proceed throughout the evening here. we saw a tornado touching down. hitting several homes. a helicopter pilot saying, to his estimation, that this tornado that he saw, the one you re looking at right now, look at that, about a half mile long and he said tearing up everything in its path. in wellston, oklahoma. also tornadoes in other parts of oklahoma, and this system is a humongous system from minnesota to texas, and anyone in any of those areas should be on the lookout right knew. look at this thing. this is unprecedented that we get to see something like this. and you can see the lightning and as this tornado went through and started hitting homes, you could see the sparks from electricity and from just debris on the ground there. we have reporters who are in the area who are trying to make their way. we also have affiliate coverage from our affiliate kfor, these live chopper pictures you re looking at now. again, fascinating to see this.
welcome back. how was london? [ female announcer ] when people talk, great things happen. welcome back to the cnn newsroom. i m fredricka whitfield. we re watching a severe whether situation right now. we have heard that an emergency situation has been declared, emergency tornado warning declared for wichita, kansas, which means at least one tornado is on the ground. it means that everyone is being urged to take cover. stay in a safe place. our jennifer delgado is in the weather center. she s been letting our viewers know that a safe place means you ve got to be underground because this warning, what comes with this warning is that the words being used is that this is a potentialal killer tornado. we ve also been watching affiliate coverage from kwch which is trying to stay on the
it was tough to get her in the she shelter. what s going on with that? she had surgery last week. she had a hip replacement. she s good at getting around but needed help. luckily for us, she called us and made us come over. we got in the shelter with her. that is the great news, everybody out here is okay. the other great news, guys, is karen was telling me they have people from all over coming to help them. you were telling us, church, boy scouts. who do we have helping you guys? a lot of men from our church and ladies. so that s our affiliate coverage, kokh. that lady there affected by the storm. our meteorologist chad myers listings and watching as we continue to look at the shawnee area now. i understand from folks on social media, again, not confirmed, but people sheltering in places at the shawnee mall. it appears everything is okay there. what are we looking at? you know, i m concerned at this point in time with the area
definitely toward possibly the shawnee or the bethel acres area. take cover if you lie in that area from lake stanley draper right over toward bethel acres. we ll keep you advised. yeah. chad said that quickly, chad speaks quickly because he has so much information to get out. take shelter. be safe. we cannot emphasize that enough. correct, chad myers? absolutely put. put as many walls between you and the outside of your home as possible. as possible. the closet wall. get inside that small inside closet. make sure there s not things heavy over your head. make sure that s not where you store your bowling ball. get everything out of that closet except you and your loved ones. amen, brother. stand by, chad myers. i want to go to a storm chaser who can talk to us more about the pictures and the damage. okay. stand by. kokh, affiliate coverage, listen in. it s the oklahoma city area. and this was reporting from carney, correct?
know you ve been seeing from the local affiliate coverage over the last half hour or so this is really a full-scale operation as we see them coming through. that gives you a sense of what the massachusetts state police is sending in. the state police have put out an official statement. it s not helpful but it s preliminary. what we re watching right now and the police action here is related to the day s events, which i guess is another way of saying this is the suspect involved here. erica? reporter: of course, remember, too, in terms of the day s events, just before this happened the state police held a press conference and governor patrick said, look, we are lifting this stay in place, this request for you to shelter in place that we ve had all day long. the streets here in watertown and frankly all around boston as i made my way in were quiet today. as soon as that order was lifted, that s when we started to see more people out on the streets and not long after that is when ther