Hundreds Still Missing in Joplin; Butte Larose Ordered to Evacuate; Volcanic Ash Threatens Flight; Search Intensifies In Joplin; NATO's Heaviest Air Strikes
RANDI KAYE, CNN ANCHOR: The sun is shining in Joplin, Missouri, and that is a major development those folks will never take for granted again. For the first time since this city was hit by the single deadliest tornado in decades, search and rescue efforts aren't being hindered by driving rain or hail or lightning, which struck two police officers, in fact, last night. One is OK, the other in critical condition. The confirmed death toll in Sunday's disaster now stands at 118, but authorities say more than ten times that many still are unaccounted for. Joplin's head of emergency management says people scattered and simply can't get home or maybe no longer have homes and haven't yet called in. But then there's Will Norton, blown out of his hummer on his way home from high school graduation. His family thinks -- thinks he's in a hospital somewhere. And Skylar Logsdon, a 1-year-old, ripped out of his mother's arms. His great uncle spoke to CNN this morning.</s>FRANK REYNOLDS, GREAT-UNCLE: The night of the tornado, that evening, and they had him in the hallway in the house, and what the -- they all got in the covers in the hallway in the house and when the tornado hit, they lost track of him and we haven't seen him since.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Was Skylar's mother holding onto him?</s>REYNOLDS: Yes, she was and she lost him in the aftermath all of this, and it's just terrible. And no one has seen him since, the rest of the family is doing OK, we've just -- we got to find him.</s>KAYE: And here is why the sunshine is such a big deal. Later today, things could get ugly again. An area just to the west in south mainly, mainly Kansas and Oklahoma stands a wry risk of violent storms. Our Chad Myers will tell us more about that in just a moment. But first, I want to get to my colleague, T.J. Holmes, he is in Joplin. He has found some amazing stories, and T.J., tell us where exactly you are now.</s>T.J. HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we are just to the west of Joplin, a lot of people know where the hospital is. It's been the focus of so much attention. So, we're just a few blocks to the west of that on the western part of the city, a neighborhood that for the most part been decimated. Certainly, we have seen neighborhoods flattened, but for the most part, a lot of these homes got severe damage. You mentioned the weather, we're starting to get a little cloud cover here that's starting to come in. Also, they were supposed to test the tornado sirens, wanted to make sure they were working, that was supposed to happen a few hours ago. We didn't hear them in this part of the city. Don't know if they actually went through with that test or they're not working here, but that was a concern given that we could have severe weather later. This neighborhood is, quite frankly, very busy right now, because everybody is kind of coming out, you see a lot of trailers, a lot of U-Haul trucks, as well. Look at this behind me, though, Randi. Give you an idea here, a fireplace here that is exposed, nothing else is around it. You can tell, there was a house there. The house is gone, but for whatever reason we still see a fireplace. We went looking for the house, follow across the street now. On the other side of the street, the rubble that's collected there on the corner, that is actually the house that was here. And would you believe, I talked to the lady a little earlier who was digging through that rubble, and I said, ma'am, would you mind if we came over, you told us your story? She actually said to me, Randi, just wait for me to put my makeup on. We're kind of getting people -- they are taking this in stride, like you wouldn't believe. And Randi, I believe you can see in the distance there, we're up on a hill here, you can see kind of the neighborhood across the street. You couldn't see that neighborhood before, because the trees were full with leaves and the greenery on it. Well, look at it now, the trees are stripped naked, and that just gives you kind of a wider -- a wider position or wider look and a better idea and perspective of just how widespread the damage is. But again, the clouds are moving in right now. This is an active search and rescue, they've been through this particular neighborhood. They're going to go through them in stages, they plan on going through them more than one time, more than two times in some cases. But we are up against the clock now, Randi, because we might not have much time before we all might have to seek cover once again.</s>KAYE: How concerned are the people there? I mean we know that there is possibility of heavy storms or a tornado possibly what between I think 4:00 and midnight tonight?</s>HOLMES: Yes, 4:00 and midnight, so we've got about four hours here. But like you said, how concerned now? Randi, I just talked to a guy a minute ago who said he will never ignore another tornado siren in his life. Because -- I've heard that story time and time again here from folks that say, yes, we're in the Midwest, we hear tornado sirens, we get tornado warnings and watches all of the time, we go about our business. This changes things, I assure you. Them just seeing cloud cover today freaks them out a little bit. So, I assure you, everybody's been talking about it. The severe risk, a high risk of an outbreak, to say that to this community just a couple days after history was made here, you're damn right they're taking it seriously -- Randi.</s>KAYE: Yes, I'm sure they are. T.J. appreciate it, thank you, be safe there. And before we do move on, I want to show you a very important Web address and phone number, take note here. These have been set up for people who are searching for family members or who want to let their families know that they're OK. You can go to www.safeandwell.org, that is safe and well and that happens to be one word or call 417-659- 5464. And don't worry if you don't have a pencil right now, because we will give you this information again this hour and next. And if you want to help the folks in Joplin, check out CNN's "Impact Your World" as well. That is at CNN.com/impact. Our "Sound Effect" is a long distance show of solidarity. President Obama is in Britain, as you may know, but Joplin is on his mind.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: At my direction, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, and deputy administrator Rich Serino (ph) have traveled to Missouri to make sure our federal government is working hand-in-hand with state and local officials to give them the help that they need. And on Sunday, I, myself, will travel to Missouri to talk with folks who have been affected, to talk to local officials about our response effort, and hopefully to pray with folks and give them whatever assurance and comfort I can that the entire country is going to be behind them.</s>KAYE: We are also keeping a close watch on the historic floods from the Mississippi River snaking through Louisiana. Backwater flooding is now forcing residents in Butte Larose, Louisiana to evacuate. Mandatory evacuations in Butte Larose that were put on hold are being reinstated right now. That order applies to -- included the media, as well. Most of the residents have already evacuated, but still some insist on riding out the flood. Analysis by a financial research firm estimates the effort to divert the Mississippi River by opening that Morganza Spillway could flood more than 21,000 homes and cost more than $2.2 billion in damage. Airlines and travelers across Europe are carefully watching an erupting volcano in Iceland that began spewing ash on Saturday. The resulting cloud of volcanic ash has already forced airlines to cancel about 500 flights around the United Kingdom. While the concentration of the ash at London's Heathrow remains low, the cancellations are double the number expected earlier this morning. The ash cloud will affect the U.K., Denmark, and parts of Scandinavia today and is forecast to cover all of British air space by 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday. Well, you just saw the images, historic tornadoes, floods, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. There seems to be a lot of devastating weather that's popped up just within the past few weeks. I want to bring in our Chad Myers. You may have heard his weather radio going off, those little alarms that you might have heard mind me. Chad, it seems like it's been one storm, one disaster after another.</s>CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it certainly has. And I was listening to T.J. because he said he didn't know whether the tornado sirens went off or not, because he didn't hear them. In fact, they did sound them. So, if he didn't hear them, that means they're not operational yet because they got knocked down by the other tornado. This is the sound that you're going to hear maybe later on tonight. It is that sound of that NOAA weather radio. And I hope you have one, if you don't, maybe now is a good time to get it. It goes off even when you're asleep. What's all this about? Why so many tornadoes? You know, what's going on? Well, let me try to explain something to you here. We've had this trough, it's the jet stream, you can follow these lines right through here. The jet stream for most of the spring has been like this. Kind of a cold in the Rockies and it's even dipped down here a little bit over here, just a little bit, because it's been cool in the northeast as well. But every time this comes up to here, a little storm will come through. And there's one today, that's the -- that's the wind right there over New Mexico and Texas. It's there right now and it's coming, and it's going to spin a low pressure system along that jet stream. Think of the jet kind of like a road, it's the interstate, it's where all of the storms come. Moisture comes up, storms -- cold air comes down, you get -- you get severe weather. Well, for most of the spring, we just had rain. There wasn't much severe weather but it was very heavy rain. Now that heavy rain is in the Mississippi River. That cause -- that trough caused all of that flooding. Same story, the trough is also causing the storms to fire again today with cold fronts, warm fronts and that warm air, moist air coming in from the Gulf of Mexico, cold air coming down. Why is this different than any other year? It looks exactly the same like any other spring. It's colder than it's been, there's a lot of snow pack up across the north still, so that air as it comes down is colder. The humidity coming up from the Gulf of Mexico is higher because the Gulf of Mexico is a little bit warmer, the water a little bit warmer than normal. Global warming? Maybe, sure. That's probably why the water is a little bit warmer than we've been over the past 500 years or whatever it might be, but all of those things combined making storms in the same places. And we will have a significant tornado outbreak today, I'm not going home any time soon. And you -- if you live in a mobile home anywhere from Kansas to Oklahoma and Texas, you need to make plans to be out of that thing and somewhere safe for the rest of the night, because this is a big event. I'll just draw it for you here, so you can see it. Right through , into Oklahoma, down into Texas, all the way to Arkansas, and yes, that right there is Joplin, Missouri, in the big zone. Now, around it, there will still be more storms, no question. Even 100 miles around it or so, but the middle, that's the big thing.</s>KAYE: All right, Chad. We will continue to keep an eye on it, as you will, as well I'm sure.</s>MYERS: Of course.</s>KAYE: I'll check back in with you. Well, after butting heads with President Obama, Israel's prime minister spoke to Congress this morning, laying out his vision for a Mideast peace agreement. What he said, and what it all means, next.