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Massive band of storms wrecks Ind. towns, kills 6
Powerful storms stretching from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes wrecked two Indiana towns and killed at least six people Friday as the system tore roofs off schools and homes, flattened a fire station, flipped over tractor-trailer trucks and damaged a maximum security prison. It was the second deadly tornado outbreak this week.
Authorities reported the six deaths in southern Indiana, where Marysville was leveled and nearby Henryville also suffered extreme damage. Each is home to about 2,000 people. "Marysville is completely gone," said Clark County Sheriff's Department Maj. Chuck Adams.
Aerial footage from a TV news helicopter flying over Henryville showed numerous wrecked houses, some with their roofs torn off and many surrounded by debris. The video shot by WLKY in Louisville, Ky., also shows a mangled school bus protruding from the side of a one-story building and dozens of overturned semis strewn around the smashed remains of a truck stop.
An Associated Press photographer in Henryville said the high school was destroyed and the second floor had been ripped off the middle school next door. Authorities said school was in session when the tornado hit, but there were only minor injuries there. The rural town about 20 miles north of Louisville is the home of Indiana's oldest state forest and the birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Col. Harland Sanders.
The threat of tornadoes was expected to last until late Friday for parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and Ohio. Forecasters at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma said the massive band of storms was putting 10 million people in several states at high risk of dangerous weather. "Maybe five times a year we issue what is kind of the highest risk level for us at the Storm Prediction Center," forecaster Corey Mead said. "This is one of those days."
Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International Airport was closed temporarily because of debris on the runways, but one of three runways had reopened by late afternoon. A fire station was flattened and several barns were toppled in northern Kentucky across the Ohio River from the badly damaged Indiana towns. The outbreak was also causing problems in states to south, including Alabama and Tennessee where dozens of houses were damaged. It comes two days after an earlier round of storms killed 13 people in the Midwest and South.
At least 20 homes were ripped off their foundation and eight people were injured in the Chattanooga, Tenn., area after strong winds and hail lashed the area. To the east in Cleveland, Blaine Lawson and his wife Billie were watching the weather when the power went out. Just as they began to seek shelter, strong winds ripped the roof off their home. Neither was hurt.
"It just hit all at once," said Blaine Lawson, 76. "Didn't have no warning really. The roof, insulation and everything started coming down on us. It just happened so fast that I didn't know what to do. I was going to head to the closet but there was just no way. It just got us."
Thousands of schoolchildren in several states were sent home as a precaution, and several Kentucky universities were closed. The Huntsville, Ala., mayor said students in area schools sheltered in hallways as severe weather passed in the morning. "Most of the children were in schools so they were in the hallways so it worked out very well," said Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle. Five people were taken to area hospitals, and several houses were leveled.
An apparent tornado also damaged a state maximum security prison about 10 miles from Huntsville, but none of the facility's approximately 2,100 inmates escaped. Alabama Department of Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said there were no reports of injuries, but the roof was damaged on two large prison dormitories that each hold about 250 men. Part of the perimeter fence was knocked down, but the prison was secure.
"It was reported you could see the sky through the roof of one of them," Corbett said. For residents and emergency officials across the state, tornado precautions and cleanup are part of a sadly familiar routine. A tornado outbreak last April killed about 250 people around the state, with the worst damage in Tuscaloosa to the south.
The Storm Prediction Center's Mead said a powerful storm system was interacting with humid, unstable air that was streaming north from the Gulf of Mexico. "The environment just becomes more unstable and provides the fuel for the thunderstorms," Mead said.
Schools sent students home early or canceled classes entirely in states including Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky and Indiana. In Alabama alone, more than 20 school systems dismissed classes early Friday. The University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville and several other colleges in the state also canceled classes. In one subdivision in in Athens, Ala., damage was visible on 10 homes. Homeowner Bill Adams watched as two men ripped shingles off the roof of a house he rents out, and he fretted about predictions that more storms would pass through. "Hopefully they can at least get a tarp on it before it starts again," he said.
Not far away, the damage was much worse for retired high school band director Stanley Nelson. Winds peeled off his garage door and about a third of his roof, making rafters and boxes in his attic visible from the street. "It's like it just exploded," he said.
By DYLAN T. LOVAN
The Associated Press
