Across the Midwest and South, residents are cleaning up from Friday's outbreak of late winter storms.
A seemingly nonstop barrage of tornadoes roared across rural farmland and cities all day and all night. Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Virginia and West Virginia all sustained damage. At least 28 people died, and that number is expected to rise.
Destroyed Homes
Some of the worst damage was in southern Indiana. Only an hour after one tornado tore through Marysville, Bobby Fulkerson tried to save his son's possessions. He stood on the porch roof, which had been moved about 12 feet from the storm.
"It's a mess," he said.
The wind was still gusting as Fulkerson picked gingerly around his son's house. He nailed boards over the shattered windows to prevent further damage as his 10-year-old granddaughter, Laakin, poked her head out. She was kept at school over in Charlestown during the storm
"Somebody on my bus told me that Marysville is completely destroyed, and ... I panicked and started crying," she said.
Marysville isn't completely destroyed — the tiny town's post office and hardware store are still standing — but the main residential areas are leveled.
Four-wheel, all-terrain vehicles zoom by. With streets blocked by downed trees, this is the fastest way to get around.
Rescue workers went house-to-house searching for survivors as some residents were packing up. One carried a dog, another a basketful of books.
The tornado hit Marvin Tucker's home, shearing off the roof and breaking the windows.
"We [were] in one room and it hit ... it took a dresser that was over next to one wall and just flipped it over," he said.
'No Way You Can Prepare'
It's a shocking scene duplicated elsewhere. In northern Alabama, a federal prison took a direct hit. Outside Chattanooga, Tenn., homes were ripped off their foundations. In Kentucky, Gov. Steve Beshear declared a statewide emergency.
Ten miles from Marysville, Henryville, Ind., is dealing with its losses. The main street is clogged with rescue vehicles, blue and red lights flashing. Behind barricades, emergency workers check for survivors. When they move on, they mark each house with an "X."
Indiana State Police Sgt. Jerry Goodin says the job is unimaginably huge: a three-county area of destruction, with hundreds of miles of rural roads.
"The worst case scenario happened for us. We had multiple tornadoes, and it happened all of a sudden," he says. "We knew there was a possibility that something like this would happen, and we were trying to prepare. There's no way you can prepare for something like this happening."
Demolished School
Alicia Colvin stands in downtown Henryville with her 7-year-old son. She's a bus driver for the school district and is waiting to shuttle rescue workers. She shakes her head when she talks about the town's combined elementary, junior and senior high school.
"The school, it's ... I saw one vehicle inside of the steel beams in one of the floors. There are a couple of buses that are turned over and twisted, literally popped off their axles," she says. "The gymnasium — the whole wall's gone, you can see in it. ... It's pretty well demolished."
Colvin squints through the dark. She doesn't know if her home, just outside of town, is still standing.
The unknown. The frustration. The shock. It's something that thousands of others like Colvin are dealing with as they try to piece their lives back together after an unbelievable day of weather destruction.
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