Home Delivery

Crews search for tornado victims

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

May 12, 2008

Article tools

E-mail

Share
- Digg
- Del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Fark
- Google
- Newsvine
- Reddit
- Yahoo

PICHER, Okla. - Crews and search dogs hunted yesterday for survivors or bodies in piles of debris after tornadoes and storms rumbled across the region a day earlier, killing at least 22 people in three states.

Six people died in Picher, once a bustling mining center of 20,000 that dwindled to about 800 people as families fled lead pollution.

Residents said the tornado created a surreal scene as it tore through town Saturday afternoon, injuring 150 other people, overturning cars and damaging dozens of homes.

"I swear I could see cars floating," said Herman Hernandez, 68. "And there was a roar, louder and louder."

Ed Keheley was headed to town to help out Saturday night when he heard a woman screaming. He looked over to see her hand reaching out of debris. "She was sitting in the bathtub, she had curlers in her hair and she wanted out of there," said Keheley, who along with several others pulled her out.

The same storm system then moved into southwestern Missouri, where tornadoes killed at least 15 people. Next, the system moved eastward; yesterday, storms in Georgia killed at least one person.

"The federal government will be moving hard to help," President George W. Bush said. "I'll be in touch with the governors and offer all of the federal assistance we can."

In Seneca, Mo., about 20 miles southeast of Picher near the Oklahoma state line, crews combed farm fields yesterday, looking for bodies and survivors. Ten of the dead were killed when a twister struck near Seneca. Nineteen people were hospitalized in Newton County, which includes Seneca, county spokesman Keith Stammer said.

In Picher, some homes were reduced to their foundations; others lost several walls.

"People were just wandering up and down the streets. Some had blood on them; some were dazed," Keheley said.

The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning at 5:26 p.m., 13 minutes before the tornado hit Picher, said David Jankowski, a service meteorologist in Tulsa. Tornado sirens warned residents to take shelter.

The twister was the deadliest in Oklahoma since one on May 3, 1999, that killed 44 people in the Oklahoma City area.

Storms rumbled across Georgia yesterday, killing at least one person in Dublin, about 120 miles southeast of Atlanta, authorities said. The body was found in the rubble of a mobile home, said Bryan Rogers, the Laurens County administrator. A second person found in the home, who authorities initially reported had died, was hospitalized in critical condition, said Lisa Janak of the Georgia Emergency Management Agency. Two children were also found in the wreckage but were unharmed, he said.