weekend. just about an hour ago we witnessed this dramatic scene unfold in dallas when a driver was rescued after his vehicle became engulfed by flooding. rescue workers managed to get the man out, taking him to safety. at the same time, an intense winter storm is taking aim at the central part of the country. snow isn t being tallied in inches, folks. we re talking feet in some areas. start with nbc s charles hadlock who s in garland, texas for us all weekend on the ground for us. one of the air yaus that s been hit hardest by those deadly tornadoes. charles, what s the scene like this morning? you ve been there for at least 48 hours seeing it from start to where we are today. reporter: right. we re at the landmark apartments here on the south edge of garland right along i-30. take a look at it, this is what an ef-3 and ef-4 tornado winds will do to a place, completely tearing off the roof. there are about 200 units here so about 200 families totally displaced by this tornado. the s
mike tobin is on the ground. what are you seeing? reporter: the south edge of town is where the tornado first made contact moving north through the town. you can see the first business it hit. the springs auto dealership. it had metal construction. it was obliterated by the tornado when it hit. now ranged an ef2 with maximum sustained winds at 125 miles an hour. at the base it was less than 100 yard across. as you move north you can see where the tornado made contact with the homes ripping off the roof and ripping the structures right down to the ground. 11 homes total were destroyed. three businesses also damaged badly by the storm. there was only one injury and that was a woman straps inside one of those structures. she is said to be in good
know, everywhere you look, you know, you could be looking at tornado damage. we re with our tornado expert the weather channel dr. greg forbes and dr. forbes, kind of the question is, how big is this tornado, how far did it go? what is your sense. my sense of the total destruction is it s about three blocks of this subdivision neighborhood, so it s probably about a quarter mile wide of total destruction. we were down a little bit on the south edge of the tornado. there most of the houses are still inhabitable, there s some damage, that s about a half-mile wide in addition and there s probably about quarter-mile wide that we haven t gotten to on the north end of the tornado. it s probably edge ef-0 to edge ef-0, it was probably ef-5 for about a half-mile in the middle.
south edge of the tornado. there houses are still inhabitable. that s probably a half a mile wide in addition and a quarter mile wide that we haven t gotten up on the north edge of the tornado. i m thinking it probably edge ef0 probably at least a mile wide. and the real core w ef4, ef 15 a yaurter of a mile. to give the viewers a perspective on his expertise. he likely is the one man what s done more than any other planet. is there any question in your wind that the wind speeds here don t meet the criteria of 200 mile per hour winds. we have seen over the next building over a huge white tank. it must weigh many tons.