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tv   Anderson Cooper 360  CNN  May 31, 2013 9:00pm-10:01pm PDT

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mpl i'm wolf blitzer in for erin burnett tonight. a line of powerful tornadoes swept acrossed oklahoma tonight. it was in the path of this storm as well. missouri's governor has declared a state of emergency for that state. all have now expired, but, but, there are still two active tornado warnings in illinois right now. much of the plains and midwest are also getting a great deal of flooding.
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6-8 inches of rain already has fallen in much of central, oklahoma, causing a life-threatening situation there. right now, more than 190,000 customers across the midwest are without power. oklahoma city's will rogers airport is still without power, as well. all flights to and from the airport have been cancelled. also, in oklahoma, parts of interstate 35 are still shut down. interstate 40 has reopened. a spokesperson from the oklahoma highway patrol called conditions on the roads, though, a nightmare situation. chad myers is joining us now on the phone. he's in oklahoma and rode through this storm, watched it all unfold and got very, very close to the tornado that swept across parts of oklahoma city's greater metro poll tan area. chad, where are you now? >> we are on i-35, north of norman trying to get back into
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moore to take pictures of the damage that happened in moore oklahoma. . we're about five miles south of that city. it should have a hundred cars on it. we are literally doing 10, 15 miles an hour. trying to sneak our way up. all of this traffic was reports of telling people to go south. we don't know where those reports came from. i don't know how it went. but, now, all of the sudden, what happened is the typical storm goes to the northeast. today, these storms are going southeast.
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and so now that the stormings are gone, everyone has to go back to the north. and we're going to have to get to the bottom where ever of where this data came from. no one is out of anywhere. they were all stuck in traffic. and if this was a major tornado, we would have had a significant number of deaths. >> it sounds like a panic situation. >> if you knew you were in the lane and you dropped out, you would have been out of the way. the problem is the storm didn't react, didn't go in the direction of the normal tornado.
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this was traveling to the south so the people who were going south were putting themselves in more danger by not staying home in there same place on the roadway. and eventually putting themselves in a video. i think your storm chaser said it best earlier. this is when we've had so many people stuck on the roadway. this didn't happen back then. people went to their homes and they stayed there and sheltered in place. this time, they didn't shelter in place. >> we heard that from one storm chaser who said he's been doing this for several years and never seen anything like this before. who told people to drive away instead of getting to their cars. let us know. that's an interesting part of this story. how soon did these floods that have developed, a lot of water, a lot of rain that has fallen in
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these areas. >> well, i don't think we're even going to get to a hotel tonight, i really don't. i think we're going to be stuck on the roadway here, driving one or two miles per hour because these roads are flooded. they're completely shut down. the managers are saying -- the managers are saying please, don't get on the road. well, we have to. we're trying to get to a hotel. and we're trying to bring you the pictures. i just don't know how that's going to go. when you get 10 inches of rain -- we had 10 inches of rain in many areas, from that area back across into mustang and into southwest, oklahoma city. and even northern parts of moore, 6-8 inchings of rain there. this water doesn't go very far. it's not like it's going to run off very quickly. this is flat land. and this is clay. so this run off is going to be dangerous.
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weather service made this up five or six years ago. turn around, don't drown. there could be 5-6 feet of water in these underpasses. you don't realize there's that much water. you get yourself in trouble, all of the sudden, the car is filled with water and then you have to try to get out and try to abandon. first responders, in the way of getting you out of this. we're not even at the flooding yet. we're at least ten miles to the flooding. we'll try to bring you pictures as soon as we can get there. >> don't go away. i know you're trying to drive through. joining us on the phone right now is betsy randolph. and i have some questions for you, betsy, but i want chad, who's on the road right now, who's trying to get to oklahoma city right now. it's an awful, awful situation. they're barely moving. go ahead and ask betsy a question. >> we're wondering whether the twitter is being updated
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>> we do have a facebook page. i haven't been able to update it in quite a while. we don't have a twitter account. part of that is something we are working on. we are working with our media folks here in the oklahoma city metro area to get the information out about what roadways are closed. we are discouraging all travel on interstate 40 and interstate 35 in the oklahoma city metro area. that includes interstate 40 east coming into oklahoma city. and then north on i-35 from norman coming north. in fact, we've asked people from the purcell area, we had our troopers out turning people away and telling them get off of the interstate and go back south on i-35 from purcell. because the roadways were so
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treacherous. now we have people that are standed in the roadways because the water is so high, >> chad, we're showing our viewers your cameras. tell us where you are right now. we see that you're moving not very quickly, but you are moving. >> reporter: we were trying to get back to moore to assess the damage from two weeks ago. we looked at our traffic map here on the computer and it said that the traffic was moving 10 or 15 miles per hour and even on some spots about 25. we thought okay, 25 miles an hour is acceptable, but we haven't done that in a long time. i hope that there aren't just people with cars flooded out, you know, in any trouble ahead of us. but that could be the possibility. >> we just lost chad. betsy randolph, are you still
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with us? >> yes, sir, i'm still here. >> give us some advice. you saw what chad was going through. people are out there in large numbers. barely moving. what should folks be doing right now? >> we really are asking them to get off the interstate, whether it's i-45, i-240, i-44, the congestion around the oklahoma city metro area is great. we have a lot of dangers, we've had power lines down across the interstate, scattered across into the oklahoma city, even past oklahoma city out by tinker air force base. we're asking folks if you don't have to be out moving around, please don't. and if you're already out, you know what a mess it is. exit the interstate, take those back roads, get back to which ever it is that you need to get to tonight, someplace safe hopefully and someplace where you can listen and watch the weather. we have a lot of stuff going on. we've got first responders that
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have been out all evening and probably will be without throughout the night so we can find these people that are trapped and stranded. we have had a lot of crashes we're trying to get to. >> we're getting confirmation of the oklahoma patrol of five people who have died result of these storms that have rocked oklahoma over the past several hours. is that the number that you have, as well? >> yes, that is the number i have. i know that two of the fatalities that we personally worked, and those are the mother and the baby on interstate 40, around canadian county, and that's so heartbreaking. we tried desperately to get that information out, to tell people to listen to the weather forecasters and heed those warnings. sometimes those people slip through the cracks. they may drive into the storm
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unknowingly, not knowing that it's a tornado and not just a rainstorm that they're driving into. >> one of the concerns that have been raised not only by chad myers, our meteorologist, our severe weather expert on the ground in oklahoma right now, but storm chasers right now we've been talking to, i wonder if you have so many people for whatever reason, instead of staying put, they got into their vehicles and cars when there was fear of a tornado getting closer towards oklahoma city and began to drive. this is not something that's widely recommended, is it? >> absolutely not. in fact, we have discouraged people, please, do not get out around move around if you don't have to. when the tornadoes first came through on the west side of oklahoma city, it was in rush hour traffic. and because of that, people were leaving their places of employment and trying to get home. and we understand that. we get that part. but when we say -- when we've
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had all of our weather folks telling us, look, this is going to be between 5:00 and sock and you need to stay alert to stay alive, i don't know what else we can do to get people to heed those warnings. we know if we have a job, we've got to get to our job and get back home. but we really encourage folks, if you don't have to be out driving, especially right now, because we still have first responders out trying to get to different locations. if we can't get there to help people, it's heartbreaking enough that we have to go to these fatality accidents and these drownings and that sort of stuff. but it's worse if we have to fight traffic of people just looking around. so we ask people don't be out unless you absolutely have to. >> we're just get thing update from the state emergency operations center. we're told that the canadian county emergency management reports several homes damaged
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and destroyed near el reno and union city. moore emergency management reports a large area of the town without power and flooding. and oklahoma city emergency management reports localized power outages, extensive flash flooding throughout the city. minor building flooding and debris from vegetation, police, fire, public works are responding to the calls throughout the city. it sounds obviously pretty bad right now. so what advice do you have for people who may be in these areas? >> well, obviously the same things that we've been telling them all along, don't drive into the storm. don't get out if you don't have to. we know that there are people without power tonight. we know that there are people displaced tonight.
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we ask for people to send their prayers heavenward for folks still up accounted for and for the first responders who will work overnight to see that we can get everybody that has survived the storms and get them the immediate medical attention that they need. obviously for the folks affected from last week's storm and this one, our hope, our prayers are with them and their families and hoping that we can just -- it's so unnerving when the weather is like this. the older that i get, the longer i live in oklahoma, the more of a healthy fear that i have for tornadoes. . our hope is that people will listen to those weather forecasters saying take need cover. when they say that, that means get underground. we know that anything above ground lessens your chances of survival. so we really hope that people will heed those warnings, stay off the roadway tonight and just
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be patient as we try to clear up the interstate systems and get the traffic flowing again. >> betsy, thank you very much. good advice from you. good luck to you and everyone in oklahoma right now. we're going to have much more coming up. we're watching it, getting new video from storm chasers. we'll be right back. i want to make things more secure. [ whirring ] [ dog barks ] i want to treat more dogs. ♪ our business needs more cases. [ male announcer ] where do you want to take your business? i need help selling art. [ male announcer ] from broadband to web hosting to mobile apps, small business solutions from at&t have the security you need to get you there. call us. we can show you how at&t solutions can help you do what you do... even better. ♪ . test. i've always kept my eye on her... but with so much health care noise, i didn't always watch out for myself.
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your sleep number setting. final days, sale ends sunday. only at the sleep number store. sleep number. comfort individualized five confirmed deaths we're now told as a result of these tornados that have touched down in oklahoma and elsewhere. joining us on the phone right now is andy lee, a volunteer with the oklahoma department of
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emergency management. do you have new numbers on fatalities, injured, information like that this >> none that i can update you on with fatalities. but i can tell you that the oklahoma state health department reported 12 storm related injuries. and all of the hospitals are operational and are not reporting any damage. i'm sure those will go up. >> i'm sure they will, as well. these pictures have been devastating. what about the people without power, customers without power in oklahoma, what are you hearing? >> the oklahoma corporation commission monitors power and utility companies for us. they report that we have 86,200 customers without power at this time >> mostly in the oklahoma city area? >> yeah, the oklahoma city metro total is at about 71,000 out of that 86,000.
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so the bulk of the people without power are local. >> what about flooding? how big of a problem is that right now? >> i would say that's a major problem. it's still raining as far as i know. i've been in the basement since the storm hit. but as far as i can tell, the storm front is still moving through. no tornado, active tornado warnings at this time. but we still have flash flood warnings and things like that, that are going on. it's important for people to do exactly what betsy was saying and stay home. chad was right. i don't know where that information came from, for people to get in their cars. but that was absolutely the wronged a vils to follow. what's good is that many, many people, if you look at the number of fatalities, as horrible as they are as having
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five, think what it could be with all of -- it's a fairly large area in the metro. so we were lucky in many regards that people did listen and stayed home and took shelter. the pictures that we're seeing of these cars stranded and the floods on these highways and roads, it's pretty depressing, when you see what's going on, especially in the aftermath of the tornado that struck on may 20th. it did such damage in moore and elsewhere. do you remember a time when we saw one back-to-back destructive tornadoes like these? >> well, to be honest, i don't have it in my head, but i recall the dates of may 8, may 3, and now may 20, because may is a big active month in tornado alley. i can say that people who are born and raised here have a plan. they know where they're going to
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go. schools know. businesses know. churches know. and people usually have some pretty good idea of where they're going to go, as long as they stay tuned to local tv stations, and of course, now we have facebook and twitter. so information is much more available than it used to be. >> if people are on the road right now and crawling on some of these highways or interstates and trying to get home, should they still continue to get home or exit and try to find a place to ride this out? >> well, i think at this point you don't know what road is flooded and what isn't. particularly in the dark. if there's no power or street lights and things like that. they might be safer where they are, and just let traffic lowly go down. in terms of being on the highways, if you're raised around here, you know where the places are that typically flood. and most people will avoid those
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places. so i'm not sure i'm the best one to give you advice on how to get home, but i would think that the best thing you can do is not go into places that you're not particular with. >> i think that's good advice. ann dee lee, good luck to you and all your colleagues and everyone out there. let's stay on the phone. aaron essman, storm chaser is with us. tell us where you are, and what you saw, what you're seeing right now. >> well, we're heading south on i-35 towards dallas. that's originally where we're out of. but today, we were near union city, about three miles northwest of union city when the tornado actually touched down there. and became very violent and very huge very fast. and unfortunately by the time we
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heard of a couple of storm chase kerrs getting hit by the tornado, we were evacuating southward into union state, which we understand there was a couple of news stations that told people to get in their vehicles and head south, which was very dangerous, because a lot of people, including ourselves, could have easily been killed there in the city. it was just horrendous. >> in the years that you've been a storm chaser, have you ever seen anything like that? some rumor or somebody saying get in your car and start driving and all of a sudden there's people panicking? >> i've never, ever heard of that. a fellow storm chaser said today that he's never seen a metropolitan city try to evacuate so fast. that's what we basically saw today. i-35 and the i-44 corridor, which is jam packed, to just a
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stop. that could have turned out very tragic if the tornado would have went on any of those highways. >> it could have been a real disaster. did you get pretty close to any of those tornadoes this time around, aaron? >> this time, we were about 300 yards from the wedge when it first touched down. we knew where we were, we knew how to stay staff. sometimes storms are very predictable, and this one went from an eastward moving storm to a southeastward moving storm. once we recognized that, we immediately put our escape plan into action and we got out of there as fast as we could. >> how are you doing now? how are you and your colleagues doing? >> we're all -- this has been a very long day and very scary one at that. so we're all heading home. we're going to see our families and live to chase another day, i guess.
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>> aaron, thank you very much. aaron estman, joining us, storm chaser heading back to texas right now. we'll take another break. when we come back, we'll go back to the cnn weather center to find out where the storm is right now, where it's heading, information you need to know. [ male announcer ] progress isn't about where you've been. ♪ it's about where you're going. the new ram 1500. best-in-class 25 mpg. ♪ north american truck of the year. ♪ the truck of texas. better residual value than ford and chevy. it's the fastest-growing truck brand in america. guts. glory. ram. guts. glory. i've always kept my eye on her... but with so much health care noise, i didn't always watch out for myself. with unitedhealthcare, i get personalized information and rewards for addressing my health risks. but she's still going to give me a heart attack. that's health in numbers. unitedhealthcare.
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information we're getting from the oklahoma city spokesperson who says that there is flooding all across the metropolitan area around oklahoma city. they're calling it widespread, major flooding. she says she's heard that they've had between 8 and 11 inches of rain. she says the city of oklahoma city has minor building flooding downtown. there's one inch of flood water in the first floor of city hall. she says there are apartment complexes in low lying areas with flooding issues. there are five metro buss stranded due to flood waters. significant developments, no passengers luckily on those buses. numerous, numerous accidents. so flooding clearly a major issue in the oklahoma city area, in the city itself, as well as in the suburbs. let's bring back samantha moore from the cnn weather center. what about the storm now, where is it concentrated? we know it moved from oklahoma,
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kansas to missouri. now it's moving what, into indiana, illinois? >> yes, the whole frontal system is shifting to the east very slowly. so we're going to have to watch a wide area as we head into the overnight and the weekend, as well. but right now, oklahoma city, you can see how that line was sagging to the south, lifting to the north with storms training one right after the other, dropping heavy rain as they go. that's why we're seeing the flooding situation, because they're going across the same terrain that's already saturated. we do still have a tornado warning, just south of the interstate here, north of canadian. that tornado warning is -- that cell is moving to the east right now at around 25 miles per hour or so. i know we also have one up around grove, as well. we have a tornado warning there, too. that one is moving to the east. that doesn't affect quite as many people right around 8,000 people or so. so we're watching that area.
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but it is fairly severe. we have warnings in the oklahoma city area, so we need to be concerned about the heavy rain and gusting, damaging straight line winds out of these storms. we're not so much concerned about tornadoes now, but could still see severe thunderstorms and flooding. we have seen reportedly some amounts up around nine inches in the oklahoma city area from some of these training cells. we have flash flood warnings in place from oklahoma city, stretching up into springfield and st. louis where all the thunderstorms have been throughout the afternoon. currently, the radar out of st. louis shows most of the severe storms have moved off to the east. but still heavy downpours and a lot of lightning southeast of town here in st. louis. but interestingly enough, if you look at the radar, there was nothing here at around 5:00 local time. and things just exploded. so you can actually see the in
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flow boundary ahead of this system, all of the moisture showing up on the radar, you can see the outflow boundary, once those storms moved on in. that's why we've had all the problems with flooding. the storms extended from oklahoma all the way on up here across parts of missouri. you can see how long that line of severe storms were many reports were in oklahoma, kansas. we don't have any tornado reports coming out of oklahoma yet. i think that number will be adjusted once the survey crews get out on the scene. i think they were too busy to monitor, because we know we saw the one in el reno and we saw the one move into moore. so i think they will be adjusting that number of tornado reports as we head into the next 24 hours. by tomorrow morning, we'll probably know. widespread rainfall is the story now with flooding concerns
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across the region and tornado watches in effect, into the early morning hours until 6:00 a.m. local time in indiana. you were talking how widespread this is. upper level low pushes to the east with the cold front out of it. the warm, moist air ahead of it. so we're still going to have the threat as we head through the weekend. tomorrow, a 30% chance we could see severe thunderstorms here across parts of illinois and indiana. so we'll watch that carefully as we head into the wmeekend. wolf? >> samantha, thank you very much. let's bring in ben mcmillen, a storm chaser. where are you right now, ben? >> we've taken refuge at a hotel in nor nan. -- norman tonight. >> did you get a sense to see
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what was going on in moore? i asked the question because moore, big chunks of it were destroyed on may 20 in the tornado then. i was there for a few days in the aftermath. i wonder how badly moore has done this time around. >> i'm not sure, wolf. but one problem you have with a lot of damaged areas that still haven't been cleaned up yet is you have a lot of loose debris. today, we had high winds move into those areas. i don't know for sure whether or not actual tornadoes hit, but i can tell you that strong winds impacted that area. i think that might have caused some issues with all that debris getting kicked up and flying around. >> they lost a lot of power over there, as well. how close did you get to the storm on this day, ben? >> we we are about a half mile away from the tornadoes that formed south of the el reno airport. it started off as small, stovepipe tornadoes but grew into a half mile to mile wide tornado that moved east from our
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location. just encountered a lot of homes damaged in that area. there were some cars flipped, propane tanks leaking. then helped with some rescue efforts. >> you got out and helped people in trouble? >> yeah, we were in the areas were houses were hit. >> were the homes pretty much destroyed, badly damaged? >> some of them were leveled. but the really bad damage we saw was in garage areas, structures that weren't as sturdy. and the weather service will complete some damage surveys to let us know how strong the winds are. >> right now, with all the flooding, with all the debris, it's dangerous to even be moving around. >> yeah, i don't know what the
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folks are saying for sure here, but it feels like it's a state of emergency. there's roads closed and that's why we decided to take shelter south of the city and not trying to enter the area. >> have you been a storm chaser for a long time? >> i've been chasing for about 10 to 11 years now. we actually tracked the ef-5 that hit moore last week. it's just sad to see these folks dealing with so much have to go through it yet again. >> is that pretty unusual, within 10, 12 days, two tornadoes to hit the same area? >> yeah, it's very rare. i think the moore area had three or four tornadoes hit nit the last ten years. then to have two hit is something i've never seen before. >> i've never seen that either. it was heartbreaking to see what was going on in moore. and then now knowing what's going on even makes the
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situation so much worse, so much more painful. so where to you go from here? what's next from you, ben? >> we track storms daily. we go wherever the storm risk is greatest. tomorrow, we're looking at areas in texas, the south central texas area could have similar storms oklahoma experienced today. >> one of the big problems today is somebody told people, get in your car and start driving and that caused a huge, huge traffic jam in major interstates and people will be investigating to see who gave that poor advice. ben mcmillen, thank you very much. be careful and good work. thank you. chad myers is on the phone, our meteorologist who has been chasing these storms, as well. have you made much progress moving? because the traffic has been horrendous you were telling us. >> it difficult break up a little bit and we're in southwest oklahoma city.
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not quite up into oklahoma city yet, but we're traveling along southwest 44th street, almost around penn. all of the lights are out. nobody has power. and the street lights are out. and wolf, just still don't get it, but there are hundreds of people just driving around. so we get to this intersection, obviously now supposed to be a four-way stop, and people don't get it, they don't stop, running through the headlines, honking at each other. it's still chaos down here. i don't know why people just don't go home. the power is out. this dumb founds me at 11:40 local time, why people are still driving around this town. >> but you may be right, maybe they're trying to get back to their homes because they got in their cars and decided they were going to drive away from this
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storm, which was not necessarily a great idea. >> you know, just digress to this story, whatever the information came from. if you're in a town like el reno or if you are in a town that's 150, 250 people and there is a one-mile wide tornado about to come to your town, i don't think it's a bad idea to get everybody out of that town, if you know they're 20 minutes in advance which way to go. but if you have a major metropolitan area that's just going to make a traffic nightmare, that seems like that may have been bad advice, because everybody got in their car and got stuck in traffic. we had five lanes of traffic going south on a four-lane highway. it was like trying to evacuate for a hurricane. but you're trying to do this with 20 minutes notice.
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when we tell you to evacuate for a hurricane, that's 48 hours in advance. >> we heard from the oklahoma city spokesperson. 8 to 11 inches of rain in oklahoma city. are you seeing evidence of flooding on the streets where you are right now? >> you know, it's not really bad. we've been trying to drive around. we heard there was some high water rescues going on not 45 far to our south. by the time we got there, it was gone. the water is receding. i've seen nothing that would be over even the tire part of our wheel. so no, we haven't seen a lot of flooding. we've been right down by the canadian river. you didn't get lower than where we were, and we haven't seen a lot of it yet. maybe it's already run off, but it's still raining in some spots and samantha will tell you it was still raining in el reno and those areas did pick up to 11 inches of rainfall along that
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i-40. as we're trying to make our way out there, i'm sure we'll find more as we go further west. >> chad, be careful over there. we'll take a quick break. when we come back, you'll hear one of the storm chasers who shot some dramatic video. here it is right now. you'll hear him explain what was going on. stand by. with angie's list, i save time, money, and i avoid frustration. you'll find reviews on home repair to healthcare written by people just like you.
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we're following the breaking news involving the latest round of tornadoes hitting oklahoma, missouri, kansas, now illinois, indiana. christy yager is joining us, the spokesperson for the oklahoma city area. what is the latest, how bad is the situation in oklahoma city? >> we had tornadoes throughout the metro area. tornado damage seems to be minor right now. the biggest threat was flooding. that was throughout all of oklahoma city. we're about 621 miles, so it was a big area. and right now, the flooding has subsided in north oklahoma city, because i'm driving that way right now. i don't know what's happening in south oklahoma city. but we're very concerned about the damage that that's caused, and we'll be out on the ground tomorrow morning doing damage
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assessments. >> because we were told that oklahoma city, the greater metropolitan area had 8 to 11 inches of rain in a relatively brief amount of time. is that right? >> yeah, in just a few hours. >> that's why you got this flooding. why are so many people still on the street driving around? >> well, oklahoma city is a busy place. we had events going on all over the place. just caught everybody up in those. once those events let out, people wanted to get home. it would have been better had they stayed at the facility a little longer to let those flood waters subside. >> do you have any information, kristy, about casualties, injuries? >> we have not heard of any in oklahoma city at this point.
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but it's probably a little too early to get any information regarding the flooding. >> kristy yager, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> good luck. earlier i spoke to brandon sullivan, the storm chaser who shot that incredible video near oklahoma city. we've been looking at the video throughout this evening. i asked him to walk us through where he was, what was going on when the tornado came his way. >> well, we were just northwest of union city, oklahoma, west of oklahoma city. you know, we could tell that a tornado was imminent at any time. a tornado formed and it became very large very last. we knew it was time to go south. the tornado actually crosses maybe a half mile behind our
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cars. but the inflow to the tornado was so strong that it ripped a barn apart and began tearing degree across the road. it smashes into our car. so we basically had no choice but to slow down and move slowly as this debris came throwing toward us. >> what kind of vehicle is this? >> i drive a jeep patriot. it's a lighter, smaller suv. >> is it armored, is it safe to go through a dangerous situation, a storm like this? >> i mean, there's no special armoring. i don't have a tank or anything. i guess you couldn't say it's armored, but in my opinion, i don't believe it's really safe to ever been as close as we were, even in an armored vehicle. flying debris is very deadly.
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>> we just saw it. the wind shield smashed. were you driving, where were you when that wind shield was smashed like that, and what went through your mind when that happened? >> i was in the passenger seat. my friend, brett, was driving. you know, honestly, my concern was -- i knew we weren't in the tornadoic circulation. we were in the inflow, so i wasn't concerned about being picked up and carried away. my main concern was flying debris and possibly getting tipped over by the winds. i told everybody in the vehicle to duck down, try to cover their eyes and avoid the flying glass and we had to wait it out there for about 30 seconds. >> what was the most frightening moment that you and your colleagues had to endure? >> you know, the tornado, like i
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said, it was very large. it turned right and came right at us. you forecast i would say that moment of the tornado coming right at us was more scary than the debris hitting my car. when the deprix is hitting the car, i knew we were out of the tornadic circulation. i knew i was getting damage to the car, but that was better than being picked up and carried away by the tornado. >> some other vehicles we saw today were flipped and carried away. how long have you been chasing tomorrows like this? >> i'm only 21 years old, but i've been doing this since i was about 14. so seven, almost eight years i've been doing it for quite a while. but today was just a wild experience. >> pretty frightening to see the video.
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you just had a camera attached to your dash board and let it roll, was that it? >> yes. we have the cameras on the front dash and on the hood. we even had interior cameras. so we were able to capture anything that happens. >> are you okay now, brandon? >> yes, i'm fine. i'm at home and got cleaned up and ready to have some dinner and relax. >> what about your friends? >> everybody in the vehicle was okay. we're all sitting here sharing our videos and picture and reminiscing about the day. >> thanks to brandon sullivan for that report. and for that video. we're going to take another quick break. when we come back, we'll talk to a cnn producer who was at the oklahoma city international airport when this huge storm came rushing through. ñó5wó ñw?ñçñññw?ñçó]ç9wjyó
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matt's brakes didn't sound right... ...so i brought my car to mike at meineke...
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...and we inspected his brakes for free. -free is good. -free is very good. [ male announcer ] now get 50% off brake pads and shoes at meineke. cnn producer denise kwan is joining us on the phone. she was at oklahoma city international airport when the weather came through. what was it like, denise? >> it was pretty surreal. we were sitting in a lounge waiting to board the plane when the sirens went off and then we
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were asked to please evacuate to the basement. so a bunch of us got herded downstairs into the basement and we waited out the tornadoes. the first one went by, we didn't hear anything. but the lights did flicker and i think the power for the entire airport went out and we went on generator. we were down there 45 more minutes waiting out a series of what they called swirlers. we were down there hour and a half, two hours. came back upstairs. all the flights with now canceled and i hear some of the planes had been damages that were sitting on the tarmac. they want to check the conditions of the planes and the runway. there are a lot of people that will be spending a long night into the waiting area of the airport or plane that isn't flying out any time soon. >> denise, be careful over there. thanks to all of our viewers for joining us. i'm wolf blitzer for reporting.
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cnn's breaking news coverage will continue after this break.
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