the one on the right, after the massive tornado hit. there were 67 residents in that nursing home at time. last time the town had damage from a tornado, 1984. joining us now over the phone from manette, arkansas, is mayor bob blankenship. mayor, thank you so much for being here with us. your city was really hard hit and unfortunately, there was loss of life. now that you ve seen the damage during daylight hours today, just how bad is it? well, i think the initial shock was last evening when we saw what had happened, what we knew could happen and the reality is it did happen. but in the daylight hours, to see to see the widespread of what it had done, not just in the inner part of our city or
worse, as well. at least 70 people are feared dead in the state. the governor warns that the toll could top 100 and children are among the 12 known dead in warren county. and in tennessee, one person is missing in lake court. four people are dead statewide. the governor believes effective storm warnings kept the numbers from being much higher. we re also hearing from people who had close calls with tornadoes during those storms. cnn caught up with one man who was at home when a tornado did this in mayfield, kentucky. he described what he did when he realized the twister was coming. we got in our closet put some mattresses inside, because it s nothing new to hear tornado warnings around this area. so we was only out on this front porch. and i remember seeing just all the power the last thing i remember, the power just went out, the sky turned pblue, and seen the funnel cloud over that way. i ran inside. i told my other buddies, and
streaming in from the south, and that collided with an extremely cold air mass to the north. that combined with a powerful jet stream. the jet stream is upper level winds that help steer weather patterns across the planet. where that triple point actually occurred, that is exactly where the storm prediction center had highlighted our greatest threat of severe thunderstorms, super cells that had the capability of produce long-track tornadoes and that s exactly what happened. in fact, they had over 100 tornadoes issued. that s the largest single-day total in the month of december. there were tornadoes that spanned over 200 miles or 320 kilometers. and this is unfortunately a dire record that is likely to be broken, if we see fatalities exceed 100 persons, the potential here exists for this to nudge into the top ten deadliest tornado outbreaks within the united states history. and not to mention, the longest single-track, longest duration single tornado ever recorded as
after those deadly tornadoes. go to cnn.com/impact and there you can find verified ways to help tornado victims. once again, that s c cnn.com/impact. all right. we have much more just ahead, including a look at the devastation left behind after an amazon warehouse in illinois took a direct hit from a tornado and emergency crews are searching for survivors after several homes and buildings collapsed in italy. we we have the latest details in what might have caused the incident coming up in a live report from m rome. stay with us. i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn s disease. then i realized something was missing. .me. my symptoms were keeping me fromeing there for her. so, i talked to my doctor and leaed humira ithe #1 prescribed biologic for people with crohn s disease.
i want to find my wife. i want to find and know if he s still somewhere safe. i hope she s somewhere safe. baby, please call me as soon as we get connected. please call me. i m looking for you, baby. we ve been looking for you. we, the kids, we re all looking for you right now. the longest stretch of devastation spanned more than 250 miles, around 400 kilometers across several states. kentucky s governor says one tornado may have been on the ground for 200 miles in his state alone. in all, more than 30 tornadoes were reported across six states, including arkansas, illinois, missouri, and tennessee. in illinois, an amazon warehouse collapsed, killing at least six people. officials say search and rescue efforts are still underway. in illinois, at least 20 people were injured when a tornado