History > 2006 > USA > Weather (I)

Thunderstorms and tornadoes

swept through the Midwest and the South on Sunday,

killing at least 27 people and destroying thousands of homes.

In Dyersburg, Tenn.,

Walter Asher, pastor of the Christ United Methodist Church,

sat on the steps of what was left of the church.

Photograph: Josh Anderson

The New York Times

A Barrage of Storms Batters 8 States, Leaving Death and Debris

NYT

4.4.2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/us/04storms.html

New England hit

by worst floods in 70 years

Tue May 16, 2006 12:19 AM ET
Reuters
By Jason Szep

BOSTON (Reuters) - The worst flooding in 70 years in Massachusetts, Maine and New Hampshire forced thousands of people from their homes on Monday after the heaviest rainfall in a decade.

Residents waded through waist-high water on washed out roads, some paddling to swamped homes in canoes, and meteorologists predicted more rain on Tuesday in all three New England states, which have declared states of emergency.

"I've never seen flooding like this before," said Faustino Melo, 40, a resident in the hard-hit Massachusetts city of Peabody, a suburb north of Boston whose downtown streets were submerged with floodwaters that rose as high as door handles.

Emergency crews steered boats along streets to help evacuate people, while National Guard soldiers set up checkpoints to block off roads. About 200,000 sand bags were used to hold back overflowing rivers across Massachusetts.

About 12 to 15 inches of rain has fallen since Friday, swelling the Merrimack River that runs through southern New Hampshire and Massachusetts more than 8 feet (2.4 meters) above flood stage -- its highest since 1936.

"It's bad now but we're expecting it to get much much worse," said Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency spokesman Peter Judge, citing weather forecasts for more rain on Monday night with several rivers still rising.

"Right now we're looking at all of the rivers, from the Charles River in the Boston area all the way north and east to the Merrimack River on the New Hampshire border. We expect all of those rivers to reach and exceed flood stage in the next 24 hours," Judge said.

THOUSANDS EVACUATED

Several thousand New Hampshire residents had been evacuated from homes and more than 600 roads in the state had been closed, the New Hampshire Bureau of Emergency Management said.

A bulging dam in Milton, New Hampshire on the Maine border was in danger of failing and could send a 10-foot (3-m) wall of water downstream, the National Weather Service said.

About a thousand people were evacuated from their homes in the Massachusetts' suburbs of Melrose, Haverhill, Lawrence and Peabody, where flooding caused sewage to back up into cellars and sinks, rescue workers said.

About 35 million gallons a day of sewage was flowing into the Merrimack River in Haverhill, while another 115 million gallons a day were expected to spill in from a treatment plant in the city of Lawrence, said Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.

Romney said damage across the state was expected to exceed $7 million, a threshold for federal assistance. "It's going to get worse before it gets better," he told a news conference, adding that he was concerned about the stability of bridges and dams pressured by the storm water.

The torrential rain has turned May into the second-wettest month since records began in 1872, with about 10.75 inches of rain -- more than triple the monthly average of 3.2 inches -- falling in Boston midway through the month, said Charlie Foley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service.

The storm, which had moved up from the Gulf of Mexico, is expected to be followed by two other storm systems both moving east off the Great Lakes region on Tuesday that will dump 1 to 3 inches more water, said Foley. It is the biggest downpour to hit the region since October 1996, he added.

No injuries or power outages were reported as of Monday, partly because no strong winds accompanied the storm.

    New England hit by worst floods in 70 years, R, 16.5.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-05-16T041830Z_01_N14230586_RTRUKOC_0_US-WEATHER-NEWENGLAND.xml

Storms batter Texas with wind and hail

Posted 4/29/2006 11:06 PM ET
USA Today

GAINESVILLE, Texas (AP) — Storms battered eastern Texas with wind up to 100 mph and hail the size of baseballs, damaging buildings and slamming parked airplanes into one another at an airport.

"When you have winds from 80 to 100 mph it can do damage similar to that of a tornado," said Jesse Moore, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. "That can do some very, very big damage."

No major injuries were reported in the storms late Friday and early Saturday, authorities said.

Hundreds of homes and businesses were damaged, and some areas still lacked power Saturday afternoon, said Kay Lunnon, spokeswoman for the city of Gainesville, near the Oklahoma border.

Hangars were damaged at the Gainesville Municipal Airport, and the high wind shoved airplanes parked outside, said Airport Director Matt Quick.

About 15 planes were damaged at the airport, where about 70 aircraft are based, Quick said.

To the south in Waco, the storms destroyed a home and damaged other buildings, authorities said. Two homes were damaged in Coldspring, north of Houston. No injuries were reported in either place, and the weather service did not confirm that tornadoes caused the damage.

About 4,000 customers lost power in the Houston area, where streets flooded but no serious damage was reported, authorities said.

In Liberty County, northeast of Houston, officials reported damaged homes and toppled trees.

    Storms batter Texas with wind and hail, UT, 29.4.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/weather/storms/2006-04-29-texas-storm_x.htm

Iowa tornado damage tops $12 million

Updated 4/15/2006 9:18 PM ET
USA Today
By Erin Jordan and Jeffrey Patch, The Des Moines Register

IOWA CITY — The cost of damage from a tornado that ripped through Iowa City Thursday night will likely top $12 million, government and university officials said Saturday.

Iowa Lt. Gov. Sally Pedersen, who visited Iowa City Saturday, said she was shocked to see how the twister devastated some neighborhoods and left others untouched.

"Tornadoes are strange beasts," she said in a news conference on the lawn of the Johnson County Courthouse.

Saturday's sunny sky and light breeze allowed many residents to finish patching their roofs and moving possessions from homes destroyed when the tornado cut a 3 1/2-mile swath through Iowa City. National Guard soldiers stationed around Iowa City were dismissed Saturday afternoon, and power was restored to most residents, officials said.

The tornado caused at least $4 million in damage to city and county property, said James Moody, spokesman for Johnson County Emergency Management. The estimate is expected to increase by $2 million to $3 million over coming days as more is learned about the damage, Moody said.

The University of Iowa's damage estimate is nearly $6 million, more than half of that coming from hail damage on building roofs, U of I officials said. The figure does not include cars housed in a motor pool building ravaged in the storm.

The American Red Cross said 212 Iowa City buildings were damaged. Of those, 96 sustained major damage and 14 were destroyed, Moody said. "There are quite a few that will have to be demolished," he said.

State officials will survey uninsured structures to see whether Iowa City qualifies for a presidential disaster declaration, which would make federal money available for rent assistance and repairs, said David Miller, administrator of the Iowa Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division.

Pedersen visited St. Patrick's Catholic Church and the Alpha Chi Omega sorority house, both left in ruins after the storm. Several of the sorority's 45 members told Pedersen how they rode out the twister in the basement, then quickly evacuated because of fears there was a gas leak.

The sorority members will move into a vacant fraternity house for the rest of the semester, said Ashley Ramirez, a U of I junior from Davenport.

"We're just glad to have a house. It's very, very nice," she said.

In Jones County, owners of 20 to 25 houses worked Saturday to cover the roofs damaged when a twister touched down southwest of Anamosa, said Merlin Moore, chairman of the Jones County Board of Supervisors.

"By tonight, 85% of them will have temporary roofs or tarps," he said. At least 10 of the houses are uninhabitable, Moore said. "One has a $369,000 list price, and the storm turned it to rubble," he said.

Residents are also working to clear debris from the fields, so they are ready for planting, Moore said.

Volunteers turned out in droves to help Iowa City residents hit by the storm. More than 200 U of I students signed up, and one room in the U of I Student Government office was full of donated toilet paper, water and other supplies.

"People are ready and willing to help as long as we need it," said Sarah Vigmostad, the graduate student senate president. "We've been trying to organize things so people don't just go off on their own."

Power, cable and tree-clearing crews worked throughout the day to clear sidewalks and streets as homeowners cleaned and hordes of onlookers roamed east-side neighborhoods.

"We're there if people need us, but we also don't want to be in the way," Vigmostad said.

    Iowa tornado damage tops $12 million, UT, 15.4.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2006-04-15-tornado-cost_x.htm

Tornadoes rip through eastern Iowa; 1 dead

Updated 4/14/2006 11:10 AM ET
USA Today

IOWA CITY (AP) — Tornadoes tore across a university campus overnight, ripping roofs and walls off a sorority house, homes and apartments, crushing cars, and killing a woman in a mobile home southeast of town.

University of Iowa sophomore Melissa Fortman huddled with her sorority sisters in a basement as the sirens sounded, then decided to run upstairs for her homework just as the tornado was about to hit.

"There was debris flying everywhere inside the house," Fortman told ABC's Good Morning America early Friday. "I couldn't go down stairs because there was debris and glass flying up the stairs, so I just hid in a telephone booth we have in our house and I just hid there crying."

As she stood outside the Alpha Chi Omega house Friday morning, entire walls were gone and the interior of several rooms could be seen from the street. Two cars had been tossed into a nearby ravine, and glass, debris and tree limbs littered the yard.

The twisters swept across eastern Iowa, with the worst damage in a path from Iowa City southeast through the small town of Nichols, about 20 miles away, the National Weather Service said.

"We have a path in the Nichols area that's four to five miles long," said Maj. Dave White of the Muscatine County sheriff's office.

He said the tornado hits farms, knocked a tractor-trailer off a road, then hit the mobile home with a man and woman inside.

"It blew it off the foundation and the trailer rolled and basically disintegrated," White said. He said the man was "banged up" but he refused medical attention. The woman, whose identify was not released, died in the storm.

In Iowa City, 21 people were reported treated at hospitals for storm-related injuries, none believed to be life-threatening.

"We don't have any reports of serious injuries, which is short of miraculous considering what some of the damage appears to be," University of Iowa spokesman Steve Parrot said.

The tornadoes left entire neighborhoods in disarray as strong wind and hail pounded the city.

Downtown, half the roof of St. Patrick's Catholic Church was torn off. Store windows were shattered, some buildings were partially collapsed and homes and apartments were heavily damaged. Thousands of homes were without power Friday morning.

Parrot said the university opened the Iowa Memorial Union and brought in mattresses for students needing a place to stay and canceled class on Friday.

Ryan Gibney just felt lucky to be alive Friday morning. His distressed call to 911 after a tornado hit an Iowa City shop captured the moments of chaos in the storm's immediate aftermath.

"Please. I'm underneath a wall, the whole building collapsed," Gibney can be heard telling the dispatcher. "I didn't know what happened. I opened the door right before it ripped the ceiling right off the side of the shop. I can't get the door off me, I'm pinned right now. Please help me."

His leg was injured, but he was able to walk and help with the cleanup the next morning.

"I thought that was going to be the end of it for me for sure," Gibney told Good Morning America.

The storm system knocked down trees and power lines in northwest Illinois communities as well after crossing the Mississippi River around 10 p.m.

In neighborhoods across Iowa City, people pilled up tree limbs, splintered wood, brick and roofing materials as they cleared streets and yards.

In a downtown parking lot, cars sat amid broken glass and metal parts, with one vehicle overturned and others blown several feet from their original parking spots. Police said a roof collapsed at a pedestrian mall. A water line broke and there were concerns about gas lines.

Firefighter Darrall Brick looked on with dismay after the storm as he watched some people walking around downed power lines.

"These students just don't realize how dangerous it is," he said, noting how the crowds have prevented emergency crews from traveling to disaster sites.

The Iowa National Guard deployed 25 soldiers early Friday morning to provide security, keep people away from danger spots and help assess damage, said spokesman Lt. Col. Greg Hapgood.

MidAmerican Energy reported early Friday morning that about 7,000 homes and businesses in eastern Iowa were without power — including 6,200 in Iowa City. Officials said crews would work through the night but could not say when the power would be restored.

    Tornadoes rip through eastern Iowa; 1 dead, UT, 14.4.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2006-04-14-iowa-tornado_x.htm

Hurricane victims vulnerable to new storms

Fri Apr 14, 2006 12:00 PM ET
Reuters
By Jim Loney

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Across the U.S. Gulf Coast, 100,000 families that had proper homes last year are living in flimsy travel trailers and mobile homes as this year's hurricane season approaches.

Just months removed from a nightmarish hurricane season that caused more than $100 billion in damage, crushed the city of New Orleans and killed some 1,400 people, the U.S. East and Gulf coasts may be in a precarious state facing a new season that could be nearly as destructive as the last.

Millions could also be suffering from "storm fatigue" -- a weariness of evacuations that could keep them in their homes in a danger zone when they should be fleeing.

Coupled with uncertainty about the U.S. government's ability to cope with another big natural disaster, emergency managers see some worrying signs with the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season just seven weeks away.

One of the most troubling issues is the dicey condition of last year's victims. The Federal Emergency Management Agency says as many as 300,000 victims of Katrina, Rita and other storms are still living in flimsy government-supplied temporary housing.

"They are going to have to evacuate these travel trailers and mobile homes," acting FEMA Director David Paulison said at this week's National Hurricane Conference, where he sought to assure disaster managers that his agency will be ready.

But he and other managers readily admit that many of the 55 million people who live on the hurricane-prone East and Gulf coasts will feel storm fatigue.

"Everybody's worried. All of us are tired," he said. "What we can't become is complacent. If an evacuation order is given, they've got to get out."

In the Florida Keys, the fragile 110-mile (180-km)-long chain of islands off the state's southern tip, officials saw signs of that weariness last autumn. Residents who were ordered to evacuate six times in a two-year span had had enough, and stayed home, when Wilma roared through.

"I think people understood the danger, but they decided to stay because they were worn out," said Billy Wagner, the top emergency manager for the islands.

FEMA said it is working with local agencies to make sure last year's storm victims living in trailers have evacuation routes mapped out.

FORECASTING ERRORS

But many local emergency managers are skeptical about FEMA, which took the brunt of criticism when Katrina killed 1,300 people and left tens of thousands stranded, waiting for rescue, food and shelter.

Officials from coastal counties have pleaded with Washington to separate FEMA from the Department of Homeland Security, which took it over after the September 11 attacks. They say FEMA was stripped of its disaster expertise as Homeland Security focused on the war against terrorism.

"I think the plea is falling on deaf ears," said Don McKinnon, an emergency manager from Mississippi.

Despite the wealth and technical expertise of the United States, forecasters admit they still don't know enough about hurricanes. They say errors in their track forecasts have been cut in half in the last 15 years but there has been no improvement in predicting a storm's intensity.

"If you have a hurricane that deepens in intensity just before landfall, it's a nightmare," said Lixion Avila, a U.S. National Hurricane Center specialist. "Extreme events are almost never forecast."

Yet many residents seem to believe the United States is too sophisticated to lose hundreds of people to a hurricane, said Craig Fugate, Florida's emergency management chief.

"I think there is a tendency to think that can't happen in the United States," he said. "I think Katrina demonstrated once and for all that even in the 21st century, these storms are deadly and at your own peril do you choose to stay behind and take a chance that you're smarter than the forecast."

    Hurricane victims vulnerable to new storms, NYT, 14.4.2006, http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=newsOne&storyid=2006-04-14T155951Z_01_N13248949_RTRUKOC_0_US-WEATHER-HURRICANES.xml

Chertoff Pushes for More Hurricane Readiness

April 13, 2006
The New York Times
By ABBY GOODNOUGH

ORLANDO, Fla., April 12 — Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Wednesday that he would assign federal disaster-management officials to vulnerable regions before the hurricane season begins June 1, to help local governments prepare for potential storms.

Speaking at the National Hurricane Conference here, Mr. Chertoff told an audience of state and local disaster officials that his agency would not usurp authority but would "work with you in training and exercising, so that if the bell rings, we've all gotten to know each other and we know how we're all going to perform our tasks."

A top priority, he said, would be making sure residents prepare and can subsist on their own for at least 72 hours. Mr. Chertoff, who has been intensely criticized for his handling of Hurricane Katrina last year, also said the Federal Emergency Management Agency would use new technology to track emergency supplies as they travel to disaster sites this hurricane season. After last year's storms, federal relief supplies like water and ice often showed up late or not at all.

Mr. Chertoff also said FEMA would do a better job this year of processing claims for disaster victims, helping towns and cities remove hurricane debris, and communicating during a storm, so he and other leaders could immediately learn of major problems like breached levees.

Michael D. Brown, the former director of FEMA who resigned under fire after Hurricane Katrina, attended the conference and told reporters that none of the planned improvements would work unless the agency separated from the Department of Homeland Security. He said FEMA's new director, R. David Paulison, was well intentioned but would be ineffective if he had to report to Mr. Chertoff.

"The problem is that within the Department of Homeland Security you are stifled in what you can do," said Mr. Brown, now a private consultant, who said he was visiting several clients at the conference. "I think Chief Paulison's going to have a difficult time because he's going to be told what he can say and what he can do. And once again, there will be no accountability and people will suffer."

Mr. Paulison told reporters at the conference that he wanted FEMA to stay under the Department of Homeland Security. "There's simply a lot of resources there that make us so much stronger," he said. "I don't see us getting lost anywhere."

In an advance copy of Mr. Chertoff's speech distributed to reporters, he, too, talked about keeping FEMA within the department, saying: "Things will be even more confused if we pull FEMA out of D.H.S. and have separate agencies with overlapping or even competing functions." But during his speech, he skipped that section of his prepared remarks.

Asked about the omission, Russ Knocke, a department spokesman, said it was not unusual for Mr. Chertoff to "stray a bit from prepared remarks," adding, "I wouldn't read anything into that."

In Washington on Wednesday, Republicans and Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee released a statement saying that FEMA should remain within the Department of Homeland Security.

Some members of Congress are pushing for legislation to restore FEMA's independence, but the committee members objected. "There's not doubt that FEMA needs to be improved," the statement said, "but removing the agency from D.H.S. is clearly not the answer."

    Chertoff Pushes for More Hurricane Readiness, NYT, 13.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/13/us/nationalspecial/13storm.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

11 killed by tornadoes in Tennessee

Updated 4/7/2006 11:59 PM
USA Today

NASHVILLE (AP) — A line of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes marched across the South on Friday, peeling away roofs, overturning cars and killing at least 11 people in Tennessee, officials said.

It was the second wave of violent weather to hit the state in less than a week. Last weekend, thunderstorms and tornadoes killed 24 people in the western part of the state and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and buildings.

The storms raked an area from northern Mississippi to northern Virginia as they moved to the northeast late Friday after developing from a low-pressure system in the central Plains.

Downtown Nashville was spared any damage, but the city's suburbs were hardest hit, with at least eight deaths. Three more people were killed in a rural area about 65 miles southeast of Nashville.

Fire Chief Joe Womack said three bodies were pulled from the wreckage of homes in a subdivision of Gallatin, about 24 miles northeast of the city.

Steven Davis, who lives about a block from the subdivision, said he ran to a neighbor's home to take shelter in a crawl space when he heard the storm approaching.

"When the tornado came through, the roof was off just like that," Davis said, snapping his fingers. Houses on each side of his street were destroyed.

"Our neighborhood is leveled," Davis said.

Diane Carrier was in the subdivision when her boyfriend called to warn her. She went to a laundry room and covered herself with pillows and bedding.

"The next thing you know, the lights went out and everything started shaking and rumbling," she said. "I could hear cracking and snapping, and that was the roof coming off. It took seconds, then it was over."

Tornadoes were also reported in the Nashville suburbs of Goodlettsville, Hendersonville and Ashland City, and in Holladay, about 90 miles west of Nashville. The storms flattened trees, knocked down power lines and damaged homes and other buildings.

Spotty communications made it difficult for emergency responders to get a full picture of the damage. Phone lines to authorities and most businesses were out of service.

Hospitals admitted at least 60 people with storm-related injuries and transferred at least nine critically injured patients to Nashville hospitals.

At Volunteer State Community College in the suburb of Gallatin, several people suffered cuts and scratches, spokesman Eric Melcher said.

Two campus buildings were severely damaged, Melcher said. Emergency workers searched other buildings in an attempt to account for all students.

John Stevens, a taxi driver who was visiting Volunteer State, said the building where he waited out the storm shook as the tornado passed over.

After the storm, he found his minivan had been thrown about 150 yards from its parking space. The vehicle was twisted and smashed to pieces.

"It's like some giant sat on it," he said.

Three car dealerships near the college were devastated, with 250 cars totaled.

In Cheatham County, just west of Nashville, Sheriff John Holder said the tornado passed over his office.

"I looked up and you can't believe the stuff that was in the air," he said.

About 10,000 utility customers were without electricity because the storm knocked over hundreds of lines. Some might not have power for a week.

"We have to rebuild the system," said Laurie Parker, a spokeswoman for Nashville Electrical Service.

In Kentucky, two homes were destroyed, possibly by a tornado.

In southern Indiana, the storms pelted some areas with golf ball-sized hail. High winds blew the roof off a country club and toppled a semitrailer.

Farther east, parts of West Virginia were lashed with heavy rain and winds, blowing the roofs off businesses and sending trees crashing into houses. More than 16,000 residents lost power.

The number of tornadoes in the United States has jumped dramatically through the first part of 2006 compared with the past few years, according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center.

Through the end of March, an estimated 286 tornadoes had hit the United States, compared with an average of 70 for the same three-month period in each of the past three years.

The number of tornado-related deaths was 38 before Friday's storms. The average number of deaths from 2003 to 2005 was 45 a year, the prediction center said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

    11 killed by tornadoes in Tennessee, UT, 7.4.2006, http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2006-04-07-severe-storms-south_x.htm


 

Residents survey a damaged apartment building in Caruthersville, Mo.

Diane L. Wilson/Associated Press

 A Barrage of Storms Batters 8 States, Leaving Death and Debris        NYT       

4.4.2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/us/04storms.html

A Barrage of Storms Batters 8 States,

Leaving Death and Debris

April 4, 2006
The New York Times
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Thunderstorms that generated tornadoes up to a half-mile wide and hailstones the size of softballs roared across eight states in the Midwest and South on Sunday night, killing at least 27 people, injuring hundreds, destroying thousands of homes and businesses and knocking out power to tens of thousands.

Aerial and ground surveillance yesterday showed that northwest Tennessee was the hardest hit. Tornadoes that slashed through five counties there killed 23 people, including an 11-month-old boy, his grandparents and a family of four, officials said. Three deaths were reported in neighboring Missouri, and one person died in Illinois when high winds brought down the roof of a clothing store.

There was no immediate estimate of the losses, but the scale of the damage — spread over parts of Iowa, Kentucky, Ohio, Arkansas and Indiana, as well as Tennessee, Missouri and Illinois — suggested tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars. Churches, firehouses, police stations and schools, as well as homes and businesses, were shattered, and, as in Hurricane Katrina, many families lost everything.

As rescue teams with dogs sought survivors in the rubble of many communities yesterday, state and local officials surveyed wreckage, utility crews struggled in a wilderness of downed trees and power lines and witnesses told of howling twisters that crushed people in their homes and wiped out whole sections of several small towns.

"It just came up all of a sudden," Betty Sisk said of the tornado that scythed through Newbern, Tenn., population 2,500. "I was at the front door and had the kids in the closet, and I ran to the closet and shut the door and put covers over us. We locked arms." She said the house suddenly disintegrated around them, and she, her son and daughter were hurled apart.

"It picked us up and tore the house apart," Mrs. Sisk told The Associated Press. "Debris was going here and there. It jerked my daughter away from me and threw her one way and took my son and I a couple of feet away. She crawled to us after we started hollering at each other. Then we laid there on the ground. I told them to be real still."

Most of the deaths occurred in Tennessee's Dyer and Gibson Counties along a 25-mile swath from Newbern to Bradford, 80 miles northeast of Memphis. Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee said he would visit the two sparsely populated counties today and asked President Bush to declare them federal disaster areas.

In Dyer County, 15 people were killed, most of them in the collapse of homes. In Dyersburg, the county seat, refugees took shelter and were fed at a school. Outside, the path of a tornado a half-mile wide was apparent in the moonscape of shattered homes and bare foundations, splintered and uprooted trees, piles of clothing, furniture and rubble. Sheriff Jeff Holt said 100 homes had been hit.

In Gibson County, officials said eight people were killed, including a young couple and their two sons, ages 5 and 3, and an infant and the grandparents who were baby-sitting for him in Bradford. Dozens of people were injured, many with broken bones and puncture wounds from flying debris, while 17 were hospitalized in critical condition. Officials said more than 1,200 buildings were damaged.

Donnie Smith, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, said, "For that little stretch of destruction that ran through those counties, that's about as bad as it can be."

In southeastern Missouri, a tornado caused wide damage but no deaths in Caruthersville, a city of 6,700, said Mayor Diane Sayre. Susie Stonner, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Emergency Management Agency, said 60 percent of the town was damaged.

Elsewhere in Missouri, three people died of storm-related injuries, including a 42-year-old man in Stoddard County whose trailer was flipped and hurled into a tree by winds that gusted from 60 to 80 miles an hour. In the St. Louis suburb of Fairview Heights, Ill., a 54-year-old man was killed when the roof of a clothing store collapsed on him, the police said.

In Arkansas, hailstones four inches in diameter slammed through roofs, and a dozen tornadoes struck various parts of the state. One destroyed nearly half the town of Marmaduke. Brick shells and wooden splinters were all that remained of some homes, and railroad cars toppled from tracks attested to the power of a twister.

The Tennessee Valley Authority estimated that more than 15,000 customers remained without power yesterday. In Missouri and Illinois, 57,892 of the 2.4 million customers of Ameren remained without power late in the day, while service had been restored to 200,000 customers, a spokesman said. Full power was not expected for days, or perhaps weeks, in some areas.

The National Weather Service said the wild storms developed on Sunday as a cold front from the west slammed into a mass of warm, humid air standing over the Midwest. The service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said it had reports of 63 tornadoes in the eight-state region.

In Dyersburg, Charlotte Sweat, 49, picked over the ruins of her home, which had been pushed off its foundation into a ravine. "We're just lucky to be alive," Ms. Sweat said, recalling her family's desperate race in two cars to escape the twister. "There are a lot of people that didn't make it, and we did."

She continued, "We don't have anything but the clothes we're wearing, but we have our lives."

Gretchen Reuthling contributed reporting from Chicago for this article, and Theo Emery from Dyersburg, Tenn.

    A Barrage of Storms Batters 8 States, Leaving Death and Debris, NYT, 4.4.2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/us/04storms.html