At Least Eight Dead After Deadly Tornado In Texas; Australian Fire Officials Say Bushfire Might Keep Burning Into The New Year; Southern Californians Evacuating After Wildfire Burns Hundreds of Acres; Over 100 Flood Alerts In U.K. After Torrential Rains
NATALIE ALLEN, "CNN NEWSROOM" ANCHOR: A deadly tornado rips through the Dallas, Texas area; at least eight are dead. We'll speak with the local resident who watched the destruction unfold. Plus, as one place picks up the pieces, another burns; a scenic part of California goes up in flames. And beating back ISIS. Iraqi Forces say they've made significant gains in Ramadi held by militants now for months. It's all next here on "CNN Newsroom." We're live from Atlanta. Thanks for joining us. I'm Natalie Allen.</s>ALLEN: We are seeing severe weather all over the world right now and that is our lead story. In Texas, the deaths of at least eight people are blamed on a powerful tornado. In Australia, fire officials say a bushfire there might keep burning into the New Year. In Southern California, people are being forced to evacuate after a wild fire burns nearly 500 hectares. And in the U.K., emergency officials issued more than 100 flood alerts and warnings of torrential rains, high winds and fog. And there's another flooding story we'll tell you about in South America, where one storm is responsible for killing eight people in Texas, and officials say five of those deaths were of people whose cars were hit by the tornado that struck in the night. There has been significant damage reported in the Dallas Metro area. One family described how they were lucky to get out of their home alive.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My daughter's car is in the kitchen.</s>NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wow. Your daughter's car ...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Her car is in the garage.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... is in the kitchen here?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's in the kitchen, right in the back.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the back of your house?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Right now. And my husband's car was in the driveway, it's out and around into the alley, but her car is in the kitchen and it was in the garage.</s>ALLEN: That says a lot, the car is in the kitchen. They're lucky to be alive, for sure. Pat McMillan says his apartment was nearly destroyed in the storm. He joins me now on the phone. Pat, we're glad you're OK. Tell us what you experienced.</s>PAT MCMILLAN, APARTMENT GOT NEARLY DESTROYED IN THE STORM: We're asleep and I heard the roar of the tornado and I had woke up my mom -- my mom had grabbed me and her boyfriend and put us in the restroom in about -- it lasted about 10 to 20 seconds. When we went outside, it was complete darkness, around 7:30 about -- around like, 7:20, 7:15. It was complete darkness and we went around looking to make sure that the families are OK or anybody needed help. There was a family across the hall from us. The windows are shattered, the doors are messed up and we heard her. So then my mom's boyfriend went inside and like took the door (inaudible) and tried to get out and we went across the street to pick up the cable line so the cars can go through (inaudible) going through and then we saw some churches over there (inaudible) so I went to the church to make sure that anybody, like injured or anything like that needs our assistance but everybody's OK, and our apartment is populated, full of families, kids, you know, like -- family like that and our friend's apartment is just completely gone.</s>ALLEN: Pat, so no one was seriously injured?</s>MCMILLAN: No, ma'am. By the grace of God, no one was seriously injured.</s>ALLEN: That is unreal. And the pictures that we're looking at right on the T.V. screen that you took, are you telling me that this happened in - what, you said it only lasted 20 seconds?</s>MCMILLAN: Twenty seconds -- about 20 seconds.</s>ALLEN: That's really amazing. And are you able to stay in your apartment or are you going to have to go to somewhere -- somewhere else?</s>MCMILLAN: I'm able to stay in my apartment.</s>ALLEN: How big is your complex? How many people live there?</s>MCMILLAN: I'll say at least about 100.</s>ALLEN: Have you ever experienced anything like this before?</s>MCMILLAN: No. This is my first time, so my reaction was kinda shocked and surprised. Let's get on together.</s>ALLEN: I can certainly understand that, and this just happened just a few hours ago. We're so thankful that you and the people you live around are OK because we're looking at these pictures and you're very fortunate. Thank you so much for talking with us, Pat.</s>MCMILLAN: Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Derek Van Dam is here with us. I can't imagine the stories like his that we're going to be hearing from Dallas, Texas and especially Derek, how tragic that these deaths that occurred were people driving on the interstate because ...</s>DEREK VAN DAM, CNN INTERNATIONAL WEATHER ANCHOR: Right.</s>ALLEN: ... you can't see a tornado at night.</s>VAN DAM: Right. Now, that's the scary part about that. You heard the gentleman there talking about how he was sleeping when the tornado came through his apartment complex. He's lucky he heard the roar of the tornado or perhaps the tornado siren as well because a lot of people when they sleep, these nocturnal tornadoes, they don't have any forewarning.</s>ALLEN: Yes.</s>VAN DAM: That's the problem. I want to show you this video that is new to CNN and is just phenomenal for me to see something like this. This is from Basehunters, but look at the power lines illuminating the backdrop of this tornado. There were reports on Twitter that this tornado was roughly about 1-1/2 kilometers wide. You can imagine the path of destruction to a heavily populated area like the Dallas-Fort Worth area. In fact, Dallas County is the second-most populated county in all of Texas alone. Take a look at this, my graphics. You'll see just how many tornadoes were reported on Boxing Day, December 26th. Officially six so far, but that has to be assessed from the National Weather Service (inaudible) to see daylight and the true devastation from these tornadoes as they rip through northern Texas and there was also several hail reports and even a lone tornado in Oklahoma as well. I want to show you the radar of the moment the tornado went through Dallas. There it is in the center of my T.V. screen. You can start to see that -- a deep shading of red that moved across the region earlier in the day. It's about 6:45 in the evening, local time when it actually took place and the severe weather threat is not done yet, folks. Get a load of this. This is the future radar going forward. We have a very complex storm system that's going to bring extremely heavy rain, the potential for more severe weather the eastern sections of Texas, part of Oklahoma, Arkansas, and into Louisiana. On the back side of the system, we have a full-blown blizzard that is anticipated through the rest of the weekend and into the first parts of next week. Here are our highlighted areas for the potential damaging winds and isolated tornadoes. Look out, Houston. There's our blizzard threat, and the flashflood threat stretches all the way to Saint Louis and the central portions of Illinois we have another potential 250 to perhaps even 400 millimeters of rainfall and a very saturated environment. Natalie, that means flashflooding is extremely likely. You can see those warnings in red.</s>ALLEN: Yes. And that's the region right there, cutting across the United States that sees so many dangerous storms.</s>VAN DAM: Yes.</s>ALLEN: Usually not the week before New Year's, though.</s>VAN DAM: Yeah, that's right. Allen: All right, El Nino. Thank you. Good. Well, a major California wildfire is more than half contained now but not before causing some major problems in southern California. Nearly 500 hectares have burned, and the Solimar fire, that's near Ventura County, causing two major highways to close for a time. The dramatic video you're seeing here was captured by a Dutch family vacationing. This was what happened to their vacation as they drove practically through this fire to escape. The fire is now 60 percent contained. A fire official believes windy conditions led to a downed power line and that started all of this.</s>TOM CLEMO, DEPUTY FIRE CHIEF: Despite the challenges of high winds, steep terrain, significant brush, we were able to bring a stop to all forward progress to the fire and did not lose any structures.</s>ALLEN: Well, bushfires in Australia's Victoria State had been subdued with about 300 firefighters working to contain then they did lose structures from luxury homes, more than 100 homes, also parts of Great Ocean Road, that's a popular scenic highway also shut down. Earlier, I spoke with Peter Baker, a State Duty Officer with the Country Fire Authority.</s>PETER BAKER, COUNTRY FIRE AUTHORITY STATE DUTY OFFICER: The fire is not yet contained, so we've got -- today, we've got a run of about 300 firefighters and a (inaudible) aircraft working on the edge back. We've got a lot of far (ph) edge. We have about a boundary on this of 40 kilometers. As far as the housing loss, the count yesterday was 118 and I haven't heard that -- sorry, it's 116, and I haven't heard about any further increase on that today. So 116 homes lost in this devastating fire.</s>ALLEN: And those homes that were lost, that happened on Christmas Day. Everyone had to get out and go to shelters and spend their Christmas there and then come back to homes that had been burned. And emergency officials say dry conditions could cause more fires into the New Year. Well, floods are causing misery in parts of Northern England. More than 300 warnings and alerts have been issued. Look at that. Hundreds of homes evacuated there. ITN's Martha Fairlie has to look at some of the worst hit areas.</s>MARTHA FAIRLIE, ITN NEWS REPORTER: The Boxing Day deluge had been predicted, but there was nothing home owners could do to stop the rising water. At one point, 15,000 homes were left without electricity</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the first time we've been in this state. (Inaudible) Robert's been here 50 years, Hughie Shackleton has been here 52 years and never, ever -- it's totally unprecedented.</s>FAIRLIE: Efforts to keep the rising waters at bay were seemingly futile and emergency services and the army was drafted in.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So we've been going to the houses that are likely to flood, knocking on the doors, asking the people to leave, telling them of the situation and then registering their response so either helping them to evacuate their property or registering whether they say they don't want to leave and then taking that information and passing it back to the police.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God.</s>FAIRLIE: The force of the flood waters swept away the Red Rocks footbridge at Horton on the River Darwin. While in Delph, homeowners attempted to bail out their properties as the river levels continued to rise. Parts of Manchester city center were also submerged as the River Irwell burst its banks. The M62 motorway was shut after a 20-foot sink hole appeared in the carriageway (TECHNICAL DIFFICULTY0. A month's worth of rain has already come down over the course of one day and with it continuing to fall this evening, residents are wondering when it will all end. Martha Fairlie, ITV News, Lancashire.</s>ALLEN: And the Prime Minister, David Cameron, will be holding a cabinet meeting this weekend to talk about the flooding situation. Ahead here, ISIS gets pushed back out of the key city from Iraq. Also, ISIS' leader may be speaking to the world for the first time in months. We will look at what he had to say.