reporter: the parishioners that have shown up are leaning heavily on their faith. sometimes you think it happens to put life into perspective. reporter: and while there is nothing left of the church, the metal cross stands high across miles of devastation. i saw the cross standing and i thought how powerful and it gives us hope that god is still with us. reporter: father monday hand says that joplin is a faith-based it community but many have been asked why they have been burdened with such a tragedy. god allows things to happen and we don t know why. but when we look back, we always hear the good things that happen as a result. reporter: and some of those good thing are still happening right now at st. mary s catholic church. it s become a gathering spot for the parishioners here and they have been going through this rubble trying to save anything that they can. in fact, a 10-year-old boy today found the pastor s bible and he
relations. are the tensions of recent days any worse? any better? i m wolf blitzer and you re in the situation room. first, breaking news this hour. a large tornado has been spotted on the ground in oklahoma and storm-ravaged missouri is being hit by severe weather and possible in the coming hours, searchers in joplin have been taking advantage of the break in the bad weather for a few hours now. 17 people have been pulled alive from the rubble as of last night. but the death toll is far greater. up to 118 right now and that makes this the deadliest single tornado on record in the united states since the weather service began keeping records 60 years ago. almost 500 people have been killed by tornadoes in this country so far this year, including one in that storm and a security camera gives another look at the power of the twisters and how much damage they can do literally in an instant. now more on the twister reported on the ground in oklahoma just minutes ago. the danger
to gather in n great anticipation of in great anticipation of this important speech. obviously you re looking at the leadership, democratic as well as republican leadership, beginning to gather. a lot of handshakes as they enter the chamber. and this is really a critical time for both president obama and the israeli prime minister because when we look at this, there are critical ties between the two countries. we are talking about political ties, religious ties, as well as real concerns, big questions about security. security in the region, in the middle east, among the dramatic changes that we have seen over just the last four or five months or so. and the question about whether or not middle east peace, israelis and palestinians, can actually achieve any kind of breakthrough through this administration. we have seen it time and time again from previous administrations, cannot be done, has not been done, can this president do a better job? and now we have the israeli prime
try to bring food and whatever people need. and something else. people here at this church, welcome hill baptist church, something that they wanted to point out to me was that i was showing you at first that cross on the ground that was destroyed by the storms and the tornado. they were pointing to another cross standing right there and what they say is, in spite of what happened, we re still standing on our feet. all right, we hope they keep the faith. thank you so much, rafael. i want to track where these storms are right now. our own chad meyers is going to show us where we think they re headed and what actually took place. they are still in the northeast. they are still in parts of new york, new jersey, all the way down toward d.c. and baltimore an down into the virginias and carolinas. now in about four hours it will be completely offshore and move away but there are still tornado watches and warnings up and down the eastern sections of the u.s. so it is not over yet for som