Debris and memories of regular life lay scattered inside the shells of homes and on lawns: clothing, insulation, roofing paper, toys, splintered furniture, a pickup truck with its windows shattered
\n WYNNE
\nStorms that dropped possibly dozens of tornadoes killed at least 26 people in small towns and big cities across the South and Midwest, tearing a path through the Arkansas capital, collapsing the roof of a packed concert venue in Illinois and stunning people throughout the region Saturday with the damage\u2019s scope.
\nConfirmed or suspected tornadoes in at least eight states destroyed homes and businesses, splintered trees and laid waste to neighborhoods across a broad swath of the country. The dead included at least nine in one Tennessee county, four in the small town of Wynne, Arkansas, three in Sullivan, Indiana, and four in Illinois.
\nOther deaths from the storms that hit Friday night into Saturday were reported in Alabama and Mississippi, along with one near Little Rock, Arkansas, where city officials said more than 2,600 buildings were in a tornado\u2019s path.
\nResidents of Wynne, a community of about 8,000 people 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Memphis, Tennessee, woke Saturday to find the high school\u2019s roof shredded and its windows blown out. Huge trees lay on the ground, their stumps reduced to nubs. Broken walls, windows and roofs pocked homes and businesses.
\nDebris lay scattered inside the shells of homes and on lawns: clothing, insulation, toys, splintered furniture, a pickup truck with its windows shattered.
\nAshley Macmillan said she, her husband and their children huddled with their dogs in a small bathroom as a tornado passed, \u201cpraying and saying goodbye to each other, because we thought we were dead.\u201d A falling tree seriously damaged their home, but they were unhurt.
\n\u201cWe could feel the house shaking, we could hear loud noises, dishes rattling. And then it just got calm,\u201d she said.
\nRecovery was already underway, with workers using chainsaws and bulldozers to clear the area and utility crews restoring power.
\nNine people died in Tennessee\u2019s McNairy County, east of Memphis, according to Patrick Sheehan, director the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.
\n\u201cThe majority of the damage has been done to homes and residential areas,\u201d said David Leckner, the mayor of Adamsville.
\nGov. Bill Lee drove to the county Saturday to tour the destruction and comfort residents. He said the storm capped the \u201cworst\u201d week of his time as governor, coming days after a school shooting in Nashville that killed six people including a family friend whose funeral he and his wife, Maria, attended earlier in the day.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s terrible what has happened in this community, this county, this state,\u201d Lee said. \u201cBut it looks like your community has done what Tennessean communities do, and that is rally and respond.\u201d
\nJeffrey Day said he called his daughter after seeing on the news that their community of Adamsville was being hit. Huddled in a closet with her 2-year-old son as the storm passed over, she answered the phone screaming.
\n\u201cShe kept asking me, \u2018What do I do, daddy?\u2019\u201d Day said, tearing up. \u201cI didn\u2019t know what to say.\u201d
\nAfter the storm passed, his daughter crawled out of her destroyed home and over barbed wire and drove to nearby family. On Saturday evening, baby clothes were still strewn about the site.
\nIn Memphis, police spokesman Christopher Williams said via email late Saturday that there were three deaths believed to be weather-related: two children and an adult who died when a tree fell on a house.
\nTennessee officials warned that the same weather conditions from Friday night are expected to return Tuesday.
\nIn Belvidere, Illinois, part of the roof of the Apollo Theatre collapsed as about 260 people were attending a heavy metal concert. A 50-year-old man was pulled from the rubble.
\n\u201cI sat with him and I held his hand and I was (telling him), \u2018It\u2019s going to be OK.\u2019 I didn\u2019t really know much else what to do,\u201d concertgoer Gabrielle Lewellyn told WTVO-TV.
\nThe man was dead by the time emergency workers arrived. Officials said 40 others were hurt, including two with life-threatening injuries.
\nCrews cleaned up around the Apollo on Saturday, with forklifts pulling away loose bricks. Business owners picked up glass shards and covered shattered windows. In Crawford County, Illinois, three people were killed and eight injured when a tornado hit around New Hebron, said Bill Burke, the county board chair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Debris and memories of regular life lay scattered inside the shells of homes and on lawns: clothing, insulation, roofing paper, toys, splintered furniture, a pickup truck with its windows shattered WYNNE Storms that dropped possibly dozens of tornadoes killed at least 26 people in small towns and big cities across the South and Midwest, tearing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-323399","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n