Five People Dead, Dozens Hurt in Midwest Twisters
GARY TUCHMAN, CNN HOST: The plane was set and trapped for weeks at the site of the legendary sinking ship but instead scrambled the help of a French sailboat that was in trouble. And all is well. It is 5:00 p.m. on the East Coast, 2:00 p.m. on the west. I'm Gary Tuchman in for Fredricka Whitfield. Millions of Americans from Texas to Wisconsin are being warned to be on guard as we speak, as severe weather threatens the region today and tonight. And this is what they're worried about. Another tornado outbreak. One hundred twenty two suspected twisters tore through four Midwestern states this weekend, killing five people. Dozens of people were hurt. Hundreds of homes were damaged, and destroyed. A live report in a hard-hit town in Oklahoma is just ahead. But here is how one survivor in Iowa described the storm.</s>LARRY HILL, LOST HOME TO TORNADO: You know, it was no straight wind, it was a regular twister. The wind was just blasting out and out and out. The bathroom, like they always say, and while we got here, the roof went here. The good Lord was blesses us. He sure was. It's about more than you can bear.</s>TUCHMAN: We're glad Larry Hill is OK. The U.S. coast guard searching for four people right now, missing from a yacht that ran aground during a race in San Francisco. The coast guard said a massive wave hit the eight-person crew aboard the yacht called low-speed chase. Then hit the rocks near the Fairyland islands, that is about 25 miles due west of San Francisco. We're told one person died, three others were rescued. Deadly attacks in the capital of Afghanistan. Insurgents targeted several key areas of Kabul, including the embassy area, presidential palace and the parliament. The Taliban claimed responsibility saying that it's the start of what they called their spring offensive. Afghan officials say 19 insurgents though were killed. Ryan Crocker, who is the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, told our Candy Crowley the attacks may have been orchestrated by the Haqqani network.</s>RYAN CROCKER, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO AFGHANISTAN: The Taliban are really good at issuing statements, less good at actually fighting. My guess, based on previous experience here, is that this is a Haqqani network operation in the Pakistani tribal areas. Frankly, I don't think the Taliban's good enough.</s>TUCHMAN: Now, take a look at these pictures. That was the Grandview palace condos in fall view, New York, in the Catskills Mountains. This is the second weekend in a row a Catskills landmark has been destroyed by fire. Last week, it was the Tamarack Lodge in Pollster County, New York. The building is probably best known as the inspiration for the resort featured in the movie "dirty dancing." Halifax, Nova Scotia, held a memorial service to remember the moment the "titanic" went down 100 years ago this very day. People gathered at a cemetery where more than 100 people who were aboard the ill-fated ship are buried. The service was part of a weekend of events remembering the "titanic." Back now to the devastating aftermath of this weekend's massive tornado outbreak in the Midwest. Twisters touched down in four states. Oklahoma was one, Iowa two, Nebraska three, and Kansas four. All the fatalities were in one town, the town of Woodward, Oklahoma. My colleague CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano is in Woodward right now. He joins us live now live. Rob, how is it going there? When we talked to you before, there were a lot of work going on to make repairs. People are just so sad and forlorn.</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Feverish activity up until about ten minutes ago then we have a little shower comes here, actually with a little bit of hail as well. We're starting getting intermittent showers. So, that's a - I gave the worker at one point a couple of dozen of friends and family and neighbors helping out. This home that was really just crushed by the tornado that came through here. A well-built home, 2,800 feet, four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a family that's lived here for 19 years. We talked with the man of the house, who actually had an injury to his head. His grandson's head injured as well. His wife and son were in that rubble. But they managed to survive. How amazing is that. The storm itself came from this direction. Talking to some of the weather folks here, the national weather service folks who are surveying the damage, they say at least an ef-2, but in some cases probably like this, they are saying ef-3 damage. So, it was a narrow tornado but it was a strong tornado for sure, and as you mention, five fatalities here in Woodward. There's a 12 counties in the state of Oklahoma that are under a state of emergency. So, this state, especially the western part of it, certainly very, very hard hit by this storm. This is one of three storms that came through this town during the day yesterday. Two of which we actually chased during the afternoon, up near the Kansas/Oklahoma border. And they dropped tornadoes up there as well. So, well organized structures. But the last one, Gary, came at night, after midnight. After when some cases some of these -- the people here didn't have power and didn't necessarily get the warning. So that's a bit of an issue as well and one of the reasons that we see 29 injuries on top of those fatalities. But as of now, or as of earlier today, most everybody was accounted for.</s>TUCHMAN: Incredible, Rob. Ef-2, when you see the immense damage there. And it just shows you how catastrophically powerful ef-4s and ef-5s are. But I want to ask you. You were talking about the five people who died in town, two of them children, how are the people in that small town dealing with the tragedy?</s>MARCIANO: You know. You've been in this situation, Gary. Every time I'm struck by the resilience of the folks here. Certainly you come across people who are incredibly emotional, the ones that have personal attachments to those who are injured or killed. But those that survived, and even with injuries, and complete loss of their property, it's amazing to see the spirit and see the community come forward and help those people that got hit more than others. I'll say this about this particular strike. It was one of those cases where, you know, the house on one side of the street, completely blown away, the house on the other street virtually untouched. So there are people here who have the where withal to help those who didn't fare as well -- Gary.</s>TUCHMAN: Rob, very nice job today telling the victims' stories. Rob Marciano, coming to us from the small town in Oklahoma, who suffered so much. In Iowa now, take a look at these pictures. We are going to show you from a tiny town also. This is Thurman, Iowa. A tornado leveled much of a town about 300 people. Listen as one homeowner describes the terror of this storm.</s>KELLI PERRIN, LOST HOME TO TORNADO: We heard the sirens, probably five minutes before it really picked up. So we were trying, OK, get the kids downstairs. It was more like, my God, we've got to get downstairs. You know, the windows were blowing out. And it was just panicky. There's just glass everywhere. There was stuff off our wall. There's grass just plastered. We had a house fire and lost our first house. It's like, really? I don't think I can do this again.</s>JACQUI JERAS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, for those folks it is, but the threat is just beginning for places like Minneapolis, St. Paul. A tornado watch has been issued across much of southern Minnesota, extreme northern Iowa and then west central parts of Wisconsin. We want to show like tower cam we have here from the affiliate KR-11 TV in the twin cities, and there you can see downtown Minneapolis. There you can see the Mississippi river, 72 degrees in April for you, Minnesota. Tomorrow, we're going to be seeing that big temperature drop after the storms move through tonight. You'll only be seeing temperatures in the mid-40s for a high. So, a big change there. In fact, even northern Minnesota up towards international falls into the arrowhead will likely see some snow before tonight is over and done with. Now, we're also keeping our eye on a line of thunderstorms here across parts of Arkansas and into central parts of Missouri. We've had isolated severe storms within this line, producing winds around 60 miles per hour. So that can cause a lot of damage, and the whole threat area that we're going to be talking about through this evening and into tonight stretches from the upper Midwest all the way down to the gulf coast. So, even Houston can see some strong storms, as well as St. Louis, and maybe even Chicago and Milwaukee late tonight. So we'll continue to monitor that situation. And the storm continues into tomorrow, too, by the way, across parts of the Ohio valley and eastern great lakes. Just circling back for the big outbreak from yesterday, we had tornadoes on Friday, too, by the way, this map shows you all of the rotation that we saw and thunderstorms the last two days, and really gives you a picture of how many large long track tornadoes that were out there -- Gary.</s>TUCHMAN: It is the middle of tornado season, and Jacqui, we're only a month and a half away from hurricane season, June 1st.</s>JERAS: I know.</s>TUCHMAN: So more on that. A lot more on that a little bit later. Jacqui, thank you very much. Today has been a very bad day in Afghanistan. Insurgents attacked Kabul's embassy areas, and there was a fire at the parliament. There was explosion at the parliament and central palace. More are coming up. And two women killed in Brazil. And police say this is a horrifying story, that they may have been the victims of cannibals. Those stories are coming up.