Tornadoes

Severe weather moving through much of the nation produced tornadoes in the South that injured about 30 people. Parts of the Midwest experienced freezing rain, snow and flooding. A tornado damaged or destroyed about 200 homes and businesses in Prattville, outside Montgomery. Freezing rain and snow fell across southern Wisconsin, still weary from a snowstorm that snarled travel for days.

Smoke rose from burning heaps of wreckage Saturday as residents of rural Arkansas cleaned up what was left of their homes after deadly tornadoes scoured a state that has been plagued by severe weather this year. All that remained of Shelia Massey's home were a chimney, a bathroom wall and a bathtub that was her storm shelter. "God's hand came down and held us there while the rest of the house just blew away," said Massey, 54. "That's all there was to it. The Lord held us there." The storms killed seven people in Arkansas, authorities said Saturday, revising a toll of eight reported the night before.

A slow-moving storm packing tornadoes and hail battered rural Oklahoma, tearing up trees and destroying three barns at a hog farm near Lacey in Kingfisher County, northwest of Oklahoma City. No injuries were reported at the farm. Most of its 3,900 pigs, housed in crates, were also unhurt.

Steven Huntsman didn't want to go downstairs with his girlfriend and 15-month-old son. After all, he reasoned, it was just a storm. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep. Then everything shook. The windows broke. His face was peppered with broken glass. He locked himself into a second-story closet and listened as the once-stationary objects that constituted his world -- cars, trees, houses, barns -- began hovering and slamming into one another.

They knew they couldn't set this little country community right in a day -- the storms had been too brutal for that. But at least, they figured, they could clean it up. All along the two-lane road through town, men in hunting jackets moved around quickly in heavy machinery, plowing and piling debris. Farmers in ball caps amputated horizontal cedars, poplars and pines with buzzing chain saws. Church ladies in fresh makeup and work gloves tidied the yards in front of roofless homes.

Strong thunderstorms toppled trees, knocked out power and damaged homes Friday in Mississippi and Alabama, while flooding in Kentucky forced evacuations and killed a 2-year-old girl. Across Mississippi, fast-moving storms unleashed possible tornadoes, heavy rain and some hail. Power failures were reported in several communities, including Jackson and downtown Vicksburg. Tate Moudy of Brandon, east of Jackson, had just walked into the Southern States Utility Trailer Sales office on U.S.

Alvin Hewitt was the first baby born at Kiowa County Memorial Hospital after it opened in 1950. Today, the hospital is gone. So are the red brick high school, the single-screen movie theater, the soda shop, City Hall, the county courthouse. Like 95% of this little town on the prairies of southwest Kansas, they were destroyed by a tornado that struck a year ago Sunday, killing 11. Hewitt could have taken his insurance check and moved away, as about half the town's residents did. He didn't.

The death toll continued to climb in Myanmar as state media reported Tuesday that more than 22,000 people had died due to a weekend cyclone and more than 41,000 were missing. Efforts to reach the victims and help the estimated 1 million people left homeless by Tropical Cyclone Nargis remained mired amid bureaucracy, logistical problems and the isolation of many affected areas.

Frustration mounted Wednesday as humanitarian groups waited for Myanmar's government to grant visas and allow more relief flights into the country, steps deemed essential to easing the plight of as many as 1 million left homeless by a cyclone last weekend. By day's end, as gasoline lines grew and darkness enveloped a battered Yangon, Myanmar's most populous city, a trickle of aid was starting to flow.

While Myanmar's military regime Friday restricted the rush of international aid offered to help hungry and homeless cyclone survivors, the government was exporting tons of rice through its main port. Four of the five berths at the port of Thilawa for oceangoing container vessels were empty, but a crane was loading large white sacks into the hold of a freighter.