Tornadoes unexpectedly touch down in several states

The gymnasium and two dorms are destroyed and the student union building damaged at the Mississippi University for Women. In Carbon Hill, Al. the roof is blown off of an elementary school and in Ohio three cars are hurled into an occupied movie theater.

Homes and businesses were destroyed as a devastating series of storms swept from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes leaving a disastrous trail through sections of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The storm started late Saturday, and by Monday morning a total of 88 tornadoes had left their mark. The series of storms left 36 dead and over 200 injured. The three strongest storms registered at an intensity of 3 out of 5 on the Fujita scale, with winds of 158 to 206 mph.

The hardest hit area was Tennessee, where two waves of tornadoes hit – the first hit late Saturday and early Sunday and then another wave hit Sunday night. A single mile-wide tornado with wind speeds of 113 mph plowed through the small town of Mossy Grove, Tenn. leaving seven dead. President George W. Bush declared 16 Tennessee counties disaster areas Wednesday. Officials assessed that more than 1,200 homes were damaged and 117 others were destroyed and at least 15 public buildings and 43 businesses also were damaged from the storm in Tennessee alone.

In northern Alabama a dozen tornadoes hit Sunday night killing 12. Carbon Hill, Al. will struggle to survive as the storm damaged half of the homes, and destroyed the only remaining elementary school housing grades K-8. This small town with a  population of 2,100 has a downward outlook on their recovery; five months prior the high school burned down and the unfavorable economy already has more than 60 percent of the students on subsidized lunches and many fathers are out-of-work coal miners.

In Ohio, more devastation struck, as dozens of tornadoes flattened over 100 miles of farmland and factories, killing five. Three cars were hurled into a movie theater by one of the twisters. The manager of the theater, Scott Shaffer,  was credited with saving the lives of roughly 50 moviegoers by herding them into the bathrooms and a brick hallway. The Red Cross, estimated that 109 homes were destroyed and another 1,000 were damaged.

In Pennsylvania, one man, 81, from Clark, Mercer County was killed when the storm, unofficially dubbed a tornado, flattened his home. His wife was among the four taken to the local hospital for injuries. Red Cross set up 80 cots in three separate locations for those that could not return to their homes. Those in Mercer County are awaiting a disaster declaration to make victims eligible for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

This swarm of tornadoes is the biggest since May 1999 when more than 70 tornadoes killed 50 people in Oklahoma and Kansas. Generally tornadoes hit in the spring, however unseasonably warm weather over the weekend followed by a cold front set up the conditions that sparked such a horrendous storm during this time of year. 

Homeowners and community members continue to search through the rubble to find mementos that could have blown anywhere, some of them irreplaceable. Some homeowners must await insurance companies to assess the damage before rebuilding, but those that can start have done so with the help of community members and volunteers.