the county town. it looks like the toll could rise and it s definitely something people are keeping an eye on around here. earlier the national weather service tweeted out first tornado to impact lee county today was at least an ef3 and at least half a mile wide. an ef3 means wind speeds up to 165 miles per hour. can you describe just how much damage has been done by a twister which is that strong and that wide? i was not able to go to the beauregard area but from the pictures and what the rest of our team has sent back that small country town, it looks totally decimated. i went out to the other town of smith station which is kind of a little bit a little larger town, and there are multiple businesses that are complete loss, roofs ripped off. it just looks like as one of the residents had told me it looks like a bomb went off and blew up their entire business. what are residents being told now?
they are probably going to back off for most of the night because the damage is too extensive and it s dangerous for crews, but they plan to hit the ground running right in the morning. officials also told us with the national weather service they plan to be out with survey crews throughout the day on monday surveying damage and getting more of an idea of what went through the area. it looks like most of the damage is in lake county around the small country town of beauregard. so that is probably where most of their search and rescues are going to occur tomorrow. this is a part of the world which is no stranger to severe weather. has there ever been a day as bad as this in terms of loss of life? definitely not in lake county. this is probably one of the worst natural disasters, tornado events in the area. like we have said, the death toll is going to continue to rise. it seems the area went through a mobile home park kind of area in
rainfall here. just because this has been downgraded to a tropical storm, people let their guard down, try to venture out. you cannot venture out in this stuff, you will get stranded, up in a sedan. you re not going to get anywhere. that s what they re up against in onslow county. we re going around, surveying damage here. with driving rainfall and cresting rivers and storm surge still a factor here, this flood threat is not going away anytime soon. certainly is not. it is only just beginning. brian todd with the latest. thank you. in the last couple days, you heard a lot about and seen remarkable pictures from new bern, north carolina. city of about 30,000 people. diane gallagher and her team have remarkable pictures. there are a number of folks we understand at this hour that need to be rescued. we are joined by the mayor of new bern, dana outlaw. i understand some 400 people
anderson? and just in terms of evacuations, i assume most people have left. most have. they are guessing about 600 people are still here just being out and about this morning near our hotel, lots of people out surveying damage. but everyone seems to be okay. they effected no rescues overnight. there s been very few calls for rescue. they had some ambulances and fire crews out, but so far everyone is all right here. anderson? miguel, i want to go to the director of the national hurricane center just to get an overview of where things are at. ken, thanks so much for being with us. can you just give us a sense of what you are seeing, what your concerns are? yeah, good morning, anderson. let s look at this. we have a large system here and not moving very far.
some were carrying signs, a lot of folks taking selfies. you do get the feeling that no matter how terrible the situation is, a visit from the president not only the first responders, but also the folks were there, certainly the president showing up and saying i care and i m going to help means an awful lot. we now see the president starting to load up into the motorcade to survey some of the damage and meet with some of the survivors there. this is the white house pool that travels with the president, a couple of cameramen and reporters and they are often running between spots and thanks to technology, we are getting some of those pictures back alive. that s why you re getting the shots across the tarmac as the cameras are running. melissa: we saw the press arriving ahead of him and that osprey, that s what it looks like when they re coming in in order to catch on tape and video and digital. there you go. that does it for us for this