Three tornadoes strike city in Tennessee; no fatalities

DYERSBURG, Tenn. -- Two tornadoes destroyed a mobile home park before cutting a swath of destruction through Dyersburg Sunday night. A third vortex swept across the west side of the city, uprooting trees and downing power lines.

No one was killed, but several were injured.

"I said, 'Please God, no,'" said Barker Trailer Park resident Margie Bentley. "It was the worst things I've ever seen."

Dyersburg emergency services director Tommy Gibson said damage spans the city, with the most of it in the south-to-north line the tornadoes marked.

Helen Moses, whose 641 Finley St. home is in the center of the destruction, said she and 13 of her children and grandchildren packed into an interior hallway to wait out the storm.

Like many structures in the storm's path, the Moses home has cracks in the walls and leaks in the roof from the tornadoes' fierce winds.

On Forcum Street, an ancient oak tree more than 80 feet tall with a root wad some 15 feet across was lifted from the ground and knocked over the driveway of Dot Frazier, who had moved into the house on Saturday.

The sportsplex at Dyersburg High School was totaled and the back wall of the Yates building was ripped from its foundation.

Damage was also widespread across Dyer County, Sheriff Jeff Holt said.

Holt said he saw a funnel drop from roiling black clouds from his view atop Chickasaw Bluff, but it did not drop to the ground.

Gibbons said seven people were treated for injuries at the Dyersburg Regional Medical Center.

The tornadoes were part of a set of severe thunderstorms that crossed from Arkansas starting in the early evening Sunday.

Gibbons said storm spotters deployed by the Dyer County Rescue Squad spotted funnel clouds forming several minutes before official notice came from the National Weather Service in Memphis. At 7:58 p.m., the city's emergency warning sirens were activated, howling the alarm for residents to take cover.