we recently in the joplin tornados and also tuscaloosa tornados we brought in dod equipment to replace what was destroyed. from the fire side i know there's a lot of things you are doing to work around the interoperatability issues with regard to communications between fire and dod and maybe if ray or anybody else wants to speak to that. >> our communications challenges still exist. we have excellent telecom communications, we have a layered effect of our radio systems. we have mobile command posts that we can exercise. so we're prepared for power outages, reduction of telecoms, we have a layered effect for our communications. but as everybody here said, we need help. if somebody here can help me get a navy or marine corps aircraft to talk to my guys on the ground tactically, i need that and i don't have that today. i use a command control helicopter, a civilian helicopter, to handle that and transfer that to an air to air victor frequency. but from a command control perspective, we're fairly robust. are we perfect, no, but we do have layered defenses against that. >> miss yeager, i do

stepped aside after president kennedy federalized the alabama national guard and ordered troops to tuscaloosa. and that's your morning's dish of "scrambled politics." >>> and now for our tuesday forecast, we're joined by bill karins. good morning. >> yeah, the hate inbox got full yesterday in a hurry. >> weatherman's never popular when it's raining cats and dogs, right? >> eastern seaboard, we had severe storms, flooding rains. it was just a mess out there, but i'll tell you what, the tornado that touched down in kentucky was serious business. this was a wide one, too. >> wow. >> at one point it was estimated to be 300 yards wide by the national weather service. it was on the ground for about five miles. it did damage to some homes, it tore down a barn, killed some farm animals, unfortunately, injured three humans. no fatalities, though, so thankfully for that. all that rain and wet weather from yesterday is now up into new england. still soaking from massachusetts, connecticut, rhode island northwards, upstate new york, vermont, new hampshire and maine, so still dreary in that area. not expe

. >> when looking at at places like tuscaloosa, we need to work harder, be more aggressive, get those deployments in. >> with you know, we may celebrate a big probe intercept but we can never forget, this is why we chase. >> always amazes me how powerful the storms can be. >> people's livelihoods just getting wiped out in ten secretary. seconds. >> this is a genius, mechanical genius. he can make amazing desizes to study tornadoes. >> with us is discovery vice president josh wineburg. special mile wide tornado storm chasers tribute will premier tonight at 10:00 p.m. you know, there is this idea that storm chasers do what they do for the thrill of it. and that this is part of that risk. but they will insist that there's also invaluable research that they bring back. do you get into that at all in tonight's program? >> certainly. and throughout the whole run of storm chasers and first of all, thank you for having me on. our thoughts and prayers go out to the families and everybody affected by the horrible event piece past weeks in oklahoma and throughout the heartland. but we certainly

>> guest: i live in tuscaloosa, alabama, which is 60 miles up the road but almost in another, more recent century than my small hometown. >> host: and darkroom is a lot about the civil rights movement and some of the experiences that you had. i want to start with your father. what did he do for a living, and what was his experience like? >> guest: my father was a teacher. he had a background also in the ministry. but, um, he was an amateur photographer. he did some freelance work, and that figures centrally in my book, "darkroom." >> host: and i want to ask about his ministering, because he'd been assigned to some churches, and you write about b that in here. what was his experience? >> guest: well, this was, actually, my family's first immigration period. in 1948 my father came to the u.s., and he studied at a seminary in new orleans, and he went around and did some speaking in various places there where he encountered institutionalized segregation even in the church. >> host: and at one point he spoke at a black church. >> guest: yes. >> host: and he invited the choir to attend a servic

standing in the door of the university for president kennedy to come to the university of alabama and tuscaloosato the university with all of the power of the federal government. i think this would be the greatest moral witness that he could make in this situation. we cannot continue to have birmingham, alabama, as the image of the united states, cannot stand in the shape of the world today. does not afford us the luxury of such an anemic democracy. >> how did he deal with the prodding by civil rights leaders at that time? and what was his relationship like dr. king? they met and talked a lot. >> well that. >> did, but they weren't close. and kennedy was, for example, you know, in the summer of '63, there was the famous march on washington. >> right. >> and kennedy and his brother robert, who was of course the attorney general, were resistant to that, because they were afraid that it would end up in violence. and of course when it came off peacefully and so successfully and with martin luther king's brilliant speech, kennedy invited the civil rights leaders to the white house where he congratula

. >> this is what one deadly twister left behind in tuscaloosa, alabama. >> i got phone calls from relativesriends saying there's a bad storm, a big tornado. and it came through. i set up and thought about, what can i do to give back to my community? i came up with this hairbrain idea to ride across the state. it's an annual event to raise money for the tornado victims. i want to make the rest of the country aware of how severe the tornado can be. when you don't have a place to get away from the path of a tornado, a lot of people get injured, lose their lives. hiding in a closet or a bathtub doesn't work when the whole house is getting picked up all the foundation and thrown down the street. to continue this bike ride and to raise money to build community tornado shelters i think that's my calling. join the movement. impact your world. go to cnn.com/impact. but i feel skinnier, you know? not really. aaah! jessica! whoa! your friend's a rate sucker. her bad driving makes car insurance more expensive for the rest of us. try snapshot from progressive. snap it in and get a discount based on your

some kind of regulations as to when they use the language in the last year after the joplin and tuscaloosa and decided to change the wording with some storms and there are tornado warnings an" then there are tornado warnings that they will give exaggerated language to as a potentially life threatening and extremely dangerous situation. so that certain tornado warnings can have certainly people take them a little more interesting. if you live in the areas sometimes you can spend all spring dealing with tornado watches and warnings and sometimes you can become a little complacent to it so they added additional language to make sure people have the exact expectations and are warned when they are a little more serious than other tornado warned storms. >> shepard: the governor of oklahoma, mary fallon is on the line with us now. i was listening earlier as you were trying to get home and do your mom duties as you put it and then head back out to try to make sure people were heeding warnings. what is your sense of things? >> it has been chaotic because the storm has been big. it had a wide swath

. >> this is what one deadly twister left behind in tusk tuscaloo tuscaloosa, alabama. >> i got phone saying there was a bad storm, a big tornado that came through. i sat up and thought about what can i do to give back to my community. and i came up with this ha hare-brained idea to ride a bicycle across the state. i decided to make it an annual event to raise money for the tornado victims. when you don't have a place to get out of the way of a tornado, a lot of people get injured. lose their lives, hiding in a closet or get in a bathtub. it doesn't work when the whole house is getting picked up off the foundation and thrown down the street. to continue this bike ride, and to raise money, to build community tornado shelters, i think that's my calling. >> join the movement, impact your world. go to cnn.com/impact. what makes the sleep what makes the sleep number store different? you walk into a conventional mattress store, it's really not about you. they say, "well, if you wanted a firm bed you can lie on one of those. we provide the exact individualization that your body needs. oh, ye

this is what one deadly twister left behind in tuscaloosa, alabama. >> i got phone calls from relatives friends saying it's a bad storm, a big tornado that came through. i sat up and thought about what can i do to give back to my community? i came up with this hair brained idea to ride a bicycle across the state. i decided to make it an annual event to raise money for the tornado victims. i want to make the rest of the country aware of how severe a tornado can be. when you don't have a place to get out of the way of a tornado, a lot of people get injured, lose their lives hiding in a closet or getting in a bathtub doesn't work when the whole house is getting picked up off the foundation and thrown down the street. to continue this bike ride and to raise money to build community tornado shelters, i think that's my calling. join the movement, impact your world. go to cnn.com/impact. >> one of the greatest athletes ever now working for a great cause. our hats off to bo jackson. >>> and on "starting point," apple's developers conference set to begin in just a few hours. >> some say the tech

when we had the tuscaloosa, birmingham and joplin, we had 262 and that was a big deal and hadn't had that many fatalities in a long time and 43 so far this year. i would say that is pretty close to average and maybe slightly above average and not close to being in the top five as we go throughout 1974. as far as the actual number of tornadoes go, every may, we average somewhere about 250. we have actually only had 207 so far preliminary count as of may. so it's actually, joe, been a below average year and it doesn't matter how much you have. it matters how strong and if they hit. the one we talked about friday was in rural areas. if that had gone through downtown, oklahoma city, we would be talking about another joplin. >> bill karins, thank you so much. >>> after weeks of scandals and controversy, attorney general eric holder is facing a growing chorus of calls for his resignation. while the white house is publicly sticking by holder peter baker reports in "the new york times" there are people in the west wing privatelily telling associates they wish he would step down. there is als

when the tornadoes came through tuscaloosa, alabama, a couple years ago, we could light up the entirem and find out who exactly was out and, therefore, we could deploy our restoration efforts in a much more efficient way, and we got the lights back on with less cost and a much faster time frame. >> so do you know when power's off whether gasoline stations have power or not? i'd like to talk with you about that. >> we know everything. [laughter] >> that would be, actually, a really good one. hurricane sandy. last question, very specific one but it kind of follows up on the innovation and alternative energy theme. biomass plant in texas, is that up and running? where's that? >> okay. it runs great. there's a problem. the energy costs coming out of the biomass plant doesn't compete well against the wind energy there. now, what we expect is that its capacity factor will rise dramatically as you get into the peak season. and, in fact, some people are worried about shortages in texas. so it's just been during the shoulder month, the off-peak month that the plant hasn't run. but the plant ru

heat continues to the south with tuscaloosa, new orleans, nine degrees above naormal. as far south or north as washington, >>> 7:37. really puts it into perspective how nice it's going to be in the bay area when you look at all that severe national weather. here san jose, beautiful clear start to the day. temperature in san jose later on, 78 degrees. just perfection for june standards in the bay area. 68 degrees on the way to san francisco. we've got a big weekend for dads and grads. temperatures will drop off as we head from saturday into sunday. hope you have a fantastic thursday. >> make sure you get the weather on the what you need out of this dangerous situation. you go to the weather channel on cable, weather.com online. matt, savannah? >> al, thank you very much. always a good idea. >>> coming up next, a new warning about a heartless crime. thieves are using the obituaries to target homes while people attend funerals. >>> and are fans souring on lululemon? how the surprise departure of the ceo may impact the athletic clothes company. ( telephone rings ) hi, hone

we're talking about, i have seen it, a joplin, missouri, at tuscaloosa, at more oklahoma, a 2 billion, 3 billion and 5 billion. those of the numbers and we simply are not addressing them. what has happened over the time unfortunately is attrition of wind engineering faculty, a structural engineering faculty no longer study how to make houses stronger. there onto commercial structures and these are the areas where we have the most damage or the most dollars but lost or lives affected. >> i agree certainly with everything that dr. prevatt has said but if there were more many in the program says there really hasn't been we have identified in a broadway the areas we think we need to progress. and understanding the events themselves and different issues in terms of understanding tornadoes and hurricanes but it starts with the meteorology of that and second to understanding connections with those events we do some of that at the research center but more could be done through enhanced funding but we recreate the nature and we see how nature reacts to the environment to small homes and busine