Press and Sun-Bulletin from Binghamton, New York • 4

4A Press Sun-Bulletin Tuesday, March 29, 1994 2 1 WHY? Pastor tries to comfort flock while grieving for her child 7 The toll State-by-state glance of death tolls from storms Sunday that killed 43 people and injured hundreds: ALADAMA Deaths: 22 Twenty deaths occurred in or around the the Goshen United Methodist Church in Piedmont, which collapsed. At least 00 were Injured in the collapse. Two were killed elsewhere. CIORGIA Deaths: 17 Nine deaths reported in Pickens County, four in Lumpkin County, at least three people in Bartow County and one in Habersham County. TENNESSEE Deaths: 2 A hiker In the Great Smoky Mountains drowned In a rain-swollen creek, and a woman drowned after she was swept away from her stalled car.

NORTH CAROLINA Deaths: 2 In Charlotte, a man was killed by a lightning bolt A woman in Lincoln County was electrocuted by a downed power line. SOUTH CAROLINA Power outages and structural damage was reported after seven tornadoes. PIEDMONT, Ala. (AP) After losing her 4-year-old daughter and much of her growing young congregation in the Palm Sunday Clem isn't yet ready to answer the question: "Why?" "I was just walking around ministering and praying with people after it happened, andpeo-ple were lying on the ground and asking: 'Why Kelly, tell me "We do not know why," she said she told them. "I don't think 'why' is the question right now.

We just have to help each other through it." On Monday, the 34-year-old pastor was struggling between her dual roles as grieving mother and the spiritual leader of a congregation shocked by death. Her daughter Hannah was with other children waiting to sing in a musical drama telling the crucifixion story when the tornado struck, one of a series that pounded the Southeast on Sunday. One minute, the song Jehovah Jireh Hebrew for "the Lord will provide" filled the air of the church, a witness said. The next minute, debris was flying. The tornado collapsed the Goshen United Methodist Church roof and the walls of the one-story red-brick church cnmipled, burying dozens in the congregation of 140.

At least 20 people died at the church, including six children, and some 90 worshipers were injured. The Clems' other child, 2-year-old Sarah, was in the church nursery that escaped the brunt of the tornado. She had minor injuries. Clem, who believes a flying brick was to blame for her badly swollen left eve and a big gash on her forehead, walked with her husband around the wrecked church and parsonage. "I'm picking up on this pain and suffering and death," she said, grippinga pink stuffed cat Hannah got for Christmas.

"But all I'm feeling right now is my baby." Clem and her 34-year-old husband, the Rev. Dale Clem, are wefl-known among Methodist clergy in Alabama, and ministers came from around the state to help them and the victims. A dozen ministers were at the airport Sunday night to meetDale Clem, who rushed back from a youth ministry in Oklahoma after receiving the grim news'. "She's a very strong person and she's a person of great faith," Dale Clem said. "We just hugged each other and cried together and said we loved each other." Members of her congregation mourned their losses and talked of keeping their faith.

Doug and Rhonda Scott were both injured, but thankful their 2-year-oldson was unharmed. Scott said they were watching the presentation when they noticed the wind had picked up. When he heard glass breaking, Scott jumped into the aisle and began crawling to the nursery to find his son. A cement beam crashed down, dislocating his hips. His wife suffered pelvic fractures when debris fell on her.

The couple shared a hospital room Monday, unable to get out of bed. "I was in terrible pain and I was hollering for my son," he said. "Somebody brought him to me. He was crying, but he was OK." ASSOCIATED PRESS The Rev. Kelly Clem of the Goshen United Methodist Church in Pied mont, Ala, holds a stuffed animal that had belonged to her daughter Hannah.

Hannah was one of at least 20 In the church killed when a tornado struck during Palm Sunday services. TORNADO ALLEY Tito tilth ola tornado South ripped. by stoiims. 5 This hcsiad upclruft coiWes with higher coU air and cr eatse tuibulent winds sarrounciirg it. Thesa w1rx33 are forced into a vtotent upward spin and are the beginnings of a tornado.

it. Tttt ttfoislcrrns act es Earth's ct arit by diawrg hot, moist air from t.9 ground. When terriperatwes vary grcty between the ground and trnor-hef9 (as they da in summer), this t'r rVs condenses and form3 C.iJn.lFNrhoa'is, CAP i. gbOQ CLOUD TftOFCrAUCc A COLO AIR 4T WARM AIR GROUND 'ARMAia UtE. FQDQaQ Whether you're looking to sell a computer or to hire a programer, the place to start is the Classifieds.

It's the area's premier Brand new every day. Press Sun-Bulletin CLASSIFIEDS 798-1141 The momentum of the generates sufficient strength to extend a funnel below the Iv' cloud base to the ground. The funnel spins at tremendous soeeds. Dickina uo debris and The Washington Post ROCK RUN, Ala. A cold wind blew across the ravaged hilltops of Alabama Monday as Bradford Poole, an unshaven farmer, surveyed his world: his 100- year-old farm house gutted; his daughter's trailer exploded; his son's new home scattered across the highway.

"And we were the lucky ones," Poole said. His family lost three of its homes, but escaped without death or injury as Sunday's storm system ripped across the area. Poole's sons had lain face down in the basement of one house, "and they swore they could feel that twister trying to suck them out," Poole said. Sunday saw one of the worst tornado rampages to run through the South in years, a day when hail the size of marbles fell in Mississippi, funnel clouds destroyed churches in Alabama and brilliant, violent lightning blazed across the Georgia skies. Before it was all over late in the day, at least 45 people were dead crushed by debris churned up by the twisters, struck by lightning or drowned by the flood waters borne of the torrential rains that followed the tornadoes.

Hundreds were injured. At the storm's peak, some 150,000 customers around 1 the region were without power in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Most of the power will be restored by daybreak Wednesday, utility officials said. About 35 tornadoes were reported in the region on Sunday, and thunderstorms and cold heavy rains continued Monday, raising rivers and causing widespread flooding. Several funnel clouds were spotted Monday, though none was reported to have touched down.

The storms roiled through a stretch of the South known as tornado alley. They continued a pattern, charted as far back as the 1600s, that is typical for the Southeast in the early spring. The violent storms are the offspring of two dis-' tinctly different kinds of air masses, as unstable moist air moves from the Caribbean and collides with a cold front rolling down from the north. The National Weather Service had been monitoring the storm since Saturday. It contained the warm, moist, unstable air and strong high-altitude winds with shears that can turn an ordinary thunderstorm sys-; tern into a whirling monster that spins off tornadoes, according to Jim Henderson, deputy director of the National Severe Storm Forecast Center in Kansas City.

As the storm barreled out of Mississippi and crossed Alabama, the Birmingham weather office issued 21 severe thunder storm warnings for various counties, one flash flood warning and 27 tornado warnings. At 6:45 a.m. (EST) Sunday, the forecast office in Birmingham issued a statement that severe conditions were developing. At 1 1:27 a.m. (EST), the office issued its first warning of an actual tornado, pinpointed with the aid of a powerful new Doppler radar system.

The hardest hit region was the hill county of northeast Alabama, within a 20-mile radius of Bradford Poole's farm. The sirens started ringing at Anniston Army Depot about a half-hour before the first killer tornado struck. The depot maintains an elaborate warning system because it has a quantity of chemical-warfare "nerve agents" awaiting incineration in a series of above-ground concrete bunkers. No chemicals were released, but the sirens did warn residents in a 9-mile area of the twisters. The tornado's funnel touched down on Goshen United Methodist Church near Piedmont about 12:30 p.m.

(EST), blowing out windows, collapsing the roof and walls on a pew of children in bright Easter outfits, and killing among others the 4-year-old daughter of Rev. Kelly Clem. Survivors said they had no warning. About 130 people were in the Methodist church when the lights flickered and went out during the singing of a hymn. Soon after, roaring wind and splintering glass sent parishioners diving under red-carpeted pews.

One man died outside the church in a vehicle. Another 20 were killed inside the church, including six children aged 2 to 12 who were taken with the others to a nearby temporary morgue at a national guard facility. The dead were laid out, still dressed in their Sunday best, as neighbors and relative came to identify the bodies on Sunday. At least 80 church members were injured. Two other nearby Alabama churches were also destroyed, though apparently no one was hurt.

Forecasters and residents of tornado alley know that the violent storms cut a tattered trail of destruction, shredding one home yet leaving its neighbor, untouched. So it was across the South on Sunday. a it- i uusi hi i us pan i. A tornado generally occurs at the rear of a thunderstorm, drawing its strength from colliding warm and cold fronts. TORNADO wMaaan flumA STORM RAIN HOOK a- COLD WARM front 1FR0NT AP Sourv: TimeLift Storm; National Geographic Magazlna RESEARCH Smokeless tobacco boosts risks Leading Edge 486DX-33 486 DX-33 MHz Ira i -f 'i i 4mb RAM Dual Floppy Drives 260mb Hard Disk Drive SVGA .28 Color Monitor Microsoft Windows v3.1 Microsoft Works Microsoft DOS 6.2 Microsoft Money MS Productivity Pack Throe Year Warranty 0IOC3.

(after rebate) But among men ages 35 to 54, the risk was 2.1 times as great for smokeless-tobacco users, 2.7 times for light smokers and 3.2 times for heavy smokers. Drs. Gunilla Bolinder and Lars Alfredsson concluded that additional elements in cigarette smoke must be putting smokers at greater risk. But the risk to smokeless-tobacco users is enough to prompt closer looks at nicotine, they wrote. 13,518 smoked more than 15 cigarettes a day and 32,546 had never used tobacco.

The remainder had used tobacco in the past. The researchers adjusted for weight, blood pressure and history of heart symptoms. Among all ages, smokeless-tobacco users were 1.4 times as likely to die of heart disease as people who never used tobacco. Light smokers were 1.8 times as likely to die, and heavy smokers 1.9 times. Karolinska Institute followed users of smokeless tobacco, which delivers higher doses of nicotine than cigarettes without the interference ofsmoke.

Their study, published in today's edition of the American Journal of Public Health, followed 135,000 construction workers from 1974 through 1985. Of that number, 6,297 used smokeless tobacco, 14,983 smoked fewer than 15 cigarettes a day, WASHINGTON (AP) A 12-; year study of 135,000 men found that users of smokeless tobacco are times as likely to die of heart disease as those who don't use tobacco in any form. Smokeless tobacco has been linked to heart disease, just as cig-; arettes have, but scientists didn't know just why. They suspect nico-' tine is the culprit. So, in the longest-term study of the issue, researchers at Sweden's ASSISTED SUICIDE Purchue this advertised computer yr- i system and get a Samsung 24 pin jtff ji j't jry Dot Matrix LQ Printet I A and a printer cable it included! wv ICevoririan may break suidde promise We are the area's Factory Authorized Service Center for Leading Edge, Citizen, Star Okidata A OcrnzEN- iCar 0KBpIA Saturday.

The woman said she has suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for 26 years. She described losing an eye, having her left leg amputated four years ago and losing her right leg to surgery two weeks before the taping. Prompted by her interviewers, the woman showed her grotesquely deformed hands and the limits of their movement. "I'm really full of despair because the pain can't be controlled," she said. Asked if she was considering suicide, she replied: "I think that would be the best thing for me." SOUTHFIELD, Mich.

(AP) Dr. Jack Kevorkian will break his promise not to assist in more suicides unless a doctor agrees to treat a woman's debilitating arthritis pain, Kevorkian's lawyer said Monday. Before a judge would release him from jail last December, Kevorkian had to promise not to help anyone kill themselves until the Michigan Court of Appeals rules on the constitutionality of the state law banning assisted suicide. Kevorkian had been jailed on an assisted suicide charge. Now his lawyer, Geoffrey Fieger, says a woman Kevorkian has been counseling for two years is in so much pain that Kevorkian would consider himself "unbridled" from that promise.

"She wants somebody who will give her stronger medication to make the rest of her life more comfortable," Fieger said. "In the absence of that, Dr. Kevorkian will no longer feel constrained under the promise that he previously made." Kevorkian can't prescribe drugs because bis medical license has been suspended At a news conference, Fieger played a videotape that showed the woman from the neck down, sitting in a wheelchair and being interviewed from off-camera by Kevorkian and his associate Neal Nicol. The recording was made We honor your warranty no matter where purchased. COf.CTUTEIl I.IAN "Now wiinopi dropping oiwr labundls A 204 Grand Avt.

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