recovered? they said yes. >> what a great day. >> thanks for joining this is "world news," tonight danger zone, millions of americans facing a power-packed storm. tornados already on the ground. a system like the one a year ago with explosive winds and flooding rain and stretching hundreds of miles. high anxiety. the dramatic race to save two window washers at the top of a sky scraper has the scaffolding folds beneath them. air unfair? how can your plane ticket cost hundreds of dollars more than someone else in another seat on the same flight? good evening. we begin with the severe storm rolling across the nation right now, weather experts putting out a kind of all-points bulletin. one in five americans in the

path of what could become a weather phenomenon called a derecho, a 240-mile stretch of wicked wind. ginger zee is standing watch with the people of chicago right now. ginger? >> reporter: we're just hearing the first rumbles of thunder and seeing the lightning over the skyline of chicago. we're not somewhere rural. tonight millions in some of the bigger cities in the midwest included in this highest risk zone. >> reporter: tonight, the atmosphere is fully charged. tornados popping up in iowa, severe storms in illinois and we are right here. i'm just looking up at the atmosphere really fired up already here. just outside chicago, the high risk issued for cities like davenport, iowa, all the way to fort wayne and including chicago, illinois. >> a high risk is just off the charts. that's when we're really sounding the bell as loudly as we can to let folks know they really need to pay attention and they need to take this seriously. >> reporter: the national weather service outside chicago abuzz.

>> we could see those thunderstorms gather together and coalesce into a series of lines and segments that would produce damaging wind gusts. >> reporter: the chaos in the atmosphere could produce a dangerous weather phenomenon known as a derechoes. its calling card? ominous shelf clouds like these. >> reporter: a derecho is a powerful lines of storms. winds blasting up to 100 miles per hour. it takes on a bow shape because air rises in storms, cools, then falls behind them and then pushes the front of the line out. they can be deadly and certainly as damaging as weak tornados. last year's derecho tore through 12 states, with it blinding downpours from illinois to d.c., winds gusting over 100 miles per hour and a huge part of the nation peppered with lightning. trees were plucked and chucked into homes and cars. this street in ohio blanketed in power lines. it left $1 billion in damage and killed 13 people.

i need to show you those big areas that are on alert tonight. so from eastern iowa all the way through chicago, into northwest indiana and southwest michigan. that's the highest risk but there's a bigger area that you see highlighted there. it has the potential all the way through parts of ohio and tomorrow into parts of the east coast. >> ginger, i know you said people should stay indoors but what if you are caught outside? >> we want everyone to be in shelter always. if you are outside, in your car, you want to be in your car, put yourself there and seatbelt of course, put that on, put the head down, the flashers on and cover your head from debris. if you can get to shelter, please do. >> everyone is warned to do just that. thank you so much. ginger zee reporting and standing watch tonight. from chicago and that storm we head to colorado springs where tonight all eyes are on wildfires, homes destroyed and thousands of families on the

move. abc's clayton sandell has the very latest from there. >> reporter: colorado is erupting in flames. hot, dry winds are fanning seven fires, the worst blowing up and forcing evacuations over 50 square miles. walls of flame from the black forest fire near colorado springs are taking out million-dollar homes. every house on this street gone. >> we have an assessment completed on 4 12 homes. 92 are total losses. >> reporter: seven thousand people ordered to leave had little warning -- >> i'm just completely terrified at this moment. >> reporter: -- stalked by giant flames and ominous smoke. >> one of the worst fears is that people took their chances and it may have cost them their life. >> reporter: lynn brown had just 90 frantic minutes to decide what she could take. >> people were grabbing photos off the wall, photo albums. whether the house is still standing, i don't know, everyone

seems to think that it's gone. >> reporter: late today she learned her family's home for 18 years burned to the ground. >> the minute you leave you realize there's a lot that you forgot. >> reporter: another blaze threatened royal gorge bridge and forced state prison officials to move 900 inmates out of the fire's path. these fires are aggravated by winds and drought. dry brush like this is turned into super fuel. the fires are bad for people but also wildlife. this baby deer was rescued by a firefighter, one small act amid overwhelming destruction. clayton sandell, abc news, colorado springs. >> thank you so much. now we turn to that manhunt, the 29-year-old giving chase to the u.s. security establishment. edward snowden who made all those top secret documents public emerged for a shadowy moment before disappearing again. he even hinted there may be more secrets to come. here's abc's chief investigative

correspondent, brian ross. >> reporter: today snowden made it clear he is still in hong kong telling the south china post it is here that he wants to make his last stand to reveal what he called the criminality of the u.s. government surveillance programs and targets worldwide. snowden may be holding a lot more secrets. his last post was at the nsa, the national security agency facility in hawaii that is a hub for american spying and computer hacking on china and north korea as well as hong kong. if he makes public the names of government officials and others who are targets it could be far more devastating than what he has done so far. >> that's the $64,000 question we don't know who the targets are. if that comes out then there will be serious damage to national security. >> reporter: in congress today the head of the nsa, general keith alexander, said snowden

already hurt the u.s. >> great harm has already been done by opening this up. our security is jeopardized. >> reporter: alexander and others said the 29-year-old snowden had been dishonest about his background and his claims to "the guardian" newspaper that u.s. citizens are being wire tapped. >> i, sitting at my desk, have the authority to wire tap anyone from you or your accountant to a federal judge to even the president if i had a personal e-mail. >> false. i know of no way to do that. >> reporter: even so the head of the nsa acknowledged he was stunned that a 29-year-old analyst who dropped out of high school in his sophomore year could have access to so many top secret documents. >> i have great concerns over that. the access that he had, the process that we did. >> reporter: but the general strongly defended the nsa's secret programs as legal, necessary and responsible he said, for stopping dozens of terrorist events in the u.s. and abroad. >> brian ross reporting in again

tonight. thank you, brian. we head overseas to the uncertainty inside america's vital ally, turkey. we showed you the violent clashes between protestors and police yesterday. today the scene calmer as the prime minister ordered the protest to end within 24 hours. demonstrators gathered again but police were nearby and there was no widespread violence. word out of south africa 94-year-old nelson mandela responding to treatment following what's been described as a difficult few days. this is his fifth day in the hospital for a lung infection. 49 years ago today by the way, mandela was sentenced to life in prison for battling against apartheid. back here at home a wakeup call from triple a. we have been warned about texting while driving. now there's a new study about hands-free devices and something called a kind of blindness

behind the wheel which is where we find david kerley tonight. >> reporter: so how many electrodes are you putting on? i am getting wired for research. >> i'm going to go ahead and stretch this over your head. >> reporter: maybe not a great look. >> i'm going to go ahead and put the chin strap on. >> reporter: but all these connections -- >> go ahead and scan your eyes to the left and right as far as you can. >> reporter: will measure how much my brain can handle behind the wheel. reaction time. where my eyes look. 9 million cars today have systems that let you talk to your car so you can keep your hands on the wheel. 62 million will have them in five years. but is it safer? with a small button on my thumb, i click when a green light flashes, simulating something on the road that needs my attention. i drive listening to the radio. then another trip, with speech to text, hearing and answering email. >> hey, i haven't heard from you in a while. >> reporter: reply. >> okay, what would you like to say? >> reporter: i'll talk to you soon. send. i clicked the button, but -- how did i do, joel? >> your response times were a bit delayed when you are engaged in that speech to text task. >> reporter: here's what

researchers for aaa found -- the least amount of distraction was the radio. going up the scale, talking on a hands-free phone, talking to a passenger. a handheld phone was next. but it's those speech-to-text programs causing the most distraction. a fraction of a second. it can be dangerous. they call it, "inattention blindess." >> even if your hands are on the wheel and your eyes are on the road, you may not be safe. >> reporter: automakers say the study sends a misleading message, suggesting hands-free and handheld devices are equally risky. the risk, says aaa, is that these systems sold as safe may really lead us to distraction. >> your next message is loading. >> david kerley, maryland. next a moment of terror 46 stories in the air, two window washers in new york city near the top of a sky scraper, their scaffolding refused to flatten out, buckled in the middle from the ground. you can see how high they were stranded. they were eventually saved by rescuers who removed part of a

window next to them, pulled them inside the building. the rescuers say the window washers were not panicked. in fact, they smiled and said, "all this for us?" now to a triumph for an american family who refused to take no for an answer. a 10-year-old girl named sarah needed a new life saving set of lungs but the fine print of the donor rules stood in her way. an outpouring of support changed the story and david wright tells us the latest tonight. >> reporter: sarah murnaghan is a ten-year-old girl who can breathe a bit easier tonight. >> right now we have a chance, a hope. >> reporter: she was dying of cystic fibrosis and needed a new set of lungs, a rare commodity especially for kids because of their size. children under 12 have to wait for donor lungs from other kids. adult lungs have to be trimmed down to fit them. a risky proposition. that's why the u.s. requires all

available adult lungs to be offered to adults first. >> madam secretary, i would urge you this week to allow the lung transplant to move forward. >> reporter: the murnaghans fought for sarah all the way to washington. >> unfortunately there are about 40 very seriously ill pennsylvanians over the age of 12 also waiting for a lung transplant. >> reporter: finally last week a federal judge ordered she be placed on the adult list, a controversial decision. >> i don't think we want judges making medical decisions anymore than we want doctors deciding supreme court cases. >> whoa! >> reporter: today sarah got her lungs. >> my hope is she accomplishes all those little things that ten year olds should accomplish. >> reporter: for one little girl a second chance. david wright abc news los angeles. still ahead here on "world news." how can it be, same airplane, passengers with the same tickets but paying wildly different fares. how your family can get a good

deal with the airlines. coming up a real life mermaid, one woman's journey to show us the possibilities in our lives. this is going to take your breath away. when we made our commitment to the gulf, bp had two big goals: help the gulf recover, and learn from what happened so we could be a better, safer energy company. i've been with bp for 24 years. i was part of the team that helped deliver on our commitments to the gulf - and i can tell you, safety is at the heart of everything we do. we've added cutting-edge safety equipment and technology, like a new deepwater well cap and a state-of-the-art monitoring center, where experts watch over all our drilling activity, twenty-four-seven. and we're sharing what we've learned, so we can all produce energy more safely. safety is a vital part of bp's commitment to america - and to the nearly 250,000 people who work with us here.

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vacation. travelers don't know if they paid a lot more for their ticket than someone smart sitting right next to them. linsey davis on the new magazine show the lookout asking are you getting the best deal? >> reporter: everyone knows that ticket prices vary but here in atlanta we were surprised to find a spread of more than $600 for the same ticket. how much did you pay for your ticket? >> $320. >> round trip $240. >> a little over $600. >> this man named dave got us scratching our heads. >> father was $427.91, a grand total of $481600. >> when did you book that? >> about three weeks ago. >> would you be really disappointed to know the lady sitting right there on the end paid about $250. >> i would be disappointed.

>> she booked two weeks ago on expedia. >> wow. >> delta told us fares are determined by market supply and demand and due to government regulations they couldn't discuss it further. >> final call for all passengers. >> i guess i better get on this flight now. once we started asking -- >> do you guys remember how much you paid for your flight ticket? >> 50,000 points. >> people couldn't stop talking about it. >> how much did you pay for your ticket? >> 280 to 300. >> 259. >> per person? >> reporter: what's the reason for all the different prices? for answers we went to this little guy. don't know him? he's hipmunk, the face of a travel site that makes it their business to try to make sense of all the prices. >> airlines realize that people are willing to pay

different amounts depending on different things. >> they're taking full advantage. >> reporter: prices fluctuate all day long. there's no great way to gain the system. >> incredible range of prices you showed us there so you said there are a couple of tips that really do work. >> the old stand by of buying early at least 21 days in advance and you want to try to stay over saturday night if you can. >> stay over saturday. >> should make a difference. >> everyone, be sure to watch linsey tonight for more of her report on the lookout at 10:00 p.m. eastern. coming up next, first he sang. ♪ oh, say can you see. ♪ by the dawn's early light. >> reporter: after the applause, an anonymous series of attackers. tonight a little boy stands up for what it truly means to be american.

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the anonymous venom of the internet began tweeting attacks on his heritage. today his powerful answer on a local tv show. >> they don't know my life. my father was in the navy for a pretty long time. people don't know. they just assume that i'm just mexican but i'm not from mexico. i'm from san antonio, born and raised, spurs fan. >> all american boy speaking up for america at its best. and help celebrate his 89th birthday today former president george h.w. bush, a certified sock fanatic, asked everyone to try out their most exuberant socks. so many answered the call, babies, dog, digging into the sock drawer the staff at the presidential library and even a democrat, nancy pelosi. by the way, the birthday boy wore a pair of superman socks. happy birthday. coming up a real life

mermaid ready to change your life. trust your instincts to make the call. to treat my low testosterone, my doctor and i went with axiron, the only underarm low t treatment. axiron can restore t levels to normal in about 2 weeks in most men. axiron is not for use in women or anyone younger than 18 or men with prostate or breast cancer. women, especially those who are or who may become pregnant and children should avoid contact where axiron is applied as unexpected signs of puberty in children or changes in body hair or increased acne in women may occur. report these symptoms to your doctor. tell your doctor about all medical conditions and medications. serious side effects could include increased risk of prostate cancer; worsening prostate symptoms; decreased sperm count; ankle, feet or body swelling; enlarged or painful breasts; problems breathing while sleeping; and blood clots in the legs. common side effects include skin redness or irritation where applied, increased red blood cell count, headache, diarrhea, vomiting, and increase in psa.

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even without methotrexate. ask if xeljanz is right for you. now someone who will make you think about possibility. abc's john donvan with the woman we will never forget. >> reporter: just watch for a moment. it really is what it looks like. except, look close. behind the wheels. a double set of propellers. and so she goes. weightless. and every now and then comes up for air. meet sue austin on dry land. giving a talk that has been downloaded by half a million people. >> it's wonderful to be here to talk about my journey.

>> reporter: sixteen years ago, she began experiencing rare neurological problems after contracting cytomegalovirus, and eventually lost almost all of her mobility. for years it bothered her to be perceived as limited, confined. >> it was if they couldn't see me anymore. as if an invisibility clock descended. >> reporter: so she went to the sea so we would see the device she rides in a whole new way. >> i literally have the freedom to move in 360 degrees of space in an ecstatic experience of joy and freedom. >> reporter: the technology, it took a little doing. >> i started talking to engineers. they said no, you're not going to be able to do it which is probably the best thing anyone could have said to me. >> reporter: with the help of drivers, sue invented a water chair with custom fins and an air tank and she took the plunk for a ride that no one has ever

taken before. >> literally pushed me through into a new way of being, into new dimensions and a new level of consciousness. >> john donvan abc news washington. >> next she wants to fly. thank you for watching. don't forget abcnews.com. we'll see you again tomorrow night. tonight an end to red light cameras. the bay area city pulling the plug. >> a field trip making a dangerous turn on a muni bus. the place that the kids were going. >> and in colorado homes go up

in flames we'll have an update on wildfires burning now. >> and the fight against a hospital accused of dumping patients in california. the group is now stepping into the fray. abc 7 news at 6:00 starts right now. >> police to enforce our laws. i don't think cameras are doing any good, at all. >> the city of belmont turning off red light cameras. many call the experiment a failure. i'm larry beil. >> and i'm carolyn johnson well. begin a story only on abc 7 news. vic? >> this is the intersection and over there you can see one of the red light cameras. in july the cameras maid fade to black like they did in redwood city and burlingame. red light cameras are at two

intersections. in the second set at ralston and old county road. the council member has been a critic from the start. >> that is what we pay our police to do. to enforce our laws. >> the cameras made by red flex traffic systems averaged about 170 citations per month. mostly for rolling stops. police chief believes the cameras were able to accomplish for public safety what officers could not. >> it's difficult to have officers there we felt it had reached our goal. >> there were very few straight arm collisions before, or after cameras were installed but accord together