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Morning News

Clean-Up Continues in Fort Worth; FEMA To Assess Destruction

Aired March 30, 2000 - 10:06 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: It's now 15 minutes past 9:00 in the morning in Fort Worth, Texas, but much of the downtown area still virtually deserted. A 12-block area closed now for the second straight morning, as workers try to remove the lingering threat left by Tuesday's tornadoes. Huge shards of broken glass now dangling far above the streets, poised there like guillotines.

CNN national correspondent Tony Clark now with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TONY CLARK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): North Texans began assessing the damage, cleaning up after Tuesday night's deadly double twisters that smashed through Fort Worth and surrounding communities.

Downtown Fort Worth remains off-limits to the public, because more than half a dozen buildings, many of them high-rises, have shattered windows and glass hanging precariously above the street.

LT. KENT WORLEY, FORT WORTH FIRE DEPT.: If they were to break loose, there is no telling where they're going to land. They can go for several blocks, obviously the major damage. So those areas around those buildings we are going to continue to keep closed off until we can get up there and take care of those problems.

CLARK: On the west side of downtown, the Cash America building and the offices of the FBI appeared to have been directly in the tornadoes path.

BRAD WHEELER, FBI: The noise that that creates is just deafening. You can't hear yourself think, even. It was amazingly loud.

CLARK: Throughout the day, search crews combed through the wreckage the tornadoes left behind looking for more injured.

WORLEY: We do not have any reports of missing people at this time, but we're still wanting to do that so that we feel comfortable that we've done everything possible.

CLARK: It was also a day for trying to salvage personal belongings from homes flattened by the high winds. Residential areas in neighboring Arlington, Texas, and Grand Prairie were destroyed, leaving some people happy just to have survived. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I mean, you've just got to thank God that you wake up to look at this, because it's awful.

CLARK: Governor George Bush declared Tarrant County a disaster area and asked for federal disaster help as well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CLARK: This morning, volunteers have come here to the South Arlington neighborhood that was hit by the tornado. Throughout the morning, they have been removing some of the debris. Lately, they -- it looks like they've been getting some instructions on different areas to go to, where to take the debris so that it can be picked up by crews.

In this particular area, the Arlington area, some 93 homes were destroyed by the tornado, another 1,000 or so suffered some sort of damage.

In Fort Worth itself and downtown Fort Worth in the Fort Worth area, estimates are $157 million worth of damage. The Federal Emergency Management Agency sending in its representatives today to try and determine how much and what kind of help the federal government should give.

Tony Clark, CNN, in Arlington, Texas.

HEMMER: Tony, thank you.

As Tony mentioned, downtown Fort Worth still a mess today.

For the latest from there, we turn to reporter Brandon Todd with our affiliate KDFW.

What's happening thus far, Brandon, with the sun up there now on this second morning?

BRANDON TODD, KDFW-TV REPORTER: Well, Bill, this morning it's a little easier to get in to downtown Fort Worth because some of the streets that were closed yesterday are now open. But as you said before, there is a major part of downtown, probably a third of the area, still shut down.

Right behind me is one of those areas. It's this tall building right behind me, you can see, is the Bank One Tower. Just about every window in this building is completely blown out. And you can see large shards of glass hanging there. The danger is falling glass. Workers are inside this building, as I speak, and they are literally pounding out sections -- large sections of glass. And as they pound them out, they float helplessly to the ground and crash down at least 100 feet from the base of this building. And it is quite a dangerous situation, as Fort Worth police officers have blocked the streets leading to these buildings, set up barricades, and they're not letting anyone inside.

If we can come back out live here, you can see the police car sitting in front of this street, blocking off this area. And right behind it, a small little center there, that is a car that has been sitting here since the storm hit. The windows of that car, as you can see, completely blown out.

That is the same situation with the cars about a block up, all of them sitting here -- all of them have been sitting here since that tornado ripped through here. And all of the windows of these cars just blown out.

Lieutenant Governor Rick Perry of Texas yesterday took a tour of downtown with Fort Worth Mayor Kenneth Barr. He said at a press conference, his words, "Downtown Fort Worth looks a little more like downtown Beirut."

I'm Brandon Todd, reporting live from downtown Fort Worth, Texas.

HEMMER: Brandon, thank you.

Our thanks also to KDFW there in central Texas with the latest there.

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