South picks up after 2 days of storms kill 35, raze homes

LOUISVILLE, Miss. - Ruth Bennett died clutching the last child left at her day-care center as a tornado wiped the building off its foundation. A firefighter who found her body gently pulled the toddler from her arms.

“It makes you just take a breath now,” said next-door neighbor Kenneth Billingsley, who witnessed the scene at what was left of Ruth’s Child Care Center in Louisville, a town of 6,600. “It makes you pay attention to life.”

Bennett, 53, was among at least 35 people killed in a two day outbreak of twisters and other violent weather that pulverized homes from the Midwest to the Deep South. The child, whose name was not released, was alive when she was pulled from Bennett’s arms and was taken to a hospital. Her condition was not known Tuesday evening.

As crews in Mississippi and Alabama turned from search-and-rescue efforts to cleanup, forecasters began to downplay their initially dire predictions of a third round of deadly twisters Tuesday. Meteorologists said the storm system had weakened substantially by evening, although some tornado watches and warnings were still in effect for isolated areas.

In North Carolina, the National Weather Service reported tornado touchdowns in five counties Tuesday, but the twisters caused only moderate damage to homes and toppled some trees. Two cities in the state reported extensive flooding from the storm system. No injuries were reported.

After Monday’s storms, Brett Carr, a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, said at least 12 people had died in his state. The University of Mississippi Medical Center said Tuesday that it had sent a mobile hospital to Louisville, where the Winston Medical Center was especially hard hit.

At least eight of the deaths were in Winston County, which is about 95 miles south of Tupelo, where about 2,000 homes and 100 businesses were damaged or destroyed, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reported.

Francis Gonzalez, who also owns a convenience store and attached Mexican restaurant in Tupelo, took cover with her three children and two employees in the store’s cooler as the roof over the gas pumps was reduced to aluminum shards.

“My Lord, how can all this happen in just one second?” she said in Spanish.

By the federal government’s preliminary count, 11 tornadoes - including one that killed 15 people in Arkansas - struck the nation Sunday, and at least 25 ravaged the South on Monday, the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center said.

Among those killed was 21-year-old University of Alabama swimmer and dean’s list student John Servati, who was taking shelter in the basement of a Tuscaloosa home when a retaining wall collapsed on him.

He was killed - along with at least two others in Alabama - the day after the third anniversary of an outbreak of more than 60 tornadoes that killed more than 250 people across the state.

Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley said the state is seeking an emergency declaration from the Federal Emergency Management Agency after the severe weather caused damage in 19 counties. But he noted that 65 community safe rooms built with federal funds after the deadly tornadoes in 2011 helped keep people safe.

In Kimberly, north of Birmingham, the firehouse was among the buildings heavily damaged.

Four firefighters suffered little more than cuts and scrapes, but the bays over the firetrucks were destroyed, and the vehicles were covered with red bricks, concrete blocks and roof pieces.

The trucks were essentially trapped, so the town had to rely on nearby communities for emergency help.

In Tennessee, neighbors said Tuesday that a married couple killed in a tornado in the state’s south Monday had returned to their mobile home mistakenly believing the danger had passed. Authorities identified the victims as John Prince, 60, and his wife, Karen, 44.

The Princes weren’t alone in thinking the worst of the weather had passed Monday evening.

Families taking shelter in the South Lincoln Elementary School left after the first wave passed. About half an hour later, a tornado struck the school, blowing out windows and taking off much of the roof, said Lincoln County Sheriff Murray Blackwelder.

Louisville was one of the hardest-hit areas, with officials reporting at least nine dead because of a tornado the National Weather Service rated as an EF4 or stronger. EF5 is the highest rating for tornadoes.

Rescuers were searching Tuesday for an 8-year-old boy still missing from the community after rescuers found the bodies of his parents near their destroyed home. The boy was believed to have been with his parents when the tornado struck, Capt. James Crawford said.

Also Tuesday, Ilene Estes sorted through the pile of debris in the city that hours earlier had been her home.

“This just isn’t the kind of thing we’ve ever experienced,” she said. “We have had storms in the rural areas around us, so we know what they can do, but I never could have imagined it would happen to us.”

On Monday night, Estes’ daughter, Cherie Bell of Columbus, Miss., had been watching a weather report when she heard her mother was in the path of the tornado. “I called and called, and she finally picked up after the third call,” Bell said.

Estes and her husband do not own a storm cellar, so the couple drove about a mile to the Winston County Courthouse, which is a designated storm shelter. The home they left just minutes before was leveled to its concrete slab and a couple walls.

“I am just so thankful that Cherie called us and we were able to get out of harm’s way,” Estes said. “If we hadn’t left, I’m not sure we would have made it.”

Elsewhere in Louisville, Sennaphie Yates arrived at the small hospital to check on her grandfather just ahead of the twister. As the funnel cloud closed in, staff members herded people into a hall.

“They had all of us against the wall and gave us pillows. They said, ‘Get down and … don’t get up,’” she said.

The wind knocked down two walls and tore holes in the roof. Doctors moved some emergency-room patients to a former operating room and sent some to other hospitals.

Bennett’s day-care center was not far from the hospital. Her niece Tanisha Lockett had worked at Ruth’s Child Care since it opened seven years ago.

She said all but the one child - a 4-year-old girl who had been in the center’s care since she was a baby - had been picked up before the storm.

On Tuesday, Bennett’s family and those who worked for her stepped over schoolbooks and supplies as they tried to salvage paperwork.

“We’re just trying to keep a smile on our faces,” employee Jackie Ivy said. “I cried all last night.”

Information for this article was contributed by Adrian Sainz, Jeff Amy, Jack Elliott Jr., Jay Reeves, Erik Schelzig, Janet McConnaughey and staff members of The Associated Press and by Adam Ganucheau and Alan Blinder of The New York Times.