the guy who wants to stop the release of hangover 2. he says the moviemakers broke the law and it involves mike tyson s face. a devastating tornado tore through the town of joplin, missouri, this evening. so far, at least 24 people are dead. several remain trapped in their homes, cars and other buildings. the weather channel s mike bettes has more from a hospital that took a direct hit. reporter: on the scene this evening of a devastating tornado that has torn through the southwest missouri town of joplin. it is damage as far as the eye can see. large trees that have been uprooted. homes that have been demolished, some of them wiped off their foundation. a town right now that is in utter shock as people are just looking for their neighbors, looking for loved ones. the town is overwhelmed right now because of the damage. and you can see it s just almost as far as the eye can see. we believe now we had maybe as wide as a mile-wide tornado come through joplin. from wha
we saw the entire wall of debris coming right at us. we saw it wrapping around everything flying through the air and the semis getting picked up and thrown. reporter: the tornado left a path of destruction six miles long and a half mile wide. 20% to 30% of joplin is now dealing with major damage. in many areas entire neighborhoods were wiped away. the whole house was shaking. it felt like it was going come up and it was the longest three and a half minutes of my life. at least 89 lives were lost and officials fear that number will climb. the city s initial priority is to take care of the injured by completing a thorough search and rescue effort. that work started overnight. search teams using a city grid to try and make sense of the mess scattered for miles, struggling to piece together where homes were before the storm and where those who lived in them may be now. we ve got a lot of unstable structures out there that we are trying to both search and evaluate to
despite that, even those that did get warning, that was such a destructive tornado it certainly caused two dozen fatalities there. here this morning, we have had thunder showers coming through. they whirled through the last couple hours. you may have been awakened by thunder in loudon, frederick and montgomery counties but that is advancing north and east and pulling away from the metro area, over the eastern shore. a lot of lightning is gone from that. mid-60s around the region. 65, reagan national. and elsewhere we have just some lingering clouds. there s the washington monument. live picture from the city camera. and our sunrise will be at ten till 6:00 this morning. by 9:00, partly sunny and 70. by noon time, near 80 degrees. then this afternoon we have the possibility of some storms coming through mid to late afternoon, early evening. and there is a risk that an isolated storm could produce some wind damage here. that would be between 3:00 p.m. to perhaps as late as 7:00
a live look outside this morning. we have had some rain around the region this morning. overnight, we had heavy rain in some places sometimes. those heavy rains out of the area? yeah, they re gone. they were moving rather quickly, 35, 40 miles per hour. a little bit of thunder and lightning. no damage. no damaging winds with that line that came through 2:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. it s crossing the chesapeake bay. you can see that area of blue and green on the eastern shore. that line of showers. thunder and lightning pretty much gone. there may be a little thunder south of salisbury. and this is continuing to advance off to the north and east, pulling out of the region. right now temperatures around the area are in the low to mid-60s. and it is humid down to this cloud cover. we ve got a steamy situation here all throughout much of the region. all of this due to a persistent southerly flow bringing in the humidity. it will be with us throughout the day today. there s the jeffer