Residents pick up the pieces after devastating storms scour the US South and Midwest

By SAFIYAH RIDDLE and JOHN SEEWER
Associated Press

PLANTERSVILLE, Ala. — Kim Atchison was hunkered down in her grandmother's storm shelter with her 5-year-old grandson Saturday night in their tiny Alabama hometown of Plantersville when her husband and son raced in.

“Get down; get all the way down to the bottom of the cellar," they told her, saying they could see a twister coming.

Atchison said she remembers first the “dead silence” and then hearing the wind that felt like a funnel and things outside hitting against each other.

“All was quiet after that because it was that fast," she said. “Like a snap of a finger and it was gone.”

Atchison and her family were among the fortunate ones to avoid being killed in the three-day outbreak of severe weather across eight states that kicked up a devastating combination of wildfires, dust storms and tornadoes — claiming at least 42 lives since Friday.

Two people were killed by a twister in Plantersville. One of the lives lost was that of 82-year-old Annie Free, who “just looked out for everyone,” Atchison's husband said. The tornado struck Free's home, leaving only the front patio behind.

Darren Atchison spent Monday delivering granola bars and sports drinks to the pummeled neighborhood, driving his all-terrain vehicle around downed trees.

More than a half-dozen houses were destroyed while others were left in rough shape, some with walls peeled clean off. The tornado flipped a trailer onto its roof and toppled trees in every direction.

When Heidi Howland emerged from her home after hiding in her bedroom underneath a mattress with her husband, kids and grandkids as the twister approached, she found fallen trees and broken car windows.

Many of her neighbors whose houses were damaged came to her front porch to take refuge from the rain after the storm passed Saturday night. One was Free's daughter, who Howland said cried late into the night because the first responders couldn't find her mother.

Free’s body wasn’t found until the morning.

Also killed was Dunk Pickering, a fixture in the community who often hosted live music events and helped neighbors during tough times. Neighbor John Green found Pickering’s body in the wreckage of a building just across the street from Green’s home.

“Whether he knew you or not, he would help anyone," Green said. "I’ve known him for 20 years. He’s been like that ever since the day I first met him."

Green and other neighbors spent at least five hours Saturday night pulling people from the rubble and carrying them to paramedics who were unable to reach the area because roads were blocked by debris.