People are dead & their worried about the Damn voting!


Deadly twisters mar voting
9 deaths confirmed; dozens reported trapped, hurt or missing in Ark., Tenn.
NBC News and news services
updated 7:56 p.m. PT, Tues., Feb. 5, 2008

ATKINS, Ark. - Tornadoes tore across Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and injuring or trapping others in a rare midwinter outbreak of violent weather that came as voters turned out for primaries across the region.

At least six tornadoes touched down between Oxford, Miss., and Jackson, Tenn., said Richard Okulski of the National Weather Service in Memphis.

In Arkansas, seven deaths were confirmed after several tornadoes touched down, including one in the town of Atkins, northwest of Little Rock. Three deaths — a couple and a child — were confirmed there and a church was destroyed. Six more people were in critical condition there.

In Baxter County, numerous injuries were reported and five people were missing, officials said.

The town of Gassville was sealed off because of the possibility of gas leaks resulting in an explosion, and injury reports could not be confirmed because phone lines were down.

"It’s been a wild night," state emergency management spokesman Tommy Jackson told KATV in Little Rock. "A heck of a way to have elections in Arkansas."

In Tennessee, a twister claimed a life in Fayette County. And a tornado destroyed much of Union University in Jackson, including two dorms. Rescuers were trying to free six students still behind the rubble. Several others were hurt and many students reportedly had huddled in bathrooms with mattresses over their heads.

The university and its 3,300 students were struck twice before, in 2001 and 2002, but never like this.

Another 50 people were reportedly trapped in a retirement center in the area.

And dozens of tractor-trailers blown over by the winds caused a nearby highway to be cut off.

In Memphis, a possible tornado claimed one life, caused injuries and damaged a mall and several other buildings.

Steve Cole of the Memphis Police Department said a few people north of the mall took shelter under a bridge and were washed away, but were pulled out of the Wolf River with only scrapes.

Officials confirmed a tornado touched down northeast of Memphis, knocking down a state highway patrol radio tower. No injuries were immediately reported.

Storms also briefly suspended flights at Memphis International Airport, the world’s busiest cargo airport, and several thousand people lost power.

'Like a bomb went off'
Twisters in northern Mississippi tore through buildings and ripped down power lines. The National Weather Service said it had received reports of injuries in the area, but the extent of those injuries was not immediately available.

A tornado shredded warehouses in an industrial park in Southaven, said Desoto County Sheriff’s Department Cmdr. Steve Atkinson.

“It ripped the warehouses apart. The best way to describe it is it looks like a bomb went off,” Atkinson said. “A lot of fire departments are here and we’re searching each warehouse to see if there was anybody in there. It’s going to be a time consuming thing and we’ll probably be searching into the morning.”

Forecasters in Kentucky warned that the storms could produce hail, high winds and flooding Tuesday night.

“All the elements are there for severe weather,” said National Weather Service hydrologist Mike Callahan.

Earlier Tuesday, snow or rain fell in parts of Super Tuesday states Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Oklahoma.

The weather in eastern Missouri got worse as the day progressed, with lightning and thunder rolling in during the waning hours of open polling.

Indiana flooding, Ohio fears
Officials in two northwest Indiana counties urged people who live along the Tippecanoe River to evacuate Tuesday after heavy rain fell during the night.

“Early this morning Carroll County Sheriff’s deputies began driving up and down the roads waking people up with sirens and public address announcements,” said Carroll County Emergency Management director Dave McDowell.

McDowell said many people were still out of the area because of January flooding that killed three people and caused more than $33 million damage. Others had returned but were leaving again.

Residents were urged to leave homes downstream from Carroll County’s Oakdale Dam, where flood gates were opened early Tuesday to release rising water. One of those residents, Donna Marshall, said she had nightmares after seeing warnings on television Monday night.

“I didn’t realize how much the last one affected me. I kept thinking we were going to get swept off,” Marshall said.

High water closed roads in other parts of northern Indiana and flood warnings and watches were in effect for much of the state.

In Findlay, Ohio, officials warned business owners they should be ready to move if the Blanchard River spilled over into downtown Wednesday. The river, rising about 5 inches an hour Tuesday, was predicted to rise to about 3 feet above flood stage by Wednesday afternoon.

If that happens, flooding will cover many streets and could force evacuations of some neighborhoods, said Jim Barker, the city’s safety director.

“One thing in our favor is that a lot of the people who were flooded in August have not returned,” said Jim Barker, safety director in this city of about 40,000.

Police planned to put cruisers at all city fire stations in case the floodwaters split the city in half, which is what happened in late August. Neighborhoods were isolated when heavy rains dumped up to 10 inches during a few hours, causing the city’s worst flood since 1913.

Damage to city-owned buildings and property was estimated to be as much as $31 million.

Lots of snow in Wis., Iowa, N.M.
In southwestern Wisconsin, snow was expected to total more than a foot and a half in some southern parts of the state before ending Wednesday afternoon.

The snow triggered a rash of traffic accidents. A woman was killed and four other people injured when a tractor-trailer, two cars and a pickup collided, authorities said.

Much of Iowa braced for more than a foot of snow.

“Roads in the southeast corner of state are already 100 percent snow-covered, and they’re not going to get any better,” said Brad Small, a National Weather Service forecaster in Des Moines.

It could be much worse. Voters heading to party caucuses in Alaska faced lows of 50 degrees below zero, with more than a foot of new snow in Juneau, the state’s capital.

Elsewhere, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on Tuesday ordered more than a dozen National Guard troops to the mountain town of Chama, saying deep snow has blocked roads, damaged buildings and stranded residents in their homes

More than 33 inches of snow has fallen since Saturday at Chama, sitting at an elevation of 7,800 feet, the National Weather Service said.

The Associated Press and NBC's Carrie Dann contributed to this report.

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hey catchme i know lol i am pretty close almost in the middle of storms coming from tenn now so yeah i feel ya

its getting nasty now

Most politicians are storms themselves.

I we whine about the rain & fires here... yikes!!!

Yahoo! News
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Southern residents assess tornado damage

By ANTONIO GONZALEZ, Associated Press Writer 18 minutes ago

Residents in five Southern states tried to salvage what they could Wednesday from homes reduced to piles of debris, a day after the deadliest cluster of tornadoes in nearly a decade tore through the region, snapping trees and crumpling homes. At least 48 people were dead.

Rescue crews, some with the help of the National Guard, went door-to-door looking for more victims. Dozens of twisters were reported as the storms swept through Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas and Alabama.

Seavia Dixon, whose Atkins, Ark., home was shattered, stood Wednesday morning in her yard, holding muddy baby pictures of her son, who is now a 20-year-old soldier in Iraq. Only a concrete slab was left from the home.

The family's brand new white pickup truck was upside-down, about 150 yards from where it was parked before the storm. Another pickup truck the family owned sat crumpled about 50 feet from the slab.

"You know, it's just material things," Dixon said, her voice breaking. "We can replace them. We were just lucky to survive."

In many places, the storms struck as Super Tuesday primaries were ending. As the extent of the damage quickly became clear, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee paused in their victory speeches to remember the victims.

Twenty-four people were killed in Tennessee, 13 killed in Arkansas, seven killed in Kentucky and four killed in Alabama, emergency officials said. Among the victims were Arkansas parents who died with their 11-year-old daughter in Atkins, a community of about 3,000 approximately 60 miles northwest of Little Rock.

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

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

President 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," Bush said. "I do want the people in those states to know the American people are standing with them."

The system moved eastward to Alabama Wednesday, bringing heavy rain and gusty wind, causing several injuries in counties northwest of Birmingham. The National Weather Service posted tornado watches for parts of southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle and western Georgia. Weather service experts also investigated damage in Indiana to see if it was caused by tornadoes.

An apparent tornado damaged eight homes in Walker County, Ala., and a pregnant woman suffered a broken arm when a trailer home was tossed by the wind, said county emergency management director Johnny Burnette.

"I was there before daylight and it looked like a war zone," he said.

Northeast of Nashville, a spectacular fire erupted at a natural gas pumping station. The station took a direct hit from the storm, but no deaths connected to the fire were reported.

About 200 yards from the edge of the plant, Bonnie and Frank Brawner picked through the rubble of their home for photographs and other personal items. The storm sheared off the second story of the home.

"We had a beautiful neighborhood, now it's hell," said Bonnie Brawner, 80.

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

"When the sirens went off the entire process went into place quickly," Dockery said. Students "were ushered into rooms, into the bathrooms, interior spaces."

He said about 50 students were taken to a hospital and nine stayed through the night. But all would be fine, he said. The students "demonstrated who they are and I'm so proud of them."

In Memphis, high wind 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 in the Wolf River, but they were pulled out with only scrapes, said Steve Cole of the Memphis Police Department.

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.

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.

Recent studies have found an increase in tornadoes in parts of the southern U.S. during the winter during a La Nina. On Jan. 8, tornadoes were reported in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. Two died in the Missouri storms.

In this round of storms, there were 67 eyewitness accounts of tornadoes but the number of twisters likely won't be that high because some probably saw the same funnel cloud, said Greg Carbin, the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla. He said a reasonable guess is that 30 to 40 tornadoes touched down.

Most communities had ample warning that the storms were coming — forecasts had warned for days severe weather was possible. But in at least one rural community, there was no siren to alert residents the severe weather had arrived.

In Kentucky's Allen County, officials have requested funding for a siren at the fire station, but don't have one yet. Even if they did, officials wondered if it would have helped.

"It came in quick," Judge-Executive Bobby Young said. "Probably, warning devices wouldn't have helped any."

___

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Ryan Lenz in Greenville, Ky., Jon Gambrell in Atkins, Ark., Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Miss., and Woody Baird in Memphis, Tenn.