• Focus in Oklahoma turns to monumental cleanup and helping displaced families

    Adrees Latif / Reuters

    Taylor Tennyson sits in the front yard as family members salvage the remains of their home, devastated by the Moore tornado.

    By Erin McClam and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News

    Authorities in tornado-ravaged Oklahoma turned their attention Wednesday from the search for victims to the colossal tasks of cleaning up miles of wreckage and helping perhaps thousands of people who lost their homes in the storm.

    While they planned to keep looking, rescuers were increasingly confident that they had accounted for everyone killed or trapped by the tornado, which weather officials said packed wind stronger than 200 mph.

    As cleanup crews faced acre after acre of wrecked homes, particularly in the shattered Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, heartbreaking portraits of the 24 people confirmed dead in the twister began to emerge.

    Authorities had named seven victims by Wednesday morning, including at least four believed to be children. Among them were a third-grader remembered for her ever-present smile and a 65-year-old man separated from his wife when the tornado struck.

    Federal relief workers set out trying to reach families displaced by the storm but said they faced challenges: Cellphones were not working in some places, and other people were focused on salvaging their belongings before they registered for help.

    Slideshow: Tornadoes ravage Plains

    Joshua Lott / AFP - Getty Images

    A monster tornado hit Moore, Okla., Monday afternoon, leaving at least 24 dead as the threat of further storms continues.

    Launch slideshow

    Craig Fugate, the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, told MSNBC that about 1,000 people had registered with FEMA. He said teams would go through neighborhoods Wednesday looking for more.

    “Right now it’s about getting people a place to stay who have lost their homes,” he said on “Morning Joe.” “We want to make sure they are getting the help they need.”

    An Oklahoma City fire official said the search of debris was expected to be finished by 8 a.m. ET Wednesday. Authorities in Oklahoma planned a news briefing for early afternoon.

    “As far as I know, of the list of people that we have had, that they are all accounted for in one way or another,” Oklahoma County Commissioner Brian Maughan said on Tuesday. The Moore fire chief said he was 98 percent sure everyone had been found.

    Gov. Mary Fallin said on Tuesday that there were 237 injured. One hospital, Oklahoma University Medical Center, said it had 93 patients from the twister, including 59 children.

    Seven children were killed at Plaza Towers Elementary School, which was all but leveled.

    A tour given to NBC’s TODAY revealed forgotten everyday fixtures of grade school — a basketball covered by splinters of wood, a tattered map of the United States, a textbook about the volcano destruction at the ancient Italian city of Pompeii.

    There were no official estimates of damage, but the Moore tornado was expected to be the most expensive in the United States since one that hit Joplin, Mo., two years ago Wednesday, killing 162 people and causing $3 billion in damage.

    Weather authorities on Tuesday upgraded the Moore tornado from an EF4 rating to EF5, the most severe, meaning it had packed 200-mph winds.

    Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano planned to travel to Moore on Wednesday to meet with the governor. Meanwhile, the people of Moore planned to keep combing through the ruins and salvaging what they could.

    On Tuesday, David Kirsch clutched a recovered American flag and said: “This represents the hope that we can be better off. Because where else in the world could you walk away from this and get back up on your feet?”

    Reuters contributed to this report.

    This story was originally published on Wed May 22, 2013 5:10 AM EDT

  • Trooper suspended after women sue over roadside cavity searches

    By Frank Heinz and Ken Kalthoff, NBCDFW.com

    A Texas state trooper has been suspended with pay, officials said Wednesday, after two women claimed they were subjected to intimate body cavity searches at the roadside in full view of the public.

    The two women, from Irving, Texas, are suing two state troopers and the director of the Department of Public Safety, alleging they were violated during what they call an unconstitutional search on State Highway 161 on July 13.

    Angel Dobbs and her niece Ashley Dobbs were stopped for littering by Trooper David Farrell.

    In a dashcam video released by the women and their attorney, Farrell can be heard telling the women they would both be cited for throwing cigarette butts out of the car.

    Farrell called for a female trooper, Kelley Helleson, to come to the scene and began to ask questions about what he described as “an odor of marijuana” coming from the car, according to the video. Angel Dobbs denied smoking marijuana, and said she had borrowed the car.

    'Humiliated'
    After Helleson arrived, she can be seen in the video putting on blue latex gloves to conduct a search of both women. According to the lawsuit, when Angel Dobbs asked about the gloves, Helleson "told her not to worry about that."

    Pulled over for littering, women given body cavity searches

    In the lawsuit, Dobbs said the trooper conducted the cavity search on the roadside, illuminated by the police car's headlights, in full view of any passing motorists.

    "This has been an eye-opening experience for me. I've never been pulled over, never searched like this. I was totally violated over there a few minutes ago... this is so embarrassing to me," Angel Dobbs said on the video.

    "I've never been so humiliated or so violated or felt so molested in my entire life," Angel Dobbs told NBCDFW.com.

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    The lawsuit further alleges that Helleson performed the searches on both women without changing the latex gloves between searches.


    "I don't think anybody needs to have to feel, or go through what we went through," Ashley Dobbs said. "It crosses my mind every day. It's humiliating," she said.

    The Department of Public Safety told NBCDFW.com that Helleson had been suspended with pay.

    There had been no other suspensions as of Wednesday night, NBCDFW.com reported.

    No narcotics or contraband was found, according to the lawsuit.

  • 2 bodies recovered from Mount Rainier

    By KING5

    Two bodies recovered from Mount Rainier's Paradise Glacier late Friday afternoon are likely members of a group of four climbers that were lost in January, park officials say. The body of a third climber was found nearby in August. Search efforts are continuing.


    Park officials said on Thursday, while conducting routine resupply operations to Camp Muir by helicopter, a body was spotted hanging over the edge of a large crevasse on the Paradise Glacier southeast of Anvil Rock. In addition, camping and climbing gear could be seen strewn across the bottom of the crevasse.

    The body was partially buried under about 5 feet of snow and clearly had been in place for some time. The site is about a quarter mile east of the standard climbing route and on the other side of a ridge, at about 8,200-foot elevation.

    On Friday, climbing rangers retrieved the body of a woman from the crevasse. A man's body was then recovered from under the snow nearby.

    Watch US News videos on NBCNews.com

    Both individuals were transported by ambulance to the Pierce County Medical Examiner, who will determine their identities and causes of death.

    Four climbers in two separate parties were lost in this vicinity during January storms. On Aug. 6, the body of Mark Vucich was found near the climbing route on the Muir Snowfield, about half a mile above Pebble Creek at about 8,000 feet elevation. The bodies recovered Friday are believed to be of those lost in January.

    Rangers will return to the site, both on foot and by helicopter, to further investigate what appears to be a large campsite buried under the snow on the edge of the crevasse, in hopes of finding clues to explain what happened and, ultimately, lead to the fourth missing climber.

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  • Florida mom claims cop 'forcibly' removed her tampon during traffic stop

    By Sevil Omer, NBC News

    A Florida sheriff’s department is denying a woman's claim that she was strip-searched in public and had her tampon “forcibly” removed by a female officer during a 2011 traffic stop with her children in the car.


    Leila Tarantino filed a lawsuit on Aug. 3 in U.S. District Court in Florida's Ocala County against the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office. She alleges she was not only frisked but that a female officer removed her tampon during a roadside search on July 17.

    The lawsuit names Citrus County Sheriff Jeffrey J. Dawsey and six officers, referred to as “John Doe Officers 1-5” and “Jane Doe Officer,” as defendants.

    View Tarantino’s federal lawsuit (Pdf.)

    The sheriff's office denied claims.

    “The Citrus County Sheriff’s Office wants to go on record as saying the allegations made in this lawsuit are not only ludicrous, but completely untrue,” it said in a statement released to NBC News on Monday. “No strip search was conducted, and the plaintiff’s tampon was never forcibly removed by any deputy.”

    Tarantino alleges that she was pulled over by an officer in Beverly Hills, Fla., after she had stopped at a stop sign on South Columbus Street. She said her two children were passengers in the vehicle at the time of the alleged 4 p.m. incident.

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    She accuses the officer of pulling her over, pointing a gun at her, yanking her out of her vehicle, handcuffing her behind her back, then throwing her in the back of his squad car, according to the lawsuit. Tarantino claims she asked why she had been pulled over and the officer didn’t respond.

    Watch the most-viewed videos on NBCNews.com

    She claims she waited in the police cruiser for two hours and when other officers arrived, she was frisked and strip-searched at the side of a busy road, the lawsuit alleges. She said her children had been waiting in the woman's vehicle the entire time. The lawsuit's account:

    “During her detention, PLAINTIFF was frisked and strip searched twice at the side of the busy road, in plain view of passers by. During one of the strip searches, PLAINTIFF had a tampon forcibly removed by JANE DOE OFFICER.

    "At no point was a drug sniffing dog used to search for contraband,” the lawsuit stated, adding “None of the officers ever found any weapons, drugs, contraband or anything illegal during plaintiff’s detention.”

    According to the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office, Tarantino was issued a criminal citation for violation of restrictions on her driver’s license.  She also was issued a written warning for rolling through a stop sign.

    Tarantino's lawyer, Matthew W. Birk emailed to NBC News the following statement: "This case is currently in litigation and will be tried in a courtroom, not the press. The allegations made by Ms. Tarantino are set forth in the Complaint, which is a public record. Because of the sensitive nature of this matter, Ms. Tarantino will not be available for comment until after her lawsuit concludes.

    "This case is currently in litigation and will be tried in a courtroom, not the press. The allegations made by Ms. Tarantino are set forth in the Complaint, which is a public record. Because of the sensitive nature of this matter, Ms. Tarantino will not be available for comment until after her lawsuit concludes."

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  • Plane crashes into Washington state mountain; 3 killed

    By breakingnews.com, msnbc.com staff and news services

    Updated at 1:50 p.m. ET: A plane crashed into a mountain in Washington state overnight, killing two men and a woman, authorities said Wednesday.

    The single-engine Cessna 172 slammed into a wooded area on Little Si in North Bend, about 30 miles east of Seattle, King County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindi West told The Associated Press.

    Susan Chapin of the sheriff's office told breakingnews.com that residents and officers in North Bend reported hearing the sound of a sputtering engine and an explosion that "woke everyone in the town up."

    A helicopter crew spotted the wreckage using night-vision goggles. The bodies of three people were found inside the four-seat aircraft.

    The identities of the victims were not immediately released.

    The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.

    Little Si, with an elevation of 1,576 feet, is a companion mountain named after its taller neighbor, 4,167-foot Mount Si.

    David Wylie of breakingnews.com and The Associated Press contributred to this story.

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  • 'Romney' means defecate? Candidate facing a Santorum search problem

    By Bob Sullivan, Columnist, NBC News

    It appears that Mitt Romney now has a Rick Santorum Internet-age problem.

    Recall that Web users who search for "Santorum" using a tool like Google are immediately confronted with a parody site that offers a faux definition of the word "santorum" which is not suitable for work or polite conversations.  Within the past few weeks, enterprising Romney-haters have pulled off the same trick, albeit at a slightly less tasteless level.

    Searching for Romney using Google now yields a page defining the term Romney as "to defecate in terror" within the first five links or so, reports Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.com.  (Go ahead, try it for yourself).

     

    Clicking on the site brings visitors to a Web site called "SpreadingRomney.com" which echoes the SpreadingSantorum.com site.  The page repeats the definition and links to a story about Romney's ill-fated family vacation that include a lengthy trip with the family dog strapped to the roof of the car.

    "I don’t recall seeing it recently, so it appears to be a new gain,"  Sullivan wrote in a blog post about it.

    The rise is unusually meteoric, and almost certainly signifies a concentrated effort to game Google's ranking system. In fact, Sullivan uncovered a page at DemocraticUnderground.com encouraging people to "Google Bomb" the SpreadingRomney site.

    (Geeks would say this technique isn't, strictly speaking, a Google bomb. But it certainly must feel like one to the Romney camp).

    The site launched on Jan. 10, site creator Jack Shepler told Sullivan. He also said he's not affiliated with any campaign, and created the site just to be funny, "and to make a point."

    It got a boost when msnbc's Rachel Maddow mentioned it during her show two days later, but that hardly justifies the high Google ranking. SpreadingSantorum has been around for years, has attracted thousands of links the old-fashioned way, and the site offers real points of debate about gay rights debate.  SpreadingRomney.com is hardly more than a blank page, yet still managed to fool Google and Microsoft's Bing. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

    We've discussed earlier how political entities can trick search engines, and why Google seems to let this go on as a form of political speech.

    Sullivan supports that concept, but the quick rise of SpreadingRomney.com might be changing his mind a bit.

    "For this site to leap-frog ... others, it creates all the same issues that Google initially encountered with real Google bombs, the impression that anyone can fire off a linking campaign and make it into the top results for anything," he said. "Certainly Google should take a harder look at why its algorithm rewarded a site with so little substance to it."

     

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  • 'A second of inattention': Icy river sweeps girl, 6, away from father

    Rescue crews continue to search for a 6-year-old Oregon girl that has been missing since Sunday, when she fell into the icy Clackamas River. KGW-TV's Mark Hanrahan reports.

     

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    ESTACADA, Ore. -- An Oregon man raced along the rain-swollen Clackamas River but couldn't keep up with his 6-year-old daughter who had fallen into the stream and was swept downriver, authorities said.

    Rescue workers searched without success Monday for Vinesa Snegur, who fell Sunday into the river, running fast and cold from a recent winter storm.

    The Clackamas County sheriff's office said the search would resume Tuesday.

    "It was just a second of inattention," sheriff's Sgt. James Rhodes said of the little girl's fall, explaining that her father turned away, "then splash, and she fell in. He ran and tried to keep up with her, but he was unable to."

    Rhodes said the girl and her parents, Igor and Marina Snegur, are from southeast Portland and drove Sunday to play in the snow. They parked near Austin Hot Springs in the Mount Hood National Forest where a road is close to the stream.

    The spot is about 60 miles southeast of Portland. There's no cell service, and the family couldn't call for help until they got to a phone at a ranger station an hour later, Rhodes said.

    Rick Bowmer / AP

    A member of the Multnomah County Sheriff Search and Rescue team searches along the Clackamas River for 6-year-old Vinesa Snegur on Monday.

    The water temperature Monday was just above freezing, and the river is carrying a heavy load of trees and roots, imperiling rescue workers, he said.

    About 50 ground searchers and divers suspended their search at nightfall Monday. A helicopter with thermal imaging equipment also was used to scan the river.

    Purple jacket, pink hat
    Steve Duin, who joined the search and wrote about it in a column for The Oregonian, said that by noon Monday about 50 people had joined the search, including divers in the water and relatives of the child, who was wearing a purple jacket, pink hat and white pants when she fell.

    "Flares have been set out on the road into Austin Hot Springs, the smoke drifting over the divers and the bridge. The black ice is long gone as I slide down the hill, but I slow each time the river comes into view, searching for a blink of purple or pink somewhere," he wrote.

    The Oregonian reported that Vinesa's parents were still on the mountain "surrounded by family and trauma specialists" late on Monday.

    A series of storms stretching from coast to coast brought snow and ice to the Pacific Northwest, grounded planes in Chicago and 2012's first snow to the Northeast. NBC's Bill Karins and the Weather Channel's Mike Seidel report.

    At Vinesa's Mill Park Elementary School, about 140 students visited a special 21-person crisis counseling team Monday, The Oregonian reported. Barbara Kienle, students services director, said half a dozen employees, including some of Vinesa's teachers, also talked to counselors.

    "She has many friends," Principal Rolando Florez told the newspaper. "There were lots of sad kids in her class today."

    Like many streams in western Oregon, the Clackamas River is swollen by heavy rain that fell late last week as a winter storm moved into the region. The storm caused flooding in many communities in the Willamette Valley.

    A mother and her 1-year-old son died after a creek swept away their car from an Albany, Ore., parking lot. A father and his son were able to escape.

    Most streams have receded, but more rain is been forecast this week in western Oregon, raising the possibility of more floods.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.