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Spring storms leave 17 dead in 4 states
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Photo
T.J. Dees tries to salvage belongings from the rubble of the Box family's mobile home Saturday, April 16, 2011, in Deer Park, Ala. Three people in the Box family died during Friday night’s severe storms when a tornado lifted a double-wide mobile home several feet into the air and slammed it into an oak tree 100 yards away.
Associated Press
BOONE’S CHAPEL, Ala.
The home Willard Hollon had shared with his son and granddaughters is gone now, as is the one where his daughter lived, both twisted from their foundations by a tornado and tossed into the woods nearby. The storms that devastated the Deep South destroyed his family, too: Willard, his son Steve and daughter Cheryl all were killed when the winds roared through.
The storms that smacked the Midwest and South with howling winds and pounding rain left 17 people dead in four states. The system plowed through North Carolina on Saturday, bringing flash floods, hail and reports of tornadoes from the western hills to the streets of Raleigh.
Emergency crews scrambled to rescue hikers, clear trees from roads and survey damage. No immediate toll on injuries was available, but the prospects were grim for areas badly hit.
Meanwhile, residents were reeling in Alabama. Steve Hollon had recently retired from the Air Force and moved into his father’s home with his wife and two daughters while they remodeled a house of their own up the road. Steve Hollon had come to this small community about 25 miles from Montgomery to be closer to his dad.
Williard’s brother, Henley Hollon, lived across the street. He had come outside after the storm passed to make sure everyone was all right. The winds whirled, the lights went out and all he saw were a set of wooden steps and flowerbeds, the blooms still on the plants as though nothing happened. An American flag once displayed outside Cheryl’s home had been draped over a tree branch about 100 feet away.
“When I shined the light out there I could see it was all gone,” Henley Hollon said.
A weather service meteorologist estimated that the tornado’s winds reached 140 to 150 mph.
Hymnals still rested on the pews at the nearby Boone’s Chapel Baptist Church, even though the walls and roof had blown away. Tammie Silas joined other church members to clean up the debris and came upon two photos of the Hollon family.
“This is all they’ve got left,” Silas said as she clutched the pictures.