Photos here:
By MATT FLEGENHEIMER
Residents across the South and Midwest searched for survivors on
Saturday after a string of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms churned
through, leaving at least 31 people dead, hundreds injured and a trail
of damaged buildings in several states.
Workers and reporters rode out wind and rain on Friday in Athens, Ala.
Deadly tornadoes hit the South and Midwest. More Photos »
The storm systems stretched from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes and
were so wide that an estimated 34 million people were at risk from
severe weather, said Mike Hudson of the National Weather Service's
regional office in Kansas City, Mo. The wide path of the storms made
it hard to assess the full extent of the damage. At one point, the
storms were coming so fast that as many as four million people were
within 25 miles of a tornado.
Mr. Hudson said Saturday that the risk of severe weather had shifted
to the east, particularly to areas in southern Georgia, northern
Florida and the Florida Panhandle. A tornado watch was in effect in
Florida on Saturday morning, Mr. Hudson said, but no further severe
weather was expected across the mainland over the next week.
News reports and video on Saturday morning showed rescue workers and
homeowners sifting through the debris, searching for victims while
trying to salvage items from the rubble. In Kentucky, the National
Guard and the State Police searched for an unknown number of missing,
according to The Associated Press, and in Indiana, the authorities
searched county roads connecting rural communities that officials said
"are completely gone."
Indiana officials said Saturday morning that the death toll in the
state had risen to at least 14. Worst hit were the towns of New Pekin,
Marysville and Henryville, where Gov. Mitch Daniels surveyed damage
Saturday morning. "What you find out is we're pretty resilient people
in this state," Mr. Daniels told CNN. He described an encounter with a
family whose pizza business had been destroyed. The owners' first
question to the governor, he said, was where they could donate their
frozen food.
In Henryville, the tornado tore off roofs, flattened homes and
overturned vehicles. An empty school bus was thrown into a building
across the street from a high school.
Rachael Dixon, 17, a junior, was just leaving the school when she
heard the tornado sirens. She drove to her house, picked up her two
dogs and her stepfather, and went to her grandmother's basement.
"We were just waiting and waiting," she said. "We finally heard all
the wind whistle. It sounded like the wind was just destroying
everything behind our house."
Moments later, in an apparent window of calm, Ms. Dixon ventured
upstairs to call her mother, who was at work in a nearby town, when
hail the size of tennis balls started, shattering the windows in the
bedroom and living room as she ran back to the basement. "It was like
one of those horror films," she said.
Down the street from the school, Scott Gullion, 39, sifted through the
rubble of his home. He was inside with his wife and 4-year-old son
when the sirens began, and drove his family to a church down the road
as the tornado swept toward them.
"It was wide," Mr. Gullion said, "and dark."
In Kentucky, at least 17 people had died, according to the state's
Department for Public Health, with at least 200 injuries. Mr. Hudson
said some of the affected areas in Kentucky had never experienced a
tornado before.
Although 17 states were under some kind of weather threat on Friday,
the heart of the first wave of storms zeroed in on southern Indiana,
northern Alabama, and sections of Kentucky and Tennessee. A second
round followed and was expected to hit parts of central Mississippi,
northern Georgia, southern Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, a part of the
country that lost 13 people to tornadoes earlier in the week.
Over all, the National Weather Service issued 255 tornado warnings on
Friday. It received 94 reports of tornadoes, 208 reports of strong
winds and 410 reports of hail. The office in Nashville reported that
hail nearly 3 inches in diameter had broken the windows of a house in
Lebanon, Tenn.
Sgt. Jerry Goodin of the Indiana State Police recalled assisting in
rescue efforts in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
"Obviously it's not as widespread, but in the areas that are hit, the
devastation is as bad, if not worse than what we had down there," he
said.
Along hundreds of miles of roads in Clark, Scott and Washington
Counties, he said, standing homes were few and far between. "There's
nothing there," he said, "just open spaces."
Mr. Hudson described the storm's cause as a "clash of the air masses"
between the cool systems in Canada and the warm, humid air from the
Gulf of Mexico. "It's that battle zone in between where all the severe
weather developed," he said.
Enlarge This Image
Gary Landers/Cincinnati Enquirer, via Associated Press
Bill Lloyd carries his nine month old baby Mason down U.S. 52 outside
Moscow, Ohio after an apparent tornado moved through the area on
Friday. More Photos »
Multimedia Photographs
Tornadoes Hit South and MidwestVIDEO: Video: Tornado Near Henryville,
Ind.Related
The Lede Blog: Powerful Storms Hit Towns in Indiana (March 2, 2012)
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Harold Brooks, a research meteorologist at the National Severe Storms
Laboratory in Norman, Okla., part of the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, predicted that Friday would be perhaps one
of the top five for bad weather this year.
On CNN Friday, Mr. Daniels said rescue workers were desperately
searching through rubble in search of anyone trapped, adding, "our
people are racing the nightfall."
The tiny town of Marysville, Ind., less than an hour's drive north of
Louisville, Ky., was reported to be nearly flattened.
"We've had a few tornadoes come through the area, but this is the
worst one we've seen," said Maj. Chuck Adams of the Clark County
sheriff's office, who has lived in the area for 30 years.
The signs that the storms were serious came early. The first warning
went up around 9:30 a.m. Friday. By about 1:30 p.m., at least 12
tornadoes had touched down in three states. One of them was Alabama,
which lost 272 people in one day last April. Dozens of those deaths
had come in the same rural slice of northern Alabama that was hit hard
on Friday.
Greg Cook and Brenda Collier, who are married, live a couple of miles
from where a deadly tornado ripped through in 2011. This year, it was
their turn. Their house was destroyed. They were not at home at the
time, but their Labrador retriever mix, Coco, was. They found the dog
wet and shivering in a roofless hallway.
"Those storms last year scared the hell out of everybody," Mr. Cook
said. "This year, everybody was ready. They were scared. They were
watching weather on TV, listening to weather on the radio, calling
friends and family and telling them where the tornadoes hit."
Across the Midwest and the South, reports of damage big and small kept
pouring in. The Limestone Correctional Facility in northern Alabama
took a "direct hit," an apparent tornado ripping holes in the roofs of
two dormitories where 500 inmates live and knocking down security
fences, said Brian Corbett, a spokesman for the state Department of
Corrections. The prison lost power and switched to generators. No one
was hurt or escaped, he said.
At Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, operations were
halted for an hour after storm debris littered the runways, a
spokeswoman said. A trampoline was found in a tree in Cleveland, Tenn.
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
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