BEAUREGARD, Ala. (AP) — Rescuers tore through rubble and wreckage Monday in a search for survivors amid homes torn from foundations, shredded metal dangling from battered trees and dead animals lying among debris after a powerful tornado ripped through southeast Alabama and killed at least 23 people,
The trail of destruction from the Sunday tornado was at least half a mile wide and overwhelmed rural Lee County's coroners' office, forcing it to call in help from the state. Volunteers used chain saws to help clear paths for emergency responders. At the R&D Grocery on Monday morning, residents were constantly asking each other if they were OK.
Lee County Sheriff Jay Jones said the twister traveled straight down a county road in the rural community of Beauregard reducing homes to slabs. Levi Baker, who lives near the hard-hit area in Alabama, took a chain saw to help clear a path for ambulances and other first-responder vehicles. He said he saw bodies of dead people and dead animals.
The National Weather Service confirmed late Sunday a tornado with at least an F3 rating caused the destruction in Alabama. Although the statement did not give exact wind estimates, F3 storms typically are gauged at wind speeds of between 158-206 mph . On a country road in Beauregard on Monday, a giant pieces of metal from a farm building were suspended 20 feet in the air, attached to the lower halves of pine trees, making loud creaking sounds as the wind blew them into the pine branches. The top halves of most of those trees were snapped off. For an entire mile down the road, the scene was the same — pine trees cracked in half. One mile down the road, a mobile home crushed by two trees marked the end of the mile-long path of destruction.
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