indiana where officials there say one town is gone. from louisiana to ohio, from missouri to south carolina, rain fell and damaging winds pulled down trees and power lines. tens of thousands of people are without electricity. forecasters warn conditions are likely to get worse, especially after sunset. >> this is going to be an unfolding event unfortunately for the rest of the day. i would say if you have to run an errand, go ahead and do it now and make sure you're back within the next couple of hours. >> reporter: warm air from the gulf of mexico colliding with low pressure from the northwest is setting off the storms. the severe weather comes two days after a massive system in the same region unleashed more than two dozen tornadoes killing at least 13 people. forecasters expect today's tornadoes to travel fast, but stay on the ground for a long time with the potential to cause more damage. terrell brown, cbs news, new market, alabama. it is hard to fathom when you look at those pictures. let's go to topper shutt and talk about what's going on.

>> we have a live shot now from henryville, kentucky, 40 miles north of louisville. it's very close to the kentucky/indiana border and you can see devastation with this storm. we have reports of damage to the henryville high school. kids were kept there today, but there are reports of no injuries from that. so they took shelter and were okay. we're losing the pictures, but you can see roofs gone, buildings gone. it's just another mess. it is sort of reminiscent of 1974 when we had a big tornado outbreak. you can see the half of one building is gone and looking at probably an n excess of 150 mile-per-hour wind -- in excess of 150 150 mile-per-hour winds. this is a live shot. the storm is through them about 40, 50 miles north of louisville, kentucky. we'll show you the radar. this is cincinnati. there's national. there's the line of showers and thunderstorms. the deeper red filled in, that's actually tornado warnings at this hour. we'll zoom in more.

these are storm reports. all these red things are the tornado reports, numerous reports of hail, which is often the case. storms that have hail often have tornadoes and vice versa. i shouldn't say that. most storms that have tornadoes have hail and that's certainly the case here. so from madison down toward louisville and henryville is just north of louisville massive damage again. the storms are moving eastward. we're in pretty good shape in the stable atmosphere. so we're just looking at some rain and showers, heavy activity pushed east of us and we really have a break in the precipitation back to the west. we'll probably have brake for the next several hours once this last little -- a break for the next several hours once this last little bit moves through. the watch has been expanded and covers the entire metro area through tonight and tomorrow. we'll talk about that when we come back. it does include prince george's county. it does not include prince charles county but essentially west of i-95 through saturday morning.

we'll talk about the potential of thunderstorms saturday morning, spring tomorrow and winter sunday. we will explain. the four gop presidential candidates face one contest over the weekend but have 10 more next tuesday. that's why they call it super tuesday. the two front runners are focused on ohio, but today they were in washington state trying to rally the supporters there ahead of the caucuses. here's the story from toledo. >> reporter: among the 10 state with primaries coming up on tuesday ohio is a critical contest for mitt romney and rick santorum. many republicans are still undeeded, but in toledo we found some -- undecided, but in toledo we found some small business owners who know what they wanted. mitt romney got an enthusiastic welcome from supporters in washington state where voters caucus on saturday. >> let's go to work together and keep america the hope of the earth. thank you! >> reporter: romney and rick santorum are favorites to win

in washington, but ron paul has invested heavily in the state hoping to get a large share of its 43 delegates. newt gingrich is in georgia looking ahead to super tuesday when 10 states vote and one of the largest pleases is ohio. a new quinnipiac -- prizes is ohio. a new quinnipiac poll shows rick santorum with a slight margin there. manufacturing is the largest part of the economy here in ohio dropped more than 20% and is only now showing signs of improvement. david tv innegar owns this plant that makes metal fence post. his company benefited from the stimulus package but he believe as to much government regulation is hurting his bottom line. >> i'm looking for a smaller government who will allow me to grow. >> reporter: he's voting for mitt romney on tuesday because he thinks the former ceo can best help small business.

>> the country is like a big business and someone needs to run it that way. >> reporter: his favorite is still trailing rick santorum by a few points in ohio and more than 1/3 of the state's republicans are still trying to make up their mind. in the past 40 years no republican has won the presidency without winning ohio. in toledo susan mcguiness, cbs news. back to you, derek. for everybody keeping score on this one, there are 66 delegates at stake in ohio. back to you in the studio. the virginia supreme court ruled today attorney general ken cuccinelli has no authority to demand records from a former university of virginia climate researcher. cuccinelli, a global warming skeptic, wanted copies of michael mann's e-mails. the republican lawmaker said he was investigates whether mann manipulated data to get federal grants for his research. cuccinelli appealed to the supreme court after another judge didn't address him.

john leopold has been indicted, run run county director. he's been charged with four counts of misconduct in office and one count of fraudulent misappropriation. among the allegations, that leopold had his executive protection squad wait while he had sex with a county employee in parking lots. he also allegedly had them remove political signs of opponents. the 69-year-old lee pole said he will vigorously fight -- leopold said he will vigorously fight all the charges. from law student to white hot media spotlight rush limbaugh called her some horrible names, but today president obama and the president of catholic university are rushing to the defense of sandra fluke. here's bruce leshan. >> president obama stepped into the dust-up between radio loud mouth rush limbaugh and a third year law student at georgetown university. the president offered his support to sandra fluke who wants contraception available

at georgetown. gary nuremberg caught up with her and has a one on one interview. >> general obama conveyed he was calling out of concern and to check in and mange sure i was okay given the unfortunate -- make sure i was okay given the unfortunate names that i have been called of. >> reporter: limbaugh suggested fluke wants taxpayers to pay for her birth control. >> it makes her a slu it, right? makes her a prostitute. she wants to be paid to have sex of. >> reporter: and he went even further. >> if we're going to have to pay for this, that we want -- then we want something in return, ms. fluke, and that would be the videos of all this sex posted online so we can see. >> reporter: seems to me you might have legal recourse, you're a law student. will you sue mr. limbaugh? >> i've been advised it's a possibility. sleeptrain pulled advertising from the rush limbaugh show after a twitter campaign in support of fluke. today president obama headed to the hospital. don't worry, he's just fine. he left the white house and made a trip to walter reed

medical center in bethesda. the white house does not allow cameras to follow, but we're told the president met with 27 troops wounded while serving in iraq and afghanistan and he awarded eight purple hearts. smoky robinson is in town. the motown legend paid a visit to the duke ellington school of the arts in northwest washington this afternoon. problem in son has scored 37 top -- robinson has scored 37 top 40 hits in his 50 years in the music business and today shared his insight with dukeling ton students who serenaded him with a song -- duke ellington student who serenaded him with a song. ♪ he's the guy that puts tears in my eyes ♪ >> always give kids stuff that they're interested in that keeps them connected to school, that keeps them wanting to there be and so we should do whatever we can to restore the arts in all of our schools. >> smokey robinson will take to a larger stage tomorrow night at the kennedy center.

he will headline a benefit concert for duke ellington school in the concert hall at 7:30. going to be quite a show. tonight at 7:00 on 9 news now the d.c. primaries are a month away, what you need to know to make sure your votes counts. still ahead in this half hour bags of money, paper or plastic, montgomery county's bag tax is adding up. we'll tell you more just ahead. a message, a teenager involved in a drunk driving accident loses a license for life? those stories and more just ahead.

a teenager involved in this drunk driving crash in rhode island has lost his license forever. 17-year-old lyle topah was behind the wheel of this car that crashed into a tree, one of the friends in his car is in

a coma and has been for weeks. the judge said he handed down the penalty to send a message. >> if they think more strict penalties are needed for drunk driving, i'm assumed those issues will be raised to legislature. if you're going to drive dangerously, this court will respond. >> police say the teenagers were drinking at a party before getting into the car. coming up our 9 news now gas test, scott broom live with the results of our unofficial survey. >> 9 news now is sponsored in part by nissan. visit choosenissan.com or your local dealer now. [ male announcer ] this was how my day began.

a little bird told me about a band... ♪ an old man shared some fish stories... ♪ oooh, my turn. ♪ she was in paris, but we talked for hours... everyone else buzzed about the band.

there's a wireless mind inside all of us. so, where to next? ♪

montgomery county gamble on a new bag tax is really paying off. reports say the five cent charge added up to more than $1,504,000 over just the first month -- $154,000 over the

first month. the bag tax applies to nearly all stores in the county and not just the ones that sell food. prices at the pump crept up over the last 24 hours, the average price of gayle now $3.74. -- a gallon now $3.74. we sent scott broom on the road to see whether putting the pedal to the metal puts a dent in your wallet. i know you were telling us your wife is also part of this story. >> reporter: she is. she told me if you just slowed down, you'd save money and i said i'll try but i'm not sure. if you were with us at 5:00, i did pretty well today on this gas test. i left from here in new carrollton on the beltway in maryland and went down to cambridge on the eastern shore and came back, about 152 miles road trip. i went down driving like grandma, 55 miles per hour and here's what happened when i came back driving a whole lot faster. came bridge on the eastern sore of maryland topping off the tank -- shore of maryland

topping off the tank with 2.5 gallons after a drive down that cost me $9.37 driving slow and steady on cruise control at 55. it took an hour and 30 minutes to get here and i averaged 34 miles per gallon. in my honda crv. coming back it's a different story. this time the speed was up to 65, sometimes a bit faster. there was a lot of lane changing to get around slower drivers, a lot of braking and accelerating, caught at a stoplight, heck, i floored it to get going again. back across the bay bridge here to the 7-eleven in new carrollton where i started. this time the statistics looked a lot different. it took an hour and 14 minutes to get back. i burned 3.32 gallons which cost me $12.28. my miles per gallon a not so good 23.6. here's how it added up. driving more aggressively got me back 16 minutes faster but it cost me $2.88 more to go

just 76 miles and my miles per gallon dropped sharply from 34 to just 23.6. i'll tell you what. that miles per gallon number, that really got my attention. this is a fairly short drive, 76 miles or so. so the amount of money i saved, about three bucks driving slower doesn't feel like that much, but if you really extrapolate this out over the year at today's gas price and i paid 3.69 today, 15,000 miles a year average, extrapolate that out over the year with the miles per gallons i saved that's about $800 a year. so yes, honey, if you're listening at home, my beautiful wife andy, you were right. reporting live in new carrollton, scott broom, 9 news now. >> i love it. a big kudos to mrs. broom and thanks for showing us that because i wouldn't think there would be that big of a difference irritate. >> $800, that's a whole lot of bread for putting the pedal to the metal. >> yup. i think his wife has been

talking to mine. here's the deal. we've got kind of a stable environment which is good, so no severe weather here, but tell you, what out in kentucky and indiana, ohio, even west virginia, virginia, severe weather again. i believe we have some life shots still of henryville in indiana 40 miles north of louisville. they got hit pretty hard. we have unconfirmed reports of three fatalities now. we know it hit the high school, but the kids apparently had taken shelter and were okay, no reports of injuries in the high school. you can see parts of the houses in the neighborhood just flattened. some home left, some half of homes left, very typical of tornado damage. they're very small usually, anywhere from 100 yards wide to make 1/2-mile wide. so you can find places that survivor and the house next- door does not. we are looking at another round of severe weather out there. we're in good shape here. let's show you the radar that went through this area. we're looking at live doppler 9000 now. notice of the back edge of the

precipitation? if you're out past warrenton, you're in pretty good shape. you're actually -- oh, good. let's go back to the computer, if we could. that's why i was so confused. i thought wow, didn't load my show, what a bone head. here's the deal. most of the showers and thunderstorms pushing through eastern kentucky, so they're through louisville and southern sections of indiana. look in their wake what was left. these are tornado reports. they're unconfirmed. maybe they're doubled up, but still look at all the severe weather. we have hail reported in most of the storms, tornadoes, flooding, hail down south, another tornado just north of port smith and another tornado just off winchester in ohio. so a tremendous severe weather outbreak. good news for us. we are looking at the activity pushing east. we'll have a break the next several hours, nothing heavy getting into the evening hours, but we're not done yet because the frontal system itself is still out to the west. in the meantime we're actually

in pretty good shape over the course of the next few hours. that said the watch has been expanded for the entire metro area except maybe for southern maryland under the flood watch through tomorrow morning. so right now we're looking at a little bit of light rain, temperatures generally in the upper 40s, haven't moved much, pressure falling 29.88 inches of mercury, winds south, southeast at 8, temps torment 5 bethesda, 45 arlington, 46 springfield. so we're looking at a tough commute home, rain and thunderstorms tonight, flood watches entire metro area, windy and warmer tomorrow, breezy and colder on sunday. winds becoming south, southwest at 10 to 15 overnight. next seven days we'll keep the flake in -- actually i thought it was a pretty nice afternoon tomorrow, keep the flake in on sunday, back in the 40s for a couple days and back to 60 on went and more rain as we get

into -- wednesday and more rain as we get into thursday. >> like you said, it's good that we're so stable right now. the nats, the playoff chances got just a little bit better? >> you know the sign man surrounding the nats this year. >> it's a new season. >> it just got better today and here is why. major league baseball doing something it hasn't done in nearly 17 years, big change in mlb. just might in detectly be help being out the -- indirectly be helping out the nationals and 72 hours before a big decision is made on fred davis.

and now 9 sports with dave owens, the best sports in town. >> happy friday, everybody. i'll tell you, monday is a big day in professional football. it's a week before free agency officially begins, but it's also the deadline for teams to put franchise tags on players. each team gets one. the redskins selected fred davis who was going to be an unrestricted free agent this season. the skins get to keep him at least one more year. his salary will be the average of the top tight end salaries

for the last five seasons. now baltimore used its franchise tag on running back ray rice. rice head the league in yards from scrimmage this season, second overall in rushing. the franchise tag again gives feels some time to negotiate a long term deal with its players, so interesting stuff. big news in baseball, mlb expanding its playoff format for the first time since 1995. there used to be four teams to make the playoffs. now there will be five. the fourth and 5th place team will play a one game playoff with the winner moving on. that increases the playoff chances for those washington nationals. let's see if they can get there this year. they agreed to terms with 15 players today including player bruce storm who was an all-star last season. the team came to terms with roger bernadina, rudy espinoza and ian desmond.

hockey news, washington getting hot at the right time looking for their fourth straight win tonight. devils in town, game two of this important five-game homestand. why is it important? the caps are still a point outside the playoffs with less than 20 games to play. >> we need points and we are pretty desperate to get points, too. >> it's going to be in my mind a real close game like all of them, but we got to get a lot of pucks in there and grind them down. >> puck drops at 7:00 tonight. finally tonight 50 years to the day wilt chamberlain scored 100 point in a game. it remains the most dominating performance ever. that's just kind of file video of wilt. the crazy thing about it, there were no tv cameras in hershey a reason that night. someone gave him that 100 said hey, take a picture of this.

>> all right. that's it for us. have a good weekend. >> wps evening -- cbs evening news is next. good night.