The Anniston Star from Anniston, Alabama • Page 3

SOUTHERN STORMS Thursday, February 7, 2008 Page 3A See news? Call The Star at 235-3594 Not so serious news i PARTY LAND i Party Supplies for All Occasion 310 South Quintard Annislon (256) 237-7377 7 Coffee Break Every day In The AnnisYSrfStar i 1 rf I .) i it 4 Overstocks, Returns, Catalog Hems New shipment of comforters, bed-n-hegsr sheets, toys, small furniture, general merchandise, high end items rand much more! 1 i' Matt fttcKean Associated Press Volunteers salvage items at the home of Jerry and Michelle Chenault on Lawrence County Road 87 which was destroyed early Wednesday by a tornado. Three people were killed in Lawrence County. Pre-dawn tornadoes kill 4 in Alabama were severely injured. "There's places where there's just nothing there now. Houses are just gone," said Victor Manning.

Frankcns Furniture 280-4 Hwy. -431 North, Annlston, AL 362O0 INVENTORY CLEARANCE Save IJ IVloney! 24 Months No Interest! -a- No Money Down! In Loving Memory Michael T. Turner 1970 2005 "Early this morning I spoke with President Bush on the phone and he assured me his administration stands ready to help Alabama if we need federal assistance." Gov. Bob Riley 1 Double Reclining- l.X-U Loveseat J-Tii Brown Twill iRU MP '4j89 Qjfe. Sofa Hide-A-Bed wlnnerspring 'mUMll Leather Mattress3 tTW SLVLT 499" 'W IF mm i.

Queen Cherry hffJMM Sleigh Bed (Cherry) 'jWj fggp) 299" JCgPw Queen Headboard, 4 zr- Chest. Dresser, Mirror fars chest -2zsi 5995 Wc Ihouqlit of von- with love loclflv. liul (lint was nolhiiK) I Associated Press ALDRIDGE GROVE The tornadoes that killed four people, injured dozens and damaged as many as 500 homes in Alabama came at the worst possible time Wednesday: The predawn hours when' many people were sleeping, oblivious to any warning. At least two twisters hit north Alabama between 3 a.m, and 5:30 a.m., killing a couple and their teenage son in the Lawrence County community of Aldridge Grove and claiming a woman about 80 miles to the east in Pisgah, located in Jackson County. While Aldridge Grove was out of earshot of warning sirens, officials said horns went off three times before a twister slammed into Pisgah.

Jackson County emergency management director Victor Manning said the warnings didn't do much good, however. "In the middle of the night when you're in our house, they're really of no use," said Manning. "They're really designed for outdoors. What people need are weather radios." Eddie Colvard didn't hear any sirens at his home in Rosalie, about five miles from Pisgah, but the threatening weather kept him up. "We were listening tothe TV," he said.

"Everyone was pretty wideawake." In the Pinhook community near Aldridge Grove, truck driver Roy McVay jumped in his car Riley said in a statement. State climatologist John Christy said the tornado outbreak was unusual both for the time of day it hit most strike during daylight hours, particularly the afternoon and the date. While March and April are the state's peak months for tornadoes. Alabama typically doesn't get tornadoes this early in February. "Mother Nature can really throw a curve anytime," said Christy, of the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

Brenda Morgan, deputy emergency management director in Lawrence County, said the tornado hit about 3 a.m. at Aldridge Grove, located about 10 miles from Moulton in northwest Alabama. A storm siren went off in Moulton about 3 a.m., Morgan said, but the area where the deaths occurred lacked a siren. Nineteen people were treated at Lawrence Medical Center, and two were listed in critical condition. The Alabama Department of Insurance said the storm that struck Lawrence County caused a path of destruction 15 miles long and a quarter of a mile wide.

State Fire Marshal Ed Paulk said as many as 500 homes were damaged, some splintered as if bombed. In northeast Alabama, a woman was killed when a twister leveled a house in the. Jackson County town of Pisgah. said Cor-oUcf John David Jordan. Highlands Medical Center in Scotts-boro treated nine people, and Jordan said at least two people vcstcid.iy, Ami d.iys before Hint too.

We lunh ol von i silence. We olten spenk your nnrtie. Now all we have aie memories. And your pieluie in a frame. Your memory is our Keepsake With which we'll never part.

Oocl tins you in his keepings. We have you in our heart. We ine l.ennne. hiisliiu Mom, Ij.kI ami This is Inventory Clearance Sale! Limited Quantities All Sales Final! SC 6-12-24 Months! NO lNTERESL.wNo Money Pown! cash or checfi Open Man. Sat.

9am-6pm 820-6000 and raced to his brother-in-law's storm shelter after being awakened by thunder about 2:30 a.m. The storm knocked down oak trees, tossing one through the roof of the house where he sought shelter. "It was a pretty bad deal, a bad roar, but it was over in seconds once it went through." said It wasn't immediately known whether the storm victims were awakened before the havoc--' began. More than two dozen people were injured, at least two of them critically. Gov.

Bob Riley said state teams were assisting with the storm recovery. "Early this morning I spuke with President Bush ojrttoe pfione and he assured me his administration stands ready to help Alabama if we need federal assistance," WORKED AT THE IOCAI SOUP KITCHEN MENTOR DELIVERED MEALS ON WHEELS TUTORED A 2ND GRADER IN MATH WALKED THE NEIGHBOR'S 2 DOGS We want students with great hearts. WENT TO VISIT I I JT I I HOME RESIDENTS AT, RANG THE SAL1 BELl FOR OURS A 3 1 I A TOTAL RAKED LEAVES FO iv ERLY PEOPLE Severe storms kill at least 55, injure hundreds across South AM A MEN OR FOR A I RD GRADER 0 oo.ft rnMiri rft rkiAtli I 1 rUK rvi KO. JUINCO Severe storm system claims dozens VOLUNTEERED AT A BOOK DRIVE TO RAISE MONEY FOR CHILDREN'S LITERACY More than 50 people died and hundreds were injured in storms that swept across the South. Death tolls by state as of 5:30 p.m.

EST 1 Area of severe weather Reported tornado sighting U-t ILL IND CO CO 7s UJ a rn i co I 7 2: 5 TO 2: r.i i CO on i-TV TENN. n-ttliC ARK. 7" GA. S.C. i miss.

ALA CO 73 13 2 TEXAS LA o-O- UJ I FLA NOTE: Some tornado sightings overlap. Li CO -J BY RYAN LENZ Associated Press ATKINS, Ark. Shannon Barnes was in the basement, waiting out the storm with his family. After not hearing anything, he went upstairs to see if the tornado had passed. He looked out and there it was, bearing down on the house.

iist as dozens of other tornadoes blasted across five states 1 uesday and Wednesday, obliterating buildings. Hipping trucks, snapping trees in two and killing at least 55 people. Barnes ran back down and shut the basement door, but the wind pulled the d(xr open and almost sucked out him, his mother and her husband. The tornado ripped away the southern half of the house, just north of Si. Vincent along Arkansas 95.

"We prayed to Jesus. We prayed. That's why we're here," said Barnes, who was collecting clothes Wednesday from the house. The barrage of twisters across Mississippi, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama was the nation's deadliest in almost 23 years. The storms injured hundreds, flattened entire streets, smashed warehouses and sent tractor-trailers flying.

Houses were reduced to splintered piles of lumber. Soirie looked like life-size dollhouses, their walls sheared away. Crews going door to door to search for bodies had to contend with downed power lines, snapped trees and flipped-overcars. Cattle wandered through the debris near hard-hit Lafayette, Tenn. At least 12 people died in and around the town.

With five minutes' warning from TV news reports, Nova and AP SOURCES: National Weather Service; Weather Underground r4TEER volu SSSCHOLARSHIP Good qrades. Outstanding community servicer from a demolished post office. A bystander swaddled the crying child in his shirt. "He had debris all' over him, but there were no obvious signs of trauma," said Ken Weidner, Sumner County emergency management director. There was no word on the fate of the child's parents.

Tornado warnings had been broadcast for hours, and when the sirens finally announced that the twisters had arrived, many people across the South took shelter and saved their lives. But others simply had nowhere safe to go, or the storms proved too powerful, too numerous, too unpredictable. "It looks like the Lord took a Brillo pad and scrubbed the ground," said Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen, who surveyed the damage in Lafayette from a Ray Story huddled inside their home outside Lafayette and came out unscathed. But nearby, their uncle, Bill Clark, was injured in his toppled mobile home.

They put him in the bed of their pickup to take him to a hospital, and neighbors with chain saws tried to clear a path. What normally would have been a drive to the hospital took more than two hours because the roads were clogged with debris. Clark died on the way. "He never had a chance," Nova Story said. "I looked him right in the eye and he died right there in front of me." Amid the pain, there were some reasons to be thankful.

About 20 miles from Lafayette (pronounced luh-FAY-et,) in Castalian a baby was discovered unscathed in a field' across -fl'i Vi'i'.