there's a lot of trauma cases so icases, so i just don't want to -- >> bless your heart. >> -- go there. >> bless your heart. earlier you said in the back of your mind you worried something like this might happen. why did you think this could happen? >> because i do these events and the security that is for these events, it's not there. they check your bags minimum. granted this one was in a hotel, but there's just such an opportunity for somebody to do this in such a mass crowd and kill so many people at one time. it's just the perfect storm for something like this to happen. and it's -- i'm really rethinking what i'm going to be doing because i don't want to do this anymore. i'm scared. >> that's understandable. michelle and wendy, thank you. we're thinking of you and

everyone there. we send you our love and our absolute best. >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you both. >> we're praying for everybody. >> we all are praying for everybody right now. we are live all across the country. it's 7:30 here on the east coast. we're live all across the country covering the deadliest mass shooting in american history. it happened in las vegas last night. country music festival. this was the moment when the shots rang out. ♪ [ sound of gunfire ] jason aldean there on the stage. just seconds later he dropped his guitar, ran off the stage but the shooting went on for four and a half minutes. this shows the scene from the concertgoers' perspective. >> i can only imagine the confusion at that moment not knowing if it was a part of the

concert or not and this is what we do know at this hour. more than 50 people -- more than 50 -- killed. more than 200 injured. the shooter has been identified as 64-year-old stephen paddock. he is now dead. police believe he was the only attacker. they've also located the woman believed to be the person of interest, this woman here, his companion. >> our national correspondent has been on scene all night at the mandalay bay. matt? >> reporter: george, when you think about the shooting you think it was meticulously planned. this man took his weapons to this hotel. he planned to be on the side facing the concert towards the airport. he knew he would be in an elevated position. he repositioned his weapons there and fired down on the crowd. eyewitnesses who were there, tens of thousands of them, in the crowd at the concert shoulder to shoulder, cheek to jowl, said they at feast first heard thumping and then heard the gunfire. they thought it was firecrackers.

and then people started falling. that's when people started calling it the kill box. it really was shooting fish in a barrel for this shooter. mowing people down right and left and then the chaos ensued. people trampling each other, stumbling over the many, the 200 wounded, trying to seek safety. we've heard reports of people hauling the wounded over fences to try to get them out of harm's way. many people sought shelter underneath the stage itself because that was the only place they thought they couldn't be seen. and with them first responders. there were police officers on the scene. there were ex-military. there were nurses helping to stench the wounds of these people who had been shot, chest wounds, head wounds, there was blood everywhere. one of the eyewitnesses still had blood on his hands, his shirt was gone because he had used it to try to stop the bleeding of one of the eyewitnesses. and that chaos simply cascaded across this city. first people started to spill into the airport trying to get

away from the shooting. then all across here there were reports of additional shootings, of bomb scares. the hotel started closing down. there were lockdowns. some hotels were evacuated. it took six hours, george, for some of these hotels to end the lockdown and finally allow people out of the rooms. and you can see behind me traffic is still at this hour being diverted away from the las vegas strip as law enforcement still picks up the pieces and continues what is going to be a very exhaustive and prolonged investigation. george and robin? >> i can understand that completely. earlier we spoke with adam payne, another witness to the shooting. >> i understand -- i'm sorry, a good friend of yours was shot? >> yeah, he was shot right in the stomach. >> is he okay? >> yeah, actually. as far as his family told me he came out of surgery. they removed the bullet and he's

now in stable condition. >> tell us about your experience. >> well, me and my girlfriend, we were center stage, about maybe 100, 150 feet back from the front of the stage. the third song of the set everyone was having a great time singing, whatever was going on. the initial string of gunfire sounded like a small chain of like fireworks, like firecrackers. there was maybe a ten-second pause between the first and second string and by the time it got louder and deeper and by the time everybody turned around the performer even ran off stage, him and his band. >> is that when you knew it was real? >> yeah. yeah, it was kind of right then and there. everything hit the fan. you realize it's not just

fireworks. something is actually going down. >> you were pretty close to the stage. how did you get out? >> it was kind of a mess. everything happening with my friend is how i got out. we turned around and started running out towards the exit, and i just happened to glance down at the right time, he was laying on his back so i stopped to help him and told my girlfriend to keep on going, get out. i'll find her when i get out and picked him up. i was carrying him out and everybody got ahead of me and that's how him and i got out. we just got really lucky that we were some of the last people out. >> you actually carried him out? >> i carried him out as far as i could carry him until a paramedic came and took over for me. >> but in those first minutes and hours you don't know what to believe. you don't know what the situation is like. >> oh, no. >> everything is a mystery.

>> it was to the point i believed for a while there was more than one shooter. but they're saying now it was a lone wolf kind of attack and everything that happened happened off the 32nd floor of the mandalay bay hotel and casino. >> you have to imagine people like adam you spoke to so soon after the shooting had to be in some state of shock. >> they describe the few minutes feeling like hours. >> and more than 200 injured and they're at local hospitals. lindsay davis is at one there in las vegas. lindsay? >> reporter: robin, we just got our third update from a umc spokeswoman. every time we get an update the number has doubled. so at latest check she says 104 patients have been admitted here, eight of them were taken into the o.r., 12 remain in critical condition. of course we heard from the sheriff saying the hospitals here are overwhelmed and that's a legitimate concern of many in

the medical field saying how equipped is the city of las vegas as far as hospitals to care for the more than 200 people who have been injured. this trauma center, for example, they only have 18 beds in the icu. and another legitimate question/concern, will there be enough blood supply as well, robin? >> it's still a very fluid situation there at the hospital. they have to keep getting new numbers. >> and that's not the only hospital. we want to bring back brian ross for more on this right now. lots of details coming in on the shooter. >> george, they're trying to learn all they can about 64-year-old stephen paddock. they've begun by questioning a person described as his companion, 62-year-old marilou danley. here's a picture she posted of herself at the mandalay bay casino in september of 2014 where she apparently regularly went to gamble. she was taken into custody for questioning by police after they searched for her across nevada. they say they now have her in

custody. what woo e do know about paddoc he's worked as an accountant over the years, an auditor. 64-year-old white male. he filed a lawsuit against the casino in 2012. >> not the mandalay bay. >> a different one. settled it in arbitration. he has a hunting license in alaska. he's familiar with guns. he's a private pilot. >> nothing in the background that would prevent him from buying these weapons. >> well, a fully automatic weapon is hard to obtain. there's no criminal record on his part at all, nothing that would prevent him from buying a standard weapon. a fully automatic weapon like these that shoot off as many as 600 rounds a minute are very difficult to obtain, to get a license for that takes years sometimes and they're extremely expensive, $65,000. as much as that. how he obtained the weapon will be of great question. as we've reported over four and a half minutes he fired off six or seven bursts, 30 rounds in each burst.

>> 200 shots overall. >> we'll be live with the very latest from las vegas. the deadliest mass shooting in american history. what we're now learning about the shooter, the witnesses from the scene. they're going to open up and tell us more about those terrifying moments when we come back.

back here on "gma" with the

deadliest mass shooting in american history. gunfire ringing out during a country music festival. jason aldean was on stage at the time. at least 50 people, more than 50, killed. more than 200 injured. the suspect is now dead. we're going to bring in our contributors, dan abrams is here in the studio as well as ray kelly. thank you, gentlemen. the broad investigation as it stands right now. >> this is a crime scene right now and the most important thing for them to do immediately is to make sure there's no one -- that there's no threat to the community. everything about how this happened, meaning how did he get the weapons, who did he know? who was he associated with. the immediate time before it and then they're going to move back. and then who else did he know beyond that, et cetera, but, remember, this is right now a

very active crime scene investigation. preparing for a terrorist attack, the entire city on lockdown. >> i must say that the police did an excellent job. when you have an active shooter situation obviously the shooter has the advantage of time. he got there within five minutes and took this individual out. what's different here is the automatic weapon. he has the ability to put out a lot of bullets and 10,000 potential targets. we haven't seen anything like this. >> a captive situation. >> obviously panic, people falling over each other. it could have been a lot more people killed. we don't know how much ammunition he had. he had several weapons. were they all automatic weapons. not easy to get an automatic weapon. if you know something about guns you can adjust to a regular

semiautomatic rifle to shoot and he had a hunting license in alaska. obviously had some familiarity with the guns. this is the first time we've seen anything like this. it was the greatest mass shooting in the history of this country and why, why, why. >> former dallas chief david brown, we heard from a woman who runs a merchandising. these soft targets. the promoter wants to try to minimize cost as it relates to security and law enforcement is always pushing and advocating for more and more expanding the perimeter and this example is why law enforcement is so concerned about these soft targets about when we can layer on more and more security so

that we can get a sense of these type of sniper events. >> and, dan abrams, this will reopen the debate over guns in this country. >> it is really important to make sure we do it accurately. i think as ray points out we don't necessarily know it was an automatic weapon per se. automatic weapons are generally illegal around the country. there are exceptions to that. one can take a semiautomatic weapon, a perfectly legal one, and transform it into an automatic weapon. i think that the first question people are going to want to know is did he acquire these weapons legally? that's the question. and if he didn't, where did he get them, how did he get them, who did he get them from? there's no question that that will be a part of this investigation and an important one. >> what we've seen in las vegas, ray, right here in sometimes square and when there's large

events that are often taking place here and people have wondered what it would be like for somebody to get into and do similar to what happened here. >> sure. it's a major concern but at major events here the police department had people on rooftops observing what's going on on the ground but also observing buildings that are across from where they are. so it's something that's always been on the radar screen for the police department, but still difficult to spot and difficult to react to. >> not what you would expect in a concert like this. >> and most of the security is focused on the ground. checking bags. >> and intelligence, too. don't forget about that and ray will tell you. it's intelligence, not just how many shooters you have. it's about stopping these things before they happen. >> okay. we have to take a quick break. we're live with the latest on this mass shooting in las vegas. jason aldean was on the stage when the shooting rang out. what he and the rest of the community are saying this morning.

amy is with us now. a lot of reaction pouring in. >> as you might imagine the music world is stunned by this horrific shooting. supposed to be a three-day celebration of country music in vegas, but this morning that community is reeling. overnight tragedy striking the route 91 concert festival, a lone gunman opening fire on the sold-out crowd in las vegas. quickly the reactions on social media began pouring in from the

stars featured in the tragic event. country music singer jason aldean performing on stage when the fateful shots began. ♪ [ gunfire ] just minutes before his performance aldean talking about his excitement. >> looking forward to being a good night for sure. >> after the incident aldean posting on instagram, tonight has been beyond horrific. my thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved tonight. it hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night. performer nick miller watching it all unfold from the crowd. >> i heard a sound that i thought was just fireworks and turned into continuous machine gun fire. >> singer jake owen on stake minutes before aldean, gunshots! pray to god. then this chilling tweet. i witnessed the most unimaginable event tonight. we are okay. others aren't. please pray. music's biggest stars offering support this morning. mariah carey saying, my thoughts are with the victims and their

families. fans fleeing this chaotic scene reminiscent of previous massng . earlier this year a suicide bomber detonating explosives in manchester, england, after an arrianna grande concert and this attack in front of a sold-out crowd in paris, the gunman opening fire killing 89 people trapped inside the concert hall. and jason aldean's pregnant wife brittany speaking out saying she is safe, angels were watching over her. she says she has no words for the horror for everyone involved. this is the largest of the three-day crowd expected and we know who was in that crowd, country music fans are the best. it's so incredibly tragic. >> i couldn't agree more.

thank you for joining us, i'm natasha zouves. reggie aqui is off. we will rejoin coverage of the shooting. >> an update on weather and traffic as you start your day. good morning, mike. >> good morning, natasha, jessica. the winds are still big issue. gusts up to 52 miles an hour in the diablo range. 34 in the hills around oakland. you can see it's just been gusty all night. that's why we have that red flag warning, the high fire danger is going to continue until tomorrow evening. it's going to stay around a while so be careful if you're above 1,000 feet. what it's doing for the rest of us, 16 degrees warmer this morning. where does that put us? 55 at half moon bay. 51 in fremont. look at the other temperatures,

65 in san francisco. we're at 65 right now in concord, 63 in novato and napa. here is the way it looks. so a wide range of temperatures at 7:00. 60s at the coast for the better part of the afternoon. low to mid-70s around the bay at noon. mid to upper 70s at 4:00. how about that morning commute, alexis? >> we don't have any major issues to talk about right now, mike. looking at almost exclusively green travel conditions and i'll step out of the way so you can look at the bay bridge toll plaza, a stackup and those metering lights won't click off until 5:20. that's still a smooth drive. drive times looking good, too, 580 tracy to dublin. our one slow spot in the yellow at 44 minutes. 680 dublin to mission boulevard, wide open in the green at 15. northbound 85 101 to cupertino you look great. an update now on what is being called the deadliest mass shooting. more than 50 people are dead and more than 200 hurt after a gunman opened fire on a crowd at

a country music festival in las vegas. the gunman opened fire from a 32nd floor of the mandalay bay hotel late last night. he has been identified as stephen paddock. he was killed after a s.w.a.t. team burst into his hotel room. police believe this was a lone wolf attack. a person of interest shortly after the shooting. abc 7 news reporter amy hollyfield is live at oakland airport where a 6:00 a.m. flight is scheduled to depart. >> reporter: the airport was shut down temporarily right after the shooting but i'm happy to report for anyone going to las vegas, we have three flights leaving here in oakland at 6:00 this morning or two at 6:00, one on spirit and one on southwest.

another at 7:15 showing an on-time departure out of oakland. i did talk to one woman who is headed that way. she was worried this would it isn't so she is here and about to head on her way. she has faith in god and she thinks she's just going to focus on her business trip. reporting live in oakland, amy hollyfield. >> thank you. and to recap at least 50 people are dead after a gunman opened fire on a concert crowd in las vegas. >> 64-year-old stephen paddock shot from a room on the 32nd floor using a high-powered weapon. he died when a s.w.a.t. team burst into his room. more than 200 people hurt in the attack. if you are worried about a family member or friend this phone number to help people establish whether their loved ones are safe. i tweeted this out and here is the number on your screen,

1-866-535-5654. back to abc news coverage of the las vegas shooting. deadly rampage in las vegas. mass shooting at a country music festival. a lone shooter opening fire right above jason aldean's concert. out the window of a mandalay bay hotel room firing for four and a half minutes. >> it just kept going and going. >> more than 50 people dead, over 200 injured. mass panic erupting on the strip as thousands of concert goers run for their lives. we hear from the eyewitness who is were right there. >> i heard this pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, going nonstop. >> the deadliest mass shooting in american history. our team