Deadly tornadoes wreak havoc in the South

ATKINS, Ark. - Authorities went door-to-door trying to find additional victims of tornadoes that killed at least 48  people, ripped the roof off a shopping mall and blew apart warehouses as they tore across four states. (see video report)

 

 

The dead included 24 people in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, and a mother and father who died in Kentucky with their adult daughter. The total death toll in Kentucky was seven. There were also four fatalities in Alabama.

 

Those killed in Arkansas included another set of parents, who died with their 11-year-old in Atkins, about 60 miles northwest of Little Rock. The family died from trauma when the storm their home "took a direct hit" from the storm, Pope County Coroner Leonard Krout said. "Neighbors and friends who were there said, 'There used to be a home there,'" Krout said.

 

The twisters, which also slammed Mississippi, were part of a line of storms that raged across the nation's midsection at the end of the Super Tuesday primaries in several states. As the extent of the damage quickly became clear, candidates including Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee paused in their victory speeches to remember the victims.

 

Northeast of Nashville, Tenn., a spectacular fire erupted at a natural gas pumping station northeast of Nashville that authorities said could have been damaged by the storms. An undetermined number of people were reported dead.

 

Eight students were trapped in a battered dormitory at Union University in Jackson, Tenn., until they were finally freed.

 

Four more people were killed in Allen County near the Tennessee state line, said Buddy Rogers, public information officer for the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management in Frankfort.

 

Well after nightfall Tuesday, would-be rescuers went through shattered homes in Atkins, a town of 3,000 near the Arkansas River. Around them, power lines snaked along streets and a deep-orange pickup truck rested on its side. A navy blue Mustang with a demolished front end was marked with spray paint to show it had been searched. Outside one damaged home, horses whinnied in the darkness, looking up only when a flashlight reached their eyes. A ranch home stood unscathed across the street from a concrete slab that had supported the house where the family of three died.

 

Gov. Mike Beebe planned to tour Atkins on Wednesday.

 

In Memphis, high winds collapsed the roof of a Sears store at a mall. Debris that included bricks and air conditioning units was scattered on the parking lot, where about two dozen vehicles were damaged. A few people north of the mall took shelter under a bridge and were washed away, but they were pulled out of the Wolf River with only scrapes, said Steve Cole of the Memphis Police Department.

 

In Mississippi, Desoto County Sheriff's Department Cmdr. Steve Atkinson said a twister shredded warehouses in an industrial park in the city of Southaven, just south of Memphis. "It ripped the warehouses apart. The best way to describe it is it looks like a bomb went off," Atkinson said.

 

The power was knocked out briefly at a Little Rock convention hall that hosted a watch party for Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor seeking the GOP nomination for president. "While we hope tonight is a time for us to celebrate election results, we are reminded that nothing is as important as the lives of these fellow Arkansans, and our hearts go out to their families," Huckabee said.

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Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Ryan Lenz in Greenville, Ky., Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss., and Woody Baird in Memphis, Tenn.

I feel bad that I havent focused on this more, I wanted to focus on McCain at the CPAC convention today. I contacted Border Watch about the CPAC convention and getting the word out on McCain, he said he would be glad to help and that he is busy helping with the victims of the tornado, I wrote back and told him to let me know what the victims need or how I could help. I will let everyone know when I hear from him.