[Lucas1]

Reports are that the police station...fire station...and jail were all damaged.

[demkicker]

"...has tore"? Hmmmmmmm.

[Skooz]

Didn't a tornado devastate Jackson, TN in January 1999? I was travelling then and stopped at a KFC in Jackson about 30 minutes before the tornado hit.

[stlnative]

From the Noaa Storm Report

JACKSON MADISON TN
** 4 DEAD *** FOUR FATALITIES CONFIRMED. 911 CENTER GONE. PROCTOR AND GAMBLE FACORY GONE. MAJORITY OF DOWNTOWN BUILDINGS BADLY DAMAGED. REPORTED BY MADISON COUNTY 911. (MEM)

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/reports/030504_rpts.html

[Dallas]

Checkin in ?

[OrangeDaisy]

We're also seeing heavy damage in Middle TN this morning including Williamson (Franklin & Brentwood), Rutherford (Smryna & Murfreesboro), Montgomery (Clarksville) & Davidson (Nashville) County. Several counties have closed schools because roads are impassable and electricity is out.

Check the front page of The Tennessean for updates throughout the day. http://www.tennessean.com/

[dogbyte12]

CNN is now putting the total death count from all the tornadoes at 34. This probably will rise a bit when more bodies are pulled out.

[kayak]

Prayers going up for everyone devastated by the tornadoes and severe storms.

[Travis McGee]

How's everything at your end?

[Joe Hadenuf]

*** 1 DEAD *** ONE FATALITY

Is there a difference?

[Maigrey]

This is from the afternoon update on the (Memphis) Commercial Appeal.

Boy sucked from mother's arms; father, son missing
By WOODY BAIRD
Associated Press Writer
May 5, 2003

DENMARK, Tenn. - Rhonda McLaughlin was holding her 7-year-old son Lee in her arms when a tornado hit their home, ripping him away and even pulling a ring off her hand.

The tornado that swept through this small community about 12 miles southwest of Jackson on Sunday night left a swath of destruction that included downed trees, overturned cars and demolished homes.

The storm caused at least 13 deaths across the state, authorities said, including 10 in Jackson and Madison County. Lee McLaughlin was among the dead, while his grandfather, Larry Kiddy, was in intensive care.

Rescue workers also found a woman's body in a lake a mile away Monday afternoon but continued searching for a man and his son.

Anita Rhodes said her sister-in-law was holding onto Lee McLaughlin as tight as she could in their doublewide mobile home.

"She doesn't know how he got loose," Rhodes said.

Rhodes was helping her brother, Tom McLaughlin, search through the rubble of his home for his wife's ring on Monday. McLaughlin had been returning home from Nashville when the tornado hit.

"She never took it off but it wasn't on her hand this morning," Rhodes said of the ring.

Rhonda McLaughlin and her sons tried to ride out the storm, with her youngest child wrapped in her arms as her teenage son, T.J., held onto her. As the mobile home was torn apart, winds separated them.

After the tornado, T.J. McLaughlin pulled his mother out of the rubble, placed her inside a car and covered her with a blanket. He then found his grandfather in the debris of what had been his home and covered him with a tarp until help arrived.

"He's in intensive care, and my young son is dead," Tom McLaughlin said before breaking down.

Rescue workers found the body of a woman under debris in a five-acre lake, according to Trooper Roger Cathey. She had lived in a doublewide mobile home nearby with a man and his son. All that remained of the trailer was the concrete slab.

The man and the boy remained missing, so workers knocked a hole in a levee to drain the lake.

"It'll take a day or two for the lake to drain," said Ed Apple of the Shelby County Sheriff's Department's rescue team, searching with his yellow Labrador Gus.

[seams2me]

Jackson, Tennessee - home of the Casey Jones Museum and Village.

[MissAmericanPie]

This is my mother's home town, I have a few relatives there. It was a charming, tree lined town, it breaks my heart and they are in my prayers.