By Pat Harris
In Tennessee's Sumner County, northeast of Nashville, a tornado sucked an 11-month-old boy and his mother from their home. They were found later in a field. The child survived in good condition, but his mother was dead.
At Vanderbilt Hospital in Nashville, Ferina Ferrington told a local TV reporter: "My husband and I got into the bathtub with our little girl. I remember flying through the air. It was very scary. Then it was real quiet and we saw our house was gone. Our baby was unhurt."
In Arkansas, where almost 500 homes and businesses were destroyed or heavily damaged in four counties, Johnny Martin, 65, gathered belongings from his brick and wood home that lay shattered beneath massive oak trees in the town of Atkins, west of Little Rock.
Hardest hit were Tennessee -- where 31 people died -- Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama. There were unconfirmed reports of 69 tornadoes swirling across those states and northward into Indiana, according to the National Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
TRAIL OF DEVASTATION
"We know of eight dead and are still looking," said Shelvy Linville, mayor of Lafayette, Tennessee. "There's a lot of devastation."
Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear described to CNN a trail of devastation in his state seen from the air.
Inspection of the damage began midmorning on Wednesday, with the last tornado reported a few hours earlier in Jackson County, northeastern Alabama, the weather service said. Late in the day, forecasters said there was no longer a threat of severe weather across the region.
"The lightning and rain started back up suddenly and then we could see the funnel cloud through the lightning," she said. "The preacher's brick house across the street was destroyed and a mobile home nearby was nothing but a few pieces of tin."
Mississippi reported no deaths but about 11 injuries after two tornadoes ripped across an industrial park, seriously damaging a Caterpillar factory, and farm communities north of the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford.
(Additional reporting by Richard Cotton in Jackson, Tenn. Ed Stoddard in Dallas, Doina Chiacu in Washington, Michael Conlon in Chicago, Verna Gates and Peggy Gargis in Birmingham, Steve Barnes in Atkins, Ark., and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Writing by Mike Conlon; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Peter Cooney)
