Survivors recount force of Miss.

twister
At least 10 die, dozens hurt; hundreds of homes destroyed or damaged

Will Smith / AP Dale Thrasher, standing in front of the Hillcrest Baptist Church in Yazoo City, Miss., talks about hiding under the sanctuary's communion table as a tornado hit Saturday. Aftermath Twisters hit in both Louisiana and Mississippi, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens more. Deadly tornadoes cut across Southeast At least 10 people are dead and dozens injured after tornadoes and severe thunderstorms weaved a path of destruction through several states. NBCs Charles Hadlock reports. YAZOO CITY, Miss. - One prayed to God under a communion table as his church was blown to pieces around him. Another was on the phone with a meteorologist when the tornado threw him against a cinderblock wall that held just long enough to save his life. A coroner nearly became a victim himself when the twister flipped his truck four times; later he went out in his hospital gown to help identify bodies. At least 10 people were killed when the tornado ripped through the rural

Mississippi countryside, but the stories told by survivors on Sunday show how much higher the toll could have been. Dale Thrasher, 60, had been alone in Hillcrest Baptist Church when the tornado hit Saturday, ripping away wood and metal until all that was left was rubble, Thrasher and the table he had climbed under as he prayed for protection. "The whole building caved in," he said. "But me and that table were still there." Sunday was sunny and breezy as Thrasher and other members of the Yazoo City church dug through the debris and pulled out a few chairs and other items. One found a hymnal opened to the song, "Till the Storm Passes By." Hundreds of homes also were damaged in the storm, which carved a path of devastation from the Louisiana line to east-central Mississippi, and at least three dozen people were hurt. Rescuers spread out Sunday to find anyone who might be trapped, while survivors returned to demolished homes to salvage what they could and bulldoze the rubble. "This tornado was enormous," said Gov. Haley Barbour, who grew up in Yazoo County, home to about 28,000 people and known for blues, catfish and cotton. The twister wreaked "utter obliteration" among the picturesque hills rising from the flat Mississippi Delta, the governor said. Tornadoes also were reported in Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama. The storm system tracked northeastward, downing trees in northwest Georgia early Sunday before moving offshore. Mississippi's Choctaw County suffered the most confirmed deaths: five, including a baby and two other children. On Sunday the air there was filled with the buzz of chain saws, the rumbling of tractors and the scent of splintered pine trees. Utility workers in cherry-pickers hovered over police officers directing traffic on a two-lane highway busy with relief workers and volunteers arriving to help. All that remained of Sullivan's Crossroads Grocery was a pile of cinderblocks and some jars of pickled eggs and pigs' feet. But owner Ron Sullivan, his wife and four other people rode out the storm there and suffered only some cuts and bruises. April 25: NBCs Charles Hadlock reports on the twister deaths and damage. Sullivan had been on the phone, describing the weather conditions to a

meteorologist, when the line went dead and the twister hit, tearing the wooden roof off the store and hurling Sullivan into a cinderblock wall. "I was levitated and flew 15 feet over there to the back wall," he said. "The only reason I wasn't killed was the wall was still there. After I hit it, it collapsed." A steel fuel storage tank, about 10 feet long, was uprooted by the twister and rolled into the store, coming to rest against a freezer. Hiding on the other side of the freezer was Sullivan's wife. Across the street, the home of the parents of Houston Astros pitcher Roy Oswalt was reduced to rubble by the tornado. Oswalt himself was driving a bucket loader Sunday, trying to knock down a damaged tree on the property. His father, Billy, had been out hunting when the storm hit, and his mother, Jean, hunkered down in a back room of the house with the family's dog. "She got our little dog and covered up and she's OK," Billy Oswalt said. The tornado went on to cut about a 10-mile path through Choctaw County, hacking off the tops of pine trees about eight feet above the ground before slamming into three mobile homes.