It was awesome. Woodruff plus, Silicon Valley turns its gaze to the stars. Tech startups are working on commercial space flights, mining the moon, and more. Were trying to build the iphone of satellites. The beauty of this approach is that for less than the cost of a single imaging satellite in todays world we can launch a entire constellation of satellites. Woodruff those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Ifill they searched for victims and tallied the damage today, after a barrage of tornadoes hit the midwest on sunday. At least eight people were killed, and scores more were hurt. The most powerful storm cut a path roughly an eighth of a mile wide, clear across one illinois town of 16,000 people. Terrified townspeople watched and prayed as the giant funnel ripped through washington, illinois, sunday. Winds of almost 200 Miles Per Hour tore at trees and blasted homes to bits. This is what my house looks like after a tornado came through. In a matter of minutes it was all over. Then residents surveyed the damage, up to 500 homes damaged or destroyed. And cars crushed into mangled metal. Today an emotional mayor gary minere vowed his town will recover. That is what this community is about. We love our neighbors and were going to bounce back from this. And i want to thank the surrounding communities that have reached out in droves of people. It looked like a parking lot last night so many people came into our community to help us. We had to finally shut the community down and say no more. We cant have if i more help. Reporter deadly storms from the same weather front raged across the midwest throughout the day on sunday. Pulling trees out of the ground and flipping cars. Its hard. I couldnt even walk out here last night. I kept wanting to be inside. You get like a little depression mode. So i dont have that drive just of yet to lets go and rebuild again. Illinois governor pat quinn ultimately declared disasters in seven counties. He too visited the town of washington today. Its very, very important that at this time we finish our searchandrescue efforts all across our state to make sure there is no one in harm away. But upon completion of that, our mission now is to recover. And we will recover. We will prevail over these tornadoes. Reporter in addition to illinois twisters and damaging winds hit a dozen states. In this image from the National Weather service, red dots symbolize more than 80 tornado reports across the region. The blue dots stand for high winds from thunderstorms. Those storms knocked down power lines in town after town, at 800,000 homes and businesses were still in the dark this morning. Forecasters have sounded an early alert but it was so highly unusual to see that many storms with that much power, this late in the year. With winter quickly approaching, the focus is now on cleaning up and making neighborhoods livable, as the mayor of washington pointed out. The fortunate thing is this thing hit in november. And november is not the construction season to that we build homes in this part of our state and part of our country. So its going to be a longer process than if it happened in march. Reporter for now know police are keeping people out of the worsthit areas until they are declared safe. The tragedy left many questions about the questions about the intensity and volume of the twisters, as well as the unusual timing. For answers, we turn to Howard Bluestein, a professor of meteorology at the university of oklahoma. You for joining us, professor. We just saw that map in which all of those reported tornadoes throughout the entire midwest. How unusual was it to see a wave of storms like this . Well, its very unusual to see a wave of storms like this this time of year. This is something that we expect might happen in march or april. But its extremely unusual to have such a wide spread outbreak in the midwest in november. Ifill lets walk through some of the unusual features here. When was the time of day when these tornadoes struck . Were kind of used to hearing about Late Afternoon warnings that come, touchdowns of tornadoes. But not an Early Morning one. Yes, this was extremely unusual. I believe the storms began around 9 00 in the morning. And usually we need to get the suns heating during the day to get the storms going am but in this case, a very, very powerful storm system came through that lifted the air very, very early. And we didnt need to get to be very warm for the storms to be triggered. Ifill how about the time of year. We heard the mayor of washington, illinois, say its not construction see son, its not the time when they are usually building houses. In fact, were on the lip of winter. How unusual was it for to us see tore tad tornadoes like this touchdown this time of year . I think this sets an illinois record for the number of tornadoes in november. This time of the year in midnovember, we expect to see snow starting to fall. But instead, very, very warm air came up from the gulf of mexico. The moisture came up from the gulf of mexico and this time of year, it usually doesnt make it that far north. Ifill so do we have any reason of understanding why it did this time . Well, i think this may have been just one unusual event. A storm system came in on friday, an upper level storm system, moved in from canada into the pas civic northwest. It tracked across the country and just before it hit illinois when it was over iowa, it rapidly amplified and intensified. And so i think that was what was mainly responsible for producing this particular outbreak. Ifill ive seen reports of everything from a couple of dozen to 42, we just saw 80 reported tornadoes toching down in that region, all those dozen states. Do we have a count . Is there any way to know what the count is . We dont have a good count right now yet. There may have been 80 or more reports of tornadoes. But many of those reports were from the same tornado as it moved along a part. So i expect that the National Weather service will probably go out and do damage surveys and after the damage surveys we should know how many tornadoes there actually were. Ifill in terms of intensity and speed and scope, how does this compare to other weather events like this weve seen, especially tornadoes in the midwest . Well, this is not one of the most intense outbreaks weve ever seen. There were no ef5 tornadoes as far as i know. Although after the damage survey, its possible that they may find some evidence of ef5 damage. But one thing that was special about these particular tornadoes was that they were moving very quickly from southwest to northeast. And if they are moving at 50 miles an hour, that adds 50 miles an hour on to whatever speeds are of the tornado vortex. So that may have also contributed to the intensity of the tornadoes being relatively high. Ifill even though 8 people sadly died, there was a lot of damage. Was there a lot of alerts that went out in advance that prevented this from having been worse . This particular event was extremely well forecast by the National Weather service. The night before the National Weather service issued a Public Statement warning the public of a possible Severe Weather outbreak. And early in the morning, very early in the morning, a highrisk of Severe Weather was issued. This is the highest level that can be forecast and issued. Ifill its good that they had some warning, at least. Professor Howard Bluestein of the university of oklahomaing thank you so much. Youre well come ifill theres word today that a new online calculator appears to greatly overestimate cholesterol risks. The new tech tool was unveiled last week by the American Heart Association and the American College of cardiology. But the New York Times reported today the calculator can mistakenly suggest that millions of people take statin drugs, when they dont need them. The medical groups defended their overall guidelines and said theyll look into the calculator issue. Workers began a major step toward a full cleanup of a ruined Nuclear Power plant at fukushima in japan. Tokyo electric Power Company began removing radioactive fuel rods from a reactor damaged during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. To prevent overheating, the rods were placed in a steel cask before being lifted from a storage pool. The utilitys president said the process is off to a good beginning. Today we reached an important milestone at the fuch seema daiichi power station. Im pleased to report to yo you has started on time. And progressed safely ifill the operation involves moving more than 1,500 sets of fuel rods to a safer location. Its expected to last until the end of 2014. The man acquitted of killing florida teenager Trayvon Martin is in trouble with the law again. George zimmerman was charged today with assault and battery in apopka, florida. Hed been arrested at a home he shared with his girlfriend. Last july, zimmerman was found not guilty in the martin shooting. Since then, hes been stopped for driving violations, and had a domestic dispute with his estranged wife. Nasas latest mission to mars lifted off from Cape Canaveral this afternoon. The goal is to help explain why the martian climate evolved from warm and wet in its first billion years, to cold and dry today. As this nasa animation shows, the maven explorer is to enter the red planets orbit in ten months time, carrying eight scientific instruments to analyze mars upper atmosphere. Wall street passed a couple of milestones today, then retreated. The s p 500 crossed 1800 at one point, before finishing the day with a loss. And the Dow Jones Industrial average traded above 16,000 for the first time. But by days end, it gained just 14 points to close at 15976. The nasdaq fell 39 points to close at 3949. It was led by selloffs of facebook and twitter stock. Still to come on the newshour one familys long search for Health Insurance. Relief difficulties continue in the philippines. Silicon valley shoots for the moon. Part two of our newsmaker interview with the new head of the a. T. F. And the screenwriter behind the film 12 years a slave, John Ridley Woodruff the white house said today 20 of americans will still not be able to buy Health Insurance on the federal Exchange Website by the end of the month. Instead, theyll need to sign up by phone or in person, in many cases because of the complexity of their situation. But in advance of a congressional hearing, a Senior Obama Administration official was quoted as saying healthcare. Gov is improving, and said they are working on making it easier for people to understand whether they are eligible for subsidies. Thats been a problem for many up to now. It brings us to our series on reactions to the Affordable Care act. Tonight, we hear from a couple in colorado who are finally able to insure their family with the help of a subsidy, through a tax credit. My name is joaquin montez. And my name is rosalee montez. We live in nevada, colorado and we have three kids. Our oldest is a daughter, and shes in college. And we have a middle, he is a son and hes 13th and es 1 8 grader. Our little one is four years old. We met in high school in the 9th grade i think was. And weve been together 24 years. 25. 25. I work in a warehouse and i do not get health benefits. I work in a warehouse as well doing commercial signage. And they dont offer any benefits. Its too small of a company. We havent had insurance because its pretty expensive for us. You know, even though we have a twoincome household, it gets really expensive. Its thats the water. We looked into Health Insurance before and it ranges from about 450 to 600 depending on who you go through and what kind of deductibles you have and stuff like that. So its kind of expensive for us on top of a house payment, a car payment, as well as making sure our kids and fed and stuff like that. So normally what we do when our kid does get really, really, really sick, we take them to urgent care, you know, because we cant afford any hospital bills and stuff. And its kind of a flat ratement you pay as you go. But it gets pretty pricey. Our son plays football and has broken his collarbone twice, one right after the other, same spot. We had to go to urgent care both times. There was another time too where my oldest daughter had got real sick from something she had ate. And you know, there was really nothing we could do to help her out. We tried to wait it out as much as we could but she was really in pain. So we took her to the hospital. And it was pretty expensive. She got e coli. So i think that bill ended up being close to 17,000. How was your day today. I was always worried and anxious. I try to do the best i can when they are sick here to remedy them at home. But there are things you cant do. Its such a big load to carry because youre just on a daily basis youre wondering if your kids are healthyment and when theyre not youre just trying to figure out different ways to get them healthy without the insurance. We first heard about the obamacare through a Community Outreach program. One of the guys that i talked mentioned to me that there were other people in the program that could help us out with obamacare. So we called the lady that worked there. And she didnt hesitate. I think two days later we actually met with her. Got into her office. She sat us down. We filled out the applications and thats how we went about applying for it. We kind of got split up in our insurance. The kids are on chp and a Government Program that insurances children and theyre separate from what we qualified for. We qualified for basic insurance. With ot bamacare the main cost will be 450 per month. Obamacare, the tax credits will give us 287 a month to apply towards that bill so our final bill will be 155 a month. Now that the tax cede sit helping us out, were able to afford it. Dear lord we thank you for blessing us with another day, father. Knowing that we have that, and that we can qualify for something because there have been so many times weve been turned down to be qualified for anything, to have somebody actually say yes, you qualify this and this is what you are able to get, we could actually breathe now. You know, actually say we got insurance, you know. So it was awesome. Woodruff as we have throughout, we try to fill out the bigger picture. Tonight, julie rovner of npr is back to help us out. Thanks, judey. Woodruff so we just saw the story of the montez family in colorado. Generally who is eligible to apply for and get a subsidy like the one they got . Its people who are in between 100 and 400 6 poverty. People dont realize there is actually a floor. If you earn under 100 6 poverty are you not eligible to purchase on the exchange it was assumed those people would be getting the expanded medicaid, in the states that are doing that they will, in the other half of the states they could fall between the cracks, but if you are up to 400 of poverty, that is about 46,000 for an individual, up to about 94,000, so well into the middle class for a family of four, you will be eligible for some subsidy. Obviously the subsidies are larger the lower your income is and smaller as your income gets higher. If you are not clear about it, you go to the web site and you start to put in information, thats when you find out whether you are eligible. Thats how it is supposed to work. And thats been a lot of where the problem has been is trying to figure out exactly how big your subsidy is. And theres this data hub that you are supposed to put in your income and its supposed to go and look at your income from through the irs and figure out exactly what your subsidy is going to be and come back and tell you that. Then its supposed to show you these plans with your subsidy applied. So you are supposed to see how much it will cost you with that subsidy included. Woodruff so when it works correctly, and i hear you saying it hasnt always been working correctly what is supposed to happen . You go to the site or youre on the phone and what happens. You go to the site or youre on the phone. Youre supposed to get qualified, basically, find out what kind of subsidy you are eligible for. And then you go and choose a plan and basically that discount, it becomes a discount. And so you pay as we just saw in the piece, the family is only going to pay the subsidized price. Its not like you have to ask for the tax credit at tax time. That tax credit get as plied on a monthtomonth basis. Then at tax time you reconcile f you have underpaid, you pay a little more. If you have overpaid you get a little bit of pun back. That was my question. This was in the form of its not just that you pay a lower premium, its that this literally comes off your income tax. Thats right, its a tax credit but it is what we call an advanceable, refundable tax credit so it gets applied to your monthly premium. But then when you file your taxes, you basically have to make sure that you got the right amount. Woodruff and again its not this year, 2013, it will start to take effect in 2014 when they would start to pay the premium. Thats right. And would you basically, so you will file it in april of 2015 when dow your 2014 taxes. So as people have tried this, what kinds of things have they run into as theyve tried to apply for this. A lot of people have had trouble basically getting, you know, this estimate of what their subsidy will be. That was the biggest difficult for a lot of people was finding out what that subsidy is its also the biggest difficulty in people outside trying to sign up. A lot of outside groups, the insurance companies, some outside private exchanges like e Health Insurance have wanted to sign up but they call the subsidy eligible people. There are a lot of them.