Nightly News   |  April 16, 2011

Tornadoes wreak havoc across country

NBC's Lester Holt talks with The Weather Channel's Jeff Morrow about the storm system sweeping across the country and heading north and east Saturday night.

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This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>> jeff morrow is in raleigh . as we noted, one of several cities in north carolina struck by tornadoes today. jeff, what's the latest from there?

>> reporter: lester, it's being called the worst severe outbreak around the raleigh area since 1988 . that goes back a long way and a lot of severe weather seasons. today was the third day in a row that severe thunderstorms have raked across the south. today was north carolina 's turn. as a big tornado developed to the southwest of raleigh , it skipped along and moved to the northeast and moved right over the downtown area , which is where i'm at. you can see some of the damage here behind me, a lot of tree damage across the city, down on cars, blocking roadways. nearby shaw university also sustaining some major damage, parts of roofs coming off, some windows shattered. it's just a real mess here, a lot of emergency vehicles moving about. but from what we understand so far, there hasn't been any fatalities. now, this was not the only tornado to occur across north carolina . also, numerous tornadoes down toward the dunn area and wilson area as well, lester. a lot of cleanup ahead here.

>> jeff morrow in raleigh , thank you.