52 dead as storms rip across America's south

Crews searched today for more victims of deadly tornadoes that killed at least 52 people and injured hundreds more as they tore across four US states, ripping off a shopping mall roof, demolishing mobile homes and blowing apart warehouses.

The victims included 28 people in Tennessee, 13 in Arkansas, seven in Kentucky and four in Alabama, emergency officials said. Among those killed were parents who died with their 11-year-old child in Atkins, Arkansas, about 60 miles north-west of Little Rock.

Ray Story tried to get his 70-year-old brother, Bill Clark, to a hospital after the storms levelled his mobile home in Macon County, about 60 miles north-east of Nashville. He died as Mr Story and his wife tried to navigate debris-strewn roads in their pickup truck, they said.

“He never had a chance,” Nova Story said. “I looked him right in the eye and he died right there in front of me.”

The twisters, which also slammed Mississippi, were part of a rare spasm of winter weather that raged across the US’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.

President George Bush said he called the governors of Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee and assured them the administration was ready to help and to deal with any emergency requests.

“Loss of life, loss of property – prayers can help and so can the government,” Mr Bush said. “I do want the people in those states to know the American people are standing with them.”

Before dawn, the system moved on to Alabama, bringing heavy rains and gusty winds, causing several injuries in counties north-west of Birmingham. An apparent tornado damaged eight homes in Walker County.

Northeast of Nashville, a spectacular fire visible for miles erupted at the Columbia Gulf Natural Gas pumping station, sending flames shooting 400-500ft in the air, said Tennessee Emergency Management spokesman Donnie Smith.

No one was killed in the blast, said Brent Archer, a spokesman for Houston-based Nisource Gas Transmission, adding that the plant apparently took a direct hit from the tornado.

More than 20 students were stuck behind wreckage and jammed doors, mostly for short periods, in battered dormitories at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. Tornadoes had hit the campus in the past, and students knew the drill when they heard sirens, said Union University President David S. Dockery, adding later that at least two dormitories were destroyed.

Well after nightfall on 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 Ford 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.

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 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. He likened the destruction to a bomb going off.

Winter tornadoes are not uncommon. The peak tornado season is late winter through midsummer, but the storms can happen at any time of the year with the right conditions.

But this batch was the nation’s worst in a 24-hour period since May 3, 1999, when some 50 people died in Oklahoma and Kansas. And the death toll ranks among the top 15 from tornado outbreaks since 1950, said Greg Carbin, the warning co-ordination meteorologist at the centre in Norman, Oklahoma, just south of Oklahoma City.

The tornadoes could be due to La Nina, the cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can cause changes in weather patterns around the world. It is the opposite of the better-known El Nino, a periodic warming of the same region.