weather channel meteorologist mike bettes is there for us tonight. mike, good evening. >> reporter: good evening, to you, brian. branson known as the live music show capital of the world taking a hard hit from the ef-2 tornado. windows are shattered. debris litters the street. this hit in the middle of the night. this took a the love people off guard. keep in mind, this is not the peak high holiday season for them where they see a lot of tourists that come here. about 10,000 people this time of year in town. they are working very hard to get power restored. this is branson strip. you see the crews trying to get those poles back up as quickly as possible. about 12 of the hotels here sustained significant damage. half a dozen of the music theaters sustained significant damage. we talked with jay nixon, the governor here in missouri. he declared a state of emergency and saying at least tens of millions of dollars here in branson, if not more. >> mike bettes, thanks. >>> this bears repeating. the same huge storm system that brought all this destruction al

. >>> neighboring kentucky, which as you heard was also hit hard, weather channel meteorologist mike bettes is part of our nbc news team, he's covering the story there for us tonight. mike, good evening to you. >> reporter: lester, good evening to you. it was just a short 48 hours ago that west liberty, kentucky was living through a nightmare as the strongest tornado to ever hit this town was roaring through. it left a noticeable scar here along main street, almost looks like a hollywood movie set than real life. but it is all too real to these business owners. most of these buildings will have to come down. they won't be salvageable and they'll be demolished. senator mitch mcconnell was here today. calls what he saw here in west liberty total devastation. he ensures kentucky that fema will be there for them, bringing a noticeable change in the coming days and weeks. in the meantime, the american red cross is housing 115 storm victims at a local school here. schools will be closed tomorrow. and, lester, as i'm sure you already know, to add insult to injury, winter weather is rolling in, 1 t

that's where we find weather channel's mike bettes tonight. mike, good evening. >> reporter: good evening to you, lester. you know it was just before dark last night that a half mile wide tornado struck with such force, and as you can see, these buildings were reduced to rubble. this is a devastating day for this community. it's been search and rescue all day long today as this town has been on lockdown. the only people allowed in are k-9 units on horse patrol and foot patrol, going to buildings sometimes searching not one time but three times, searching for victims that they may have not seen the first couple of times. also power crews lining the streets. there's not one single building in west liberty in downtown that's gone untouched by this tornado. potentially winds greater than 135 miles per hour which would make this an ef-3 tornado. the governor has declared a state of emergency here in kentucky. it was earlier today when we spoke with the mayor. he was visibly shaken by what has happened to his town. it's a tight-knit community of just

now to mike bettes in nashville. we've been watching you all afternoon going through the hail storm, size of golf balls, then driving rain then winds came through there. >> reporter: it's been a volatile afternoon, that's for sure. i bet the 1 million plus people that live here in the music city consider themselves lucky. take a look at what it did. it knocked over small branches and trees. we had golf ball size hail. it has now melted down to about dime size hail. boy, we got hammered hard. our entire crew had to run for shelter as we believe possible weak rotation came over vanderbilt university and over top of us. we rushed to a drainage culvert to seek shelter from that storm. some of our crew taking the hail hit on the hands and head. this evening, a completely different story. nashville metro in the clear. behind me you see a vivid blue sky. not all of middle tennessee will be looking okay this evening. south i-65 is a bad place to be this evening. east tennessee, as well. places like chattanooga, tennessee, an

the one death that they had here is one death too many as the mayor tells us. >> mike bettes for us, thanks. >>> it was assumed if anything in this town could stand up to a tornado it would have been the brick and steel frame henryville school. at first glance, the twisted rubble it appears it would appears it wasn't a match. but it was strong enough to protect the handful of students and adults who found themselves in a no-man's-land when the tornado came calling. when he surveys the damage to his elementary school, principal glenn rigs can't help but get emotional. >> i'm sorry. my 4 and 5-year-olds that would have been in there. >> reporter: would have been there except officials made the decision to send the 1,200 k-12 students home early. as it turned out, an hour before the tornado struck. bus driver chris spencer was about to drop off the last student when the sky darkened. >> i knew she lived in a mobile home. we came to the school. got her in the safety. >> reporter: a handful of other students were forced to come back too including 14-year-old preston perry. moments after h

weather channel's mike bettes is there with the story. mike, how bad is it on the ground there? >> well, it's really is a devastating blow for this city. i mean, you can just see, everything has been reduced to rubble here. this is a very sturdy brick and mortar structure and you can't even tell what it once was. but this has been a hard-hit community. 20 people have died in the bluegrass state. and we can now tell you that in this particular county and in west liberty the death toll has risen to six now. so it's been a very difficult blow for this town. it's been on lockdown since the tornado struck. this was an ef-3 tornado. it had winds of 140 miles an hour. and imagine, a mile wide tornado bearing down on this town of just 2,000 people. when we talked to the mayor yesterday, he was visibly shaken, could barely bring himself to even describe what happened here in this town. not one single building here in the district has gone untouched. the municipal building has been hit, the fire station has been hit. the police stagt has been hit. they're very crippled here. there's no po

mike bettes of the weather channel is standing by live in branson, missouri. good evening, mike.can you tell us? >> reporter: yeah, good evening to you, larry. we can now confirm ten fatalities across the midwest from storms that ripped through overnight and through the day today here in branson. it's known as the live music show capital of the world. and it's been hard hit by an ef-2 tornado, winds as high as 130 miles per hour. a lot of debris strewn about and behind me, you can see the power crews are working through the night to get power restored to this area. this is what's known as branson's strip behind me. it's highway 76. it's where all the tourists would come. and during the high season, this is not the high season, there'd be as many as 70,000 people in this town. the normal number of residents is about 10,000. but you can see the heavy machinery is here. they're trying to clear out some parking lots here. this is the mall in branson, and behind me there, you can see the flashing red and blue lights. they've barricaded a strip here to make sure no people come down thi

joining us right now from west liberty, kentucky, is the weather channel's mike bettes. mike? >> reporter: good morning to you. the last thing the residents here in west liberty wanted to see was a winter wonder land. that's what they have after a deadly ef-3 tornado went through. you can see behind me piles of debris still litter the city here. there is not one single building in this town untouched by a tornado that was a mile wide when it came through over the early weekend. so many people here have been devastated and now they have this to contend with. this is a remote part of eastern kentucky. it's difficult to get here. the roads are curvy, windy, and hilly. now the power crews have to contend as they stay in the next city over and have to travel. where do you start when you have snow that covers the ground here. an epic outbreak, one of the biggest march outbreaks in u.s. history. we now know more than three dozen people total were killed across the country and today once again a very slow task to clean up. our first snowplow this morning here in west liberty. they're