Tornado hits Nashville, Tennessee destroying dozens of buildings, at least 9 dead in state

right there come on there's no way in folks this is moving through the channel five area as we speak right now alright alright folks you need to head to your safe place this

tornado

is on the ground erected in the television station, if you can drive and still listen to me, is a

tornado

pilot flashing around First Tennessee Park right now. and I this is the tornado that is hitting Channel Five as we speak right now tornado on the ground is hitting Channel Five is the city our television station right now is moving through our parking lot as it is now sliding across the very large area tornado tornado base right now as Dan is normal and I continue at a safe distance but we have seen enough now as we continue to watch it and of course it continues to slide you can still hear me you just witnessed live as channel . 5 was hit directly by a tornado.

I can see that the second floor of some houses here in Germantown has been torn out. The brick foundation is in the ground. It's dark here, so it's a little hard to see. The front of AutoZone actually collapsed. over itself there was a car and someone parked in front of AutoZone when this happened a lot of people were kind of stuck where they were when this happened about an hour ago we heard that the people that were inside this car I actually got out and be careful there are some power lines in front of these. They want to get back on the road with me here, so when AutoZone came down on itself, there was a car that was right here, was this your car?

Well, I did it. I didn't realize this is where you were this is our producer and who was here you're doing well yes no no we're just right now what can you? I know it's a little hard to hear how what happened, were you just looking for reassurance? Yeah and just look over here, the microphones are looking at me right, yeah. I mean, I realize what happened. You know, it took a second process. I realized it was fine and then I wanted to see. Do you know what the next steps were? this autozone basically disappeared so I'm very lucky to be alive obviously the car moved?

If you were there? What do you think just looking at this damage? I think I'm lucky to be alive I sure have a lot to process so it wasn't smart to go out and we're glad you're okay. Yes, keep going back to where you need to be and get safe here. Dan keeps coming. I here you can see that the power lines just went down here in Rosa Parks why several houses in this area are without power. You can see the Capitol in the distance. Here we'll take you back to Rosa Parks, actually, where these fire trucks are.

They have started to arrive again this is a situation that is really unfolding in front of us right now basically we got here before the first responders there were people who were just trying to get out of the path of the storm and we are stuck while we were talking to our producer , here I know there was someone in this car that is in the middle of this clock, your feet are, there is a lot of debris out here, as you can imagine, some nails. I think this looks like it's a number of A sign, I think, at the gas station here of the auto parts store that's right in the middle of the ground.

Here you can see the kind of devastation that this solves because we have some firefighters here from the first fire department. that now they are with flashlights going from building to building trying to control people because this happened very quickly that is our dog, are you okay? Yeah, would you mind just moving this building? Where were you? What was it like when she and her friends and just workers boarding up the windows right now the cleanup effort is clearly already underway saying this is just a time to protect your belongings protect everything that's inside the window of this building It was blown up and smashed and with me right now it's actually the The gentleman who owns this business is the first runner How is he doing and what are you guys planning to do now?

We're just trying to get this. We have broken windows, but this one is smashed. We're just trying to get that. secured so that we don't miss any files or have anything else corrupted and avoid getting more weather in there, as you told me before, this is the way that the people of East Nashville are already gathering and trying to contact you to volunteer. I'm sure Griffin is a Travis as an agent here, but Griffin is a neighbor and a friend of mine and he immediately got in this car and came to the woods and said, let's build a fence, so we're just going to put this up. fence real quick and be protected but that's what east Nashville is like that's one of the reasons we like someone here and who lives here light up this address this just shows the sheer power of these tornadoes that came through early this morning along the I-40 corridor, there is destruction everywhere, there are sections of bricks and cinder blocks throughout this entire neighborhood and again that smell of natural gas that you can smell everywhere here again we were exploring some of the neighborhoods around here before and as we're walking around here we're being very careful with these downed power lines that are everywhere and we were talking to some neighbors who said a couple in their 40s got trapped inside their house in the that they actually were. the phone with the emergency dispatchers and okay, at last check, we don't know if they were actually able to get out, but they were okay, they weren't hurt, they were trapped inside their home here around the Barrett Drive area in Mount Juliet, but this It's what I can.

You see house after house after house destroyed by these tornadoes and you