Tennessee Hunts for the Missing After Tornadoes Kill Dozens

The storms were at their worst early Tuesday, shortly after midnight. On Wednesday, authorities said at least two dozen people had been killed by flying debris, collapsing buildings and other hazards created by the winds.

The death toll was highest in Putnam County, where 18 people were killed, Randy Porter, the county’s mayor, said at a news conference Wednesday morning. The dead included 13 adults and five children under the age of 13.

As rescue efforts continued, the number of people missing fluctuated, a sign of how difficult it could be to search for people across a wide area of power outages and sometimes dangerous road conditions. More than 80 people were unaccounted for Tuesday night, then 22 Wednesday morning and then 17 by midday.

Deaths were reported in Wilson and Benton counties, but officials there said there were no reports of missing people.

As the storms swept through central Tennessee, some residents fought to keep their relatives safe, even as their homes collapsed around them. Shirley Brooks, who lives in North Nashville, said there were 16 people living in her house when a tornado hit.

“My daughter and her kids were in the living room,” she said. “The storm hit the window and took it straight out. She was running, grabbing the kids.”

Brooks said she struggled to escape and yelled for help as the house fell apart, and a piece of the roof struck her back. She was eventually able to climb out and over a fence, but her home was destroyed.

In Putnam County, east of Nashville, rescue workers had fielded calls late into the night as people reported that their friends and relatives were safe, Porter said. But officials were struggling to find others, in part because the storms knocked out cellphone service.

“We’re hoping that most of those are people that are safe and just haven’t let us know that they are,” Porter said.

“The area is still very devastated,” he said, adding that as many as 100 houses and structures had been destroyed — some simply gone — and that hundreds more had been damaged.

Sheriff Eddie Farris of Putnam County said that police were going door to door in search of survivors and victims, and still had to search through many demolished structures.

There were devastating losses in several communities in Putnam County, including Double Springs, Baxter and Echo Valley. In some neighborhoods, residents searched for houses along streets they could no longer recognize. Huge trees and live power lines were strewn across roads, and the winds lifted up trailers and ripped holes in houses and apartment buildings.

As the damage became clear Tuesday, Mayor John Cooper of Nashville told reporters the city had suffered “a massive act of nature.”

Many people lost power in their homes Tuesday and could not charge their phones, said Jeanie Lee, 73, a Baxter resident whose electricity failed around the time that a tornado passed nearby.

Tuesday was “a sad day,” she said. “People trying to find their family members.”

But Lee said that she and her neighbors were doing their best to help one another, and she spent Tuesday afternoon at her church helping to prepare hot meals for families in need.

“This community has been amazing,” she said. “The whole Putnam County — different churches are reaching out, businesses are opening up. It’s amazing. We’re just working together.”

Buildings were also destroyed in the Nashville area, including in North Nashville, East Nashville and Germantown, a neighborhood of quaint cottages. Two people died in East Nashville after being struck by debris.

In East Nashville, residents and artists also mourned the loss of the Basement East, one of the neighborhood’s biggest music venues.

“The traditional way of viewing Nashville is as a country town, and East Nashville is the opposite of that,” musician Andrew Leahey said. “It’s a bunch of musicians who are making their own way in the music industry, and the Basement East was the largest music venue that catered to that scene.”

Leahey was one of about two dozen artists who performed on Monday night at the Basement East, which opened in 2015, for an unofficial rally for Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont before voting on Super Tuesday. The show wrapped up around 11 p.m., Leahey said.

Within hours, a powerful tornado had leveled the venue.

“The tornado hit at approximately 1:15 a.m. — the Bernie benefit was over, and our conscientious staff of five ran down to the basement with seconds to spare before the roof blew off,” Mike Grimes, a co-owner of the Basement East, said in a statement to Rolling Stone. “All are safe. We are so fortunate. The venue is pretty much a total loss.”

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East Nashville has been struck by storms before; it was transformed after deadly tornadoes struck two decades ago. Its recovery mirrored a broader boom across the entire metropolitan area, whose population has swelled to nearly 2 million amid concerns that gentrification was forcing some people out.

In North Nashville, another place where rapid gentrification has become a point of tension, downed lines and trees still blocked streets in the Buena Vista neighborhood Wednesday morning.

That is where Brooks lived for a decade in a one-story wood house on Monroe Street, as tall brick townhomes rose around her. The new construction was barely affected by the tornado Tuesday, but Brooks’ house was rendered uninhabitable, with its roof caved in and its front torn off.

It was one of at least 48 structures in Nashville that either partly or completely collapsed in the storms.

As family members and neighborhood volunteers picked up debris Wednesday, Brooks sat on her front steps. Her back injury prevented her from helping.

“I haven’t had a chance to get to the hospital yet because I’m trying to find somewhere to go,” she said. “If I can just find someone that’s got a house or something, I can pay for it. But I need somewhere to go.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .