PLEASANT GROVE, Ala. – Dozens of tornadoes spawned by a powerful storm system
wiped out neighborhoods across a wide swath of the South, killing at least 209
people in the deadliest outbreak in nearly 40 years, and officials said Thursday
they expected the death toll to rise.
Alabama's state emergency management agency said it had confirmed 131 deaths,
while there were 32 in Mississippi, 24 in Tennessee, 13 in Georgia, eight in
Virginia and one in Kentucky.
The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said
it received 137 tornado reports around the region into Wednesday night.
"We were in the bathroom holding on to each other and holding on to dear
life," said Samantha Nail, who lives in a blue-collar subdivision in the
Birmingham suburb of Pleasant Grove where the storm slammed heavy pickup trucks
into ditches and obliterated tidy brick houses, leaving behind a mess of
mattresses, electronics and children's toys scattered across a grassy plain
where dozens used to live. "If it wasn't for our concrete walls, our home would
be gone like the rest of them."
Dave Imy, a meteorologist with the prediction center, said the deaths were
the most in a tornado outbreak since 1974, when 315 people died.
In Alabama, where as many as a million people were without power, Gov. Robert
Bentley said 2,000 national guard troops had been activated and were helping to
search devastated areas for people still missing. He said that the National
Weather Service and forecasters did a good job of alerting people, but that
there is only so much that can be done to deal with powerful tornadoes a mile
wide.
One of the hardest-hit areas was Tuscaloosa, a city of more than 83,000 and
home to the University of Alabama. A massive tornado, caught on video by a news
camera on a tower, barreled through late Wednesday afternoon, leveling the
city.
"When I looked back, I just saw trees and stuff coming by," said Mike Whitt,
a resident at DCH Regional Medical Center who ran from the hospital's parking
deck when the wind started swirling and he heard a roar.
On Thursday morning, he walked through the neighborhood next to the hospital,
home to a mix of students and townspeople, looking at dozens of homes without
roofs. Household items were scattered all over the ground — a drum, running
shoes, insulation, towels and a shampoo bottle. Streets were impassable, the
pavement strewn with trees, pieces of houses and cars with their windows blown
out.
Dr. David Hinson was working at the
hospital when the tornado hit. He and his wife had to walk several blocks to get
to their house, which was destroyed. Several houses down, he helped pull three
students from the rubble. One was dead and two were badly injured. He and others
used pieces of debris as makeshift stretchers to carry them to an ambulance.AP
