wind and i just jumped and ran. four other people inside the home, including an 18-month-old girl survived. in the meantime, alabama hit with flooding. it looks like a lake in the center of the neighborhood. highways shutdown after nearly 3 feet of water hit. you can see the size of hail stones. imagine that hitting your roof and windows. this trailer here ripping to shreds in illinois. the wind so strong, it came apart like a house of cards. widespread damage and power knocked out to thousands of people. just amazing. for the latest, let s bring in meteorologist pedram javaheri. pedram, we were joking about the unseasonably warm temperatures and a barbecue on christmas day. this is the ugly side of that. we don t typically see these storms until at least april.
birmingham. i had a conversation with the chief of police. we re at the staging area here, which is city hall. one of the only few structures in this community that has not been obliterated as a result of the tornado. he described it striking about 6:00 last night, coming a swath a half-mile wide right through the middle of the city. they know they have six people confirmed dead, however, he believed that the death toll will go considerably higher. they have nine search and recovery teams out in the affected neighborhoods. they have five more teams staging and getting ready to head out. he says people are still trapped in their homes, and that they are being freed all the time. we have already witnessed that there are bodies still to be recovered out in the area that has been hardest-hit. this is a town of about 10,000 people, so they re taking it extremely hard. the damage is quite striking. i will have to say this. you know, everybody here measures it back to the big storms they had
enough of this devastating storms, it seems that with every hour that passes today, the news out of the south just gets worse, the death toll higher, the powerful and plentiful tornadoes left at least 194 people dead, mostly in alabama. people are still missing. hundreds are injured. homes and businesses that were standing 24 hours ago, they are just gone. at least 160 reports of tornadoes have come in. one hit near the university of alabama in tuskaloosa.
alabama hit so hard by deadly weather. over to the weather center right now and check in with jackie. we ll talk to mayor william bell from pleasant grove, alabama in a bit. alabama so hard-hit by these storms. very devastating. this google earth will show you focuses on northern parts of alabama. all the red dots are the reported touchdowns. it was likely one cell that moved through tuscaloosa and birmingham and into northern georgia. so many people killed by that storm as well. a lot of people wanting to help, carol. cnn.com/impact, there s a link on here if you d like to donate and help the victims. that s terrific. thanks for sharing that, jacqui
we re probably looking at a record month for tornadoes, and not in the traditional areas. places like texas and oklahoma and kansas. those areas called tornado alley where you see all the storm chasers go. one expert thinks we should start thinking mississippi and arkansas when we talk about tornadoes. his research shows parts of the south or dixie alley are getting hit harder than tornado alley, and based on the last 48 hours or so, it s hard to argue with him. meteorologist grady dixon of mississippi state university joins us now. welcome. thanks for having me. why has tornado alley shifted? well, i wouldn t say that it s shifted. the study that we published recently is based on data since 1950. it s not a new occurrence. we ve always studied tornadoes in tornado alley, because they re easy to see and there are more tornadoes out there. the reason that our paper says the risk is greater in the southeast u.s. is because typically the tornadoes we have, as we saw yesterday, are o