Now authorities are trying to figure out what started that fire. And embarrassed. The father who kicked his young son down a skateboard ramp reveals his side of the story for the first time, today tuesday, april 29th, 2014. From nbc news, this is today, with matt lauer and Savannah Guthrie, live from studio 1a in rockefeller plaza. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to today. The worst Severe Weather outbreak of the year. 118 tornado reports since sunday including more than 80 in the last 24 hours alone. In all 28 people died, 11 of those overnight. Right now tornado watches are posted in georgia and florida. Al and dylan have it covered. Dylan is in hardhit mississippi. Al is in kimberly, alabama. Good morning, guys. You can see what is left of the kimberly first church of god completely destroyed. Across the way the firehouse, town hall has been oblit rated. A lot of folks here are happy to be alive. As you take a look at what happened last night, just last night alone as we put the rad
To be alive. I was waiting for the lights to come back on so i hear the news to see what was going on. I ran and got my purse and got in the closet. I heard the roof come off the house. I say, oh god, the roof is off the house. I know youre going to take care of me. Jenna Jonathan Serrie live at the scene in lewisville, mississippi. Jonathan. Reporter jenna im standing on top of what used to be still valley mississippi baptist church. Many residents are returning to their homes for the very first time, trying to salvage whatever they can. Fortunately, many of the residents here were away. Many of them were here survived, but there were some who were not so fortunate. Now there are active search, rescue and recovery operations underway. A few miles away from here the local hospital, winston medical center, suffered heavy damage when the tornado passed by, knocking down two walls, damaging a third and cause aghast leak at that small hospital. We spoke with one man who had gone there seek
Martha 28 people are now dead over the course of just 48 hours. These twisters touching down across parts of the south, parts of the heartland. Witnesses say it sounded like a bomb went off. We were getting it set. They said the glass fogged up. We heard a big boom. I felt the wind blowing and glass. Whenever i got out, glass started cutting my leg. Before it hit i seen a lightning and the next thing was like a big old explosion hit the house. Bill lets lead our coverage with jonathan serrie. Whats the scene like there, jonathan . Reporter im standing on what used to be a church. You can see the remnants of pews scattered everywhere. Bricks blown out of the walls. This tornado spared nothing in its path. As we pan down the hill you can see residents returning to their homes inspecting their damage and finding varying degreets of things left behind. Then in the distance you see that water tower, there used to be applywood factory right behind it. That factory leveled to the ground. Loui
Reporters are in the center of the zone. So far, 16 people have lost their lives in oklahoma, arkansas, and iowa. Youre looking right now of footage of a tornado that tore through tupelo, mississippi, just a short time ago. We just got this video in from kdr media. The governor there called a state of emergency. The violent storms threatening alabama, louisiana, and tennessee. Tupelos mayor shelton joins me on the phone. Thank you very much. Were just starting to get pictures from where you are. How severe is the damage . Thank you for having me. The damage, as far as residential and commercial property is very devastating. Its theres a widespread total loss in various parts of the city. Thankful right now there have been no reports of causalities. There have been, of course, nonlife threatening injuries fairly widespread, but no causalities as of right now. Which is a miracle, because i believe that when youve been looking at some of the residential areas in tupelo, you said thank god
And folks are probably wanting to get home from work. Dont. Stay put. This is very, very dangerous. This is a life or death situation going on here in northern alabama. So a tornado emergency. Looks like there could be a very large tornado on the ground. Weve been watching what we call velocity. The winds going toward and away from the radar. And this is continuing to track to the north and east. Were seeing these very strong cells continue to push at about 45 Miles Per Hour, wolf. So a very dangerous situation going on here. Possibly a very large tornado on the ground as we speak. Stay very safe. Yeah. Hope folks find a safe area to go to. All right, jennifer, well get back to you. I want to speak to an eyewitness. Scott is joining us on the phone. He saw a tornado on the ground in starkville, mississippi. Scott, tell us what you saw. Hi. Well, i actually intercepted a tornado near the town of lets see here. Just southeast of starkville. And tracked it into louisville to the northeast