>> reporter: ellison barber, nbc news, dawson springs, kentucky. >> love you. >> love you. >> it's beenately, but a lot of good people out there. that's "nightly news" for this tuesday thank you for watching i'm lester holt. please take care of yourself and each other. >> would you be able to take care of them ♪ i see trees of green ♪ ♪ red roses too ♪ ♪ i see them bloom for me and you ♪ (music) ♪ so i think to myself ♪ ♪ oh what a wonderful world ♪ . >>> i'm raj mathai. next on nbc bay area news, here comes another storm. we got the time line on the next round of rain and snow in the bay area. >>> also, hugs and tears for steph curry. we'll take you to new york city on this history-making night. >>> new information about that shooting at the tesla factory in fremont. a deadly case of workplace violence. >>> will it work? san francisco and oakland announcing plans to combat the rise of crime. we'll be joined by oakland mayor libby schaaf. >>> a silicon valley vc is back from space. our exclusive interview about his out of world experience.

>> reporter: ellison barber, nbc news, dawson springs, kentucky. >> love you. >> love you. >> it's been rough in the news lately, but a lot of good people out there. that's "nightly news" for this tuesday thank you for watching i'm lester holt. please take care of yourself and each other. >> would you be able to take care of them ♪ ♪ ♪♪ you let flowers say, "i love you" ♪ ♪ you let diamonds hold my hand ♪ ♪ so this christmas, i'm making new plans ♪ ♪ merry christmas baby ♪ ♪ you send gifts that someone else picks ♪ ♪ you send cards with empty promises ♪ ♪ but you don't need to worry 'bout me again ♪ ♪ merry christmas baby ♪ ♪ you'll wake up all alone and ♪ ♪ wonder why i'm not home ♪ ♪ and i'll let my phone ring ♪ ♪ a dose of your kind of love and ♪ ♪ i'll let my absence show you ♪ ♪ what i got you for christmas ♪ ♪ is losing me ♪ ♪ merry christmas, baby ♪ ♪ so have yourself a merry christmas ♪ ♪ hope it's not as cold as you cold as you ♪ ♪ merry christmas, baby merry christmas ♪ ♪ merry christmas, baby merry christmas ♪ ♪ merry christmas, baby ♪ ♪ to you ♪♪ [cheers and applause] >> kel

people there say it looks to them like a bomb went off and destroyed their town nbc's ellison barber ight ellison? >> reporter: shep, we met the woman who used to call this home she told us that when the storm came through, everything collapsed. i will show you some with my flashlight she was here, underneath this mattress, trapped beneath all of this rubble. she had to push a wall off of her legs to get out, and then crawled her way through this area all the way over here passing this car that she said she had never seen before. when she got out of this rubble, she said she heard all of the cries for help listen to how she described what happened that night. >> i just crawled my way out and i come out right here at the end of that truck. and i just don't even knowi jus- looking at this, i don't know how i come out of this alive >> reporter: at least 13 people have died in this community, re, those are ongoing. we dawson springs there are only about 2,700 people who live in this community. the search-and-recovery efforts -- those are ongoing we watched as a team from ohio dispatched i

joining me now is nbc news correspondent ellison barber. h, what can i say other than how are people doing? >> they are still not only looking for people unaccounted for, but they are trying to rescue a dog here, a little chihuahua that is trapped in this closet. i was trying to get this dog earlier. the person who lives here is in the hospital. they heard the dog was stuck, you hear him barking inside here, as this man -- these are people who don't know who lived here, but they heard about the dog, and they were trying to not only get this dog some dog food but get it out for help. you can see what this community is up against right now, but as you walk through here, you see all sorts of people just doing their best to help each other, even though everyone here has lost everything. the coroner for this county says that at least 13 people have died, but we know many more are still unaccounted for. i spoke to one woman just a minute ago who was part of a group trying to get that dog out from the closet. she told me her brother-in-law lived in

and with me that morning, ellison barber, who is also covering this tragedy. but dr.ith us. peter, i wanted you back here for two reasons. one is you and i talk very regularly about the state of this virus and how we deal with it. but that was a very, very big deal. and it is important, while we're not done with covid yet, to remember that milestone. that was something that people said would have taken four or five or more years and it was a hell of a scientific breakthrough and it's the work that people like you did in years before that we were able to get that vaccine out so fast and it remains so effective. >> absolutely, ali. it was a whole year. it seems like yesterday, but we've learned so much since these vaccines. and for me the greatest tragedy has been this aggression against vaccines that we've seen play out across the country, and a lot of it coming from political extremism on the far right. who would have imagined that at the cpac conference, the members of the u.s. congress would say that vaccines are nothing more than instruments of political control. f

rescue crews searching for people missing there first ellison barber live in dawson spring. here today what did they tell you. >> reporter: they told us that the only way to describe dawson springs right now is devastation. they didn't just lose one home, the entire town. the parts where most people live, most of it has been reduced to rubble. 13 people have died in dawson springs. the people who survived, they tell us that they are grateful they're traumatized by what they went through, devastated for what they lost but grateful to be alive because they know others in this community did not survive. listen >> in just seconds it was over and so that's the hardest thing probably to get your head wrapped around is that everything's gone so fast. we did lose a few neighbors out back and that troubles me. i know this one lady especially had to be so scared. >> reporter: i am standing in the middle of an apartment community. there are about half a dozen buildings here, all of them completely destroyed, uninhabitable. when i spoke to the coroner for the county this morning, he told

joining us now, nbc news correspondent, ellison barber and former prosecutor.attorney general has offered to conduct an independent investigation of the school officials? >> reporter: yeah, that's right. the superintendent of oakland community schools said they're going to bring in a third party to investigate. the attorney general has offered to do that for this school district. obviously parents throughout this entire community have a lot of questions about the moments the events that led up to this day and whether or not the school officials missed opportunities to prevent this shooting from taking place. we know that school officials at least a day prior to the shooting were concerned about the alleged shooter's behavior. a teacher spotted him googling ammunition. she took that to other officials. the parents of the alleged shooter were contacted by the school. once the school, according to their version of events, once they contacted the parents and also spoke with the alleged shooter, they were told that shooting sports were a family hobby, and then they

joining me now is nbc's ellison barber and nbc's wendy woolfolk. utter devastation where you are, it's utter devastation where wendy is as well. when people are going back and looking and picking through the remains of their homes, how are they processing what to do next? >> reporter: one woman told me as she was picking through things, the only word to describe all of this is devastation. in this county alone, hopkins county, the coroner tells me they have had 13 people die, all of them here in dawson springs. this is a community of only about 2,700 people. the woman who lives in this house has lived here with her husband for 31 years. she was not in this house when the storm came through. she was across the street in her neighbor's basement when they started to hear the storm, the tornado, everything coming through. you can see the devastation on this street alone. but if we go across the street to the house where she was hiding, you can see that all that's left is a stairwell leading to the basement. she told me that she heard all of the noise,

ellison barber, thank you so much for bringing us that perspective. nt perspective now. some satellite images in braves county, kentucky. it's just hours from where you saw ellison. it tore through a candle factory. you can see it on the left and then on the right looking like nothing. i want to bring in a couple telling us about this. mark saxton was actually inside the candle plant when it looked like they were hit there. i want to thank both of you for your time. mark, let me start with you. you lived through this, you experienced it? how are you doing? >> just trying to take it day by day, help other people out, figure out our next move. >> can you share a little bit about what it was like for you inside the factory, how you managed to either get out or protect yourself inside as this tornado transpired? >> well, i went to open the door to look outside to see what it looked like in the sky, and when i looked up in the sky, it looked like an ice cream cone so i started bagging up. as i was bagging up, people started running toward me because the roo

nbc's ellison barber live in pontiac, michigan, tonight ellison. >> reporter: shep, police, prosecutors, parents, they all have a lot of questions about what this high school did and did not do in the moments, the days leading up to this massacre remember, two key things happened the morning of the shooting and also the day before the shooting one was that a teacher said that they saw the alleged shooter googling ammunition. they reported that second, as you mentioned, the morning of the shooting a teacher found those disturbing drawings in the 15-year-old's desk the school called ethan crumbley's parents in for a meeting with the guidance counselor but they never told allegedly the vice principal or principal about what was going on later they sent him back to class. the superintendent for oxford community schools is defending the high school here he says, a few things happened in that meeting the morning of the shooting, among them he says the alleged shooter's parents flatly refused to take their son home in an interview oakland county prosecutor karen mcdonald said the school had th

questions by the courts. >> gentlemen, thank you very much. >>> we were able to reconnect with ellison barber in dawson springs, kentucky. ellison, i'm glad you can hear me now. just give us an update on all you've been seeing. >> reporter: hey, katy. so this is someone's bedroom. if you look up, you can see kind of the scope of what things are like here. most homes, many of them, hundreds of them that were hit by this storm, they no longer exist at all. this is one of the few homes in this area that the walls still stand, but you can see they have no roof. this is uninhabitable. this community, dawson springs, they have lost 14 people because of these storms. the oldest, 86 years old. the youngest, 2 months old. when the president comes here, he will see a town, a community that has been battered and bruised, their structures really destroyed. over 75% of this community is gone. but he will meet people who are determined not to lose hope. we constantly see people like little dots when we fly in the air to look, trying to help each other and pick up what's left of their lives and maybe start

. >> let's go live now to dawson springs, kentucky, where nbc news correspondent ellison barber is onnd, tracking developments. ellison, where do things stand at this hour? >> alicia, about 2700 people live in dawson springs. when you first come off of the highway into this community, there are parts, areas where you think, oh, maybe they were spared. it doesn't look like there was a massive tornado that came through here, but then you keep driving and that's when you start to see the homes, the neighborhoods, almost entirely gone. there are homes without roofs. windows blown in. cars scattered all about, that have been moved, turned over, flooded from the storm. we watched as search and rescue teams went door-to-door, looking for anyone who might not have survived. we spoke to a woman who said she lost three of her neighbors. we saw neighbors helping each other, oftentimes through tears, devastated for the lives that were lost and worried about the many people here that are still unaccounted for. listen to what one woman told us that she is from this community and has spent most of h

. >> reporter: joining me now, nbc's ellison barber, sam brock, and mike memoli. see all of you. ellison, i know you're at hartsfield-jackson atlanta airport. this is the busiest airport in the country. what are you hearing from travelers as they get to set to travel with this new jump in cases? >> it is very busy here. this airport is always busy, especially during the holidays. last year was an exception to that rule, but this holiday season, officials here at hartsfield-jackson international airport, they say that they expect to welcome about 3.7 million travelers in the next two weeks. airports across the country are expecting a lot of flyers. aaa says airlines will see an increase of 184%, compared to last year. in general, travel is up by about 34%. again, that's compared to this time last year. it's not quite pre-pandemic levels, but very, very close. aaa expects 109 million people to travel 50 miles or more this holiday season. that is 92% of 2019 levels. some of the travelers we spoke to at this airport were a little surprised to see longer lines this morn

joining me now from michigan is ellison barber. what are you hearing from law enforcement?ty. we reached out to law enforcement to try to find out what came, if anything, from that meeting yesterday. our crews saw andre walk into a police station with his attorney yesterday late afternoon. later in the evening, they were at his home as police executed a search warrant on his house. the attorney for that artist says his client has cooperated with investigators. his story has been that his client, this artist, did not realize the parents were facing any kind of charges. according to the attorney they had a bit of a relationship, although he says not super, super close and through one of their conversations the couple said they needed a place to stay because they were getting death threats. according to this artist's attorney, that is the only information this artist has. that is why he says he allowed them to stay in his studio. police had said, though, to them it very much looked like the couple had no intention of turning themselves in. the attorney for jennifer and james c

ellison barber, thank you.y in kentucky as we take a look at the tornado outbreak is having on school kids. the governor confirmed as we mentioned that at least 12 of those killed in the storms are children. dozens of schools are still closed today with some districts not planning to get back into classes until next year. i'm joined now by superintendent joe henderson of the mayfield independent school district. mr. superintendent, thank you so much for being with us. you know, so many people around the country are thinking about you and i know there is just heartbreak, so many people as we've learned more information about the number of kids killed, has your district been able to account for all of its students at this point? >> well, we're in the process of doing that right now. the good news, if there's any good news, in this tragedy is we've not had any school-aged children basically deceased. there are siblings that weren't in school at this point the time that were in some of the families who have student

nbc news correspondent, ellison barber in dawson springs, kentucky, and nbc news white house correspondent, mike memoli in dawson springs, kentucky, covering the president's visit. thank you for being with me. gabe, what will the president see and hear from people in mayfield when he visits later today? >> reporter: well, hi, there, jose. good morning. the president will see scenes like this. this car picked up and tossed. this business just shredded. and you can see, jose, and we've been seeing this for several days now, the devastation just extends block after block here. if we look all the way down there, you can see, there are some workers on top of that building, throwing out some of the insulation. they are trying to clean up this part of downtown mayfield. but this is something we've been seeing over and over again. they're moving, surprsurprising jose, at an amazing pace. you see all of these power poles that have just been tossed around. we have been seeing many of the utility crews coming here, rebuilding some of these power poles. putting new ones up. power slowly being restored

that's been turned to rubble, and ellison barber is right there in the middle of it. alex. most of this community, pockets of this community, dawson springs, it's just completely destroyed. this, we think, we're told was once a business. if you look just across the street here, you can see what were homes. some people have started to arrive and go through what is left of this area, seeming to try and find little bits of things that they might be able to salvage. we have a seen a number of search and rescue crews with canines going through some of the buildings. we spoke to one woman who lived here. she said that she was in bed. she has ms, and she went to bed last night after knowing that the storm was potentially coming, but she wasn't feeling good. she was in bed when she heard the sounds, the sirens. she was at the foot of her bed when her window exploded. she said it sounded like a train came through. she told us one of her neighbors was still unaccounted for. she pointed to other homes that were completely leveled across the street from her. she said that family

>> wow, ellison barber tonight. >>> new york governor kathy hochul announced a sweeping mask mandaterybody has to mask up in all indoor public places unless they're required to show proof of vaccination the new rules set to take effect monday, applying to all shops, zraunts and venues statewide the policy may not have big impact if places like new york city where people face strict vaccine mandates but the governor says it will be, as she put it, a wakeup call for the rest of the state. if businesses fail to comply they could if a face civil and criminal penalties up to $1,000. the mask mandate rams in place until at least january 15th. >> weather alert, a monster storm system barreling through the midwest and tennessee valley tonight. more than 14 million people from arkansas to indiana at risk of strong winds, large hail and 9mm tornadoes. officials urge people to stay alert and plan to shelter. chief meteorologist rich mitchell from the local station nbc 5 dallas rick, a serious threat >> definitely, kelly a busy night set the stamg. you've got winter moving into spring, not feeli

>> ellison barber in new york. ellison, thank you. >>> meantime, winter weather wreaking havoc on flights and it is hitting coast to coast. we have the forecast for where you live and where you may be heading. >>> and despite supply chain concerns and backups at the port, it was a big year for holiday shoppers and their bank accounts the items some people willing to shell out the big bucks for. coming up. >> the facts, the truth, "the news with shepard smith" back in 60 seconds >>> we have got a weather alert. 25 million of you out there under a winter weather watch tonight. a powerful storm system slamming really coast to coast. take a look at this video from the sierra nevada mountains in california this winter storm buried the area with up to 10 feet of snow. wow. officials there shut down a highway after strong winds knocked down trees and power lines. meantime, fargo, north dakota, got hammered with as much as 9 inches of snow today wind gusts expected to reach 60 miles an hour. officials there saying, hey, st

. >> nbc's ellison barber is in dawson springs, kentucky, with the latest on the recovery effort there. the governor described half the town of dawson springs as flattened. what are you seeing there? >> reporter: it's exactly that. there are so many homes that you get up to what would be a house and you wonder if this actually was a house, because it's hard to tell so many homes in this community. roofs are gone, many of them are entirely collapsed. we've met a number of people who have harrowing stories of survival, just like the one you heard from that man a little while ago. we were talking to a family, one woman who has lived here with her husband for 31 years. she said, when the tornado came through, she heard that the storm was going to be bad, so she's gone across the street to stay in the basement with her mother. she said it was seconds and she looked up and all she saw was black, because the entire top of the house was gone. she and other neighbors then started going to different homes in this community, where aim now, looking for survivors, trying to move people to the few h

here to start us off is ellison barber, covering those rising hospitalizations among kids. and gary robach in washington, d.c. where record cases are urging health care workers to stay home. cnn correspondent dr. john torres is also joining us. ellison, we'll go ahead and start with you. you've been talking with doctors about in child hospitalization number. what are they learning about whether kids seem to be more susceptible to omicron? >> on that, doctors we've spoken to in new york city, they say pretty much time will tell. it could be that simply because there is a higher percent, a larger community spread, that naturally that means it will spread to other groups, and children would be among those groups, and that ultimately it could just be more numbers amongst this group because there are more numbers, higher numbers, in new york city amongst the general population. again, it's sort of, they say, something that time will tell whether or not there is something specific in this variant that affects children in a different way, but for now they think this is just the num

ellison barber is at atlanta international airport as millions of americans are set to travel for theidays. also with me is dr. celine gounder, an epidemiologist. she the host of the american diagnosis and epidemic podcast. what can we expect to hear from president biden this afternoon? >> reporter: there's going to be an overarching message from the president and a stark warning to the unvaccinated. he's going to predict one of the darkest winters ever for the unvaccinated population. i'm told he's not really going to mince words when it comes to that. some of the sharpest language we've heard from him so far. then he's going to unveil new measures, things like ramping up and expanding the more than 20,000 federal testing sites that already exist in this country as we see those very long lines continually growing. and he's going to make an announcement about how the federal government is purchasing half a billion at home rapid tests which americans will be able to have access to starting next month. people will be able to go to a website, sign up for them and receive them in the mail

. >> ellison barber, thank you. >>> like something out of loony-tune adventures. that's what jesse smollett said this afternoon what he says about his trip to the bath house and how he handled the homophobic and racist attack. >>> another jeffrey epstein accuser takes the stand. what she claims ghislaine maxwell told her to wear before she was abused. >>> the department of justice taking aim on texas again. why it claims the new redistricting plan discriminates against authorities and how the state has responded. different ty managers. (other money manager) different how? don't you just ride the wave? (judith) no - we actively manage client portfolios based on our forward-looking views of the market. (other money manager) but you still sell investments that generate high commissions, right? (judith) no, we don't sell commission products. we're a fiduciary, obligated to act in our client's best interest. (other money manager) so when do you make more money? only when your clients make more money? (judith) yep, we do better when our clients do better. at fisher inve

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and just about an hour's drive east of where kathy is, i want to bring in ellison barber who just got to dawson springs, kentucky. we're getting our first look today at the area you're in, ellison. it's the governor's father's hometown, and yesterday when the governor was talking to chuck todd on "meet the press" it was gasp worthy when he said the list of unaccounted people there was eight pages single spaced. tell me what's happening on the ground. what that search is like. >> reporter: hey, chris. i met one woman who said she was in this basement. her neighbor's home, when the storm came through, when the tornado crossed over. she said she was down here huddled and looked up. all she saw was black, and the entirety of her neighbor's home completely destroyed. it physically shifted about ten feet off of what would be, right here, the kitchen. that woman, she lived just across the street here. she said once she was able to get out, she ran over to her home and tried to go inside. her steps to get in her house were literally in her front yard. this house right over here, or what would

ellison barber all over the story and dr.an in chief at children's hospital in new orleans. let me start with you on this one and talks through the situation seems day by day is getting worse. how bad is it? >> reporter: so in new york state officials felt it was serious enough, significant enough, they put out press release christmas eve to warn parents what they described as a striking increase in pediatric hospitalizations. look at the numbers in new york city, children hospitalized with covid-19, it is increased by 395% compared to about three weeks ago. in hospitals, in the state. they say none of the children hospitalized in the 5 to 11-year-old patient range was fully vaccinated. half of the children that are hospitalized are patients who are less than 5 years old. that would mean not eligible to be vaccinated just yet. one of the things with these numbers to keep in mind is, we don't have a specific breakdown. we've asked for it from new york's department of health but haven't got it just yet whether or not these case

joining me now is cnbc's lindsey reiser from new york city and nbc news correspondent ellison barbernois. lindsey, i'm going to start with you. you're at the javits center. if that name sounds familiar to you, it's probably because javits was once a field hospital near the start of the pandemic. it was later a mass covid vaccination center. and now it is where the person with the first confirmed case of omicron attended a convention just days before that diagnosis. lindsey, what are you hearing from officials in new york? >> reporter: so that case, katy, originated from an anime convention here at the javits center. that man is from minnesota. he came here, he was here for the convention. he traveled back and became symptomatic. he was fully vaccinated. he had a mild case. and he has since recovered. but now the state is working on contact tracing. they have the names of 50,000 people who were here for that. they were wearing masks, they had to show proof of vaccination for that. they're encouraging everybody who was here to get tested. those other confirmed cases here in the state,

with me now from pontiac, michigan, is nbc news correspondent ellison barber and executive director of the detroit crime commission and former special agent in charge of the fbi's detroit division, andy arena. ellison, i imagine there is a lot of frustration toward the school. what is the feeling now that the parents are behind bars? and bring us up to speed on what exactly happened over the weekend. >> reporter: it was a chaotic weekend to say the least. it started with a manhunt here in oakland county. it ended in detroit at 1:30 a.m. with local and federal law enforcement apprehending jennifer and james crumbley as they are staying in an art studio in a warehouse-type facility in detroit. they had taken $4,000 out of an atm and then just essentially, according to police, disappeared, turned off their cellphones. the crumbleys, father, mother, and son, are now all detained in the same prison complex where we are now, isolated, and on suicide watch. according to the sheriff, that is out of an abundance of caution. this as parents, police, are looking at the school now and asking, tryi

dawson springs are nbc news white house correspondent mike memoli and nbc news correspondent ellison barberage, meeting with homeowners and business owners as they sit on the pile of rubble that once

ellison barber is in dawson spring. >> reporter: hey, ali. you know when we talked to people at a lot of tragedies, disasters like this, they will tell you that they lost things, but slojz they're alive that they're okay, these are just things that they can replace. but then when you look at the things you remember immediately the people, this right here is a children's book. next to it is a stuffed animal. back here in this pile what looks like a toddler's shoe. we don't know where this came from, but we know that families were in this neighborhood when the tornado ripped through this area. one woman said it sounded like a train plowing through. another man i spoke to said that yesterday as he was looking for friends, looking for acquaintances, he found a body wrapped around a tree. over here this area on the front, those were storage units. but behind it all around it, those were homes, very few are left. we met one couple who was trying to go through what was their storage unit trying to save, find some baby blankets to take home. the man

msnbc's lindsey reiser in manhattan and ellison barber outside of abbott labs in illinois. let's start with things where they stand right now. there's still so much we don't know about this variant. we're expecting i guess in about a week, maybe more than a week to have some real data. but what is your message to patients, about this variant, how dangerous it is? exactly. >> yeah, no, no, no. andrea, the message is exactly ma you led with. we've got surges in the northeast and midwest of delta and coronavirus period right now, so getting vaccinated is the highest priority, along with boosters. we're starting to hear even in d.c. where i am, people can't get the booster appoints that they want. be patient, we have plenty of supply. you might not be able to go to the pharmacy right by your house and you might have to wait a day or two, but we have plenty of supply. get boosted. and if you have children or hesitancy or concerns, talk about getting your children vaccinated. and that thing we do know that's becoming a bit more of an interesting data point that we knew also from