Wave of violent weather saved deadliest blow for Alabama town

CARBON HILL, Ala. -- Fate was trying to kill this old coal mining town decades before a tornado roared through.

The mines began closing in the 1950s, and the three sewing plants followed, along with the mobile home factory. The car dealers are gone and so is the high school, which burned down over the summer.

And now a wave of violent weather that claimed 35 lives in five states saved its deadliest blow for Carbon Hill, killing seven people and severely damaging scores of homes and the remaining elementary school.

The cleanup was well under way Tuesday, but nobody expects Carbon Hill to come back stronger. Just surviving will be enough.

"We need to draw from each other," said Leah Bray, a City Council member whose home was destroyed. "If we don't stay together, we'll die."

Nearly a third of the town of 2,070 about 70 miles northwest of Birmingham was damaged or destroyed by a twister that struck Sunday as many residents were returning from church.

The narrow streets were littered with the splinters of once-towering oaks and bits of pink and yellow insulation. School officials surveyed the roofless elementary school and its crumbling walls, and declared it a total loss.

Speaking over the hum of a gas-powered generator on his front porch, Johnny Eads pondered life in Carbon Hill after the storm. He concluded things are only going to get worse.

"I've got a grandson in the second grade," he said. "I don't know what he'll do."

More than 70 tornadoes and thunderstorms during the weekend and into Monday killed 16 people in Tennessee, 12 in Alabama, five in Ohio, and one each in Mississippi and Pennsylvania.

The weather system responsible for the violent weather showed it still had power left Tuesday. It spawned a tornado near the southern Georgia town of Mora that leveled a chicken house and injured two people. Flash flood warnings were issued in parts of eastern North Carolina after 2 inches of rain in 2 1/2 hours.

In tiny Mossy Grove, Tenn., where five people were killed and half of the 24 homes were destroyed, there was finally some good news: The list of 40 missing people had been reduced to just one Tuesday. Rescuers said it had taken time for friends and relatives to find loved ones because of disrupted phone service and blocked roads.

In northwestern Ohio, where twisters spun a 100-mile path of destruction, orange-clad jail inmates helped residents pick up fallen tree limbs, while authorities credited emergency weather sirens and tornado alerts with saving countless lives.

In Van Wert, Ohio, the new house that Ron Mengerink and his family were supposed to move into in two weeks was shattered, and a neighbor's home had been picked up and thrown at least 30 feet.

"I don't want to feel bad," he said. "I want to try and keep my faith, because I know it's not just me. It's my neighbors. It's everybody."

In Carbon Hill, underground utility lines were broken and cracked as the tornado uprooted hundreds of trees, and officials fear the entire network may have to be replaced.

But the budget is tight and tax revenue has drained away because most residents work in coal mines or mobile home factories in neighboring counties.

With few jobs in town, young people sometimes are snared by the small-town scourge of crack cocaine or crank, the street name for methamphetamine.

"This used to be a boom town. It's dried up so bad now there's nothing to do," said B.J. Sandlin, putting out orange warning tape near a brick wall in danger of collapsing.

Gov. Don Siegelman visited and officials from the state and federal emergency agencies were assessing the damage, so help is likely this time.

But more trouble could hit town within two years. A new four-lane highway will open, and it could drain Carbon Hill of what little life it has by taking cars off U.S. 78, the main road through town.

"Carbon Hill is gone," Eads said.