alabama. the lucky ones, the folks who have survived, how are they doing today? reporter: well, there is a lot shock. i mean there s no question about that, brooke. they feel very much like this is not the town that they remember. there are a lot of people who are right now, literally in a weak moment, but they are wondering if they can rebuild and whether they want to rebuild here, because they ler town for what it was, which they say was a beautiful place, a great place, everybody so neighborlism now they look at it, what it is, which is just absolutely gutted and devastated. and the capricious thing about a tornado, they hop scot scotch and they swerve and they move. you can have one home slightly damaged, one home totally devastated and another home that is absolutely fine this street though, it wasn t that way. that was half-mile-wide tornado and it took out just about everything in its path, except when you get over to 8th street there i spoke to beth verden and she talks about
hearing story after story. when those warning sounds go off, you have to act in minutes. did folks in ringgold, did they hear sigh rebels last night? i was talking to a young man who told me that he did indeed hear a siren sound but he says he had so little time before the first time he heard the siren and the time he had to go running inside the house, he was telling me that he and his family ran into a hallway, tried to get away from any windows and that s how they survived. there was an alert but the time between that and the time when the tornado actually hit was very, very short, brooke. more tragic stories a dad camp out with his daughter when the storm hits. after covering her inside of his
reporter: one of the worst things about this tornado is not just the destruction we have seen or a lot of the wreckage but also some of the heart-wrenching stories we have heard from many of the people. shannon thomas is with us. shannon, you grew up here in us it loose sa. what do you think of what you ve seen here? i think it s terrible. i grew up here and never saw nothing like this before. i mean, i grew up here, went to high school here. and i was at the reserve unit here. never saw nothing like this before in my life. now, where were you when the storm took place, when it struck? i was at home and it just we thought it was we thought when it was going on, we just heard the train, it wassy just like mind-blowing. we saw we thought it was like mind blowing. your family and friends okay? so far. my brother, the house was blew up over his head and he he just called me and told me that he saw it over his head.
situation today. chad meyers stand by we will talk again. again, we are watching and waiting for alabama governor robert bentley and the ema director to speak, they are from tuscaloo tuscaloosa. you see the bottom right hand corner of your screen, the live picture we have. as soon as we have them, we will take that to you live. show you something else, video we have gotten in from georgia, where we are just hearing of this horrific story but it is a story at least of survival t is bittersweet a young girl asleep in her bed is sucked up by a tornado. we will tell you what happened to her, next. [ lane ] here s the trouble with most anti-wrinkle creams.
he looked up inside the tornado and saw debris going around inside. thank you very much for your time. the stories continue to grow, well over 100. we are getting close to 200-mark in terms of deaths in alabama alone. many more across the southeast. many people still missing. in fact this one neighborhood, there are anywhere from two, some numbers as high as four children that are missing in this area behind me. we have had some parties coming through here searching for people. hopefully it is going to be a rescue mission, not a recovery mission. guide dogs that have been through here also, hoping to find some survivors. but right now, thing does look very grim. one thing that is a true testament to the storm is not only the wreckage you see affecting the houses and the trees but even some of these incredible vehicles you see here. many of these five-ton trucks designed to handle the rigors of the battlefield.