. the scene of devastating tornado, ef-4. at times the tornado was two miles wide. you can see the devastation this morning in moore as the sun comes up of 55,000. picking through pieces this morning. i'm joined by the governor of oklahoma, mary fallin who is dealing with tornadoes for 4 hours -- 48 hours in the state. you have to be exhausted. thank you for joining us. >> we're all running on adrenaline right now. we want to get the resources out, certainly in the rescue and recovery stage. we're going to uncover ever single thing we can to make sure we have everyone rescued from this tragedy in our state.

>> governor fallin, you were at the plaza towers elementary school overnight, well past midnight. give me a sense of what it was like on the scene at that elementary school? are they still looking for possible survivors? >> as far as i know, they are still looking for possible survivors, it's a tremendous debris field. it is massive, it was surreal to walk up on that last night. hundreds of people that were there, they had jack hammers, they had saws, cutting through metal. they had sledgehammers, desperately trying to get under debris. we know walls fell over, some children found under the walls itself at that school. all hands on deck to do everything we can to look through the debris itself and certainly throughout the community. my heart broke last night for the parents that didn't know the current condition of their children, where they were.

i think our hearts are collectively breaking for parent out there. the latest number we have is 51 people killed in the storm, including 20 children. is there an updated number you can tell us this morning? >> there is not an updated number at this point in time, this is a big area of destruction, and so we have a lot of different moving parts, all hands on deck. we hope to have a briefing about noon to give some better numbers. we are working through medical examiners office and we don't want to give out numbers we're not sure about. we're working diligently to gather information from various sources. a huge issue yesterday, and sort of an issue today with cell phone towers. there are so many people trying to use telephones, powerlines have been down, telephone lines, no power, no water in this community, and as you stated, it's about two miles wide for about 20 miles long. this is a big, big area of

destruction. >> governor, what do you need today. the sun rises, so many needs, what's at the top of the list? >> well, the biggest thing we need. just donations at this point in time. families have lost their homes, certainly businesses that have been destroyed. not only the tornado here in moore and oklahoma city, but we also had tornadoes on sunday and just yesterday morning, going throughout other areas of the state, walking through the debris areas and talking to families and businesses that had homes destroyed on sunday afternoon and to have this happen again on monday, it has created a lot of extra need in our state for services. we've had a tremendous amount of people that called, governors from other states, did i call out the national guard early yesterday, right about the time the tornado bearing down on moore, i wanted to make sure we

had all type of personnel and security of the perimeter and to make sure that through dangerous situation, especially with the debris scattered throughout the highways that were closed that we could keep people safe, not only people in the community, but also the emergency personnel and law enforcement and first responders. >> governor, you carefully called this still a rescue operation and we all so additional want to hold on to hope. no one wants to give up the hope as the sun rises as it is morning now the day after the devastating storm. the rescue crews you have talked to, have they found any sign of life recently? >> i haven't heard of any signs of life at this point in time, once again, everybody is really busy right now, trying to do what we can to get the right resources, right personnel, at the different locations. we'll have a briefing at noon to get updated numbers and be able

to have more numbers for people. we have a great system of coordination. in many of the different command centers last night. they have big maps in different areas and they are staffing up and treating different personnel out. there are people who have been on the scene for long period of time, and we have to be careful to protect those and shift out the people as they are coming in and out working in this area, but we don't have any updated numbers at this time. we knowith going to be big. >> it is. ith too much. whatever that number is. governor fallin. you are from oklahoma obviously. this area knows tornadoes, has seen them before, including one in 1999, a simply devastating tornado here, an ef-5 tore through the region. i'm standing in front of a church wrecked in that tornado, now completely rebuilt. what is the message you want to send to people about how this area will rebuild?

>> well, we will rebuild, we have seen time and time again the strength of our people, the courage, the perseverance, come back much stronger after tragedy. whether the may 3rd tornado that struck moore. the community have done very well. in a great period of time for our state with a strong economy, low unemployment. this has certainly thrown us back a long ways, but we'll regain our strength and i know our people and, you know, wey one thing we became famous for in 1995 during the bombing of the federal building, when we had 167 loss of life, our people can pull together, they will find the inner courage, strength, through prayer and neighbors are out helping fellow neighbors and we'll take care of our people and we certainly have the best first responders and emergency personnel i think in the nation to handle a crisis

like this. >> all right. governor mary fallin, thank you for being with us today. our heart out to you, the entire country is pulling for you here in oklahoma. we appreciate you being with us. >> thank you for your prayers too. we appreciate it. >> talking about -- thank you, governor. this was an ef-4 storm with winds in excess of 200 miles an hour, two miles wide at some point. the swath 20 miles long. the destruction as the sun comes up is now apparent to the naked eye. pamela brown is standing in what can only be described as a pile of rubble this morning. pamela, what was the place you're standing in? >> well, hard to believe, john, but this was a bowling alley. i'm holding a child's bowling ball. these are scattered throughout the area where i am. you can see, this is carpet. this is presumably where people would walk in, buy their bowling shoes, and you look at the infrastructure, just ripped

apart, hard to believe this was ever a bowling alley. where people would have gone, the bowling kiosk, bowling alleys where you see metal famibeams over there, just obliterated. the strength and power of that tornado. in the direct path of the tornado yesterday afternoon. it shows gravity of it all. and you see over here, emergency exit door stripped apart. and aluminum side panel we think, hugging this pole right here, so everywhere you look, you see this all over, moore, oklahoma. and next to us, moore medical center, destroyed as well. cars flattened like pancakes, turned upside down, on top of the hospital there, and the fedex truck over here actually had its lights on this morning so this is -- this is really just paints the picture of what

it looks like and how powerful that tornado was, yesterday afternoon. really just chilling to see this. i actually -- it remind me -- i covered the earthquake in haiti a couple years ago, and the scene i'm seeing with mountains of rubble remind me of what i saw there. absolutely horrific. a ghost town, desolate. people are just shell shocked. >> that bowling alley, simply nothing left looking at that. really, really eerie, pamela, especially the carpet. the rug there and the bowling balls scattered around, and to see the hospital. i should tell people one thing about the medical center no, injuries, all the doctors and medical personnel evacuated safely, and the patients as well moved to a safer location, pamela, can you show us some more of the moore medical center behind you right now. >> unbelievable, john. you point out, no injuries. we learned this morning, the

patients and staff evacuated after the tornado came through and damage sustained. let's take a look again here. i just think -- i don't even have to talk, you look at the pictures and it really tells the story. cars overturned on top of the building, really nothing left. it's hard to believe this was ever a hospital. we know is that patients were taken to nearby medical centers and being treated there. so a bit of a good news that there were no fatalities here at this hospital. again, looking at it shows the sheer strength and power of that tornado that swept through here yesterday afternoon. john. >> you can see the car with the red "x" simpled turned over now laying on its roof. pamela brown standing on the floor of a bowling alley next to a medical center that was destroyed. thanks to you. live pictures from moore, oklahoma, where i'm standing right now to give you the sense

of the scope of devastation. new live aerials right now. one of the words you hear again and again. is haystack. that homes end up looking like, just haystacks and it's a pretty apt description in this case, you can see whatever that structure was has simply been torn to pieces and a fire truck near that, which is a sign of the first responders that have descended on this scene, hundreds of people now involved in the recovery and rescue operation here, again, good news, some 101 people pulled from the rubble since yesterday. our coverage of the devastating tornado in moore, oklahoma, continues, right after this break. hey! did you know that honey nut cheerios has oats that can help lower cholesterol? and it tastes good? sure does! wow. it's the honey, it makes it taste so... well, would you look at the time... what's the rush? be happy. be healthy.

welcome back to moore, oklahoma. cnn's live coverage of the aftermath of this devastating tornado. live aerial pictures of this scene, of buildings flattened. preliminary numbers, 51 people have been killed. that number is likely to rise. 145 people have been injured. that number as well likely to rise and the number of killed, we know at this point, 20 of them are children. one number we don't have yet is an estimate of the number of buildings, structures, homes destroyed by looking at this, you get a sense of why we don't have the number yet. so much destruction, hard to count right now. i want to bring in senator james inhofe of oklahoma. joins us from washington.

senator, thank you for being with us. it must be difficult for you not to be here in oklahoma. but i'm sure you have been speaking to them all night. give me a sense of what you have heard of the recovery effort, rescue effort going on right now, right near in moore? >> yeah, chris, first of all, there are several of us who were there in 1999, the thing that's amazing, if you look at the map as to where this thing came through, same thing as 1999. the devastation about the same, but a smaller area. i talked to albert ashworth, the emergency management person in oklahoma. he says one of the biggest problems was matching up missing parents with missing kids. such a tragic thing to think about. but that was going on. right now, still a lot of uncertainty. i would like to mention one thing, we're talking about this -- the -- the -- what happened yesterday. the day before that with shawnee, oklahoma, another one, sunday night, we were

actually -- i was there in tulsa, my son looked up and saw something floating down from the sky, and it was this picture right here of a small child, in a car seat. that came all the way from shawnee, oklahoma, 80 miles away and landed in our neighbor's yard. so many things happen that are so hard to explain. all of the tornadoes are just devastating at the site. we had smallwood, picture, oklahoma, a small area that it dropped in. this thing was huge. this is one of the largest ones we had. >> as you say the force of the storms hard to comprehend, not the first storm they had in the last few days, days of tornadoes in shawnee, we covered the tornado there as well. senator, what are you hearing from the ground here? wheat the sense of what they need in terms of assistance? >> first of all, we have everything we need. individual assistance, public

assistance so that came immediately. i know mary fallin in contact with the president, so that's behind us now. that kind of assistance, but there are little things you can could do, the -- let's see. the salvation army and the red cross have a number where you can make small contributions. we did this in 1999 down there. one thing about 1999, so many people, chris, ended up building shelters, building basement safe areas and a lot more people killed we believe if they had not had that warning some 14 years ago. >> we understand they had 16 minutes, a fair amount of time. that may not sound like much. but in tornado country, a fair amount of time to take cover. 16 minutes to get to safety. a lot of people did, senator. one of the things we're reporting over the past few minutes, 101 people pulled from the rubble alive since the storm

first hit. as an oklahomian, can you describe to me what it's like to look at these pictures of the devastation in moore? >> well, we've seen them before. and we -- they say tornado alley, and i remember so many times being there when this has happened. we have been -- i don't know many people who have been raised in oklahoma what haven't been in a tornado one time or another. some are very small. up in pitcher, oklahoma, a couple of years ago, that was one, where it only hit a very small area of ground, however, the level of devastation is always the same. what you are looking at in moore, oklahoma, what you could have seen in you had been there in 1999 or in some parts of shawnee, devastation is devastation. this is so much worse, because you're talking about a two-mile by 20-mile area.

that's very unusual. lard to look at this morning. senator james inhofe joins us from washington. appreciate you being with us. our thoughts with you and the entire population of your state. appreciate it, sir. our coverage of the devastating storm will continue, right after this break.

all right. welcome back, everyone. to cnn's live coverage of the aftermath of the oklahoma tornado. live pictures of the recovery effort, the rescue effort right now. looking at these workers picking through the rubble there. you can see some pickaxes i think. people lifting up pieces of the debris by hand. doing this all night. into the morning right now, and a lot going on here. also a news conference with the president. the president will speak at 10:00 eastern time today, a news conference at noon. stay with cnn, all day for all the twists and turns of this developing story, our live coverage of the aftermath of the oklahoma tornado continues with chris cuomo right now.