. >> my name is garland richards.1998, my dad passed away, left me and my siblings a large cattle ranch and a giant part of history. >> well, i got your letter, and i'm dying to learn more about your inheritance. what is this place? >> this is the richards ranch, and this is fort chadbourne. we will be glad to show you around. >> i'm ready. garland tells me fort chadbourne was built in 1852, during the great western expansion. [ gunfire, horses neighing ] the area had become a hotspot for violence between the pioneers and native indian tribes. >> the u.s. military came in here and set up fort chadbourne as a buffer zone. >> and unmistakably, i do see bullet holes. >> there was a comanche warrior that was killed in this officers' quarters, and that's part of the history of fort chadbourne, also. >> during the fort's early years, a who's who of future confederate leaders walked through its doors. >> robert e. lee was through here on three different occasions. pickett. longstreet. >> after the civil war breaks out, hundr

it's quite a mess, richard. >> awful. the garlandhat was an ef-4. >> my goodness. >> so just one off the maximum so really, really severe storm. what we are seeing at the moment is truly exceptional now part of it is as a result of the very cold air across central and western parts of the united states meeting this very warm air coming from the gulf of mexico, this is record breaking warm air and doesn't attract headlines at the moment but the effects of it are attracting the headlines and you see the development taking place on some southern states and an area of low pressure and the classic frontal set up and what is happening within it is very extreme indeed. looking at some rainfall totals and vast amounts of rain being reported over the last 24 hours but obviously it's tornados which caused so many fatalities and this is quite interesting. on sunday it was a 7th consecutive day when a tornado touched down somewhere in the united states. that beat the previous record of the days back in 1982. the significance of this is that 1982

garland, texas. charles, how is the recovery now going days later? >> reporter: hi, richard.are coming back home to what's left of their homes here to pick up the pieces and survey the damage left by these tornadoes that came through here. this is a house, the city has already been by, they put that red placard on there declaring the house unsafe, stating the obvious here. take a look at this -- that's an ford f-150 pick-up truck that was hurled on top of this house, then a tree fell on top of it. amazingly, no one in the city of garland was killed in their house. all of the fatalities happened along the roadway. let me show you exactly where. this is the interchange of president george bush turnpike and interstate 30. right down there is the interchange where the tornado passed right through there, knocking those cars right off the freeway. eight people died right there. that's where the fatalities happened in garland. then of course you had three more fatalities, two people were killed in a gas station/feed store about eight miles from here, and an infant believed to be 2 t

richard. a lot of roofs are peeled off, trees are down, limbs, cars tossed about, things like that. in the town of garlandis just to the west of here they had an ef-4 tornado and that's powerful enough to wipe the house right off the foundation and that's what you see in that neighborhood. garwin is also the area where eight people died overnight and five of them were on the highway and five of them were traveling down interstate 30 when the tornado crossed the interstate right in front of them and they were swept off the road and smashed under the pavement below an underpass and were all killed. that's where the majority of deaths occurred. two more deaths occurred in the town of copeville which is about ten miles from here. two people were in a gas station/feed store. they were killed. and an infant was killed in the town of cedar ridge, texas. so a devastating tornado outbreak in texas and 11 storms, two of them and some of the most powerful on record here. >> nbc's charles hadlock live in texas on the latest of the tornadoes that touched down. stay with msnbc as we continue to follow this breaking sto