Death toll from Tennessee tornadoes climbs to at least 24
Kimberlee Kruesi | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 8 months AGO
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, left, prays with Kayla Cowen, right, as Cowen looks through rubble in hopes of finding a neighbor Tuesday, March 3, 2020, near Cookeville, Tenn. Lee was touring damaged areas and met Cowen as she was searching. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
A man looks for items he can salvage from his store Tuesday, March 3, 2020, near Cookeville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding more than 140 buildings and burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. At least 22 people were killed. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Sumant Joshi helps to clean up rubble at the East End United Methodist Church after it was heavily damaged by storms Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Joshi is a resident in the area and volunteered to help clean up. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
People begin cleaning up Tuesday, March 3, 2020, near Cookeville, Tenn. Deadly tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding more than 140 buildings and burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
A man looks over buildings destroyed by storms Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
A man walks through storm debris following a deadly tornado Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, right and Tennessee Commerce and Insurance Commissioner Hodgen Mainda survey storm damage, in Nashville, Tenn. on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding at least 40 buildings and killing many people. One of the twisters caused severe damage across downtown Nashville and leaving hundreds of people homeless. (AP Photo/Travis Loller)
People look in a restaurant damaged by storms Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Debris covers a street after overnight storms Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
People pass by businesses destroyed by storms Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Damaged trucks sit on a sidewalk as well as the street following a deadly tornado, Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Faith Patton looks over buildings destroyed by storms Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. Patton lives near the damaged area but her home was intact. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
A man walks by buildings destroyed by storms Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Bill Wallace reaches out to rescue workers who freed him from his home that collapsed on him and his wife Shirley trapping them under rubble after a tornado hit Mt. Juliet, Tenn., on Tuesday, March 3, 2020. ()Larry McCormack/The Tennessean via AP)
A man climbs through storm debris Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
People look over storm damage Tuesday, March 3, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding buildings and killing multiple people. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Emergency personnel work among destroyed homes Tuesday, March 3, 2020, near Cookeville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding more than 140 buildings and burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. At least 22 people were killed. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
A worker searches for victims among the rubble in an area where several people were killed by storms Tuesday, March 3, 2020, near Cookeville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding more than 140 buildings and burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. At least 22 people were killed. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Workers search for victims among the rubble in an area where several people were killed by storms Tuesday, March 3, 2020, near Cookeville, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding more than 140 buildings and burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. At least 22 people were killed. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Deanna and Tony Speck, of Cookeville, Tenn., console one another on the front lawn of what's left of Deanna's parent's house off Locust Grove Road on the western edge of Cookeville, Tenn., Tuesday, March 3, 2020. Her parents survived after huddling beneath the staircase as the tornado ripped through the area around 1:30 a.m. (Jack McNeely, Herald-Citizen/The Herald-Citizen via AP)
Power line towers lie on the ground in a Tuesday, March 3, 2020 aerial photo, near Lebanon, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding more than 140 buildings and burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. At least 22 people were killed. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
Destroyed homes line a street Tuesday, March 3, 2020, near Lebanon, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding more than 140 buildings and burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
A road separates properties filled with debris Tuesday, March 3, 2020, near Lebanon, Tenn. Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding more than 140 buildings and burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Rescuers searched through shattered Tennessee neighborhoods for bodies Tuesday, less than a day after tornadoes ripped across Nashville and other parts of the state as families slept. At least 24 people were killed, some in their beds, authorities said.
The twisters that struck in the hours after midnight shredded more than 140 buildings and buried people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. The storms moved so quickly that many people in their path could not flee to safer areas.
"It hit so fast, a lot of folks didn't have time to take shelter," Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said. “Many of these folks were sleeping.”
The governor declared an emergency and sent the National Guard to help with search-and-rescue efforts. State emergency officials, who initially reported at least 25 dead, revised the toll to 24 fatalities on Tuesday evening after determining one death counted earlier was not storm-related.
An unspecified number of people were missing.
Early findings by National Weather Service survey teams indicated that the damage in Nashville and Wilson County to the east was inflicted by a tornado of at least EF-3 intensity, the agency said.
One twister wrecked homes and businesses across a 10-mile (16 kilometer) stretch of Nashville that included parts of downtown. It smashed more than three dozen buildings, including destroying the tower and stained glass of a historic church. Another tornado damaged more than 100 structures along a 2-mile (3.2-kilometer) path of destruction in Putnam County, wiping some homes from their foundations and depositing the wreckage far away.
Daybreak revealed landscapes littered with blown-down walls and roofs, snapped power lines and huge broken trees, making many city streets and rural roads impassable. More than a dozen polling stations were also damaged, forcing Super Tuesday voters to wait in long lines at alternative sites.
In Putnam County, 80 miles (some 130 kilometers) east of Nashville, houses and businesses were completely flattened. In one neighborhood, volunteers found five bodies. Neighbors and sheriff’s officers were still looking for two more. Later, authorities imposed an 8 p.m.-8 a.m. curfew in the county and reported one looting arrest.
Nashville residents walked around on streets and sidewalks littered with debris, in neighborhoods where missing walls and roofs left living rooms and kitchens exposed. Mangled power lines and broken trees came to rest on cars, streets and piles of rubble.
“We are resilient and we're going to rebuild,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper said.
During Gov. Bill Lee's tour of Putnam County, homeowners dug through debris, trying to salvage any items not destroyed. One young woman held up a clean green blouse while standing on a second floor of a home that had no roof.
President Donald Trump spoke with the governor by phone and pledged federal assistance, the White House said. Trump also announced plans to visit the disaster area on Friday.
In Nashville, the twister's path was mostly north and east of the heart of downtown, sparing many of the city's biggest tourism draws — the honky tonks of Broadway, the Grand Ole Opry House, the storied Ryman Auditorium and the convention center.
Instead the storm tore through the largely African American areas of Bordeaux and North Nashville as well as neighborhoods transformed by a recent building boom. Germantown and East Nashville are two of the city's trendiest hotspots, with restaurants, music venues, high-end apartment complexes and rising home prices threatening to drive out longtime residents.
“The dogs started barking before the sirens went off. They knew what was coming," said Paula Wade, of East Nashville. "Then we heard the roar ... Something made me just sit straight up in bed, and something came through the window right above my head. If I hadn't moved, I would've gotten a face full of glass.”
The roof came crashing down on Ronald Baldwin and Harry Nahay in the bedroom of their one-story brick home in East Nashville. “We couldn’t get out,” Baldwin said. “And so I just kept kicking and kicking until we finally made a hole."
The roaring wind woke Evan and Carlie Peters, also in East Nashville, but they had no time to reach the relative safety of an interior bathroom.
“Within about 10 seconds, the house started shaking," Carlie Peters said. “I jumped on top of the ground. He jumped on top of me. The ceiling landed on top of him. ... we’re grateful to be alive.”
With more than a dozen Super Tuesday polling places in Nashville's Davidson County damaged, voters were sent to other locations, some of them with long lines. Election officials in Putnam County advised voters in eight precincts with damaged polling locations to vote at the main election office in Cookeville.
Hours later, a judge ruled that some Tennessee polls must extend voting hours after four Democratic presidential candidates sued to keep the polls open, a Democratic party spokeswoman said.
Lee said he observed numerous examples of people coming together to help one another. “In the worst of circumstances, the best of people comes out, and that's what we're seeing,” he said.
Just as the governor stopped by to tour the devastation in Putnam County, a van of longtime customers at a local eatery — who proudly stated they ate there every morning — arrived to help clear debris.
In the small town of Baxter, Mike Stephens was awakened when a big tree crashed through the roof of his house. He started cleaning up as soon as the sun rose. He cut up one tree and had help from a neighbor with a backhoe and a man who stopped by with a chainsaw.
“I’ve only met him once, and he just happened to show up while we’re out here,” Stephens said of his neighbor. “And then this other guy he just happened to stop by. I don’t know him.”
Wayne Stephens, a technician at a local car dealership, had Tuesday off from his job. With no damage to his home, he got in his truck with his chainsaw. He’s not related to Mike Stephens and had never met him. He said he only wanted to help “as much as I can.”
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Associated Press writers Kristin Hall, Jonathan Mattise and Mark Humphrey in Nashville; Adrian Sainz in Memphis; Teresa Walker and Wade Payne in Cookeville; Rebecca Reynolds Yonker in Louisville, Kentucky; and Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama, contributed to this report.
ARTICLES BY TRAVIS LOLLER
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Community 'violence interrupters' work to stem rising crime
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — When Rasheedat Fetuga became a teacher, she worked hard to help protect her students, many of them poor and from a nearby housing project. When one of her favorites was shot and killed at 16, she stood at his funeral and vowed to do more.
Community 'violence interrupters' work to stem rising crime
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — When Rasheedat Fetuga became a teacher, she worked hard to help protect her students, many of them poor and from a nearby housing project. When one of her favorites was shot and killed at 16, she stood at his funeral and vowed to do more.