miles per hour, on the ground for more than 30 miles. ripping apart home after home, decimating neighborhoods. ten members of george grieb s family emerging from the basement to find their roof completely gone. well, i mean, it was just disbelief because, you know, i walked up our basement stairs and i looked up into the sky. reporter: at kansas city s airport, people taking cover in parking garage tunnels, debris landing on the airfield. in the northeast, an ef-2 tornado touching down north of philadelphia. and an ef-1 in sussex county, new jersey, as students were gathered for a high school track and field banquet. it happened so fast. we didn t have time to react and run. reporter: sheltering in the gym to wait out the storm. and groundstops for a time at new york s airports. gio benitez live with us from linwood, kansas, where i mentioned that ef-4 tornado hit. i know there were some injuries, gio, but remarkably, everyone survived this.
before reaching the kansas city area. it is the first time they heard sirens in downtown kansas city in eight years. at the airport they were taking shelter in parking garage tunnels. there was so much debris they think was from this area 50 miles away. they saw household items, bits of houses. you can imagine what else might have ended up on the runway. this area will be in the clear for the next two days in terms of severe weather. there are 40 million people at risk of seeing a strong tornado across the country today. the numbers are stunning. i m looking at the pictures behind scott. we are watching the storms move to the east today. meanwhile, new developments in the president s campaign against former vice president joe biden. the biden campaign hit back after the president sided with kim jong-un in his opinion of biden. joining us is maggie haberman,
tornado area. that happened east of kansas yesterday. the debris was all over the place. at the kansas city airport they had to take some of their customers and move them into parking garage tunnels. they had to delay the flights because there was debris on the airfield. listen to how this person described the powerful storm. i could feel the air moving the walls and coming from above and heard stuff flying around. my walls and my furniture. reporter: those storms went across the country yesterday including as far as new york city where there were very rare tornado warnings, two in staten island. there were also people sharing pictures on social media of hail