On Tuesday afternoon, several tornadoes tore a path through parts of Texas, including Dallas County. CNN showed incredible footage of the storms, advising those in their path to seek shelter in a basement, if possible.

The footage shows several tractor trailers, trees and powerlines being uprooted by the high winds.

For the past couple of days, CNN has been running two of the most gripping “you are there” news videos you’re likely to see for awhile. Yesterday, it was a clip of one family’s escape from a fiery hellscape in Colorado, captured by their 13 year-old son’s cellphone camera. Today, surveillance footage from inside an Indiana school bus shows the devastating effects of a tornado that ripped the bus apart, throwing it across the street into a diner, minutes after the cool-headed bus driver got all of the kids to safety.

On Friday, liberal radio host Mike Malloy had harsh words for conservative tornado victims, mocking Christians for the natural disasters occurring in own their backyards. “Their God … keeps smashing them into little grease spots on the pavement in Alabama, and Mississippi, and Arkansas, and Georgia, and Oklahoma,” Malloy angrily sniped. “You know, the Bible belt, where they ain’t gonna let no goddamned science get in the way, it says in the Bible, blah blah blah blah blah. So, according to their way of thinking, God with his omnipotent thumb reaches down here and so far tonight has smashed about 20 people into a grease spot on highway 12, or whatever the hell highway they live next to.”

Republican House Majority Leader Eric Cantor appeared on Face the Nation with substitute host Harry Smith and spoke about his earlier call for federal disaster relief funds to be offset with cuts to spending elsewhere in the budget. Cantor did not back down from the statement promising “Congress will find the money” and also confident “it will be offset.”

President Obama arrived in Joplin, Missouri today to tour the areas devastated by the tornado and to deliver a heartfelt and well-received speech at the Joplin Memorial Service. Obama had many inspirational words for the community, saying “we can’t know why we’re tested” and often there are things “beyond our power to control . . . but that does not mean we are powerless in the face of adversity.”

The New York Times‘ Brian Stelter recently visited tornado-ravaged Joplin, Missouri. He live-Tweeted much of his visit and, now, has assembled his thoughts together in a Tumblr post.

As a spate of tornadoes continues to threaten to pummel much of the Midwest, cable news outlets have begun to closely monitor the unfolding disasters of the past few days with alarming alacrity. Broadcast technology now allows live feeds to cover potential funnel clouds forming as though we were watching a car chase, and dayside cable shows are all too eager to cut in with the developing stories. But as is so often the case, East Coast based media outlets fail to understand the larger context; the threat of tornadoes for those who live in the Midwest are not just a breaking stories, but more of a way of life.

An amazing piece of videotape from an Oklahoma television station Tuesday: storm chasers from KFOR-TV found themselves right in the path of a powerful tornado–cameras rolling–as utility poles were pulled from the ground and sent flying. One of those poles narrowly misses the local news crew as they drove along highway 81 near El Reno, Oklahoma. As the storm chaser describes it as a “killer tornado,” a utility pole is hurled directly at the car, but passing overhead. “It almost got us,” said the station’s storm chaser on live television in a clip that was quickly picked up by television networks Tuesday night.

In order to gain additional perspective on the massive damage sustained by the town of Joplin, Missouri, we spoke with a former Joplin resident – TJ Holmes, host of the weekend morning edition of CNN Newsroom.

Holmes, who once worked for an NBC affiliate in Joplin as well as in other Southern cities dotted across “Tornado Alley,” told us that the damage to the city is so extensive that even one 20-year resident found himself losing his bearings.

In Missouri, one man’s phone literally saved his life as he sent a text message to his best friend confirming “I’m alive.” With the rampant devastation in Missouri from tornadoes, it’s nice to see this fortunate rescue and hopefully many more will take place.

Weather Channel meteorologist Mike Bettes was one of the first journalists to arrive in Joplin, Missouri shortly after the mile-wide tornado tore through the town. Bettes and his crew, who’d been tracking the storm, arrived before some of the first responders–an experience that was overwhelming even for a reporter who’s seen plenty of storm damage. In a live report, Bettes was comparing what he saw to the damage in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and became too emotional to continue, his photographer silently scanning the scene as Bettes attempted to regain his composure enough to continue.

While Lawrence O’Donnell and Orly Taitz were entangled in their gruesome paso doble, and Rachel Maddow talked about talking about birthers while Ann Coulter talked about MSNBC talking about talking about birthers, a series of tornados violently ripped through the southern United States (and now there are tornado warning reaching as far north as New Jersey), causing over one hundred deaths and extensive damage. Alabama’s Tuscaloosa County was one of the hardest hit areas, and Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox took some time out to call In The Arena‘s Eliot Spitzer in order to talk about the challenges the area is facing in the aftermath of the storm.

Robby Franklin was at home with his family in the town of Odenville, Alabama Wednesday morning when a tornado–that he thought was safely North of town–made a direct hit on his neighborhood. Franklin describes exactly what happened inside his home yesterday morning in the first wave of severe storms that passed through central Alabama, killing at least 125 people.

Franklin survived, but as he shows you in the video, his home was devastated by the storm.

Video shot by Dixon Thuston of Birmingham, Alabama captures what looks like a double tornado–or double funnel–as it moved through the town of Cullman, Alabama Wednesday. The video is one of many frightening images captured as deadly storms swept through the South.

More storms are expected in the region today.

Lost in all of the media hubub surrounding President Obama‘s birth certificate and Donald Trump‘s promotional racket is a much more catastrophic story unfolding in the deep south: massive tornadoes have wreaked havoc on the city of Tuscaloosa Alabama and numerous towns in rural Alabama and unconfirmed reports of numerous fatalities are already surfacing on Twitter.

Late last Friday a tornado touched down inside St. Louise airport, causing severe damage to Concourse C and shattering windows. Surveillance video has been released revealing the inside of Concourse C as the tornado touched down inside (or at least very near) the St. Louis airport. While the airport reopened this weekend, Concourse C remains closed. Watch the video below:

A YouTube video captures the real-time destruction of a tornado ripping the roof off a Billings, Montana sports arena known as MetraPark yesterday. As yet, no deaths have been reported, but the video after the jump shows an enormous funnel cloud and lots of debris dangerously swirling in the air.

Earlier today New Yorkers received an unusual alert: the city, and surrounding areas, had been placed under a Tornado watch. Fortunately for us the storm mostly passed by. The Midwest, sadly, did not fare so well. Northern Ohio, in particular, was hit badly and at least seven people were reportedly killed in what was described as a “war zone” of destruction.