let's not just empathize. let's help. let's show that we are in our own way realizing that it is our duty as americans to help americans that face disasters that they had nothing to do with, but that we have everything to do with helping them make it through. it could be you. it could be me. it could be our child. let's help. thanks for watching. i'm al sharpton. chris jansing continues our coverage of the oklahoma tornadoes, next. good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. rescue efforts in the oklahoma city suburb of moore are still under way.

more than 24 hours after a devastating tornado ripped through the region. here's what we know right now. at least 24 people were killed. that number includes at least nine children. seven of whom died at an elementary school stuck in the storm's path. nearly 240 others were injured. both those numbers could obviously go up in the coming days. throughout the community, homes were blown away. schools and hospitals were demolished. neighbors lie in ruin as you can see here. the weather today, with heavy rain and lightning, slowed the rescue effort, but more than 100 people have been pulled from the rubble just so far. meanwhile, the national weather service upgraded the storm to an ef-5, that's the strongest rating for a tornado. ef-5. the president declared a major disaster area in oklahoma today. he spoke from the white house earlier. >> the people of moore should know that their country will remain on the ground there for them, beside them, as long as it takes. for there are homes and schools to rebuild. businesses and hospitals to

reopen. there are parents to console. first responders to comfort. and, of course, frightened children who will need our continued love and attention. >> well, the president also reached out to oklahoma governor mary fallin. this afternoon the governor, herself, spoke about the unbelievable tragedy in oklahoma. >> it's been a very trying couple of days for the state of oklahoma. it's a sad time for us because we've experienced one of our most horrific storms and disasters that the state has ever faced. but yet in the midst of tragedy and loss of life, we've also seen the resilience and the courage and the strength of our people, and we will get through this. we will overcome and we will rebuild and we will regain our strength. >> meanwhile, there's potential for more severe weather this evening in northern texas, arkansas, and parts of louisiana and oklahoma. msnbc's chris jansing has been on the ground in moore, oklahoma, all this day. she joins us now.

thank you so much, chris, my colleague. what is it like down there? i just want to get a sense that we can't see on the tv. >> reporter: it's hard. really to put into words, chris. as i drove in here, it almost didn't really -- it seemed like it was the set of a movie. it wasn't possible. i had never seen, and people who cover storms had never seen destruction like this. this is what happens with 200 mile per hour winds. entire neighborhoods wiped out. i mean, there you see some folks who are just going through the painstaking work of looking at what's left of their house which isn't much. some people just trying to find usually things that are sentimental to them, like photographs or pieces of jewelry. but it just goes on for block after block after block. we heard stories of horses -- there's a lot of farmland around here. horses flying in the air. we see piles of cars across the street in the parking lot. five, six deep. there's even a car on top of the

medical center across the street. the devastation is almost unbelievable. they are still doing the painstaking work of going through the rubble. they don't believe, chris, at this point that there are any people trapped, but they don't want to rule out the possibility and they're getting calls. they got a call just a few minutes ago. we were listening on the radio of people who think they hear or see something. in this case, it was at one of the storm shelters, and so they sent people over to check it out. so this is going to be an ongoing process here. obviously, the first thing they're doing is making sure there isn't anybody trapped. beyond that, to even assess the damage and then start to think about rebuilding, chris. >> you know, it looked like a neutron bomb hit. you've heard about neutron bombs in the old days. i'm sure they still exist where they bomb the buildings, they don't necessarily kill the people through contamination. people, we've watched all these pictures -- we haven't seen. we've seen live horses. we haven't seen dead horses.

we've heard about casualties. we certainly have them by the hundreds now. we haven't seen them on the ground. did a lot of people just basically get the word and get out of there? >> reporter: well, one of the things that happened, chris, was this happened during the day and a lot of times this happens at night and people are asleep in their beds. even though there was only 16 minutes' warning, people had an idea that it was coming. and they were able, you know, to get to their shelters or get into a basement. we're just down the street from a movie theater, and people who were in there watching a movie described that all of a sudden all the phones started to light up. it was a weather warning that people were getting on their phones so they all were moved out into a hallway. they were up against the wall. and when they walked out of that movie theater, which by the way is still standing, everything else they saw around them was pretty much gone. so that's what it was like, but i think they do believe that the fact that it happened during the day, and one more thing, chris, i think this is important, you know, this storm hit this town, this suburb of oklahoma city almost exactly the same way that

it hit in 1999. and the folks who were here in 1999 will tell you they offered them the opportunity to get some help to build storm shelters, and a lot of people did. and the mayor told me this morning that he thinks if that help wasn't available and so many people hadn't built storm shelters that the devastation and the loss of life could have been much, much worse. >> we've heard so much from the local people, and it's got to be authoritative, because there are lives at stake, that the ground is too hard to get through, that the water table is too high. what is the safe place -- is there a known structure or a known, i guess, a basement? what is a safe place to reliably wait out one of these tornadoes when you know an ef-5 is coming your way? is there a safe place for sure? >> reporter: there are storm shelters. there are storm shelters, and people went there. is any place safe absolutely for sure? people will tell you it's not. but the other thing that folks

here will tell you, because you ask them, well, if you were here in 1999 and are still here again, will you stay? everybody i talked to said they would. this is something you're brought up with and you learn and you drill it in school and many parents talk to their kids about it. and it almost instinctively when i talk to some people, one guy was across the street and decided he had to get home. instinctively he knew what closet he was going to go to and everything fell around him and he was okay. >> wow. >> reporter: so is anything 100% safe? no. but there are storm shelters. people have built their own storm shelters. and they do know where to go. and there are procedures. because if you think, chris, of a multiplex movie theater and the people that we talk to, they got into the hall and everybody seemed to be pretty organized. nobody talked about it being chaotic. that's pretty remarkable. i think it speaks to the fact that this is a place where tornadoes happen and people know what to do. >> you mentioned schools. tell me what we know about plaza towers.

last night we got a report, fortunately it wasn't accurate, of 24 kids being killed. a local news report apparently was being passed around by authorities. it turns out it was less than that. but the fact that they chose, the teachers, as the smart move, the safest move was to keep the kids in a stronger structure at a school building, get them against a wall in the safest part of the building and hope for the best. what do we know about what happened following that procedure? >> reporter: well, let me tell you. one of the things that gave me chills, and there are always stories of heroism that come out of these tragedies, chris. one of the stories is of a teacher who got her kids to the safe place and then worried that the roof was going to come off, and, in fact, the ceiling did collapse. had them all go down and she put her arms around them and covered their heads. one of the fathers said that he has absolutely no doubt she saved the lives of her young students that day. she is hospitalized. he said that the storm was so powerful it actually pulled eye glasses off of the kids.

but there she was taking care of them. another teacher who was at a preschool and the kids were understandably very upset. some of them were crying and some of them were yelling. and she had taught them this song "you are my sunshine" and got them all singing the song so they would stay calm and nobody would try to run away and they would all be safe. i think that's just more of the remarkable stories. it reminded me so much of newtown and the heroism of teachers and how under the most stressful circumstances they seem instinctively, and i'm sure through training obviously as well, they know what to do. >> so do you, chris jansing. thanks for that great reporting. it's great to have you on the ground when something good or bad happens. thanks for being here. nbc's savannah guthrie spoke with rhonda crosswit. that's a teacher of plaza towers, an elementary school that chris jansing mentioned. crosswhite protected her stude students as we heard from chris by lying on top of them and

comforting with them throughout the deal. crosswhite reunited with one of those students during her interview with savannah. here it is. >> i was in a stall with some kids. it started coming down. i laid on top of them. one of my little boys said, i love you, i love you, please don't die with me. please don't die with me. i never thought i was going to die. the whole time i just kept screaming to them, quit worrying, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine, we're fine. >> reporter: i do have a student here who wants to say thank you to you. this is damian klein. and his mom, brandy. >> i told you we were going to be okay. >> alfredo corales, maria and vivian luna survived yesterday in their storm shelter. thank you. tell us your decision to build a storm shelter. what works or doesn't in these ef-5 tornadoes? >> the only thing i can say about the storm cellars, that's

the only way to go especially when you have a tornado this big. you know, the news, the weathermen tell you all the time if it's that big, if you're above ground, you're not going to survive it. so, i mean, really the only thing i can tell people is that, you know, the seriousness of having a storm cellar is at a ten. >> and people have told me in the last 24 hours that it's hard to build because the ground is so hard down there. is it expensive or difficult to put a shelter in? to dig it in the ground? >> you know, i mean, the clay here, it's red clay so the clay is -- the dirt is hard. expensive-wise, honestly, i mean, it's probably a few thousand dollars. >> yeah. >> $5,000 or $6,000 the last i knew. >> and let me ask maria luna, your wife, about how you managed to get the whole family to the shelter in time to avoid horror. >> well, to be honest with you, i was at work when all this

happened. it was alfredo and actually vivi, my daughter, that was there by herself at the house. and then alfredo got home. he's the one who got -- told her to go into the shelter because a tornado was close. but me being at work, i was really worried because there were no cell phone lines. there was no communication. i couldn't get ahold of them. so i was really worried about them. >> viviana, you just survived one of the biggest tornadoes ever to hit your area. what are you going to be able to tell people what it was like, how you got the warning, how much time you had? what it was like racing to the shelter? >> this is something that is honestly unexplainable. i can't even begin to tell you how i feel or how i felt during this whole experience. there wasn't much time between getting from my house to the shelter just because the tornado was already so close. i'm just still in shock as of everything that's been happening.

>> how much warning did you get? >> i got maybe about five or ten minutes' warning, then once alfredo got home, he told me to get my butt in the shelter and that's exactly what i did. >> alfredo, how much time did you have to get your daughter, or get this whole thing organized? >> you know, we actually, you know, we listened to the news the day before, you know. they had the big tornadoes that hit shawnee. and the weathermen basically told us that we were going to have the same type of outbreak the next day. so we were already kind of a little bit warned on that part of it. so we kind of knew when the outbreak was going to kind of form and start up and we just, you know, i was at my office with a few of my business partners, and we just got on our laptops, pulled up the radar to kind of see where things were going. they were just getting really bad so we made the executive decision to go to my house where we have the storm cellar.

it was probably, you know, from getting there to the house, we probably -- to orchestrate it all, we probably had less than five minutes at the most. >> good work. good work for you. congratulations. i shouldn't say that because it's still a horror for the community, but you did the right thing. alfredo, thank you. maria and viviana, great accounts from you all. our coverage of the tragedy in oklahoma will continue in just a minute. all stations come over to mission a for a final go. this is for real this time. step seven point two one two. verify and lock. command is locked. five seconds. three, two, one.

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i heard the roar of the tornado. and then i grabbed my dog and we went and laid down in the closet.

saw the glass breaking, things crashing and rumbling. and then the ceiling, the roof tore off. and i could see little holes starting to develop in the ceiling. and i could actually see the tornado. >> boy, that's a good account there. welcome back to "hardball." local, state and federal officials have been out in full force responding to the disaster left by yesterday's tornado. let's go back to moore, oklahoma, where lieutenant governor todd lamb is there. he joins us tonight. welcome, lieutenant governor -- rather, governor, thank you for joining us. give us a sense in your authority position right now, what's getting done, what you need from fema, how things stand in terms of dealing with this incredible disaster? >> chris, it's absolutely horrific. to see the images on the television, it pales in comparison to real life. the devastation is horrific. i was with the governor yesterday. we went to the emergency operation center.

when spoke to the president, she also made the request to fema. everything that's been requested by the state of oklahoma to the federal authority, to the president and to fema, every request has been granted and we're receiving federal assistant at this time. >> so how does it work now, just so we'd like to get a sense, i would, of how it works. you call washington, you call craig fugate, head of fema. how does it work state to government, in these kind of catastrophes? >> yesterday, shortly after the tornado completed its devastation in moore, oklahoma, governor fallin called the regional director of fema with our emergency management director, albert ashwood. they went through a formal procedure of requesting federal assistance for the four counties that were affected from the tornadoes the day before and the tornado here in moore yesterday. that was the semantics of going through the process. that would allow us in oklahoma, in any state for that matter, that goes through the process to begin removing the regulation to hire contracts, contract workers, and remove the competitive bid process to seek relief on a quicker basis for

emergencies such as this. >> i've gotten an education on what you do in these situations and how devastating it can be. up around the new york city area in breezy point, places like staten island and the rockaways where all the electricity is blown away. you have people's homes electrical systems are blown away, where the houses are declared basically unlivable and you have to deal with almost a rock bottom situation where whole communities have to be rebuilt, especially the electrical systems, sewer systems, water systems. how do you do the triage in the next couple months, in fact, the next couple of days? >> well, it's the assessment process. you hit the nail on the head, chris. it's one thing to go through the rescue efforts we're going through right now and the recovery efforts we're going through right now. the cleanup we're going through right now. but i've talked to many people and they ask me, what are my thoughts? well, don't forget oklahoma in three days. don't forget oklahoma in one week. don't forget oklahoma in three weeks. moore, oklahoma, where we are, you've said it many times, i

know already, on your program. this is the third time we've had this go through moore. 1999, 2003, and yesterday. we will rebuild. we're a strong people. we're a people of faith and a people of hope. but it's going to be a long process to go through the rescue, recovery and cleanup. as you said, power's out. electricity is down. there are water issues right now. there's a long road ahead of us, but we will overcome once again. >> you know, we were just talking to a family whose lives were saved by being in a shelter. it didn't look like a very expensive shelter. a couple of thousand dollars. alfredo corrales told us his personal family shelter. is that something that should be part of the rebuilding? the building of -- i know the ground down there is tough. there's a water level problem. but is there a possibility we can -- you can't ensure against this kind of disaster. but is there any way to prepare better than it's been prepared? without casting any blame, of course, in the future. >> no, i understand your question. i think it's a fair question and

appropriate question whenever you see devastation of this magnitude. particularly, as i've said, to the exponential number of three. i have a great relationship with congressman tom cole. i know you have a relationship with congressman tom cole. >> he's good. >> i've known him for over two decades. he's a great statesman. and we're in his district right now. he's got boots on the ground, it's my understanding he's already arrived from washington. he's taking a tour right now with the governor. and i'll defer to congressman cole with any legislation he sponsors on capitol hill and what he thinks is best for his district that has been so devastated yesterday. >> i was just thinking maybe tax breaks for people or any kind of subsidy because we're all in this together. maybe it's a good thing to encourage people to do the kind of thing the corrales family did. i don't know. i don't live there. let me ask you about living in that part of the country. this sort of god be with us situation where you know you really can't save your life. it depends on the luck of the draw, in a sense. i've been hearing in the last 24 hours that sometimes you can be on the same street and one house

will get blown away and one won't. what are the vagaries of these tornados. they're not homogenous the way they cut through the ground. they seem to cut irregularly. you can't figure them out. what's your experience in that regard? >> the term "freak of nature" applies no better than to the force of a tornado. i passed as i was coming down to moore this morning about 5:50 a.m., i passed by a shopping center. about four or five stores long. the bookend stores almost completely en -- intact. but the store in the very middle hollowed out. and the storm actually passed north to south over the mall. so my point is, they're a freak of nature. you hear about straws of hay going through stockade fences. that happens. there was a window knocked out. two tornadoes -- excuse me, two days ago in a tornado. the window was knocked out in the shape of a heart in one of our hospitals in north oklahoma city in the edmond area. they're freaks of nature. you never know what they're

going to do and how they're going to impact a structure or a community. >> as a lifelong movie buff, i was happy to know, i mean this in all seriousness, they had an organized system at one of those cineplexes down there in that area. they were able to get the people in one of the most strongest part of the movie structure. the cineplex structure. they got them in the hallway. everything was done in an organized regular, really gutsy way and it worked. the people made it. >> it did work, and i'm -- chris, as i'm looking at the camera, that is just -- i'm looking right now at the theater of which you speak to show you how close it is to where we are standing. i know a father and a son who was going to see "star trek" yesterday afternoon and they hunkered down in that hallway and it was a horrific time is what the father said. >> and they got through it. >> they got through it. they survived and they got through it. >> governor, it's great to talk to you. lieutenant governor todd lamb of oklahoma. hold in there, sir. for oklahomans affected by

the tornado, relief torsions -- organizations are already on hand to help tonight. if you'd like to help, i'm sure you're thinking about it, here's the number. you can't forget this one. 1-800-red-cross. 1-800-red-cross. or go to redcross.org. redcross.org. also text red cross to 90999. 90999. from your phone to automatically give 10 bucks to relief efforts. that's not a bad thing to do. the red cross is specifically requesting, by the way, they always do this, giving blood. good thing to do. shows a little guts to do that when people need it. our coverage will continue in just a minute. ♪

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instead of "strength training with patrick willis." come on todd! flap them chicken wings. [ grunts ] well, i travel a lot and umm... [ male announcer ] at visa signature, every upgraded experience comes from listening to our cardholders. visa signature. your idea of what a card should be. big time taste should fit in a little time cup. new single serve cafe collections from maxwell house now available for use in the keurig k-cup brewer. always good to the last drop. welcome back to "hardball." the tornado that hit oklahoma yesterday was remarkable for its size, strength and the devastation it left behind as you can see. what were the conditions that called us to create such a monster funnel? look at it there. oh. look at it. well, it hit the town of moore, oklahoma.

it hit so hard and so often. what caused all that. joining me now is an expert. the weather channel's dr. greg forbes. dr. forbes, thank you for being with us tonight. you know, we always like to understand nature because maybe in some part of our brain we ning think, or our soul, we hope we can have some impact of protecting ourselves and understanding what god's plan is, if you will. this tornado went to an ef-5. what does that tell you? is this really the peak of what a tornado can be? >> yeah. the enhanced fujita scale, ef goes from 0 to 5. 5 is the highest. that means it had wind gusts at least at one location in excess of 200 miles an hour. >> when i'm looking at it, there it is, this is frightening. it's getting wide. it's getting wider. it starts as kind of a winding snake. first a fragmented snake then a complete snake. then this winding funnel. then apparently it widens to up to two miles. what is -- that didn't touch ground, would there be any devastation? does it have to actually get to the ground visibly to cause the destruction?

>> sometimes for the very narrowest of tornadoes, the funnel coming down from the cloud will remain there. but if you look down near the surface, there will be a little bit of a dust swirl kicked up. so that's where it will look. typically, though, those kind, the funnel doesn't come all the way to the ground. they're a little bit on the weaker side. it's not usual that you get those to be the ef-5 type. those more often are the big, wide wedge kind of tornadoes like it ultimately was as it came through moore. but the tornadoes go through cycles. sometimes they begin narrow, get very wide and then rope out and get very narrow again at the very end of their lifetime. >> the ropy part is the scariest part. when we were kids, "wizard of oz," that is the scariest. let me ask you about the weather conditions that create this. can you predict given certain climates -- not climates, but different weather fronts hitting each other between the appalachian mountains or whatever, rather rocky mountains

and the mississippi river? can you predict one of these with any accuracy? >> yes. these kind of big outbreaks like this one were foreseen for days in advance. not the exact location of where they'll hit, but the general area of central oklahoma was known days in advance to be the prime threat day there on monday. what happened was a big upper air disturbance, cold pocket aloft up 20,000 feet, 30,000 feet in the atmosphere, came east. at the same time the gulf of mexico moisture was getting stronger and stronger coming in from the south. the meeting up and overlapping of the two kinds of air masses made for the vulnerable conditions that allowed explosive thunderstorms and ones that rotate and produce long-lived destructive tornadoes. >> without getting into the politics of it, we have a different climate, it seems. we had a tornado hit western massachusetts. we've had very strange, in fact, scary weather. unpredictable, out of season. you know, used to be you got snow in the winter and the weather changed gradually until

june. then it got real hot here in july in washington. then even hotter in july, a little less hot in august. there was a predictability of the weather we grew up with. is it becoming less predictable? can you say it's called tornado alley with any accuracy and say you're safe somewhere else? >> well, certainly what we've learned in research over the years is that what has traditionally been called tornado alley, the north texas, oklahoma, kansas, nebraska, iowa area has been a little bit overdone. there is also an extension of that that has sometimes been called dixie alley across the gulf coast states. in 2011, those were extremely active with alabama in april 2011 seeing such a devastating outbreak. so part of the tornado alley now that we realize goes from places like kansas and oklahoma, east texas, then swings all the way over into alabama. those are where typically the most destructive tornadoes occur. >> and this time of year, may, is this the height? is this predictably the height of the tornado season?

>> in an average year, may is the most active. somewhat less so in april. somewhat less so in june. but it does vary somewhat from year to year. thus the first half of may this year was very, very quiet. nearly on a record low pace. but obviously now the pace has picked up more toward what we expect in mid to late may. >> what do you expect? >> well, it certainly looks like the pattern the next few days is going to calm down a little bit relative -- slowly, relative to what we have seen these last few days. but given that we are in that prime time now, we've gotten away from those late season snowstorms that made a lot of the united states so cold that it didn't have the instability. it looks like we're going to be pretty active now from late may into june. >> it's behind him. we're looking at the pictures right now of the -- let me ask you about the personality, it seems, of these things. when you study them -- we were

using the word "monster" the other day. people were. they have almost it seems like a personality, these conditions, if you want to call them that. >> yeah. indeed -- the strongest of all tornadoes are, indeed, monsters. they're so wide and have so much power and have thrown so much debris within them that it's not just the wind force. it's the force of all the objects that are being thrown and those are hitting the next house down and adding even more force to it. these strongest of tornadoes, ordinary homes are no match for them. the only really safe place to be in the core of this moore tornado was underground storm shelters. and fortunately there were a yumpl those. including the home we're at right now. >> yeah. we were a family, the corrales family that survived because of that. again, the question of climate. and climate change. is there something that you see happening? it could be caused by all kinds of forces, but is there a climatic aspect to this?

it's not just seasonal or that kind of thing? is there a cycle going on now? a trend going on? how would you describe it if there is one? >> the jury, so to speak, is out a little bit in terms of the climate relationship to tornadoes. my own thinking is that as the atmosphere is slowly warming, that has allowed in the cool months warm air to get farther north. we've seen over the past decade or so a lot of tornadoes at more northern latitudes in the middle of the winter months that in the past we were having snowstorms. so that is my own take that we can have tornadoes in bigger parts of the country year-round. there's been some computer model research that suggests that for the core of the spring and summer that the kind of wind shear, the strong winds aloft, actually will be decreasing over the decades and that might actually reduce the tornado threat a little bit in primetime. may, late april, may/june months or perhaps shift it a little bit farther north than it typically has been. >> i think i can't ever get over the idea of a tornado in western massachusetts.

up where i went to college. the idea of a tornado in massachusetts is just unnormal to me. anyway, dr. greg forbes, thank you so much for your expertise at this time. our coverage of the massive devastation from yesterday's tornado will continue after this. and what were you looking at -- what you're looking at right now is a time lapse video of yesterday's tornado. there it is. we're getting the full pictures. it rips through moore, oklahoma, with wind speeds now clocked at over 200 miles an hour. the tornado was at one point three miles at its widest. covered nearly 20 miles in a span of just 40 minutes. look at this. i describe myself as a mother, a writer and a performer.

i'm also a survivor of ovarian and uterine cancers. i even wrote a play about that. my symptoms were a pain in my abdomen and periods that were heavier and longer than usual for me. if you have symptoms that last two weeks or longer, be brave, go to the doctor. ovarian and uterine cancers are gynecologic cancers. symptoms are not the same for everyone. i got sick...and then i got better.

i was able to find pictures

which everything else is pointless. >> i got out here after it passed, and i just fell to my knees. that's all -- all i could do. me and my fiancee, everything we own was in the trailer. and this is all we got left. >> welcome back to "hardball." when a tornado hits, of course, you think people would run away from the danger. these guys, they run towards it. we're talking about storm chasers. they document, analyze, help forecast superstorms up close and personal. some play hosts to tornado tourists, might sound crazy, but people pay to ride along with the guys and get up close to nature at its worst. chris mcbee is co-owner of rapid rotation storm tours. he joins us from moore, oklahoma. you might know simon brewer from the weather channel series "storm riders," he's actively chasing these tornadoes right now and joins us on the phone. let's start with chris. this one turns out to be one of the big ones.

ef-5. tell me how that differs from -- when you get up to 200 miles an hour, what that's capable of doing to property, human, animal, life, whatever, buildings. >> just as you can see, it's just utter destruction everywhere you look. there are houses completely ripped off their foundations. it's an awful scene here, as you can plainly see. when you get up into the ef-5 range, that's incredible damage. that's how they categorize that. and it's just awful, as is obvious on the ground here in moore. >> we're looking at kind of a snaking, it's a little bit wider than a snaking twister. it's one of those that sort of to me is iconic. an iconic twister. how close can you get to watching that when you take people to go look at it and hopefully are safe when they do it? >> well, we do everything safely, my storm tour company. a tornado that large, we would not get very close to with a tour company -- with, i'm sorry, with a tour group just because it's just not safe to have people just in the line of fire

like that. we would certainly view it from a far distance. then do what we could to help, you know, in the aftermath. when you deal with tornadoes this large, it's -- like i said, it's just incredible devastation. >> what were you able to do to help people yesterday? >> well, we were in a 15-passenger van and came down here to the movie theater which is just down here. and they had a triage unit set up. we asked if we could help with anything. we actually transported some people out of there that needed to get out of town that had lost their cars in the tornado. we were able to help some people get out of the danger zone. >> so going to the movies, apparently "star trek" was playing, the new one. they were huddled apparently in a corridor among the various movie screens. and they got through it. and then they come outside and what happened? their cars were gone. >> yeah. yeah. i think that happened to a lot of people.

that were just enjoying a normal day. then this utter destruction just comes through. >> let me go to mr. brewer. let me ask you about this. when you're chasing these cells right now, where are they now? what kind of dangers are we facing still in the oklahoma area, somewhere in tornado alley? >> oklahoma is okay, but we're on some pretty big storms in northeastern texas. and we just drove through one near mt. pleasant, texas. and it was really blasting some strong wind. saw a lot of tree limbs go down. some some cars having a lot of trouble driving. got some hail. there is a chance you can have tornadoes along the edge of this line. >> are we at the beginning, the middle or the end of the tornado season, historically? simon? >> historically we're really at the peak of the tornado season. this year has been a little what you would call slow as far as tornadoes are concerned. but some large hail patterns got together and now we're in a very active pattern.

>> again, to you, i asked this earlier. what is -- is there any difference between what we're watching now and what we would have watched 30 years ago in terms of the climate? the climate aspect? is there a climatic -- without getting, again, into the politics, is there a warming situation we're facing that makes it more likely to have tornadoes or any way it's influencing these weather conditions? the climate? the heat? >> well, as far as tornadoes are concerned, climate really doesn't pay any attention to tornadoes. i mean, tornadoes are such a small-scale event. now, as far as tornado distribution, you can make some arguments that maybe tornado distribution would be shifting a little farther north. but really the same things that come together to make tornadoes aren't really the same things that come together to make large scale effects like droughts and flooding events. tornadoes are on such a smaller scale than that. >> let me go back to chris mcbee and storm chasing. tell me about what you do. i mean, i'm always fascinated by

how people make a living in this country, and in all seriousness, tell me about the kinds of people who want to be tourists, if you will. who are really fascinated with this weather conditions known as a tornado. >> yeah, tornadoes are big news, obviously. this is just wall-to-wall news about tornadoes. but they're very interesting to people in all walks of life. we have people from other countries coming to tour and see the tornadoes with us as well. you know, these people just are -- they're weather enthusiasts. they want to look more about it and they want to be a part of it. we try to help them achieve that. >> so they come in may? when do they come? is it like selling christmas trees, in the sense you better sell them at christmas time? i'm dead serious. it's something i don't know ability. you tell them to come in may, that's a good season to possibly experience an historic tornado if that's what you're looking for? >> well, i mean, we offer, you know, tours between april and june. so, yes, there's a certain time of the year that is more

favorable and we're right in the middle of that right now. and these kind of things happen. >> give me a distribution of where around the world people come from to see this thing. >> we've had a lot of interest from the uk and australia mainly. some interest from germany and some other european countries as well. >> what's it cost? >> $2,800 for a week. about $300 a day. you know, we offer daily and weekly tours. but, yeah, i mean -- >> fascinating. because i'm fascinated now. i guess i can imagine people building a, you know, not a hobby, that's lighthearted, but fascinated by the power of nature. and when you're with them and you're giving them the tour, what do you tell them about this power that they're looking at? this nature at its worst? >> really, when we're up close and personal with the storms, nature kind of speaks for itself.

we'll explain what's going on, explain the weather situation and show them all our equipment. but the tornadoes can really speak for themselves just with their power, and just really mother nature at its worst. >> thanks, chris mcbee, thanks, simon brewer, for joining us as well. our coverage will continue in just a minute. [ musick ] i knew there were a lot of tech jobs

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this has been some 24 hours. let's listen to the voice of some of those who watched the tornado close up as it happened and others whose lives were upended in the storm. >> this thing is huge. keep going left, travis. keep going left. right there. boom. there it is. there it is, mike. on the ground. >> right down 19 approaching santa fe. we had to bail out because it was coming right at us. >> i have never seen anything like this in my 18 years covering tornadoes in oklahoma city. >> you see the latch coming undone and we couldn't reach for it. it ripped open the door. we thought we were dead. >> just like on the movie "twister." horses and stuff flying everywhere. >> we started grabbing debris trying to get anybody out. we successfully got people out just not alive. >> the teacher took cover every us. >> i was on top of six kids. >> on top of six children?

>> i was lying on top of them. >> they're all okay. >> all mine are okay. >> if you live in this telephone road, you better not get in your house, get underground. my dad is going to be outside watching tornadoes. my gosh. luckily, by the grace of god, he just went in the closet, the only room standing. >> i felt it coming at me. i held onto the door and i said we will not be harmed and we weren't. >> drive down through here and see eight houses gone and you don't know if you're going to have a house or not. >> my wife and i have worked hard for everything we have and we just now paid off our house. we were debt free. had no house payment. >> i have yet to find my f-150 pickup. i don't know where it is at. it was full size 2007 super crew f-150. i don't know where it is. we'll be back. that's what we're known for.

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welcome back to "hardball." "time" magazine has been on the ground reporting since the tornado struck. she is talked to those that helped save their neighbors. the new issue talks about the devastating tornado yet. this has been an amazing experience who live up north to be able to cover a part of the country i've never been to oklahoma. it's the only state i haven't been to. it's got an incredible history of weather. let's face it. think about the dust bowl that changed so much of american history in the 1930s. the grapes of wrath. it's about the weather conditions down there and what it caused to the agriculture and killing of the agriculture for a long period of time in the dust bowl and now this history of tornadoes is competitive. this one an ef-5 which is the

worst of the hurricanes you can face only matching up to one we had earlier in 1999. it's the same area of tornado alley going through the same city, the same suburb of 40,000 people and now we are looking at it hit again with the same kind of damage. luckily the pictures you're seeing are not representative by that many deaths or injuries. the devastation is physical. almost like a newtron bomb blowing away homes. blowing away cars at the movie theater you come out and you're still alive, your car has disappeared into the 300-mile-an-hour wind. incredible situation where people really did get a warning and they acted on it. those people, most of the people got out of there. they got away. they got in their cars and moved on or had shelter. we met vivian and alfredo how

they saved their lives by that emergency decision. we'll come back and talk about this again tomorrow and throughout this evening. msnbc is committed to covering this story well and in human terms without the politics. i think we'll do a great job tonight. stay with msnbc. thanks for being with us tonight on "hardball." our coverage continues now on "politics nation." >> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes thank you for joining us on this day two of the tragedy in moore, oklahoma coming to a close. we know more this evening about the sheer power of the massive tornado that devastated this community. we know more about the scope of the damage visited upon this town and we know more of the amazing acts of courage by teachers in two schools crushed by the storm. the good news today and it's not to be able to report good news in the midst of this, initial reports of fatalities have been cut in