trees tossed like matchsticks. sonny martin's family barely made it out alive. >> i basically told her to run and get the baby. >> reporter: gusts up to 100 miles per hour reported in some areas in northern arkansas. >> it's breathtaking what a storm like this can do. these are pieces of people's lives that are just scattered across the area. >> reporter: tractor-trailers flipped over along highway 65. >> i just started spinning out of control for a long time. then all of the sudden it just stopped. >> reporter: the severe line continues to push east as night falls. >> we have quite a line of thunderstorms that is going to slowly move east. there could be storms ahead of that as well. >> reporter: arkansas's governor just declared 15 counties disaster areas as the severe system moves east, warnings are still posted in florida, georgia, tennessee, and here in alabama, brian. >> gabe gutierrez in birmingham, alabama, tonight. thanks. >>> at the white house today president obama awarded the medal of honor to a genuine

he took 600 matchsticks, put in the two or three bombs he made. we had somebody very close to him, he was arrested for it. but it talks in this first "inspire" edition it talks specifically about using a pressure cooker. so these are not complex items. he did it literally by the numbers. he had the papers laid out in front of him and did by the numbers so the genie is out of the bottle as far as making a bomb is concerned. >> rose: how do you protect or try to find those kinds of people? >> with difficulty. obviously we want intelligence information. we want to prevent this as early as possible. we try to get intelligence in a variety of ways. we work with the national assets to help us do that but a lone individual working by themselves or a small group very, very difficult to get intelligence. they know that we're out there looking for intelligence and we also think that, you know, with the degrading of al qaeda leadership it certainly has happened. the mission has gone forward of "do what you can." you know? let a thousand flowers bloom. >> ros