and activating the national guard as the storms gutted entire communities. she spoke about the destruction earlier today. i have had the opportunity over the last couple of hours to speak with both the homeland security secretary as well as president biden, who have offered a tremendous amount of support anything that arkansas need from a city county state and federal perspective, i would say that everyone is working in total lockstep and we re going to do everything we can to make sure that people of our state are back on their feet again. and more devastation in several other states, including indiana and illinois. people are waking up to their homes and businesses destroyed their neighborhoods littered with debris. but the threat is far from over. some 70 million americans are now bracing for more severe storms. today cnn has teams tracking all of the latest developments from these destructive storms. derek van dam is in wynne, arkansas. at this hour. derek to you first. w
what s going on? fredricka the mayor of wynne, arkansas, described it best. he said that the tornado was like it tore the town into where we stand right now is when within that destructive path of the tornado that tore through this area. on friday evening, and i m going to set the scene but i want to show you this first because we did have an opportunity to speak to the first responders, the search and recovery crews last night when we were on the scene, and you see that x on this building . well, that is because they cleared this building. they indicated that there was no one inside and they went from home to home to business to business , making sure that there were not people indoors, trapped in and thought. unfortunately there were some rescues that took place here and, unfortunately some fatalities as well. so the first responders crucial in those a few hours after this tornado struck. just look down