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Of 200 and up to 210. those winds destroyed neighborhoods, leveling a city block after block. the miracle, it appears tonight that only 24 people have died. they say no one is still unaccounted for but the numbers could change. today cnn looked at the destruction. and brian todd went through some of the blocks with the city s mayor. reporter: we drove past blocks and blocks of shredded homes, mangled cars and fallen power lines. this is just one of the devastated neighborhoods in moore, oklahoma. the mayor, glen lewis, showed us some of the hardest hit areas. he s trying to get a handle on the scope of the destruction on the town he s lived in all his life. how overwhelmed do you feel? pretty overwhelmed. it s going to be a mess to clean this up. so but we ll do it. reporter: the mayor took us to the ruins of the moore ....
And good evening, everyone. i m erin burnett. recovery in oklahoma. the mayor of the city of moore tells cnn, late today, and i want to quote him because this is the wonderful news of the day. we don t have anybody missing. after yesterday s deadly 1.3-mile wide tornado, more than 100 people were pulled alive from the rubble. moore fire chief bird said every structure searched three times and when you see these pictures and realize the magnitude of what that means, it brings home how many people worked tirelessly with no sleep to try to save lives. cadaver dogs were searching homes in the community as you see there trying to make sure to find people, anyone alive. and some residents risked the dangers of downed power lines and debris to go through what was left of their homes. now, the death toll changed overnight and dropped dramatically. now standing at 24. including nine children. every one of those a tragedy. ....
Women and the dogs, the search and cadaver dogs through that work and you heard you mentioned the city manager here in moore saying a bit earlier they believe there s nobody unaccounted for and as you see the recovery effort here, a billion dollars to come ahead and the thing that counts most, lost life, as i noted we may be standing tonight in the middle of a miracle. john thing, thank you very much. as john said, with 24 dead, you know, so mard to describe it as a miracle but it is. last night around 1:00 in the morning eastern time we were looking at numbers close to 100 that looked like they would go so much higher. i want to bring in the lieutenant governor of oklahoma now, todd lamb. lieutenant governor lamb, in some ways a miracle. when you the pictures and think about how bad some of the initial reports were that so many people have been found alive and are alive. you re right. of course, as you have alluded to, erin, if you lose one, ....
No child or adult at this point? erin, i m trying to get the information i could all day. i knew that we would be visiting again this evening and had several interviews throughout the day. the first time i heard that everybody was accounted for was just now on your program so i ll do my best to confirm that. of course, i want to be very sensitive to the fact i don t say too much or information that may not be accurate. that may very well be but the first time i heard it so you might have breaking news on that fact. all right. well, thank you very much, lieutenant governor. and again, for our viewers, it was the mayor of the city of moore that just told us late today that we don t have anybody missing but as you hear from the lieutenant governor they re still trying to ascertain and john king reporting once again going door to door and will have gone in to every structure, remains of the truck which you are at least three times to confirm they have found everyone. a day after the ci ....
reporter: these are the frantic moments after the tornado struck brianwood elementary school in moore, oklahoma. chaos instantly wrapped in the comforting arms of parents and teachers. snapshots that captured the emotion, words can t fully do justice. this is where we find tammy and her second grade class. i can t even describe what was going through my head. i was numb. reporter: as the tornado sirens blaired and teachers moved students to safe positions, tammy stepped outside. reporter: this is what you saw just right before we went in. reporter: she snapped this picture of the twister barrelling at the classroom. she raced inside and courtroomed about 20 students in to a closet and bathroom. reporter: what do you tell a bunch of second grade little kids? at that moment? before i shut the doors, because the bathroom had doors, i said i love you. the boys looked at may little ....