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tornadoes in the last 24 hours and all of last year. this is rolling fork, mississippi, one county constable says the community is gone there and what s left? looks like a landfill. at least 24 people are confirmed dead 23 in mississippi , one in alabama and all of last year across the entire country. tornadoes killed 23 people, according to the national weather service. this is already exceeding that right now, state and federal leaders are already mobilizing help to the hardest hit areas. cnn s nick valencia is in rolling fork, mississippi. nick, tell us what you re seeing there. hey jim. we just got here on the ground and it is just, you know, it s awful. it s striking to see these images anywhere. you go in the country , but you know, our attention was certainly grabbed by the site here and just how much damage there is. throughout this town of about 2000 residents were in rolling fork. this is the mississippi delta and this here is one of the staples of the communi ....
This afternoon has actually probably taking a tick in the correct direction. this morning . a lot of those people were still kind of panicking. they were picking up those pieces trying to get in contact with loved ones and see who was hurt, who was accounted for, and actually this afternoon. it s been kind of a breath of fresh air to see there s a lot of volunteers here now handing out free food, free water and a lot of essential amenities. so it s been kind of a nice change of pace. today. it seems like everyone has kind of started to collect them. selves and now begins to clean up process. and aaron. i m just trying to get a sense of what you re seeing on the ground there. we took one aerial view of a few moments ago that looked as though the tornado really just cut a path through this community. is that what you re wide path, obviously , but very destructive path. is that what you re saying? where is the devastation really spread all over the community there. the devastation is defi ....
Of pickup trucks being forwarded to the nearest hospital they could find because the problem was that this town was just, you know, kind of in the middle of nowhere. there s only a couple of river crossings nearby. so a lot of emergency services had to come from vicksburg about 45 miles away. so now it s getting a lot more organized. and they you know things are looking up here for the time being. and you ve chased some storms in the past. how does this compare with what you ve seen in the past? and based on the accounts you ve heard from other people? what was it like being in the middle of this as it was going on? this was definitely one of the fastest developing tornadoes that i had ever documented. i ve seen tornadoes to this caliber before, but they had usually are being the ongoing and on the ground for so long. this started out when we saw the initial touchdown as a small cylinder cone tornado, and within five minutes it had grown until at least a quarter mile wide wedge , very ....
Where all the kids from this one school district in the town came after school to hang out to play. arcade games and to grab a bite to eat. there s nothing really left of it. but damage and debris you could see these cars that are flipped upside down on top of the what used to be a restaurant, and i m told by one of the local residents. this is actually the box chevy here on the side is one of his friends cars and that is usually parked about a half a mile away. so that gives you a sense of just how strong this storm was. we understand it was about a mile wide came in here through through this town of rolling fork 80 mile per hour winds caused all of this damage. i d heard the local official here. call it a landfill and that s really what this looks like. it s just block after block after block of debris, it s not just this one section we ve driven in here from jackson, mississippi, and we saw block after block as i mentioned jim of just homes just destroyed big , huge trees that were ....
And question and children who had been physically and sexually abused in that cult. this took on a major, i can iconography for the anti government far right militia movement in america. this is a major event. this is not something that s just off to the side that people you know, forget about in that strain of far right anti government movements, which you know, crested to some respect after january six, so it s the 30th anniversary. we need to hear what trump says, whether they re obvious dog whistles or less obvious dog whistles to this, um, the town of waco is defined by a lot more than this, but this choice um, speaks loud and clear about what he sees as his base and the really way it makes a mockery of any claim for republicans to represent law and order under his auspices. right and i can t imagine margaret that when they said, well, maybe we should have the rally in waco that there wasn t anybody in his circle on a staff anywhere. who said wait a minute. you know ....