sister maggie. we go back on occasions to make sure everything is okay. we just returned a week ago from we were there a few weeks.gs. and jean returned after her week in west, texas, after the fertilizer plant explosion. really. almost 1,000 people have to move out of town because of that. how long do you stay in one place? well, in newtown, we expected to be there five days, we were there five weeks. in joplin, missouri, we didn t know how long, but we ended up spending eight weeks. seven days a week. we had teams rotating in and out every other week. jackson and louie are going to be here with us. the tornado vets. so do the situations size up to what you dealt with in joplin? every disaster, every tragedy is different. there s no explanation and words for the emotions that people go through. and they re all devastating. how are you making yourself available here in moore?
seven blocks maybe. and that s just the tip of it. i mean, i could sit here and talk with you for 30 minutes and be driving down the road at this point and have stuff to show you. it is so widespread, it is so devastating. and, again, shepard, as you ve kind of mentioned, the fact this is a major populated area, this was not out in a rural farming community. this is a suburb of oklahoma city, a major metropolitan area in this country. and that s why the destruction is so great as you drive through. that s why it s so widespread. and really quite astonishing. you know, you don t ever want to diminish the fact that 24 people lost their lives, ten of those young children, two of those infants. you never want to diminish that. but the fact that there were not more than 100 people killed like in joplin, missouri, we saw for example. it s astonishing when you see that someone was in one of those homes we ve been showing you and they came out alive. shepard. yeah. it really is. casey stegal
before image of a residential neighborhood in moore, oklahoma. you see row after row of well-built brick houses, houses that today are no longer there. mike bettis joined us earlier from roughly that same neighborhood that you re looking at now to show us the afterpicture in a community that looks very, very different. well, it s one of those scenes, it s devastating right now. you look at what is going on here in moore and you look behind us here and this town has just been mowed down. it is one of those scenes that we don t see all that often. maybe you see this in joplin, missouri, two years ago and we know what the scene was there. this is an area that has well-built home, framed homes. so the problem with this is that we ve got search and rescue here, the city of oklahoma city that has to go house by house by
we are back with nbc s continue kochl of the aftermath of the oklahoma tornado. what you re looking at right now is the before image of a residential neighborhood in moore, oklahoma. you see row after row of well built brick houses, houses that today are no longer there. the weather channel channel s mike bettes joined us this evening from roughly that same neighborhood you re looking at now to show us the after paying chur in a community that now looking very different. reporter: well it s one of those scenes that it s devastating right now. you look at what s going on here in moore and you look behind us here and this town has just been mowed down. it is one of those scenes that we don t see all that often. maybe you see this in joplin, missouri two years ago and we know what the scene was there. this is a neighborhood that has
equally unpopular budget visions, though. try to put the horns on paul ryan, they do not fit as snugly as they do on newt gingrich. we ll see. coming up, kelly ayotte will join us. also, starbucks president and ceo howard schultz. tina brown. and later, oprah s longtime partner steadman graham. up next, the top stories in the politico playbook. but first, the latest on the tornadoes in texas. here s bill karins. well, tractor-trailers that look like toys. that s what we saw live on tv yesterday afternoon. the dallas, texas, metroplex area. and there they are. literally, 1,600 pounds tossed in the air, 100 to 200 feet and suspended for at least a couple of seconds. these tornadoes moved through the region pretty quickly and bounced and skipped. they were not on the ground the whole time, and these were not 200 mile per hour storms like tuscaloosa dealt with in joplin.