Tornadoes kill dozens in Tennessee
Storms raze scores of buildings, rip into parts of Nashville
Emergency responders confront devastation Tuesday near Cookeville, Tenn., about 80 miles east of Nashville, after tornadoes ripped through parts of the state, killing at least 24 people. “It hit so fast, a lot of folks didn’t have time to take shelter,” Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said. “Many of these folks were sleeping.” A number of people were still missing as Gov. Bill Lee declared an emergency and mobilized the National Guard to help with search-and-rescue efforts. More photos at arkansasonline.com/34tornado/.
NASHVILLE — Rescuers searched through Tennessee neighborhoods for bodies Tuesday, less than a day after tornadoes ripped across Nashville and other parts of the state. At least 24 people were killed, some while still in their beds, authorities said.
The tornadoes that struck in the hours after midnight destroyed more than 140 buildings, and buried people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements. The storms moved so quickly that many people in their path could not flee to safer areas.
“It hit so fast, a lot of folks didn’t have time to take shelter,” Putnam County Mayor Randy Porter said. “Many of these folks were sleeping.”
The governor declared an emergency and sent the National Guard to help with search-and-rescue efforts. An unspecified number of people were still missing at of Tuesday afternoon.
Early findings by National Weather Service survey teams indicated that the damage in Nashville and Wilson County to the east was inflicted by a tornado of at least EF3 intensity, the agency said.
One tornado wrecked homes and businesses across a 10-mile stretch of Nashville that included parts of downtown. It smashed more than three dozen buildings, including destroying the tower and stained glass of a historic church. Another tornado damaged more than 100 structures along a 2-mile path in Putnam County, wiping some homes from their foundations and depositing the wreckage far away.
Daybreak revealed landscapes littered with blowndown walls and roofs, snapped power lines and huge broken trees, making many city streets and rural roads impassable. More than a dozen polling stations were also damaged, forcing Super Tuesday voters to wait in long lines at alternative sites.
In Putnam County, 80 miles east of Nashville, houses and businesses were flattened. In one neighborhood, volunteers found five bodies. Neighbors and sheriff’s officers were still looking for two more.
Nashville residents walked around on streets and sidewalks littered with debris, in neighborhoods where missing walls and roofs left living rooms and kitchens exposed. Mangled power lines and broken trees came to rest on cars, streets and piles of rubble.
“We are resilient, and we’re going to rebuild,” Nashville Mayor John Cooper said.
During Gov. Bill Lee’s tour of Putnam County, homeowners dug through debris, trying to salvage any items not destroyed. One woman held up a clean green blouse while standing on a second floor of a home that had no roof.
President Donald Trump spoke with the governor by phone and pledged federal assistance, the White House said. Trump also announced plans to visit the disaster area Friday.
In Nashville, the twister’s path was mostly north and east of the heart of downtown, sparing many of the city’s biggest tourism draws — the honky tonks of Broadway, the Grand Ole Opry House, the storied Ryman Auditorium and the convention center.
Instead the storm tore through the areas of Bordeaux and North Nashville, as well as neighborhoods transformed by a recent building boom. Germantown and East Nashville are two of the city’s trendiest hot spots, with restaurants, music venues, high-end apartment complexes.
“The dogs started barking before the sirens went off. They knew what was coming,” said Paula Wade of East Nashville. “Then we heard the roar. … Something made me just sit straight up in bed, and something came through the window right above my head. If I hadn’t moved, I would’ve gotten a face full of glass.”
The roof came crashing down on Ronald Baldwin and Harry Nahay in the bedroom of their one-story brick home in East Nashville. “We couldn’t get out,” Baldwin said. “And so I just kept kicking and kicking until we finally made a hole.”
The wind woke Evan and Carlie Peters, also in East Nashville, but they had no time to reach the relative safety of an interior bathroom.
“Within about 10 seconds, the house started shaking,” Carlie Peters said. “I jumped on top of the ground. He jumped on top of me. The ceiling landed on top of him. … We’re grateful to be alive.”
With more than a dozen Super Tuesday polling places in Nashville’s Davidson County damaged, voters were sent to other locations, some of them with long lines. Election officials in Putnam County advised voters in eight precincts with damaged polling locations to vote at the main election office in Cookeville.
A Davidson County Chancery Court judge ruled that polling locations in the county whose seat is Nashville would remain open until 8 p.m. Central time. Five socalled megasites, where anyone in the tornado-hit county can go to vote, was open until 10 p.m. under the judge’s ruling, Tennessee Democratic Party spokeswoman Emily Cupples said.