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
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 t