HARRISBURG, Ill. – A
pre-dawn twister flattened entire blocks of homes in a small Illinois
town Wednesday as violent storms ravaged the Midwest and South, killing
at least 12 people in three states.
Winds also ripped through the country music
mecca of Branson, Mo., damaging some of the city's famous theaters just
days before the start of the busy tourist season.
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The tornado that blasted Harrisburg in
southern Illinois, killing six, was an EF4, the second-highest rating
given to twisters based on damage. Scientists said it was 200 yards wide
with winds up to 170 mph.
By midday, townspeople in the community of
9,000 were sorting through piles of debris and remembering their dead
while the winds still howled around them.
Not long after the storm, Darrell Osman
raced to his mother's home, arriving just in time to speak to her before
she was taken to a hospital with a head injury, a severe cut to her
neck and a broken arm and leg.
"She was conscious. I wouldn't say she was coherent. There were more mumbles than anything," he said. "She knew we were there."
Mary Osman died a short time later.
The twister that raked Branson seemed to hopscotch up the city's main roadway, moving from side to side.
As sirens blared, Derrick Washington stepped
out of his motel room just long enough to see a greenish-purple sky.
Then he heard the twister roar.
"Every time the tornado hit a building, you could see it exploding," he said.
At least 37 people were reported hurt, but
most suffered only cuts and bruises. After the start of Branson's peak
season in mid-March, up to 60,000 visitors would have been in hotels on
any given day.
Just six guests were staying at J.R.'s Motor
Inn, and all of them escaped injury by taking refuge in bathtubs.
Engineers deemed the building a total loss after the second floor, the
roof and all windows were destroyed.
Manager Lori McGauley choked back tears thinking about what might have been.
"We had 25 people booked for next week," McGauley said. "If this happened a week later, we would have lost some people."
At the 530-room downtown Hilton, intense winds sucked furniture away. Hotel workers were able to get all guests to safety.
Looking at the city's main strip, it was
difficult to believe there weren't more serious injuries. A small mall
was nearly completely demolished. The Legends Theater, the Andy Williams
Moon River Theater and the Branson Variety Theater all sustained
significant damage.
The Veterans Memorial Museum was in shambles, and a small military jet that sat in front of the museum was blown apart.
Some of the most popular theaters were
barely damaged. The popular Presley's Country Jubilee was virtually
unscathed, as was Yakov Smirnoff's theater. A manager at the
Baldknobbers Jamboree Show expected to cancel just three or four shows
before performances resume next week.
Other venues weren't so lucky. Branson
Variety Theater's 1,600-seat auditorium was intact, but the lobby and
gift shop were nearly destroyed. It could be almost two months before
the theater's popular Twelve Irish Tenors and Shake, Rattle & Roll
shows perform again.
Back in Harrisburg, Nell Cox woke up during
the tornado and glanced out her window with a flashlight to see her
neighbor being blown out a window.
"She crawled back to the front of my house,"
Cox said. She ventured outside to grab the woman, brought her indoors
and summoned an ambulance.
The winds were strong enough to blow the
walls off some rooms at the Harrisburg Medical Center. The staff had
enough warning to move the most endangered patients. Then they heard the
walls collapse, officials said.
The hospital discharged patients who could
go home or moved them to other medical facilities. But they also had to
confront an influx of injured.
"Helicopters have been coming in and out here all morning," said Vince Ashley, the hospital's CEO.
In the shattered neighborhoods, debris was
strewn everywhere -- washing machines and dyers tossed in neighbors'
yards, along with kitchen sinks and sticks of lumber with nails
protruding. Chunks of pink insolation added color to the disarray.
Osman and his sister sorted through the
wreckage at the site of their mother's duplex, looking for photos and
financial records. They found 10 old picture slides that were among a
collection of hundreds. Some were caked in mud and damaged by water.
"My mother was a Christian," Osman said. "I know she's in a better place. That is the only thing getting me through this."
In Missouri, one person was killed in a
trailer park in the town of Buffalo, about 35 miles north of
Springfield. Two more fatalities were reported in the Cassville and
Puxico areas.
Three people were reported killed in eastern
Tennessee -- two in Cumberland County and another in DeKalb County as
storms that dropped pingpong ball-sized hail in some areas collapsed
homes and downed power lines.
Emergency crews worked after nightfall to
rescue injured people trapped inside homes. A medical helicopter was
seen helping some of the injured.
"We have no idea what the damage is because
this happened just before dark," said Doug Scarlett of the Cumberland
County American Red Cross.
Mobile homes and houses were flattened in
multiple cities in Kentucky, including Elizabethtown in the
north-central part of the state, where a tornado with winds of 125 mph
touched down. Tommy Turner, the judge-executive in nearby LaRue County,
said the storm just missed a large day care and three schools.
Three buildings belonging to an
Elizabethtown trucking company were heavily damaged by the violent
weather, which also lashed parts of Kansas, Arkansas and Oklahoma.
"It picked the whole building up," said Jim
Owen, son of the owner of Harry Owen Trucking. "It would take a group of
20 men five days with equipment to tear that down."
The tornado that barreled through the tiny
eastern Kansas town of Harveyville was an EF-2, with wind speeds of 120
to 130 mph, state officials said. It left much of the community in
rubble.
The twisters headed toward the East Coast
were spawned by a powerful storm system that blew down from the Rockies
on Tuesday. Authorities were sending teams to investigate Thursday to
determine if tornadoes were involved in Tennessee.
Corey Mead, lead forecaster at the Storm
Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said a broad cold front was slamming
into warm, humid air over much of the eastern half of the nation.
Long a tourist destination for visitors
attracted to the Ozark Mountains, Branson rose to prominence in the
1990s because of its theaters, which drew country music stars including
Merle Haggard and Crystal Gayle, as well as other musical celebrities
such as Chubby Checker and Andy Williams.
Branson is about 110 miles southeast of
Joplin, which was devastated by a monstrous twister last May that killed
161 people. Memories of that disaster motivated people to take cover
after the sirens sounded early Wednesday.
"I think so many people from Branson went
over to help in Joplin, and having seen that, it was fresh on our
minds," said Mayor Raeanne Presley, whose family owns Presleys' Theater.
"We all reached for our loved ones a little sooner and got to the
basement a little faster."
The Midwest and South were to get a reprieve from the menacing weather Thursday, ahead of another strong system expected Friday.
Ryan Jewell, a meteorologist with the Storm
Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said the next system is forecast to
take a path similar to Wednesday's and has the potential to inflict even
more damage.
On Friday, he said, both the Midwest and South would be "right in the bull's eye."
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