Tornados Rake South, Midwest; Storms Injure at least 29 in Tennessee
ANNOUNCER: From CNN's World Headquarters bringing you news and analysis from across the nation and around the globe. Live from Studio 7 this is</s>CNN SATURDAY MORNING. DAVID MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: This is CNN SATURDAY MORNING. It's March 3rd, and I'm David Mattingly. Tornados shred through the Midwest and south killing more than 30 people and there is a new threat of storms today. Then in two hours Washington State Republicans will officially select who they think should go up against Barack Obama. Could Ron Paul finally win one? But we begin with the ferocious killer storms that tore through the Midwest and the southern U.S. At least 32 people are dead. Now the frantic search is on for survivors and there are new threats this morning of more severe weather. The monster storm stretched from the Deep South, Alabama, across the border into Tennessee and all the way north to Indiana. One of the hardest hit areas, Henryville, Indiana. A tornado leveled entire neighborhoods. School buses ended up slamming into buildings. Businesses were demolished.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh lord, take this away from us. Mighty Lord. Take this away from us.</s>MATTINGLY: And these people in Kentucky prayed as the monster storm came close to them. National Guard troops have been deployed there and in Indiana. In an instant the tornados destroyed homes and turned lives upside down. Here's what's living through a tornado is like in a survivor's own words.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everywhere you look there's just a story like this, a bus into a building, a mobile home completely flattened, just major damage everywhere in this area.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything was beating around our heads. But thank God we made it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I looked up and I was talking to my daughter across the street and I looked up and I just see debris everywhere. And next thing I knew, I was like, I thought it was a dream.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's gas leaks, the houses are all completely demolished back there, completely to the ground.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The building shook, the lights went off. The noise was incredible and it cast right in front of us.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're getting hail here. Golf ball size hail that I can't honestly tell you what's going on.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was just like you were on a weighing scale this way and it just kept like going like this and the next thing I know, I'm pushing tables, refrigerators, freezers, whatever I had on me off of me.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it seemed liked the house was just lifted up and then just dropped.</s>MARY KAY WALLS, TORNADO SURVIVOR: The roof fell in and the glass was everyplace. And -- but while I was under the table, I said, lord, make this pass, and it did.</s>MATTINGLY: Hour after hour this morning we have seen just how powerful these tornados can be. And the tornados could keep coming today. Meteorologist Bonnie Schneider is in the Severe Weather Center with the latest on the areas that may still be hit, Bonnie.</s>BONNIE SCHNEIDER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right, David. This is not over yet. I wish I could say the threat has passed, but it has not, especially for Georgia and for Florida. That's where we have tornado warnings right now. I want to go to the map and show you where they are. You'll see they're highlighted in pink. That's where the tornado warnings are. And I have three to tell you about. Let's go to the south right along the Georgia/Florida border. We have tornado warnings in parts of northern -- northeastern Gaston County in Florida, West central Thomas County in South Central Georgia, southeastern Decatur County, also in southwest Georgia and Southern Grady County. And now as we head further to the east, we see a second one. These tornado warnings are about -- have another 15 minutes to go, but still, if you're in Morvin or if you're in this part of Georgia, in the southeast Georgia, take cover. This is just to the north of Valdosta. We're seeing some very strong thunderstorms, super cell thunderstorms that show rotation and they could produce a tornado at any time. We're also watching out for a tornado watch. Now this is important to note because it will continue throughout the day today. Right now it's until 2:00 today. This includes areas into Florida including Panama City, Tallahassee. I mentioned Valdosta. And you can see off to the west, we still have heavy bands of rain along I-10 just to the south and east of Mobile, Alabama. And some of those extreme southeastern parishes of Louisiana getting clipped with some severe weather as well but I think the worst of it is into Florida and Southern Alabama and certainly up in the Carolinas. The big picture shows you that we're not only watching this tornado watch but you can see heavy lines of severe weather working their way into South Carolina at this hour. You can also see some heavy rain starting to come into North Carolina and Virginia. As far as the northeast goes, we really haven't seen too much of an impact yet from the system. Really just some light scattered showers through New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington. A couple of more wintry weather popping up into Maine but overall it's really the area in the southeast that's facing that severe weather threat. Here is the tornado watch. It has decreased in terms of the size than it was earlier. You can see it's pushed a little bit further down to the south and east as the storms work their way to the north and east. They're moving at about 35 miles per hour. So we still have ways to go before this threat passes. So right now the area we're watching, southern Georgia, South Carolina, even parts of North Carolina including Wilmington and then into northern Florida. So this is an area that we're watching. Keep in mind though we're not looking at the same level of threat today than we saw yesterday, not the expansiveness of it. In fact, when we looked at the storm reports tallying up for Friday it was just incredible, the numbers. 758 total storm reports; of those 758, 95 were tornado reports. That means somebody saw a tornado and reported it. And whether or not it will be confirmed, we'll get that data later. But it's important to know we have an incredible number of weather reports. And that includes wind damage as well as hail. And if you're wondering you know if this is typical for this time of the year, actually it is not. Normally this time of the year we don't see as much in terms of tornadic activity. Usually the biggest month for tornados is May, not March. But we're certainly getting started off unfortunately with a lot of tornadic activity for the first two days of March -- David.</s>MATTINGLY: We certainly are, thanks Bonnie. In small towns like Henryville, Indiana the full extent of some of the damage may not be known until search and rescue crews there finish their work. And that's where our Chris Welch is this morning. Chris, what do you see?</s>CHRIS WELCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well David, Henryville was one of the hardest hit areas as a result of these storms and these tornados yesterday. I want to show you where I am, where I'm standing. Behind me, take a look at this. This is what was Henryville High School and attached to it is Henryville elementary school -- now, completely demolished. There were -- there's about 1,400 students that go to school in the combined schools. All of them believe it or not made it out completely unharmed. Now, I want to show you something particularly interesting. This is quite a picture. Look at this school bus. This school bus at this time yesterday was parked in that lot just in front of the high school that we just panned over from. It now sits through the wall of a diner. And it was -- the winds were even so strong it blew the body of the bus right off of its chassis and then through the inside of this building. Now there were folks in the basement of the diner. They got out unharmed. Thankfully there were also no students on the bus at the time; another thing to be thankful for. But not everyone was so lucky.</s>WELCH (voice-over): Stories will be told for a long time.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When they say it sounds like a freight train coming through, they mean it.</s>WELCH: From Tennessee to Alabama to right here in Indiana, towns woke up Saturday to a dramatically different landscape than the day before. One altered by a widespread tornado outbreak.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And the temperatures before the tornado were fluctuating probably 20 degrees from each other in the change in a split of a second and the hail was probably baseball or tennis size.</s>WELCH: This round of tornados comes on the heels of another band of storms this week that devastated towns like Harrisburg, Illinois. One storm chaser says the outbreak so early in the season could be a warning of what's to come.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's telling you today we're going to have a lot more active</s>WELCH: But here in Henryville, they're likely not thinking that far ahead, instead, trying to comprehend how their lives drastically changed in just one day.</s>RUSTY IRISH, LOST HOME IN STORM: I'm just thankful we're -- we all survived this. Like you said, material things can be replaced, the house can be replaced. We've got places to stay, you know, warmth, food, you know. We don't have to worry about that.</s>WELCH: I also want to point out that yesterday last -- last night they found a 2-year-old toddler in a field about ten miles or so away from Henryville. It was not immediately clear how the toddler ended up in the field, but it was airlifted to a hospital, remains in critical condition. As of last notice it remains in critical condition. They're not releasing the names or the identity at this point, but thankfully -- actually thanks to media report and the attention that story received the baby was identified. But it's just another reminder of the severity of these storms -- David.</s>MATTINGLY: Just a reminder about how you can find so many just amazing things in the aftermath. I mean this two-year-old out in the middle of the field blown from who knows where in critical condition. We were all hoping that she recovers. But at the same time we're hoping so many people hit by this storm recovers. Chris thanks so much and we look forward to your continuing reporting out there. In Tennessee, tornados may have touched down in nine separate counties. An iReporter captured some of that crazy weather that hit the state. The storms injured dozens and forced I-24 to close for hours because of downed power lines. CNN meteorologist Rob Marciano is on the phone in Ooltewah, Tennessee where homes were ripped off to their -- down to their foundations -- Rob.</s>ROB MARCIANO, AMS METEOROLOGIST (via telephone): Yes as many as -- over 20 homes completely destroyed just in the area where we are and well over a hundred homes in the northern Chattanooga area have been damaged to the point where they're not liveable. So those -- those folks have found shelter elsewhere be it at hotels, at community shelters, or at friend and families and just now they're beginning to work their way back to their homes to once again start to -- start to sift through things. That was only interrupted yesterday afternoon once the storm came through at one. As you know within another two hours several more severe thunderstorm cells came through there and including more tornados. So it was a frustrating and at times frightening afternoon and a scary night as well. But the sun has come out. And it's a much more calm day and they're beginning to pick up the pieces. But I can tell you this. With all the heavy equipment coming in to help clear out the debris, thousands of trees are down around here. Of course, power lines and power poles are down as well. So roads are tight. And it this -- in this part of the world, it's not -- it's not flat by any stretch of the imagination. You've about got the Tennessee River that cuts through basically just west of the Appalachians and just east to the Cumberland Plateau. And it is very hilly and some of these neighborhoods are very tight. So we've -- we've been forced to move once again because our satellite truck just doesn't allow very much room for the vehicles that really need to get to do the work they need to do to get through. So we once again is going to have -- needed to leave that -- that particular area and let -- let those crews get back to work. It's going to be a long haul, though, David, as it will be in many places. But we're still happy to report to you this morning that zero fatalities in the state of Tennessee and that has been the one bright spot in this horrible, horrible early March tornado outbreak in the</s>U.S. MATTINGLY: And that indeed is good news. Thanks Rob.</s>MARCIANO: You bet.</s>MATTINGLY: Ron Paul hasn't won a primary or caucus yet, but things could change today for the Republican presidential candidate. Politics is straight ahead.