Bredesen describes storm damage as ?wrath of God?
|
?The wrath of God is the only way I can describe it,? Gov. Phil Bredesen, said after a 40-minute helicopter survey of the storm damage.
The governor also walked around some neighborhoods destroyed by the storms and tornadoes that hit this rural section of northwest Tennessee on Sunday night.
?I have never seen anything like this, and I’ve been through several tornadoes. I?m used to seeing roofs off houses, houses blown over ? these houses were down to their foundations, stripped clean,? Bredesen said.
Bredesen said Tennessee had 24 deaths and about 1,000 homes and buildings destroyed. The latest victim was found late Monday in the rubble of a home in the Dyer County community of Millsfield, officials said. Emergency crews were still out searching for possible victims, but no one else was known to be missing, he said.
U.S. Rep. John Tanner, who accompanied Bredesen on the tour, also was mourning because his 57-year-old cousin, Janie King, was killed when a tornado destroyed her home near Newbern.
?Janie?s house is just gone,? a visibly shaken Tanner said. ?The power of tornadoes is almost incomprehensible. When you have 20 something fatalities, that?s just a number. This really puts a face to it.?
The governor said he was shocked by the randomness of the storm. ?You have a house that?s matchstick kindling, and another one that?s 100 yards away that?s unruffled.?
Joshua Medley and his mother clung to each other in a closet as a tornado bore down on their home. The ordeal lasted only a few minutes ? but seemed like a lifetime.
?We got lifted up in the air and the house was spinning,? said Medley, whose 1,500-square-foot home was moved 12 feet from its foundation. ?I didn?t think we were going to make it.?
Larry Taylor, who owns the only funeral home in this small town, planned to hold services later this week for his son and daughter-in-law and the couple?s two young sons.
Brad and Tanya Taylor, and their two sons, ages 5 and 3, who were found 800 yards from their house. The family will be buried in two separate caskets, with each child alongside one of his parents.
?I have to,? Larry Taylor said of his task of preparing their bodies for burial. ?It?s peace of mind. It?s my boy.?
?It basically took my life away. I don?t really care if I see daylight tomorrow,? Taylor said. ?I?d give everything I had for that not to have happened. Those little boys were my life.?
At least 28 other people, including 24 in Tennessee, didn?t survive when a series of storms ripped across eight states in the central United States on Sunday night, leaving a trail of destroyed homes and buildings.
The latest victim was found late Monday in the rubble of a home in the Dyer County community of Millsfield, officials said.
The brunt of the storms, some packing softball-sized hail, blasted an area between the small town of Newbern, about 80 miles northeast of Memphis, to Bradford.
A Memphis meteorologist said a tornado that hit Dyer County in northwest Tennessee appeared to be an F-3 on the Fujita scale, with winds from 158 to 206 mph.
Here?s an explanation of the Fujita scale, created in 1971 to measure the intensity of tornadoes:
F-0 ? 40-72 mph (causes chimney damage)
F-1 ? 73-112 mph (roof peels)
F-2 ? 113-157 mph (roof torn off)
F-3 ? 158-206 mph (some walls torn down)
F-4 ? 206-260 mph (home leveled)
F-5 ? more than 260 mph (home disintegrated)