Oklahoma Tornadoes; They Ran, They Hid and They Prayed: Survivor Stories; No One Killed in Hospital Despite Heavy Damage; Time Lapse: Tornado Growing Into a Monster
WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And I'm Wolf Blitzer reporting here in Moore, Oklahoma. We want to welcome our viewers in the United States and around the world. You're watching a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM. Here in MooreThis is a city scarred, scarred and reeling from a massive tornado that we watched a little more than a day ago, as it leveled block after block after block, miles, miles of this community just south of Oklahoma City, one of the major suburbs of Oklahoma City. The scope of this disaster, it is still unfolding. You're looking at live aerial shots of what's going on right now. Here's some of the latest developments we're following. The death toll right now, 24 people, including nine children; at least 237 people were injured. Search-and-rescue operations continue. Rescue efforts, they are ongoing, the fire chief hoping that crews can reach every structure by tonight. Each will be searched, he says, three times, before being cleared. And the National Weather Service now says the damage in at least one area indicates the most powerful category of tornado, an EF-5, says winds reached 210 miles an hour, and the tornado was one-and-a--third- miles wide. Emotional scenes are playing out all across this community, as victims return to find homes reduced to rubble, or in some cases, no homes at all. CNN's Brian Todd is here. You spoke to some of those people. And these are heart-wrenching stories, not a dozen, two dozen, not hundreds, but there are thousands of people who went through hell 24 hours ago, many of them still reeling.</s>BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Wolf. It is repeated all over this town. We saw this after the earthquake in Haiti. We saw this after the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. We see it right here, right now, residents walking around their homes, picking up remnants, looking like zombies, looking shell-shocked. They still can't believe it. They have been doing that all day today trying to pick up remnants of their lives. But that's against the advice of public officials.</s>TODD (voice-over): Many still look dazed as they pick through what's left of their homes, looking for some sign of order, some symbol of what they had. This may be all they can cling to right now, but the police chief of Moore, Oklahoma, says now isn't the time to be doing this.</s>JERRY STILLINGS, MOORE, OKLAHOMA, POLICE CHIEF: It's too dangerous, too many safety issues, gas leaks, downed power lines.</s>TODD: A risk many residents are willing to take to look at what they have got left and reflect on close calls. (on camera): This is Southwest 7th Street, kind of symbolic of what happened in this tornado and so many others. Some houses here, a lot of the structures are still standing. Then you see on the other side total devastation.</s>PAT CASEY, SURVIVOR: I was right there in that closet, the hall closet.</s>TODD (voice-over): Seventy-year-old Pat Casey showed us the remnants of her home, the back face of her house torn apart, windows blown out, much of the roof gone. She shows us the small closet where she sat and prayed, she says, with a quilt over her head as the massive twister pulverized her house.</s>CASEY: You could tell that it was turning and turning and turning, and then I heard everything hitting everywhere. So I knew that I had been hit. So --</s>TODD (on camera): What was going through your mind?</s>CASEY: Oh, just, God, if it's my time to go, OK. If not, just look out for me, please. I'm not ready.</s>TODD (voice-over): Her daughter, who lives with her, luckily wasn't home at the time. (on camera): Is this your daughter's room?</s>CASEY: This is my daughter's room. And that was her sink and then the bath and the shower. And the roof and everything is -- everything is completely gone all the way across.</s>TODD (voice-over): Pat says the house isn't habitable right now and doesn't know if she can rebuild. (on camera): Pat, do you want to come back and live here after this experience?</s>CASEY: Well, it's my home, if they can fix it. But I'm 70 years old now, and I probably might consider if there was any way I could sell it eventually. But when things like this happen, it's hard to sell.</s>TODD: Now, Pat says she has insurance, and she's willing to take a shot at rebuilding. But the strongest factor keeping her here, a handicapped son who lives in a facility nearby who Pat says she's responsible for. Wolf, she says because of him, she wants to stay here, no matter what the hardships or the risks are.</s>BLITZER: Because I know you have been speaking to authorities, the mayor, the police chief.</s>TODD: Right.</s>BLITZER: Missing, what are they saying about people who are still missing?</s>TODD: Missing. That was a huge factor after the Joplin tornado two years ago. A lot of people went missing. We were really concerned that that would be the case here. One of the police chiefs, I believe the police chief of Oklahoma City, told us today, initially they thought about 48 people had gone missing. That's a pretty large figure. But he said, as of today, they have all been accounted for, with one caveat, he said, except for maybe a few in Moore, in this area, so maybe a few left that people are not quite sure where they are yet. And of course, you're asked if you're around and you haven't been contacting family, let them know you're OK. Get in touch with them somehow. Find a way.</s>BLITZER: And that's what they're mostly worried about right now. They want to see. if they are missing, they find them. Brian, thanks very much. I want to show our viewers some aerial shots we're getting in from KFOR, our local affiliate, here. Take a look at this. You see the search-and-rescue operations, they are continuing right now. There are still some folks who are believed to be missing. People have been watching what's going on very, very closely. We also have some live pictures coming in from our other affiliate here in Oklahoma City, KOCO, both of these affiliates doing excellent work over these days to try to show our viewers here in the United States and around the world what's going on. And when I say this looks like a war zone, I really do mean it. It looks like a war zone, especially if you look behind me. You see what used to be a bowling alley. And it is complete, complete destruction. Joining us now, one family, the Verge family, the mom and dad, Melody and Billy, and their son Billy Jr., and their daughter, Mersadie. Guys, thank you very much for coming in.</s>BILLY VERGE SR., SURVIVOR: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: You guys went through hell yesterday, didn't you?</s>B. VERGE SR.: Yes, we did.</s>BLITZER: Share with our views what happened. I want to bring you all of you into this conversation.</s>B. VERGE SR.: She was at school. He was over at a friend.</s>BLITZER: Mersadie, grade are you in?</s>MERSADIE VERGE, SURVIVOR: Sixth.</s>BLITZER: Sixth grade. So, you were in school at the Plaza Towers Elementary School, right? All right, so go ahead, pick up the story.</s>B. VERGE SR.: Well, the tornado started at the end the block. Me and her went into the closet.</s>BLITZER: In your house?</s>B. VERGE SR.: And the whole house started shaking and rocking and shaking for two, three minutes. After that, everything was calm. Went out, everything was just destroyed and just apart.</s>BLITZER: And what was going through your mind as you were in that closet?</s>MELODY VERGE, SURVIVOR: I was hanging on for dear life. I thought -- I really didn't think we were going to make it. I just -- the walls were shaking in the closet. I really didn't think we were going to make it just hearing it. I have never experienced nothing like this.</s>BLITZER: That tornado went right over your house?</s>MELODY VERGE: Yes.</s>BLITZER: How loud was the noise?</s>MELODY VERGE: I just heard it just roaring --</s>BLITZER: They say it sounds like a train.</s>MELODY VERGE: Yes. That's what I have heard, and that's exactly what it sounded like.</s>BLITZER: Really?</s>MELODY VERGE: Yes. And I just hear stuff banging in the house. So, I was like, any minute it's going to take us up. And then after everything did quiet down, as soon as we walk out, the first thing I seen was this man running with a child. We asked him if he was fine and OK. He said he was. He was going to run to the hospital, which we didn't know that the hospital has been hit, too. And then we started going door to door. And the next thing you know, we're freaking out, thinking, oh, God, we have got to go to try and get to the house and get the car and go pick up my daughter. Didn't know where my son was at, because he was going to go to a friend's house. And he said he was driving into it, and had to turn back around and leave and get out of it.</s>BLITZER: So, you assumed your daughter, who is in sixth grade, you thought everything was fine?</s>MELODY VERGE: We got in the car to drive over there, by the time we were -- I couldn't see. He jumps out of the car to go run --</s>BLITZER: So, you drive over to the school.</s>MELODY VERGE: Yes.</s>BLITZER: And, Billy Jr., you're with them, right?</s>MELODY VERGE: No. No, we didn't know where he was at this time.</s>BLITZER: Where were you, Billy?</s>B. VERGE JR., SURVIVOR: I was driving from my house to my friend's house. I was driving to Wyatt Jones' (ph) house. And at the time, I didn't know there was a tornado -- I knew there was a tornado going on. And I was driving and then I just see this big old just thing in the sky just start coming at me. Like, it was coming. I seen it. It was up in the air. And I just started taking off. And my car started shaking. I went to 7-Eleven and pulled in. I'm glad I didn't stay there, because it took 7-Eleven in a heartbeat.</s>BLITZER: So, what did you do after you left the 7-Eleven?</s>B. VERGE JR.: After that, I took off to my grandma's house. And then my cousin Preston Hayes (ph) called me and said he was running up to the Plaza Towers, because we all thought my sister was gone.</s>BLITZER: Now, Mercedes, you're in the sixth grade. Tell us where you were when this tornado goes over your elementary school.</s>MERSADIE VERGE: I had to go in the boys bathroom and duck my head, and I put a backpack over my head.</s>BLITZER: And the teachers were there with you?</s>MERSADIE VERGE: Yes.</s>BLITZER: And so all your whole class went into the boys bathroom?</s>MERSADIE VERGE: Some of them did.</s>MELODY VERGE: All that could probably fit in.</s>BLITZER: Yes. And they just said, duck down? And so how scared were you?</s>MERSADIE VERGE: I was a little bit scared.</s>BLITZER: You're 13 years old, right? And this is the Plaza Towers. That school was pretty much destroyed, right?</s>B. VERGE JR.: We seen the roof come over.</s>BLITZER: Yes.</s>B. VERGE JR.: -- the roof come off.</s>MELODY VERGE: She was hanging on to the stall because her feet lifted off the ground. She was hanging on for dear life.</s>BLITZER: Are your classmates OK?</s>MERSADIE VERGE: Yes. I think so.</s>BLITZER: All of them were OK? Because we know some of the kids in that school didn't make it.</s>MELODY VERGE: No.</s>BLITZER: But the younger kids, right?</s>MELODY VERGE: Yes, there was a third grade class.</s>BLITZER: All right. So you drive over to the school. You're worried about your daughter. You don't know what is going on. And, Billy, you drive over to the school, too, right?</s>B. VERGE JR.: Yes. I drive over there and they wouldn't let me over so I hopped out of my car and just took off running, took off running to the school. And then after that,</s>I --  BLITZER: What did you see as you were running into the school?</s>B. VERGE JR.: People hurt, people hurt, houses gone. Got to the school and people hurt severely. School, there wasn't no school. It was --</s>BLITZER: Because when you got to the school, you didn't even know. You thought that you had -- because it didn't -- there was nothing there.</s>B. VERGE SR.: Yes, there was nothing. Nothing.</s>BLITZER: And you knew your daughter was inside.</s>B. VERGE SR.: Oh, I was in shock. I'm still in shock just from the kids that's there today.</s>BLITZER: So how did you find her?</s>B. VERGE SR.: I got to a teacher and they said they had moved her to a church down the street. And that's where she was at, the sixth graders. It was basically the third graders that were in the trouble.</s>BLITZER: That's what we had heard.</s>B. VERGE SR.: -- hurts.</s>BLITZER: So, you guys run the church. You go to the church, Billy, too, right?</s>B. VERGE JR.: No, I was actually at the house after that. I went -- or I parked over there at the church, a little one, and then I like ran all the way to the house to make sure my family was all right. It took me a while to get there, because I was getting stopped every time.</s>BLITZER: Mersadie, your parents meet you at the church. How did you get to the church? What did your teachers do to get you to the church?</s>MERSADIE VERGE: We just walked over there.</s>BLITZER: How far was it?</s>MERSADIE VERGE: It's really not that far.</s>BLITZER: And what did you see on the way over there? What was going on?</s>MERSADIE VERGE: I just seen houses torn down, and that's it.</s>BLITZER: Did you see people who were injured, too? You didn't? So, you were fortunate that you didn't have to see that.</s>MELODY VERGE: Yes.</s>BLITZER: All right, so then you meet up with your daughter at the church?</s>B. VERGE SR.: Yes, go back home.</s>BLITZER: How did that feel?</s>B. VERGE SR.: Felt great.</s>B. VERGE SR.: Still feel sad, though, too, for the other kids at school --</s>BLITZER: Yes.</s>B. VERGE SR.: -- her friends, people that she knew. It's sad. It's like losing one of mine still, you know? We're still in shock. We're all in shock. But we are thankful to have what we do have, very thankful.</s>BLITZER: You have got loving parents. You know that. And you got a nice big brother who loves you very much, too. Right, Billy?</s>MELODY VERGE: Yes.</s>B. VERGE JR.: Yes, I do.</s>BLITZER: Tell her you love her very much.</s>B. VERGE JR.: I love my sister to much.</s>BLITZER: All right, I want to see that. Good. One big group hug right now. Let's do it. All right. We're happy all of you made it.</s>MELODY VERGE: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: Thank you.</s>B. VERGE SR.: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: We're happy.</s>MELODY VERGE: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: I will give you a hug, too.</s>BLITZER: Thank you. I'm happy for the whole team.</s>B. VERGE JR.: Thank you, sir.</s>BLITZER: All right. We're all hugging, one big hug.</s>B. VERGE SR.: I try.</s>BLITZER: All right, guys, go for it.</s>B. VERGE SR.: Thank you.</s>MERSADIE VERGE: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: You will all be stronger for this.</s>B. VERGE SR.: Thank you, sir.</s>BLITZER: OK. Thank you.</s>B. VERGE SR.: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: Another story, just one story. There are so many of these stories that are going on, literally thousands of people. You take a look at Moore, Oklahoma, a suburb, suburb of Oklahoma City, about 50,000 or 60,000 people live in this area. So much of it that was simply devastated. You can go for a walk, and I did throughout this afternoon, and you see block after block after block of devastation. So happy for this family. But, unfortunately, not all of the families are as happy as they are. They're literally very happy. Here's important information for you. You can impact your world. You can help victims of the Oklahoma tornadoes. Go to our Web site, CNN.com/impact. There's good recommendations on how you can get involved. The estimate already is $1 billion in damage to this community, $1 billion, because of, what, 20 minutes, what happened in 20 minutes, as this tornado, an EF-5, zipped through this area causing so much destruction. A massive task ahead for this city and for the state, indeed, for the nation as well. Up next, I'm going to speak to the mayor of Moore, Oklahoma, also the governor of Oklahoma. They will be both be joining me live. We will talk about what needs to be done now. Also, a mother and her fifth grade daughter whose school collapsed in on her and her classmates, they will share their emotional reunion with us as well. Lots more coming. Our special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM continues.