damage in greene county, alabama. roof and walls of an apartment complex torn off, although the majority of the tornadoes touched down in mississippi. the threat for severe weather as storms make their way through the south. we ve been following this since yesterday for you. cnn national correspondent ryan young is on the ground in mississippi. ryan, what have you seen so far this morning? a long night for a lot of these crews who have been working this situation for several hours now. power crews are out here now trying to restore some of the power to this area. you said your team has had to rescue people last night because of the storm. yes. our first call that came in were rescue calls, people trapped, and responders, this is all volunteer area, they responded here, found this station that was out of service then, so by the time we got in there with other apparatus we were
had to leave because we were in the hot zone. there are also firefighters there as well, but all of the police officers that we saw here down at the end of this road had helmets on, riot gear, and they had their guns drawn as far as rifles are concerned. a lot of them, more than 20 who are down there right now. it s still very much an active scene. now i just got off the phone with a woman who was a volunteer there with a high school band. and she said at first she thought it was fire crackers that she heard, and then she realized it was gunfire. and she hid beneath a barrel and a desk there for well over an hour, crouched there with other people who were volunteering there with the band, crouched thereunder neath the table between two barrels and then finally they were able they were escorted to a volunteer area. they had to hike up a trail, and then they were all loaded up into a bus, and that bus was taken to a nearby school.
i first met him in 1986 when i was a volunteer in his vice-presidential office in however, texas. and i ll never forget the first time i met him. he came bounding into the volunteer area, and said, hey, who is this? and how are you getting along? how are you being treated by these old-timers here, referring to jack white, and betty green, his long time assistants and he said to me, you know, i m considering running again for president. and a few weeks later, i was asked to work as a volunteer in his advance office as a press secretary in houston, texas and what i observed was he was consistent with everyone, whether you were a world leader or head of state or a valet parker. he just had a boundless sense of humor, which i saw on many occasions, especially when we were visited him much, much later, many years later in 2000