outfront tonight, breaking news in the midwest. death and destruction, more severe weather tonight, a series of tornados ripped through five states starting very, very early this morning. leaving a path of devastation in their wake. here is what we know at this moment. at least nine people so far confirmed dead. 100 are injured. more than 300 homes have been damaged or destroyed today and twisters touched down in kansas, missouri, illinois, indiana and kentucky. harrisburg, illinois was one of the hardest hit. the tornado hit just before 5:00 a.m. this morning. the mayor says despite the loss of life and property, his town will endure and he is outfront tonight. those images are stunning and disturbing. can you tell me when you found out about this? what you heard this morning when you woke up to this. well, actually this morning as the alarm was going off, sirens were going off about ten to 5:00, i woke up, got my family up. i went outside an was trying to assess where
i was sitting there watching tv. the tv went off. so i got up to go in the kitchen and get a cup of coffee. and all of a sudden, boy, the windows went out just like a big shotgun went off. and i told my wife, hit the floor. she says, i m down there already. today s most devastating losses are in southern illinois. officials in harrisburg say a tornado with winds of up to 170-mile-per-hour stayed on the ground for several miles killing at least six people, injuring around 100. at one point it hit the hospital. after sur vague the devastation to his town the mayor and fire chief spoke to reporters just a short time ago. this morning the city of harrisburg had a horrific event. we have suffered the loss of lives. we ve suffered many injuries. and we ve suffered millions of dollars worth of damage. this is something that you never want to see happen in your community. we watched as it happened to joplin, missouri last year. several of our people from this area went there to
escalate launching a military campaign against the libyan people. innocent people were targeted for killing. hospitals, and ambulances were attacked. journalists were arrested, sexually assaulted and killed. supplies of food and fuel were choked off. watters for hundreds of thousands of people in misurata was shut off. cities and towns were shelled, mosques were destroyed, and apartment buildings reduced to rubble military jets and helicopter gun ships were unleashed upon people who had no means to defend themselves against assaults from the air confronted by this brutal repression and looming humanitarian crisis, i ordered warships in the mediterranean. allies committed resources to stop the killing.
protecting oil fields and the like. the problem, it wouldn t necessarily cover low flying helicopter gun ships in these installations and that being said the arab league appears to be on board or the concept of one is a step in the right direction. when gadhafi has if anything tightened his rein. could be too little, too late. we ll watch it closely. and tbeing slammed by a tsunami, people swept away. on the phone, he saw it happened. it was bad in your neck of the woods, wasn t it? it was. and what i seen was just an actual amount of water started coming into the harbor and making a circular pentagons and next thing you know, within two he three moments
to gadhafi. in the end, they have to do something in some way, they may be forced to make a decision that honestly they don t seem to want to make right now. they seem to be playing for time, wolf. here s what was worrying, surprising to me, even shocking. yesterday both gates and mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs, they say they have no evidence that gadhafi is using air power to go after his enemies today we saw it on tape. gadhafi launched air strikes in benghazi. you saw ben wedeman get out with his life and our own cnn crew. is that possible? there were so many eyewitness reports that the libyan air force helicopter gun ships were firing at people on the ground, and gates and mullen say they don t know anything? well, eyewitness accounts. but they re not u.s. military