0 through. >> reporter: young was not sure it would work, but today, this vet credits whiskey, this dog, for saving his life. >> i was a skeptic, once i got the dog, like the second day a light came on. and everything changed. >> reporter: before meeting whiskey, young could barely leave his house. now, he doesn't think about suicide. he thinks about the future. >> and i go out, no problem. if i start to get stressed out or have an anxiety attack, i just pet her and relax. and that takes all the anxiety away. >> reporter: sergeant alonzo lundsford is counting on the program to do the same thing for him. he is just days away from meeting his rescue dog, an irish wolfhound named bomber. >> i am excited, i know it is a great thing. >> thank you for joining us. erin, thank you, anderson is in the philippines. he is trying to fly into the hardest hit area, tacloban city, but the process is making it hard for planes to land. the tropical system is arriving hard on the heels of the typhoon. the storm left tacloban in terrible, terrible shape, almost total devastation in much of the city. nearly a quarter of a million people lived here, now entire neighborhoods are gone. survivors are filling the streets, there are bodies, in fact, everywhere. what there is not enough is food, and crucially, drinkable water. access in and out of tacloban is very difficult. the u.s. marines are helping with round-the-clock operations. there is access to british help, and they are teeming into the area. nobody knows the full scope of the damage from this record-setting storm. more from "ac360's" randi kaye. >> reporter: the terror began with haiyan's winds, gusts reaching 235 miles per hour, well above the threshold of a category 5 hurricane. all many can do is simply pray. as millions brace themselves against haiyan's winds and punishing rains, it is the storm surge that would cut the biggest path of destruction. walls of water up to 20 feet high, engulfing entire neighborhoods. the typhoon rages into the night. dawn brings an eerie calm after the storm, and with it, the first glimpses of haiyan. >> get international help to come here, not tomorrow, now, this is really, really like bad, worse than hell. >> your husband? >> reporter: >> reporter: worse than hell, buildings are now mangled piles of debris and metal. families search for their loved ones. >> i have not spoken to anyone who has not lost someone, a relative or someone close to them. >> reporter: officials fear up to 10,000 people dead. the exact number made difficult to determine, not only because of the endless piles of debris that may hold bodies, buts because the philippines is made up of thousands of islands. many live in remote areas, only accessible by boat or by air. here, on cebu island, the injured are being rescued by military chopper. but many other islands are still completely on their own. one of the hard-hit areas is here in tacloban, a massive ship hurled far inland shows the power of the typhoon. with thousands clamoring for food and water, the authorities turn their attention to the living. >> three days after the storm itself, there are still bodies by the side of the road. now, we can't show you the faces of the bodies as it is just too graphic. you can still see the terror as the wave hits on the faces of these bodies. >> reporter: an estimated 620,000 people are homeless from the storm. the government, simply overwhelmed and calling on the international community for help. the u.s. military has now taken control of the airport in tacloban and is flying in badly needed supplies. >> it is almost the end of the world, our goal is, i must go out of this city. >> reporter: three days after what is likely the strongest storm in recorded history, its full impact just starting to be discovered. randi kay, cnn, new york. some of the most terrifying footage you just saw came from the hotel where cnn's andrew stevens was reporting. i want to show you what this was like, in this clip, the reporter became a rescuer. >> it is a relatively secure area, i think, where we are, a very substantial hotel and we are away from windows. but all around us you hear the sounds of windows breaking, the sounds of large objects falling to the floor. and under foot, it is now just a deluge. and if you look behind me, i don't know if you can see it. the stair case is now basically a water fall. >> reporter: and then a torrent of black water began to pour into the hotel. the storm surge had begun. within a few minutes it was at ground floor window level. a panicked family now trapped in their room smashed the window and screamed for help. we managed to get the mother across to safety. it immediately became clear that calls were panicked. their daughter was severely disabled. we went back to get the terrified girl to safety. and cnn producer tim schwartz helped to rescue the rest of the family. >> and andrew stevens is joining us now, andrew, your images during the typhoon are amazing to have been inside what may have been one of the strongest storms ever. so give our viewers around the world a little flavor of what it was like. >> reporter: it is mind-numbing, wolf. you're standing there, and all around is just noise. it is like you have screaming winds. and they howl through the smashed glass, the constant smashes of glass, constant sort of large objects crashes down on your head, around the roof. there is flying debris everywhere. and a funny, strange white haze, it is the only way to describe it. you look out the window when you can see if it is safe enough, and it is just -- the trees are bent horizontally. and you sit there and say okay, i have done everything i can. i am in one of the strongest buildings in this city. we are away from the windows. we are just going to hunker down in the corridors. we have a lot of things around us, we have to look after each other. i don't think any of us ever thought this could have possibly been the end. but when that storm surge came in, we're thinking just how high is this going to get, because one of our weather chasers, a regular contributor to cnn, james reynolds said his biggest concern was the storm would generate a big, big wave. i mean, let's call it what it is. a tsunami. the water level rising so quickly. he said look, i have not seen a storm like this in my life. it is literally the perfect storm. and the way the storm surge came up, we thought we would just weather it in. and as we said in the report it didn't get much higher than getting near the first floor. but it was certainly a worrying moment. sometimes, wolf, you sort of sit there and tough that stuff out, wait for it to get better. and you hope like hell. >> you know, andrew, i know you traveled what? about 14 kilometers from the hotel you were hunkered down in, by the airport, what is it like? by all accounts the roads are just in terrible, terrible shape. >> yeah, the roads are in terrible shape. the road -- and this is the road, with a capital t. it is the road that is going to take supplies in by truck to where it is most needed. as i said over the last 24 hours we came out yesterday. 40 kilometers, what is that? about nine or ten milemiles. took us four hours, we were getting out there and walking regularly, because the traffic just snarls. and getting relief through that road will be a painful process. the real worry for us, wolf is that we didn't see any relief trucks coming in. there was no evidence they were actually using the road. i don't know why, we haven't been able to get any answers to that. so it is choppers that are providing the lifeline at the moment. and choppers can only take so much in. and i should say right now it has just gone 10 past 9:00 in the morning. we have been up since the early morning hours. none of us here have heard the relief chopper take off to head to the city. we have had several c-130 flights coming in, and even a couple of commercial flights in, but nothing getting here from where i am into the city and that is where the relief is needed. >> yeah, that is extremely depressing news, andrew. making your way around tacloban in the city, the devastation is clearly enormous. have you ever in all of your years seen anything like this? >> reporter: no, i haven't, wolf. and the storm devastation is just -- it is extraordinary. the images of this tsunami, the asian tsunami of 2004 are the first and probably the best comparison to make, where entire villages have been shattered. disappeared, i remember that tsunami came ashore in several countries. i was talking to our producer, tim schwartz, he said the devastation reminds him of what happened there. you have fukushima, as well, of course. so it is on this sort of scale. what we don't know yet, like sri lanka, we just don't know how widespread and how big a disaster this is. this is a coastal strip going on for miles and miles. the storm was the outer edge, but the closer you get into the eye wall the more vicious the storms and storm surge is going to become. so we don't know. we keep asking people, what are you hearing? nobody is hearing anything. i talked to the president yesterday. he said we're sending boots out on the ground to just find out. but getting into the places, it is difficult. there are roads further down the coast to get the people out there. but not enough to get the information that is so desperately needed. and wolf, it is all about time now. >> time is clearly critical. right now, andrew stevens, hold on for a moment. i want to bring in the man you just mentioned, the storm chaser who was with you during some of the most terrifying moments. james reynolds. the camera was rolling, showing us how it unfolded. take a look at this. >> james reynolds is with us now, james, amazing video, we saw you in the video with your fellow storm chasers, some staff, people rescued outside your hotel. take us back to the moment when you realized you had to stop covering what was going on and start to help to save lives. >> reporter: wolf, it was a really sickening feeling. the screams, we could hear them even above the roar of the storm and the smashing of glass. instantly knew that some of them were in grave danger. we could see just the desperation of a woman trapped in the hotel. smashing through the glass with her hands to try and get out. and that was when it was really a life and death situation. my colleague, mark, went out to immediately try to go out to their assistance and ended up injuring himself. but luckily the team, my colleagues and the cnn crew managed to find some flotation devices, a mattress, and extricate everybody from that specific hotel room. and i'm glad to report that in our hotel, nobody died. >> well, i'm glad to hear that, you say that you have covered multiple storms, and this is absolutely the worst you have been through? >> absolutely, wolf, when -- before the storm hit tacloban, my team and i were absolutely speechless about the storm, how strong it was getting. you know it was at the extreme upper level of a category 5 if it was in the atlantic. it was a very frightening thing to witness, just from a scientific point of view. this will be a case study, but obviously right now the focus is on the horrible aftermath, the desperation of people suffering right now in tacloban and for the days to come, wolf. >> and you had to be rescued by a military chopper, how desperate was the situation on the ground as you all prepared to leave? >> reporter: the situation was starting to -- what i would say, escalate. in the immediate aftermath, i did get the sense of some people in a shell-shocked state didn't quite get the gravity of how severe it was. but in a situation like this as time goes on and people become hungrier and more desperate for water, the mood is only going to get more tense. and obviously, not being on the ground there right now myself, but even just 36 hours it was a desperate situation. there was no sense of help, a sense of a concerted military presence or any aid getting in. and from what andrew was saying it doesn't seem like much has changed in the following few days. we were very fortunate to liaise with a military official who got us on a helicopter to the airport and from there, a military flight out. and that was miraculous that we managed to do that, and again, also beneficial that we could get our pictures out on what the situation was like in tacloban, wolf. >> james, thank you to, andrew stevens, as well. it doesn't seem that things could get worse in tacloban, but they have reported that another storm dumped rain in the around tonight, blocking relief efforts. it is also keeping anderson and his team from touching down in tacloban. their plane had to turn back and head back towards manila. anderson is joining us now from manila from the airport there. anderson i know it was tough trying to get into tacloban, but at least you're back on the ground in manila. >> reporter: yeah, it was really a dicey situation, we were actually close to tacloban on a plane, and then got the word we had to turn back because of the approaching storm. we're told there may be a little bit of a break in the weather. we may try to get in there really before the worst of the storm that we anticipate. it is already tuesday here, but obviously, any difficulty for planes to land in tacloban, that has serious consequences for all the people on the ground who are just desperate for food and water and shelter. i want to bring in chad myers at the cnn weather center, just to get a sense of where this approaching storm is and how bad it will be for the people here. how bad is it? >> you know, anderson i think it will be over in about six hours, the back edge of the storm, the problem as it passes by. the problem with the airplane, you were in instrument flight rules. there were no instruments on the ground to send signals. so suddenly you couldn't land because the instruments are not going to work because there is nothing transponding back up to you. you didn't have to go very far, couple of hundred miles, the signals were too low and they couldn't land for you. i do expect, though, probably in the next four or five hours, this is all over. i know we talked about an approaching storm here, but the approaching storm means leaving storm here in the next 12 hours. it will be gone, that is the good news. it will still rain for a while. doesn't matter how much or how little rain, if you're trying to recover your life with fresh food, water, and a roof over your head, any type of rain or wind is just a nightmare. >> reporter: and you know, chad, one of the things that was a blessing in this typhoon is the lack of heavy rain for a sustained period of time. but it really was the storm surge which people did not expect which has caused so much of this damage, right? >> absolutely, you know, we had storm surge, i know we were probably in the 16 to 20-foot storm surge range. and on the western most area of the eye, the eastern most island of the philippines, i absolutely can tell there was a 30-foot surge that ran completely over that island, a lot like what happened in hurricane rita down near houston. and it just washed completely over the island, took everything with it. all the homes. and we're showing tacloban, i understand, this is an urbanized city, 200,000 people live in the city, there were another couple hundred thousand people living in other areas, we couldn't even get to them. there are worse areas, ones that we couldn't get to. this is the worst storm, the recovery will take decades. >> reporter: and i have been getting a lot of tweets from viewers around the world saying you know, my relative is in this place, in another small town, not in tacloban, where the journalists have been able to get to the relief areas. but there are a lot of places where the journalists have not visited yet. and there is a lot of concern about the people in those areas. frankly, the bottom line is we don't know how many people have been killed by this typhoon. we simply do not have accurate numbers on that. we have a lot more to cover all throughout this hour of our live coverage from here in the philippines. when we come back, we're going to take a look at the international relief effort and the efforts of relief groups like red cross. they're having difficulty just getting to cities like tacloban. we'll be right back. americans take care of business. they always have. they always will. that's why you take charge of your future. your retirement. ♪ ameriprise advisors can help you like they've helped millions of others. listening, planning, working one on one. to help you retire your way... with confidence. that's what ameriprise financial does. that's what they can do with you. ameriprise financial. more within reach. is what makes us different. we take the time to get to know you and your unique health needs. then we help create a personalized healthcare experience that works for you. and you. and you. with 50 years of know-how, and a dedicated network of doctors, health coaches, and wellness experts, we're a partner you can rely on -- today, and tomorrow. we're going beyond insurance to become your partner in health. humana.