BEAUREGARD, Ala. — Rescue crews searched for victims Monday amid homes smashed to their foundations, shredded metal dangling from trees and dead animals lying in the open after at least one tornado ripped through a rural Alabama community. At least 23 people were killed, some of them children.
It was the deadliest day of tornadoes in the U.S. in nearly six years.
Traveling at least part of the way down a country road, a twister carved a trail of destruction at least half a mile wide and about a mile long Sunday afternoon, overwhelming the Lee County coroner's office, which was forced to call in help from the state, authorities said.
"It looks like someone almost just took a giant knife and scraped the ground," Sheriff Jay Jones said.
With daybreak, volunteers used chain saws to clear paths for emergency workers, while at the R&D Grocery, people asked each other if they were OK.
"I'm still thanking God I'm among the living," said John Jones, who has lived most of his life in Beauregard, an unincorporated community of roughly 10,000 people about 60 miles east of Montgomery near the Georgia state line.
The twister, rated an EF-3, with winds believed to be around 136 mph or higher, was part of a powerful storm system that slashed its way across the Deep South, spawning numerous tornado warnings in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.
Patrick Marsh, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center, said the deaths could have come from more than one tornado. There was another likely twister reported in the county, he said.
It was the highest single-day death toll from tornadoes in the U.S. since May 2013, when an EF-5 twister killed 24 people in Moore, Oklahoma, Marsh said.
"All we could do is just hold on for life and pray," said Jonathan Clardy, who huddled with his family inside their Beauregard trailer as the tornado ripped the roof off. "It's a blessing from God that me and my young'ns are alive."
Beauregard, named for a Confederate general, is in a rural corner of the same Alabama county that is home to Auburn University. The community has a few small stores, two schools and a volunteer fire department dotting the main highway that runs through town. The sheriff estimated up to 10,000 people live in the area.
"Everybody in Beauregard is a real close-knit family," Clardy said. "Everybody knows everybody around here. Everybody is heartbroken."
Julie Morrison and her daughter-in-law picked through the ruins of Morrison's home in Beauregard, looking for keys and a wallet. They managed to salvage her husband's motorcycle boots and a Bible.
Morrison said she and her husband took shelter in the bathtub as the twister lifted their house off the ground and swept it into the woods.
"We knew we were flying because it picked the house up," Morrison said, figuring that the shower's fiberglass enclosure helped them survive. She said her son-in-law later dug them out.
The sheriff said children were among the dead, but he didn't know how many. And he said the death toll may rise as the search continues amid houses reduced to concrete slabs.
Levi Baker took a chain saw to help clear a path for ambulances and other emergency vehicles. He said he saw dead people and animals and demolished houses, with one home swept off its foundation and left in the middle of a road.
Along the hard-hit country road, giant pieces of metal from a farm building dangled from pine branches 20 feet in the air, making loud creaking sounds as the wind blew. For an entire mile down the road, pines were snapped in half. A mobile home crushed by two trees marked the end of the path of destruction.
An early March tornado outbreak in the Alabama-Mississippi area is not unusual, tornado experts said.
The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, posted forecasts for higher possible tornado activity in the region on Thursday, three days before the killer twister struck.
University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd said the weather service and its prediction center "were all over it in the days and hours before the storms."
6:45 a.m.
A sheriff says the death toll may rise as first responders search the area where a tornado killed at least 23 people in southeastern Alabama.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones told reporters Monday morning that crews are committed to finding everyone reported missing or possibly trapped in the rubble.
More than one child died in the storm, but Jones said he didn't know the exact number.
Jones said most of the victims have been identified, but officials are waiting until relatives are notified before releasing their names.
The Sunday tornado was part of a powerful storm system that also slashed its way across parts of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.
6 a.m.
About 150 people hunkered down together in a Baptist church and sang songs as deadly storms moved through the Southeast.
The State newspaper quotes staff members of the Red Bank Baptist Church in Lexington County, South Carolina, as saying that children sang "Jesus Loves Me" during a regular Sunday night service as storms moved through the central part of the state.
One said the group moved from the sanctuary to a long hall during the storm, which knocked a column down in the front of the building and damaged another.
Derrec Becker with the South Carolina Emergency Management Division said no deaths or serious injuries have been reported in the state because of the storms.
About 8,000 lost power. A strong tornado that was part of the storm system tore through southeast Alabama on Sunday, killing at least 23 people.
4 a.m.
Authorities plan to resume an intense ground search Monday amid devastation from a deadly tornado that rampaged through southeast Alabama, killing at least 23 people.
The Sunday tornado was part of a powerful storm system that also slashed its way across parts of Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.
The number of deaths in hard-hit Lee County was so high that coroner Bill Harris told The Associated Press he had to call in help from the state because there were more bodies than his four-person office can handle.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones says drones flying overheard equipped with heat-seeking devices had scanned the area for survivors but the dangerous conditions halted the search late Sunday.
Jones said the twister traveled straight down a county road in the rural community of Beauregard.
1 a.m.
A sheriff says the death toll is now at 23 from a large tornado that devastated an Alabama community.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones told WRBL-TV that "Unfortunately our toll, as far as fatalities, does stand at 23 at the current time," adding that two people are in intensive care.
Jones told The Associated Press late Sunday evening that children are among the dead. He says it's possible the death toll could continue to rise, but authorities are pausing search efforts overnight because conditions are too dangerous in the dark due to massive amounts of debris.
Jones said "the devastation is incredible" and that rescue teams will resume their work at first light Monday.
9:25 p.m. Sunday
The National Weather Service says a tornado with at least an F3 rating and a track at least half a mile wide caused the deadly destruction in Alabama.
Meteorologist Chris Darden in Alabama traveled to the scene and confirmed at least F3 damage in extreme southern areas of Lee County, according to a special weather statement issued Sunday evening. The so-called Fujita scale measures wind speed and the corresponding destructive power of a tornado.
Although the statement did not give exact wind estimates, F3 storms typically are gauged at wind speeds of between 158-206 mph.
The weather service says it also determined there was another storm track nearby in Lee County that also will be studied by a team of experts on Monday. It cautions that the information is preliminary and likely to be updated later.
9:20 p.m.
A sheriff says the death toll is now at 22 from a large tornado that devastated an Alabama community.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones told The Associated Press late Sunday evening that children are among the dead. He says it's possible the death toll could continue to rise, but authorities are pausing search efforts overnight because conditions are too dangerous in the dark due to massive amounts of debris.
Jones says search and rescue teams will resume their work at first light Monday. He added that some single-family homes are wiped clean to a slab and that drone aircraft with heat-seeking equipment had flown over the rubble in search of any who might be still trapped.
Earlier, Jone said there were also injuries but he had no count of how many or the severity of those injuries.
The storm was one of several tornadoes in an outbreak that sprung up from a severe weather front that lashed the Southeast on Sunday.