Emergency teams spray-painted damaged houses with ”X” signs after checking them for bodies or survivors and crews moved in dump trucks to haul away the wreckage piled up by tornadoes blamed for 12 deaths.
Bystanders were warned not to smoke because of leaking gas while police patrolled to ensure there was no looting on Saturday.
Tornadoes were spotted in about 10 Tennessee counties on Friday, the second wave of deadly storms to hit the state in less than a week, weather officials said. The worst damage appeared to be in Gallatin and other suburbs northeast of Nashville.
Steve Hurt and eight other people survived by taking shelter in a fireproof room with concrete walls at Lee Electric Supply Company in
Gallatin.
”You could hear people yelling and screaming outside and the debris hitting the walls,” said Hurt, who said one of his co-workers was killed.
One of the tornadoes that hit the area chewed up a path 150 to 200m wide and at least 16km long, estimated Jimmy Templeton of the Sumner County Sheriff’s Department.
Nearly 170 homes and eight businesses in Gallatin and Sumner County were damaged or destroyed, said Sonny Briggance, rescue chief for the county’s emergency management agency. Several multimillion-dollar homes were pulverised in one subdivision.
”I’m amazed we didn’t have more fatalities,” Briggance said.
”Although the number is high, we are still very lucky.”
Gallatin resident Dora Freeze said her best friend, Crystal Graves, died not long after she got home from work.
”When I stand here and look at it all, I just can’t believe it,” Freeze said.
Seven people were killed in Sumner County and three were killed in Warren County, about 105km south-east of Nashville. Two more people died during the night in a Gallatin hospital, state Emergency Management Agency spokesperson Randy Harris said on Saturday. Hospitals admitted at least 60 people with storm-related injuries.
Harris said a preliminary count showed that 700 to 900 homes in Sumner County and another 500 to 700 in Warren County were damaged or destroyed. The National Guard was helping both areas with the clean-up. Governor Phil Bredesen toured the destruction on Saturday.
Most people rummaging through the rubble in Gallatin hunted for photographs and other keepsakes; a few looked for pets.
Diesel smoke filled the air as work crews used heavy equipment to clear paths through the debris. Clumps of yellow insulation hung from trees like Spanish moss, and the sound of helicopters, chain saws and trucks created a loud, steady rumble.
Last weekend, thunderstorms spinning out dozens of tornadoes killed 24 people in western Tennessee and four others in Missouri and Illinois.
Nashville Electrical Service reported hundreds of electrical lines down and power outages affecting up to 16 000 customers. The number of customers blacked out was down to 1 100 on Saturday, but some people might have to wait a week for their service to be restored, NES spokesperson Laurie Parker said.
Later on Friday and early on Saturday, another line of severe thunderstorms rolled through Alabama and Georgia. Homes and businesses were damaged in the Atlanta suburbs, but the National Weather Service had not confirmed whether the area was hit by tornadoes.
”Several businesses are totally destroyed. Trees literally are sitting inside of houses,” Georgia Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine said.
Several people were injured in Alabama, two by falling trees, but no deaths were reported, officials said on Saturday. A store was destroyed in Ohatchee, near Anniston, and homes and apartments were damaged in the Birmingham area. Storms also pounded southern West Virginia, blacking out more than 16 000 customers, utilities said. ‒ Sapa-AP