Recovery begins after Alabama tornado kills 7 in Autauga County
OLD KINGSTON — Recovery efforts continued Friday from a powerful tornado that roared through Autauga County on Thursday, a storm that killed seven and seriously injured more than a dozen.
The seventh victim was found Friday morning in the woods at the dead end of County Road 140, said Sheriff David Hill. There are no unaccounted for people remaining in the county, he said. As night fell Thursday, there were about a dozen missing people.
“This is hopefully the last one,” Hill said of the seventh fatality. “No one else is missing, that we know of. We are still doing searches and will continue to search throughout the day.”
The names of the victims will be released at a later time, the sheriff said.
The National Weather Service on Friday said initial damage surveys showed the Autauga County tornado was at least an EF3. Meteorologists say it will take days of on-the-ground investigation to fully understand the strength of the storm.
More:NWS: Selma, Autauga tornadoes were at least an EF2, EF3
One of the hardest hit areas in the county is on road 140, a neighborhood of mostly mobile homes. It is in Old Kingston, an unincorporated community about 15 miles northwest of Prattville.
Two fatalities occurred in this area.
About two miles south and east of road 140, five people died along Sandy Ridge Road. Several mobile homes were destroyed in the area where the deaths occurred.
Teams with cadaver dogs are searching the hardest hit areas.
The destruction is hard to take in. Homes were scoured from their slab foundations. Mobile homes were rolled, being torn from their steel frames. Friendly dogs wandered through the areas, appearing to search for their owners.
The heavy scent of pine hung in the air, from hundreds of shattered trees. Utility poles were snapped. In one nearly delimbed oak tree, a mattress hung some 20 feet in the air. Wisps of fiberglass insulation wafted around. In one yard a pink teddy bear was impaled on a metal fence post.
Allison Manning watched as friends worked to remove a large tree that fell on her home. She was at work in Montgomery when the storm hit.
“No one was home, for that I’m thankful,” she said. “We have damage, but that can be repaired. Of course we don’t have any power. I spent the night with friends in Prattville. Something like this makes you so thankful.
“With people being killed and others losing everything, it makes you thankful for what you have.”
Tracking the storm through Autauga, Elmore counties
The National Weather Service office in Birmingham confirmed the tornado live as it was happening. The track in Autauga County appears to begin in Old Kingston, then track northeast through Marbury and then into northern Elmore County.
Dozens of homes were destroyed and dozens more sustained serious damage along the path, said Ernie Baggett, director of the Autauga County Emergency Management Agency. A dozen people were injured seriously enough to be taken to local hospitals.
The other hard-hit area in the county was County Road 68 in Marbury. Nearly every home along the road was destroyed or damaged.
Kelsie Salers was counting her blessings late Thursday afternoon as she surveyed the damage of her brick home on County Road 68. The home escaped major damage, but dozens of trees were twisted and downed in the yard.
“We lost some shingles and our shed,” she said. “But I’m so thankful the house is still here.”
She was at her job in Birmingham when she found out the storm had hit. Her mother, Donna Perry, was in the house at the time and rode the storm out in a bathroom. Perry was not injured.
EMA: Not yet time for volunteers, cleanup
Friday was still very much a day of searches and recovery. Officials know that help is on the way in the form of volunteers to assist in the cleanup. Baggett is asking folks to hold off for now.
“We will have a volunteer coordination center established, we are working to set up a center with Elmore County,” he said “We know people want to help, and their help is needed. Just give us time to complete out initial searches.”
Volunteers are expected to be allowed in the area sometime over the weekend.
The county was under a tornado warning when the storm struck. Severe weather had been predicted for three days before Thursday.
The storm that spawned the Autauga County tornado was the same supercell that dropped a tornado in Selma about a half-hour earlier. That storm left widespread damage in Selma.
The thunderstorm, in meteorological terms, is known as a “discrete supercell” that formed ahead of the main squall line moving through the state. The storm formed in east Mississippi about 9 a.m. and barreled east into Alabama, said Jason Holmes of the National Weather Service in Birmingham.
It entered the perfect atmosphere; wind shear, warm air and humidity, he said.
“These storms are rare and are usually associated with large tornado outbreaks,” he said. “Being out ahead of the main line of storms, the discrete supercell has no competition for energy. We still have filed surveys to do, but this was definitely a long track supercell.”
The storm caused a tornado warning for Marengo County about 11 a.m, then tracked over Perry, Dallas, Autauga, Elmore, Coosa, Tallapossa and Chambers counties before crossing over into west Georgia. It continued to cause damage and tornado warnings in west Georgia, Holmes said.
Contact Montgomery Advertiser reporter Marty Roney at mroney@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Recovery begins after Alabama tornado kills 7 in Old Kingston
