basement. i came out of the garage and the lumber and everything was flying, so i ran in the house, ran to the basement and grabbed the kids and that was it. sounds surreal, if you can imagine seeing that outside your window. more possible tornados in arkansas where three people died in this small northwestern town of cincinnati. entire buildings were destroyed, including a volunteer fire station with two engines still inside. boy, the damage is extensive. reynolds wolf at the cnn severe weather center has much more on how it looks today, the first day of 2011. reynolds? well, susan, people are going to be waking up with utter devastation across parts of the area. some of the places that were hit especially hard would be sunset hills. we ve got an i-report to share with you. this was actually sent in from matt hallerman sent this one in. and take a look at this video. you can see trees are toppled in many places, tall trees with the winds rushing by at 165 miles per hour left beh
now, let s go to weather channel s julie martin who is live there, been covering that for us. one of the questions might be here, julie, is did they get warning any of the people that are in that town? yeah. in fact, the answer to that question, richard, is no. this is such a rural area that those sirens just didn t reach them. the timing couldn t have been worse coming just about 6:00 in the morning on a holiday for many people yesterday as they were sleeping in. i wanted to show you this, though. this is a piece of metal i picked up from the volunteer fire station here. see how it s twisted. you can see how the tornado just twisted it around, that rotation coming through quite strong on yesterday morning. in fact, the national weather service has preliminarily rated this an ef-3, which means those winds were upwards of 140 mile-an-homiles an hour and the width was 300 to 500 yard. we re talking about a very small area, about 100 homes here.
four, three, two, one! happy new year! 2011 is here, and in raleigh, north carolina, nothing says happy new year like a giant acorn. people there have been dropping the giant copper and steel acorn for 20 years. raleigh is, after all, the city of oaks. cities all across north carolina have come up with unique symbols. in cure beach, it s a giant beach ball. mt. olive famous for the giant pickle. and people in brasstown, north carolina, gathered to watch the lowering of a giant possum. pretty unique. we are checking our top stories for you. a deadly start to the new year in parts of the south and midwest too. many communities are in recovery mode today after a tornado outbreak. at least three people died in the small town of cincinnati, arkansas. look at that mess there. the aftermath. entire buildings are demolished, including a volunteer fire station with two engines still
big snowstorms are on the way. no severe weather outbreaks. it s a nice, quiet start to the new year. we ll take it. thanks, bill karins. let s go live now to the scene of one of those deadly tornados bill was telling us about. the weather channel s jewelry martin is in cincinnati, arkansas, with the latest. reporter: good morning, richard. at least three of the six confirmed dead were killed in this tiny community of just about 100 people. you re looking here at what is left of the volunteer fire station. widespread devastation here. as many as 24 homes affected and people displaced to start off the new year here. in terms of this tornado, the national weather service believes it was an ef-3 packing winds of about 140 miles per hour that tore through here in the early morning hours on new year s eve. in fact, they believe that tornado was about 500 yards wide and cut a path 21 miles long. one of at least 26 tornados reported yesterday. that s the most new year s eve
tornado owes record since 1950. richard. and julie, the damage behind you, is that this what you re seeing on the authority of the other homes in the area? is that devastating? reporter: yeah. it s a combination of solid brick structures and mobile homes, as well, richard. so it s not just the mobile homes that were impacted. this building and out building, again, was mostly made of aluminum. but we have seen some solid brick structures that were deaf stated in this tornado. so it s a pretty powerful twister here in arkansas. julie, is that the tin roof, that brown milths that s twisted? reporter: yeah. that s the roof of the volunteer fire station. in fact, there were two engines inside of this facility. they were pulled out yesterday. but most of this is a metal structure and it s metal and aluminum. so it was just completely obliterated as these winds came through. amazing pictures there. julie martin, thank you so much. updating you now on breaking