Deadly Tornadoes Devastate Southern States
The death toll from tornadoes that tore through the South continues to rise Wednesday, as authorities prepare to go door-to-door to search for victims. Fay Graves, who manages a McDonald's restaurant in Jackson, Tenn., describes the destruction.
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STEVE INSKEEP, host:
Let's hear an eyewitness account of some the tornados that struck much of the South yesterday. Various storms killed dozens of people in several states. The affected areas include Jackson, Tennessee, which is where Fay Graves manages a McDonald's restaurant. That's where we found her. Welcome to the program.
Ms. FAY GRAVES (Restaurant Manager): Good morning. How are you this morning?
INSKEEP: Doing fine, thanks very much. The question is how are you, and what was your day like yesterday?
Ms. GRAVES: Well, you know, our day was pretty good. They let the schools out yesterday about 1:00 o'clock, and was warning us that it was going to be bad weather. And the I guess the storm hit Jackson, Tennessee last night around six or 6:30.
INSKEEP: So did everybody go scrambling for shelter?
Ms. GRAVES: Yeah. We went - the sirens was going off, and they told us to take shelter right then and there.
INSKEEP: Now, it must have been this morning before you got a good look at the way things have changed.
Ms. GRAVES: Well, now, possibly, you know, after the storm had - went over, I had to come up to McDonald's because I had some crew and some managers up here, to let them know what had went on. So I was riding out towards north, and we -me and the kids got walking, and we saw where, you know, house roofs was down. A lot debris that was, you know, all over the highway. And power lines was down. And the Walgreen's which was on North Holland was destroyed, and Northside High School. And there was a Jackson Oaks Nursery home that was destroyed. Some - half of the property was destroyed, and they had, like, several buses out there trying to get those elder peoples in shelter at the civic center in Jackson.
INSKEEP: You're talking about miles and miles of damage, here?
Ms. GRAVES: Oh, yes. Yes.
INSKEEP: And when you say you saw roofs on the road, do you mean shingles or entire roofs?
Ms. GRAVES: It was the entire roof came off of some house. It was on - it was a subdivision. And as we was going on the main street, you know, there was a roof that was laying, you know, practically halfway into the street.
INSKEEP: So how are people trying to recover this morning?
Ms. GRAVES: Well, I really don't know, because I'm in to McDonald's this morning. But, you know, which we're - I think most people just want breakfast, because we still have a lot of power outage. I want to say about 5:30 or 6:00 o'clock last night, they had said that it was over 1,000 people that was down with no electricity.
INSKEEP: Oh, so the coffee maker isn't working, and people are coming in to see you.
Ms. GRAVES: Oh, yeah. They come in very big orders.
(Soundbite of laughter)
INSKEEP: Oh, my goodness. And there must be a lot of conversation about the way that things have been affected.
Ms. GRAVES: Yes, a lot of people have, you know, just sitting around drinking coffee and just discussing, you know, why - how (unintelligible) it was last night.
INSKEEP: I imagine this has overtaken the election as a topic of conversation.
Ms. GRAVES: I'm thinking it probably has.
INSKEEP: Can I just ask one other thing? You said that you went walking along the roads for a while with your kids. How old are they?
Ms. GRAVES: My daughter Rasheed's(ph) 20, and then I have one that is 21. But, you know, we really couldn't get around to everything because, you know, a lot of debris had, like nails and stuff sticking up. And I was really just, you know, circling around the community, because, you know, that's where there's really most of the damage was, where, you know the part of town that we lived on.
INSKEEP: I hope that buzz in the background was not the sound of the coffee maker malfunctioning.
Ms. GRAVES: No. It is our compressor for our drink system.
(Soundbite of laughter)
INSKEEP: Well, Fay Graves at McDonald's restaurant in Jackson, Tennessee, thanks very much telling us your story.
Ms. GRAVES: Okay, thank you. And you have a good day.
INSKEEP: And once again, tornados across the South have killed dozens of people in the last 24 hours.
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Rescuers, Family Cope with Fatal Tornadoes in South
Becky Wilson searches through debris at her mother's house the morning after a tornado ripped through Atkins, Ark.
Becky Wilson searches through debris at her mother's house the morning after a tornado ripped through Atkins, Ark.
It was a day of rescue and recovery in Arkansas and other Southern states, as officials worked their way through the wreckage of last night's deadly tornadoes. At least 50 people were killed by strong storms and tornadoes that swept through the region, leaving a trail of destruction from Kentucky to Mississippi, authorities said.
In hardest-hit Tennessee, 28 people were killed, along with 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and four in Alabama, emergency officials said.
The National Weather Service posted tornado watches for parts of southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and western Georgia, but the storm system that spawned a deadly cluster of tornadoes in five Southern states overnight appears to be weakening as it moves eastward.
President Bush told those affected that the U.S. government will help them, and that the rest of the country is praying for them.
"Loss of life, loss of property - prayers can help and so can the government," Bush said. "I do want the people in those states to know the American people are standing with them."
The National Weather Service, which confirmed 48 deaths from the storms, said the tornados swept through Memphis, Tenn., collapsing the roof a Sears store there. In nearby Jackson, several students were trapped for a time in a dormitory at Union University.
Nearly 150 people were injured in Tennessee, which along with Arkansas was among the 24 states voting in the "Super Tuesday" presidential primaries. Several candidates expressed condolences to victims as they addressed supporters.
Among those killed were Arkansas parents who died with their 11-year-old in Atkins, about 60 miles northwest of Little Rock. The family died from trauma when their home "took a direct hit" from the storm, Pope County Coroner Leonard Krout told The Associated Press.
A tornado struck the Columbia Gulf Transmission company in Hartsville, Tennessee, and set off a natural gas fire that lit up the early morning sky, officials said.
In Arkansas, emergency services reported 13 dead across four counties.
"It's a pretty rough night in the scope of it. I don't know if I can remember when we've had as many (tornado) warnings and touchdowns," Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe said by telephone.
In Kentucky, at least seven people were killed, state emergency spokesman Buddy Rogers told Fox News on Wednesday.
"We were preparing for the worst and we did get hit pretty hard — but it always could have been worse," he said.
Before dawn Wednesday, the system moved on to Alabama, bringing heavy rains and gusty winds, causing several injuries in counties northwest of Birmingham. Three people were killed when a reported twister struck Aldridge Grove, in the northern part of the state near Decatur, said Brenda Morgan, deputy emergency management director in Lawrence County.
From NPR reports and The Associated Press
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