it's from chasertv.com. rob, roll it. >> oh, my. >> and then just a short time ago, storm chaser, his name is steve polly got out in the middle of this driving on the interstate, and he said he didn't think he was going to make it touch and go for a while. these videos he took at a gas station. listen. >> come on. >> yes, it is. >> all right. our jacqui jeras, our meteorologist joins us now. some officials in missouri reporting that there are at least as many as 24 fatalities from this tornado that touched down, and they are saying there's widespread damage across the city's south side. >> that's right, don. it was just an incredible tornado that touched down just before 6:00 local time there. a multi-vortex tornado touched down in downtown joplin and just stripped a path of destruction through the city. there are many buildings which have been damaged. homes have been flattened and trees broken off and stripped from their bark, and, unfortunately, we're concerned that that death toll is up and many more injuries in addition to that. this is a large wedge tornado, as wide as half a mile to three-quarters of a mile wide that we moved through and you think it's likely that there's an ef-3 or other tornado which we would call a major tornado. moved through a very large scale area. search and rescue continues to go on at this hour. reports of people trapped in their homes and reports of people trapped in their vehicles as well, so this is going to be ongoing tonight. now that the sun is going down. going to be hard to find the people. communication is very spotty and power is out through many parts of the city here, and there's so many people injured. damage to the hospital. have to set up a triage center to try to help the walking wounded people and try and help those out in this situation so it's just an incredible situation unfolding in joplin, missouri. unfortunately it's very reminiscent of what happened just a few weeks ago in northern alabama. >> absolutely. jacqui jeras, to our viewers, here's the reality of it. 24 fatalities reported so far. widespread damage across the city from a tornado touching down. they don't know how many fay tlts or injuries in all of this. people there being called the walking wounded and as jacqui walking wounded. i-44 is closed down because of damage, and here's what we're hearing from the governor of missouri. he said significant law enforcement assets and the national guard are now being deployed, now being deployed, and so we're trying to get all those people on the ground. when you hear those people being deployed. chad myers, our meteorologist joining us by phone, you know that this is big trouble. >> well, you just don't have enough people involved locally to make it all happen without bringing in people from around the state or for that matter around the country. you need the law, doctors and nurses. when you have this much destruction moving through joplin and when we get bethany scutti, our i-reporter back on the line, don, i want to get a chance, because he's been driving around joplin. want to ask you, where literally north or south of the city does the damage begin. drove and walked into it. there are people out there worrying about their loved ones and they literally cannot get ahold of the loved ones now. the cell service overwhelmed. law enforcement and everyone trying to help everyone else and at this point you have to at least in the next few hours, you have to help yourself. you cannot count on anyone being there for the next few hours. help yourself, help your neighbors and literally battened down and don't move unless they tell you to move. i don't believe, and maybe jacqui jeras can help me out, i don't believe there's any more weather coming out behind it. an hour or two hours later another big storm comes through to just do even more damage and blow things around that are already broken so it's one of those things, take care of yourself, but now that better more equipped larger numbers of help will be coming that way, now is time to take care of yourself by tomorrow morning. those assets willjacqui, stay t. bethany scutti is live with us now. have you made it to the hospital? >> i'm standing right in front of it right now. >> what are you seeing? >> it is devastated. it is still standing, but it looks like every window is blown out. there's debris everywhere. trees are down and cars are stacked on top of each other and it is a mess. >> are you seeing any patients? >> i did not see patients. they have a treage. they have several triage center from that so there are tense setups across. i sent some pictures. i'm not sure if you got them. i'm going to make my way back over there. took them to some of the hospitals. did i talk to an rn who said that they lost four patients, and there's equipment around. there's a lot of scurrying. they are gathering things and just trying to gather up what they can. >> hey, bethany, wow, listen. do me -- that's a picture of the hospital. is this bethany's picture, or is this from -- no, okay. this is from one of our afils. bethany, do me a favor. describe to our viewers what that hospital looks like, how big it is, how tall it is, is there a parking structure on the side, and the damage that you're seeing. >> okay. >> the hospital as i'm standing in front of it has about seven stories and another building on the right has a couple more stories attached to it. every window looks to be blown out. the main entrance sign is a mess. the glass is blown out and there's just cars stacked all over the parking lot, and there are still cars parked in front as if they are going into the hospital, and they are destroyed. there's still a fountain going. interesting. as we talked there is lightning going across the sky and i'm looking at the destruction of the hospital. >> so bethany, just a little bit of feedback there, so you said obviously you're friends with some doctors and hospital staff and you saw an rn and saw an rn and that rn said they lost four patients? >> she did. she said that there were four patients that they lost, and it could be more that she wasn't aware of and most people wouldn't anything when i tried to talk to them, but she did mention that she lost four patients. >> okay. >> hey bethany, don't go anywhere, i-reporters on top of it. appreciate our i-reporters, and if you send it to i-report.com. [email protected]. listen, i want to go to the person who shot those pictures. put those pictures back up to me. jamie green with the "wichita eagle." walk us through these pictures, please. >> well, i'm not looking in the pictures right now so let me get out of there, so they were taken -- well, let me backtrack and tell me that i was actually in joplin, missouri shooting a wedding for a friend, and -- and my best friend and her 6 yearly daughter and i got caught on the way back from the wedding, and we were actually -- we were about a quarter of a mile away from st. john's hospital so some of the pictures you can see of st. john's hospital, which i understand has been badly damaged, and then we wanted to get out of town pretty quickly so we actually waited there a couple of hours, about an hour i guess and we weren't sure what to do until we were finally able to leave and then i shot some photos on the way out of town. i think you might see a couple of photos of pickup trucks with what looks like some people in the back. wasn't sure their condition. not really sure and i saw a couple of pickup trucks. saw a couple of cars with no windows driving down. a couple of power lines down. trees snapped. roofs gone and what not, just -- just chaos, and -- and i've seen a lot of tornado damage, and this is pretty bad. >> when you see people in the back of pickups, were these people in the hospital, or were these people on their way to the hospital? >> they were on their way to a hospital and not st. john's. i believe it's freeman hospital. i saw two different pickups trying desperately to meander in and out of traffic, you know, and both of those pickups had what was maybe two emergency volunteers in the bed of the truck, kind of, you know, over them, and both of the pickups had two people in the back. >> so that's the picture we're looking at right now. my gosh, jamie, that's unbelievable, and you must just stand there wanting to helping people and realizing there's not much you can do. >> absolutely, you know, and -- and, you know, i was surprised. we were able to get in and out of traffic pretty quickly, and those people in the truck, people were very security yourks obviously, and they were able to move out of the way, you know, and the truck kept honking, and it looked like it was going to the hospital obviously to get them some care. >> don't go anywhere. we'll continue to talk about these pictures. this was going so fast on twitter, monitoring my twitter feed and someone sent a message. an official looking message that said if there's any available medical personnel to please head to joplin, missouri, to help out. it's going so quickly it went down to my feed. i want to say again on cnn, any available medical professionals, according to someone here on twitter and to me it looked like an official tweet, to head to joplin, missouri, to help out. also fema is standing by saying they are standing ready to support missouri after the tornadoes and the severe weather. that e-mail and that is just crossing the wire here into cnn. it's unbelievable. we have jamie green on the phone who shot those pictures. she was working shooting a wedding, shooting wedding photographs and then got caught up on in. one of the storm chasers said the same thing and one of our iyorters on the ground at the hospital. bethany scutti, and she said the windows are blown out and she can't believe it. our meteorologist jacqui jeras with us as well and also chad myers and much, much more as these new pictures come in and we begin to uncover exactly what happened in joplin, missouri, and it's not good. ♪ [ male announcer ] in 2011, at&t is at work, building up our wireless network all across america. we're adding new cell sites... increasing network capacity, and investing billions of dollars to improve your wireless network experience. from a single phone call to the most advanced data download, we're covering more people in more places than ever before in an effort to give you the best network possible. at&t. rethink possible. how about both? with covergirl lashblast fusion. our biggest brush meets our fiberstretch formula for a blast of volume and length. lashblast fusion. from easy, breezy, beautiful covergirl. [ airplane engine whines ] [ grunts ] [ dog barking ] gah! [ children shouting ] [ grunts ] [ whacking piñata ] [ whacking piñata, grunting ] the authentic, the rare, the hard to define. to those always searching for what's pure and what's real from we who believe we know just how you feel. haagen-dazs. festival of shrimp for just $11.99. create your own combination of two of our most tempting selections from favorites to new creations for just $11.99 during the festival of shrimp. ending soon at red lobster. personal pricing now on brakes. tell us what you want to pay. we do our best to make that work. deal! my money. my choice. my meineke. joplin, missouri, hit by a devastating tornado tonight. it just tore through the place. a big part of the city damaged. homes are gone. there are reports as many as 24, if not more people who have died from the storm. i want to get to jamie green now who shot these amazing pictures and what may be one of the pictures that define this whole store. it's of the hospital, st. john hospital in joplin, missouri. the windows blown out and the place really in shambles. when you took that picture, what were you thinking? >> well, i just wanted to document it. it was kind of tough because we were dealing with our own issues, you know, one of the unusual times that, you know, i was living the news event, you know what i mean, so i was with my best friend, she and her 6-year-old daughter. had just gone to her wedding and most all of the people we love in the world are out there somewhere so we're desperately trying to figure out where they were. pretty scary times so i wanted to make sure i document what had was in front of me at that point. >> and this other picture unbelievable, and jaime works for "the wichita eagle," a photographer and this one, people trying to get to the hospital in the back of a pickup truck. >> i actually photographed on that on the way out of town of my car with the windows down and, you know, i shot it and then just really kind of prayed that those people are okay, you know. i don't know. >> after driving down the interstate and you're witnessing this, you can see just how powerful those winds are or were because you see this 18-wheeler, and there were a number of them on their side turned over. amazing. >> yeah. >> so you were six miles away when you were in the middle of this or did you just kind of come up and there's another angle with that picture. this is freeman hospital. another hospital i imagine that they are trying to get people to. >> right, mm-hmm, and that wasn't very far from st. john's, probably. i don't know joplin very well but it seems like a couple of miles from the st. john's hospital. >> we were actually, did you ask if we were in the middle of the storm? >> were we in the middle of it or did you come up just after it? >> no, we were in the middle of it. we must have been sort of on the place that -- the place that we sought refuge was like a -- like a medical office building about a quarter mile away from the st. john's hospital and, i mean, we -- we saw power lines snapping and i saw a huge dumpster fly through the air, and i don't know -- if we weren't in the middle of it, we were pretty darn close and we were outside hovering over a 6-year-old child. >> and stand by, jamie, because it -- don't go anywhere, because i want you to walk us through. she has a number of pictures. each one as amazing as the next and you hear the voices screaming and that's because we had people on the phone, and they are standing out in the middle of this chaos and they are trying, i would imagine, to be directed to move people back. so that's what you're hearing in the background. kathy dennis with the american red cross on the ground in joplin, missouri now. i would imagine you have seen a lot of disasters and talk to me about this one. how does this one rank when you look at the damage here. >> i don't think i've quite seen anything like this before in my life. this is quite devastating. would i say probably 75% of this town is virtually gone. >> and what about when you talk about town, you're talking about buildings and property and what about people? what have you witnessed? >> we're on main street heading down to the red cross office. actually it's taken us two hours to get there and people are walking everywhere. don't know where to go and we do have a shelter set up, and this street here is just -- i mean, there is just knot nothing left on this street as we're on one of the main streets in town. >> we talked to kathy dennis from the american red cross. what do people watching this need to know about the folks in joplin? they are going to need a lot of help? >> they are going to need a lot of help. behind an ambulance right now and springfield is an hour away, and i can see things from everywhere that are just here to help. i've seen helicopters, and as far as what we're going to do, set up a shelter at mmsu and we're going to try to help people as much as we can. >> kathy dennis from the american red cross, stand by. >> still bethany scutti on the i-reporter. >> yes, i'm here. >> i want to talk to you about the four fatalities, that's according to the rns and then our jacqui jeras and our meteorologist have some questions. bethany scutti is an i-reporter and she rushed down to the hospital. luckily she and her family are okay. she and her kids got to safety and she went to the hospital and described the scene and said it's devastating and spoke to an rn friend who said they lost four patients because the hospital was hit, and they are having to set up a triage unit. go ahead, bethany. >> yes, an rn said that they had lost four patients and in icu and another part of the hospital. i also spoke to someone that was working in respiratory at the hospital and said it happened so fast that they could get their bearings before they could move and she was in a stairwell, and she said it was just so loud that it was just a roar, and then they got everybody out as fast as they did. >> jacqui jeras, do you have questions for bethany? how much of that hospital saw the damage? are there rooms exposed? i heard of chunks of the building that have been removed from the tornado. what is the building like? is it still stable? >> i would say it is not stable. it is hard to see to lower floors. the floors here are absolutely devastated. there's debris hang outside of the windows. part of the roof or the whole top of this is missing. i'm standing behind the hospital, and cinder block walls, wick brals are just crumbled. >> describe what your drive was like. ten miles north of the city, your drive, what did you encounter as you entered the devastated area? >> as i was driving in it was raining for me, and i drove south to get towards the hospital, and as i got closer into maybe seventh street and downtown joplin, seventh street and main, apart from seeing debris on the road, the streets started to get very congested. they were blocking the roads to let the emergency vehicles through, and when i realized i couldn't get through this, i turned to go down a side street, i tried to go down 20th street which had a lot of devastation. started seeing trees all over. huge trees laying across the road. laying across houses and parts of the street torn up and there were power lines down. there were people just wandering up and down the street. some of them -- i saw a mother and two children walking down the street. i imagined that maybe they lost their home and were just walking around, but then i saw people walking around who were trying to help. walking around seeing if there was anybody they could help. people driving down the streets and asking if anybody could use help, and as i got closer and closer it was just so much instruction. at one point i looked out and there was a house completely engumped in flames. i could see the smoke from distance and trying to see where it was coming from and then i could see it was from a house completely engulfed in flames all around it. just complete devastation. >> hey, jacqui and bethany, stand by, please. >> okay. >> it's just -- it's devastated to hear what bethany is reporting from the ground, and i have to say this, because this is an emergency situation, and i said that through social media that i had seen someone tweeting about help there. another one is coming through for nurses or doctors looking to help in joplin, missouri. there's a phone number to call, and they are asking you to call the greater ozarks of the red cross and asking for any medical personnel in the area who are coming to the area to help out. of course, they want you to be safe. bethany, chad myers, after this break, i'm also hearing from people saying i want some analysis from chad and jacqui about what's going on and what's causing all these crazy and devastating storms to come through and cause so much damage. back here in a moment with breaking news here on cnn. the pictures are incredible. the stories are even more incredible of survival and of just living through this tornado that ripped through joplin, missouri. we're back in a moment. you're gonna want mr. fuzzyman even more now that we've discovered beneful playful life. with real, wholesome ingredients like beef, egg, and ev