http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jW-Bnds...CQsANQD8ULG5C00Thursday, Feb. 7, 2008
Southern Towns Look to Cleanup, Recovery
By DAN SEWELL – 52 minutes ago
LAFAYETTE, Tenn. (AP) — County Mayor Shelvy Linville could only shake his head at the horrific toll left by a deadly series of tornadoes that pounded across the South.
"It really is unbelievable that Mother Nature can create that much devastation," he said Wednesday evening at his Macon County home. "We need your prayers."
Before rebuilding can begin, residents must first tackle cleanup in this northern Tennessee community and in the others where dozens of tornadoes ripped across Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama, killing at least 55 people and injuring hundreds more in the nation's deadliest set of twisters in more than two decades.
"I'm surprised that I'm alive," said Telia Sorrells, 24, who survived one twister that left only parts of two walls standing in her home. A gash on her head required eight staples at a hospital to close.
Federal and state emergency teams poured into the hardest-hit areas, along with utility workers and insurance claims representatives. Hundreds of homes were demolished across the region and officials were only beginning to tally how much the tornadoes would cost.
President Bush, who said he called the governors of the affected states to offer support, plans to come to Tennessee on Friday. "Prayers can help and so can the government," Bush said.
Thirty-one people were killed in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and four in Alabama, emergency officials said. It was one of the 15 worst tornado death tolls since 1950, and the nation's deadliest barrage of tornadoes since 76 people were killed in Pennsylvania and Ohio on May 31, 1985.
Among the most remarkable survival stories: in Castalian Springs, Tenn., a baby was discovered unscathed in a field across from a demolished post office. A bystander swaddled the crying child in his shirt. There was no word on the child's parents' fates.
"He had debris all over him, but there were no obvious signs of trauma," said Ken Weidner, Sumner County emergency management director.
The National Weather Service issued more than 1,000 tornado warnings from 3 p.m. Tuesday to 6 a.m. Wednesday in the 11-state area where the weather was heading. The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., put out an alert six days in advance.
There were no comprehensive estimates yet on damages, but the tornadoes' paths left behind flattened streets and treelines, shredded mobile homes, flipped-over tractor-trailers and trucks, and concrete floors where homes, garages and carports once stood.