A killer tornado that cut a wide swath for 25 miles on top of Sand Mountain took 32 lives late Wednesday.
DeKalb County, Ala., Sheriff Jimmy Harris said the storm started on the south end of the mountain Grove Oak and hit Rainsville, Henegar, Fyffe and Sylvania before dropping down and killing two more people at Trenton, Ga.
He said at least one child was killed and a second was in grave condition when taken to Children's Hospital in Chattanooga.
The powerful storm damaged Plainview High School, a nearby museum, took out a Huddle House and bank and destroyed a church, but the fatalities were at houses and trailers that were hit along the way. "It leveled a lot of nice houses," the sheriff said.
A business on the mountain that makes church pews and ships them all over the world was also destroyed.
Sheriff Harris said he was north of Sylvania when he got word that the storm had hit. He said he soon located the bodies of a couple lying in a field. They had been blown across the road from their home. He took their bodies to a local nursing home to be kept until ambulances arrived.
Sheriff Harris said he is in his second term and it is the fifth tornado he has seen wreak havoc on Sand Mountain.