garage began crawling underneath cars and behind cars and we heard more shots. so we began running. the driver who was kenyan advised us also to run. so we followed several other people into a stairwell. i thought we had gone into the parking garage. i thought when i entered the stairwell, i would go up one level and be able to exit, and that was not the case. i got in the stairwell and i was there the next hour and a half or so. there were two people in the stairwell with me, superficially wounded from gunshots. when we initially entered the stairwell, we kept going up, then heard shots above us, we ended up staying there about an hour and a half. there were several of us there. there were two people that were bleeding. a security agent tells cnn the violence points to a terrorist attack. journalist mark cutahee was tweeting earlier, he joins us on the phone from nairobi.
violence points to a terrorist attack. police are frantically trying to rescue hostages. the army joined the search to secure all the floors of the shopping mall. and in that shopping mall or at least in the parking garage of the shopping mall at the time of that shooting was sara head, she s an american doing business in kenya, and she s joining us now from nairobi via skype. sara, so glad you re okay, you were with us last hour to describe this terrifying event. you were in the shopping mall garage when you all heard three gunshots and then what happened? i just sort of stood there. i originally thought it was a car accident. i saw people running and honestly, i didn t know what was going on. i saw several people start to go underneath cars. my colleague told me it was gunshots and to get behind or underneath something. i crawled behind cars, i was
were in nairobi on business, and you were at this mall when this shooting took place? yes. yes, i had just left a meeting a few blocks up the road, and i entered the parking garage. we had just parked and gotten out of the car. and we heard three shots fired, and i thought actually it was a car accident. someone had been rear-ended. and then i saw people running, and my colleague, who has worked elsewhere, recognized the sounds of gunshots. and she yelled at me. and we and other people in the parking garage began crawling underneath cars and behind cars, and we heard more shots. so we began running. and the driver, who is kenyan, advised us also to run. so we followed several other people under a stairwell. i thought we had gone down into the parking garage, so i thought when i entered the stairwell i would go up one level and i would be able to exit. and that was not the case. i got in the stairwell, and i was there for the next hour and
underneath cars. then the driver who was with us said we should run. so we all ran away from the shots and toward the stairwell. i thought if we go one level up into the stairwell, we exit the garage so sorry, we have an interruption in the skype call from sara head. she had been describing how they were in the garage just one level below the shopping mall and heard shots fired, heard her describe people in the group to say run. they eventually found their way in a stairwell where they kind of took safety for an hour and a half. we tried to reestablish the connection with her. we will let her pick up the story from there. again, police remain on the scene as well as army personnel trying to release whatever hostages that still may be there
sense of authorities in the roadway. but you can t really get a sense of the swath that one of these things cuts. talking to micah, one of the residents there across from that elementary school just moments ago. she was saying that children were still being pulled out from underneath cars at one of the elementary schools hit by this tornado. authorities had reached that specific area and offering emergency help you are talking about an area no immediate reports of injuries you had james inhofe already saying that he would be surprised looking at the damage from just the images that have come out so far that this did not lead to fatalities or serious injuries. because it s massive in scale. as janice mentioned this series of storms is going all the way across the country and could provoke and spur more twisters throughout the night as