knew they were under this severe threat. when you have a city that large with this ominous threat of a tornado bearing down on it they now how to clear out the city and make sure everyone can get ideally to an under ground bunker which is what we re hearing is the safest place to be. i want to bring back in melissa. you re from this area. you were describing a typical tornado season you get these storms where you can just go to an interior room. you can just go to the bathroom and have the cushions and feel safe. how do people feel safe in a situation where a week ago were we were talking about an ef-4 tornado, possibly ef-3. we don t know how strong just yet. what do you do in that situation if there isn t a place to go? i worked there for three years. i never saw a season like this. this was the biggest out break.
it s unbelievable when you think about the fact there s so many people stuck in traffic with a tornado bearing down. please be safe. we want to bring in melissa. you re from the area and you re familiar with these types of storms but to see a multi-vortex tornado touch down. explain what s going on right now. i ve never even heard of a multiple vortex tornado before. it looks and sounds very threatening and it s heading in the direction of the place that was just hit hardest, moore. that s right up to southwest oklahoma city. this is very, very scary. another scary factor is it s probably rush hour. it s a highly populated area. you get into the bigger populations. it is getting closer to the
suffers some of the one of the devastation. harry smith spent the day with some of the folks there. in an all too familiar scene, crews from search and rescue suited up to look for anyone left under the rubble and the aftermath of monday s mammoth oklahoma tornado. nearby is camden village strip mall that was completely destroyed. it s hard to if the damage was done by the storm or an earthquake. the storm was just that powerful. it s right down 19th. less than 100 yards behind the mall is the remains of a neighborhood. the storm swept through like a rolling pin flattening everything in its path. this is cell phone video of the tornado bearing down on these homes. amid the ruins today, they picked through the debris, hoping to find something of meaning. not sure where we go from
destruction. governor, what do you need today. the sun rises, so many needs, what s at the top of the list? well, the biggest thing we need. just donations at this point in time. families have lost their homes, certainly businesses that have been destroyed. not only the tornado here in moore and oklahoma city, but we also had tornadoes on sunday and just yesterday morning, going throughout other areas of the state, walking through the debris areas and talking to families and businesses that had homes destroyed on sunday afternoon and to have this happen again on monday, it has created a lot of extra need in our state for services. we ve had a tremendous amount of people that called, governors from other states, did i call out the national guard early yesterday, right about the time the tornado bearing down on moore, i wanted to make sure we
bodies are being recovered. homes, schools, hospitals, all leveled in that twister. it had wind speeds up to 200 miles an hour. abc s ginger zee reports from moore. this is turning into a very destructive tornado and it s getting bigger. reporter: a local television helicopter capturing the pictures up in the sky, catching this tornado, ranked a preliminary ef-4. look closely and you can see the flashes as the power lines and transformers are ripped apart. there is a huge flash, right there. it is just ripping up everything in its path. reporter: from the ground, darkness overwhelming moore, oklahoma. you can see the tornado bearing down on these streets. unbelievable destruction. entire neighborhoods gone. houses and cars piled on top of each other. as we know today, we ve had a massive tornado, a huge one, and it passed through this community. we do know there are fatalities. reporter: in some parts, everything leveled, cars tossed.