My friend's son and brother live in Mossy Grove. She has been trying to get a hold of them since last night. They are two of the missing. We hope it's just a matter of the phones being down or something else.
My husband's friend's mom lives in that area as well. She was not at home at the time of the storm and they won't let her back in so she has no idea if her home is still there.
Prayers for everyone affected by this catastrophe.
This is indeed a big deal here in Tennessee. This area is just forty miles west of Knoxville where I live.
Update as of 1:25 pm CST.
http://tennessean.com/local/archives/02/11/25139563.shtml
At least 17 dead in Tennessee as storm toll rises
Tennessean staff reports and Associated Press
Emergency crews searched for survivors early today in a rural Tennessee community just 40 miles west of Knoxville, where officials said Sunday's pulverizing storms left at least seven people dead and more than 45 missing.
The series of storms smashed through more than a half-dozen states, killing at least 33 people and injuring more than 100. In Tennessee, officials said early today that the death toll stood at 17 and that 80 had been injured.
One of the state's fatalities was a firefighter who was responding to a disaster call, according to the state's emergency management authority.
More than 150 Tennesseans were missing as of midday, although authorities stressed that because of disabled telephone networks, many may have been unable to alert friends and families that they are O.K.
The storms left 10,000 people without power in Morgan, Roane, Dickson and Coffee counties Monday afternoon.
The Morgan County community of Mossy Grove was among the hardest hit. A tornado cut a swath five to six miles long just before 9 p.m. Sunday, killing at least seven. Phone service was out and emergency crews had to rely on ham radio operators for communication, making it difficult to find people who might be OK.
Authorities were kept away from assessing much of the damage because toppled trees and power lines blocked roadways, and they feared the death toll would rise as daybreak revealed the extent of the devastation.
''It's mass destruction, death,'' said Ken Morgan, an officer in nearby Oliver Springs. ''Mossy Grove is destroyed.''
In Tennessee, the tornadoes came in two waves. Late Saturday and early Sunday, twisters skipped across western and middle Tennessee, killing three people. On Sunday night another line of storms crossed the state.
In Montgomery County, an elementary school teacher and her husband died when winds tumbled their mobile home more than 100 feet in Port Royal.
Two people, including a 10-year-old boy, were killed and 15 people were injured in Coffee County when two mobile home parks, three houses and a church were damaged near Manchester on Sunday night, Sheriff Steve Graves said.
The 10-year-old, Holbert Collins Jr., was killed around 7:45 p.m. when a tornado smashed into a house in the New Union Heights subdivision.
Graves identified the other victim as Albert Pena, who was in his mid-30s. He killed while inside a mobile home.
The Coffee County sheriff said that 19 others were injured and that as of midday, no one was reported missing.
About an hour after the storms struck Coffee County, the tornado ripped through Mossy Grove, damaging at least a dozen houses, said Steven Hamby, director of the Morgan County emergency management center. The dead include a 4-month-old child. Four people were killed in neighboring Cumberland County, officials said.
''Apparently, it just dug a path,'' he said.
The long band of storms, including several tornadoes, stretched from Louisiana to Pennsylvania, with Tennessee and Alabama the hardest hit Sunday. The death toll included 16 in Tennessee, 10 in Alabama and five in Ohio. Pennsylvania and Mississippi reported one death each.
One tornado in Ohio blasted apart a theater just minutes after a movie ended.
As the storms moved eastward, tornado warnings were posted Monday morning for sections of Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia, but there were no immediate reports of serious damage. Hundreds lost power in the Carolinas.
At Van Wert, Ohio, Larry Longwell helped hustle about 30 customers into a store basement before a tree slammed into the parking lot.
''I didn't make it to the basement. I was trying to shut that dumb door. All I could see was that pine tree coming at me,'' Longwell said.
Carbon Hill, Ala., was in a similar situation as a nighttime swarm of storms belted the area and sent giant hardwood trees crashing down on small houses and mobile homes.
''I reckon about a third of the town is gone,'' said Terry Murray, part of a crew surveying the extent of the damage.
The tornadoes flattened dozens of homes throughout the region and left tens of thousands without power. Wind hit an estimated 140 mph in Tennessee and the storms carried torrential rain and golf-ball-sized hail.
Unseasonably high temperatures Sunday in the 80s, followed by a cold front, made conditions ripe for tornadoes, which are not unusual this time of year, said Gene Rench, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Memphis.
The injured included at least 55 people in Tennessee, 50 in Alabama, 21 in Ohio, about 30 in Mississippi, four in Georgia and two in Pennsylvania, authorities said.