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WAYNE (USA) April 3 (AP) – Residents across swathes of the U.S. raced Sunday to assess damage from a violent storm that may have spawned dozens of tornadoes that moved from the South and Midwest into the Northeast, killing At least 32 people died.
The storm tore through a road through the Arkansas state capital and destroyed the roof of a crowded concert venue in Illinois, shocking people across the region at the extent of the damage.
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The death toll continued to mount on Sunday.
“While we are still assessing the full extent of the loss, we know families across America are mourning the loss of loved ones, desperately awaiting news of others fighting for their lives and sorting through the wreckage of their homes and businesses, ’” President Joe Biden said in a statement.
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Biden earlier declared vast swaths of the country a major disaster area, providing federal resources and financial assistance for recovery.
Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard, killing at least five people in the state.
There were confirmed or suspected tornadoes in 11 states, destroying homes and businesses, splintering trees and leaving communities in ruins.
The National Weather Service confirmed Sunday that a tornado damaged several homes near Bridgeville, Delaware. One person was found dead Saturday night inside a home severely damaged by the storm, Delaware State Police reported.
It may take several days to confirm all recent tornadoes. The dead included at least nine people in one county in Tennessee, five in Indiana and four in Illinois.
Alabama and Mississippi also reported other deaths from the storm Friday night through Saturday.
Residents of Wayne, Arkansas, a community of about 8,000 people 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Memphis, Tennessee, woke up Saturday to find their high school’s roof ripped off and windows blown out. At least four people died.
Ashley Macmillan said she, her husband and children and their dog huddled in the bathroom as the tornado passed, “praying and saying goodbye to each other because we thought we were dead.” The fallen tree severely damaged their home, but they escaped unharmed.
Chainsaws hummed and bulldozers rolled into the rubble. Utility crews restored power as some communities began to recover.
At least 15 people were killed in Tennessee, including nine in McNairy County, east of Memphis, according to Tennessee Emergency Management Agency Director Patrick Sheehan.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee drove to the county Saturday to inspect the devastation and comfort residents. He said the storm ended his “worst” week as governor and came days after a school shooting in Nashville that killed six people, including a family friend’s funeral he and his wife had just attended.
“What’s happening in this community, in this county, in this state is horrific,” Lee said. “But it looks like your community has done what the Tennessee community has done, which is rally and respond.”
Rachel Milam lives in the basement with her 6-year-old daughter, while her mother and her mother’s boyfriend live upstairs in their home in suburban Waynesboro, Tennessee.
Everyone packed into the cinder-block basement bathroom on Friday night as the tornado approached and whizzed like a washing machine.
“When it knocked off the roof, the shower curtain came off,” Milam, 26, said Sunday. “So I tried to look through the shower curtain. I saw darkness and then it started raining.”
And then there’s the sheer horror.
“And the house — I watched it rise and move … about six inches, then it rose and it disappeared.”
“I was just thinking it would take away the tub, like we were going,” she said.
A piece of wood fell on them. The same goes for mirrors. “We’re fine and glad we made it out alive,” Milam said.
Milam, a nurse, was quick to join other neighbors in pulling people from destroyed homes. One woman suffered lacerations to her face and other parts of her body and was helicoptered out. Rescuers used a chainsaw to cut through the rubble to free another man from the rubble of his home.
Jeffrey Day said he called his daughter after seeing news of the attack in their Adamsville neighborhood. After the storm, she huddled in a closet with her 2-year-old son, screaming to answer the phone.
“She kept asking me, Dad, what should I do?” Day said, tears streaming down his face. “I do not know what to say.”
After the storm, his daughter climbed out of her destroyed home and drove to a nearby home.
Elsewhere, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker traveled to Belvidere on Sunday to visit the Apollo Theater, which partially collapsed when about 260 people attended a heavy metal concert.
Frederick Livingston, Jr. was pulled from the rubble but did not survive. He and his son Alex went to the concert.
“I couldn’t save him,” his son told WLS-TV. Father and son stood side by side as debris began to rain. “It happened so quickly.”
Another 48 people are being treated in hospital, five of them in critical condition, the governor said.
Pritzker also planned to visit Crawford County, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) south of Chicago, where three people were killed and eight were injured when a tornado struck near New Hebron.
“With the house collapsing on top of them, we had emergency responders to get them out of the basement, but luckily they had a safe place to go,” Sheriff Bill Rutan said at a news conference. go.”
The tornado was not far from where the three people died in Sullivan County, Indiana, about 95 miles (150 kilometers) southwest of Indianapolis. Several people were rescued overnight and as many as 12 people were reported injured. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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