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Apparent Tornado Plows Through Paramount, California

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

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: We have a developing story in Southern California. An apparent tornado has plowed through the Los Angeles County community of Paramount earlier today.

For the very latest, let's turn to CNN L.A. affiliate KTLA and reporter Jennifer Rourke (ph) with a view from above.

Jennifer, what's the story thus far today?

JENNIFER ROURKE, KTLA-TV: Well, very unusual to have this happen here. We are flying over the Paramount area. Take a look here at this overturned mobile home park. This is one of many that have been devastated in this tornado that came down about 4:00 this morning, winds of about 100 miles per hour precisely touching down at various spots throughout this Golden State Mobile Home Park.

We're going to focus here on one of the corners. You'll see a lot of this metal that apparently makes these kind of porches just crumbled and shredded, some of that metal actually being thrown and tossed across power lines through the area.

Speaking of power lines, if you take a look here at our shot, there's about 10,000 customers that are without power at this time.

We're crossing over a main street called Garfield. That's where the entrance of the mobile home park is. Now, this occurred about 4:00 this morning. Could you imagine sleeping and waking up to the sound that many people are saying was like a freight train tearing through the area, much like an earthquake?

Look at the roof here of this industrial complex that faces the mobile home park.

We're going to continue to head in a southeasterly pattern across Paramount, the damage extending for about a mile and a half in very precise points. They were kind of calling the action kind of hopscotching across here.

Here's another industrial complex. You'll see all the debris, tossed and turned trees, uprooted. We've got power lines that have literally been broken in two. We're going to cross over some railroad tracks and then you'll see more debris.

Again, there's about 100 mobile homes in this mobile home park. It looked like at least 20 to 30 have been destroyed by this tornado that occurred at 4:00 this morning.

HEMMER: Jennifer.

ROURKE: Not only did we have these high winds, we also had hail coming down, strong cells of rain pouring down into this area as well.

HEMMER: Yes, Jennifer, give us an idea where you are relative to downtown Los Angeles.

ROURKE: We're about -- maybe 30 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles. We're just a little bit north of Long Beach. The main freeways here are the 710 and the 91. We're northeast of the 710-91 interchange here in the North Long Beach-Paramount area.

HEMMER: The other think, Jennifer, it happened, according to the information I have, 5:00 a.m. local time. It still would have been dark out. Any word on injuries in that area of Paramount.

ROURKE: Amazingly enough, we had one person only transported to a nearby hospital.

This actually, we believe, happened between the hours of 4:00 and 5:00, pitch black out here. And, again, as you see all the devastation, it's truly amazing that no one else was injured.

Now, a lot of these people also have animals. We've seen people walking out with their birds in their cages. We've watched people in their housecoats holding their animals. Again, we've only been told that one person at this point has been -- has suffered minor injuries.

HEMMER: And, Jennifer, based on your own history out there, has anything like this ever occurred. You mentioned the mile-per-hour reading there, better than 100 miles per hour. Give us some history, quickly.

ROURKE: You know, we have never really experienced anything like this at this kind of extent. Funny, though, that it has happened before in Long Beach where we've had small twisters touch down and maybe uproot a couple of trees, but nothing to this extent. And, on top of that, we're hearing that this tornado possible touched down in the Diamond Bar area, and also in Roland Heights. So we have yet to get to those areas as well.

We also had a tree that went across all the freeway lanes of the 5, which is a major route here. The 5 southbound has been closed down for almost two hours. They just were able to finally reopen that as well.

HEMMER: All right, well, listen: We'll cut you lose. Thanks for taking time with us.

Jennifer Rourke from KTLA there, flying above Southern California.

Jennifer, thanks again.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Those folks at KTLA help us out big time on breaking news in the morning.

HEMMER: That they do, yes. Really, really odd stuff there, huh?

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