i think it s going to be the longest and deadliest tornado event in u.s. history. i ve got towns that are gone, that are just i mean, gone. you think you d go door to door to check on people and see if there are okay. there are no doors. the question is, is somebody in the rubble of thousands upon thousands of structures? i mean, it is devastating. words can hardly describe some of the pictures we ve seen. at any moment we are expecting another update from the governor along with local, state, and federal officials. my colleague boris sanchez is on the ground in mayfield, kentucky, helping to cover this story from every angle. reporter: thanks, phil. and you re absolutely right. you are at a loss for words looking at the magnitude of destruction across eight states. it s difficult to fathom when you see the power of mother nature to wreak havoc and to
to give you some context, the tornado event probably crossed nearly 400 kilometres, 250 miles, starting just north of little rock, arkansas, passing through the state of missouri, the state of tennessee, and eventually doing probably its most prolific damage in the state of kentucky. right now, many of us are just sort of trying to really unpack what happened yesterday, as it is just absolutely historic. victor, weather is obviously unpredictable, that is the very nature of it. but we didn t really have many warnings, did we, about this? what made it so bad? well, there were actually significant warnings in advance for this storm. i mean, several days in advance the storm prediction centre in northern 0klahoma, which is in charge of issuing severe weather outlooks for events like this, did have some significant outlooks for yesterday s tornadoes. and as we drew closer to the event, tornado watches, which means the conditions are favourable for these types of events to occur,
the longest and deadliest tornado event in u.s. history. that s the governor, andy beshear, on with jonathan capehart shortly, an soon as we re off the air. this is an important distinction. that number has gone up. we don t have official numbers that have gone beyond 20 deaths in kentucky, the governor consistently said that number is going to be above 70. he said above 80 and continuing to go up. i want to give you one last look at where i am. we re in mayfield, kentucky. and it is destroyed. the downtown we re a block off of the main street here. and i want to give you a sense of just this is one example of thins we re seeing all over the place. this truck is not particularly damaged. but it was in a carport. you see there are posts around the carport. and the roof is over here. that s the roof off of this carport and if you look behind it, there is a house. a full structure, which has also lost its roof.
18 march 1925 to be exact, which had a tornado occur that took a path length of about 219 miles. and last night, just to give you some context, the tornado event probably crossed nearly 400 kilometres, 250 miles, starting just north of little rock, arkansas, passing through the state of missouri, the state of tennessee, and eventually doing probably is most prolific damage in the state of kentucky. right now, many of us are just sort of trying to really unpack what happened yesterday as it is just absolutely historic. victor, whether is obviously unpredictable. that is the very nature of it, but we didn t really have any warnings about this. what made it so bad? well, there were actually significant warnings in advance for this storm. i significant warnings in advance forthis storm. i mean, significant warnings in advance for this storm. i mean, several daysin for this storm. i mean, several days in advance the storm prediction centre in northern 0klahoma, which is in charge of issuing
administrator, and we will bring that to you as soon as it gets started. there s the governor now. let s take a listen. good afternoon, everybody. this is kentucky s most devastating tornado event in our history. we have lost far too many of our brothers and sisters. the damage is devastating. an entire blocks more than one block with nothing standing. to the people of america, there s no lens big enough to show you the extent of the damage here in grace county or in kentucky. nothing that was standing in the direct line of this tornado is still standing. we currently have 18 counties with damage. as of this morning we had between 36 and 50,000