Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Tornadoes injure at least 86, kill 3 Cub Scouts, 17 others Date: Mon, 23 Nov 92 15:07:21 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \SS (WS) \HD Tornadoes injure at least 86, kill 3 Cub Scouts, 17 others \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT BRANDON, Miss. BRANDON, Miss. (AP) - Justin Smith and two of his Cub Scout buddies were up late enjoying a weekend sleep-over when his mother told them a storm was coming. Seconds later, a tornado struck, killing the boys and Justin's father. All that remained of the house yesterday was two cars parked neatly side-by-side in what had been the garage. "It came in like 10 freight trains and totally wiped out everything in its path," Constable Martin Mann said of the tornado that struck around midnight. Storms killed at least 20 persons, 10 in and around Brandon, and injured at least 86 in Mississippi and Tennessee. Constable Mann spent about seven hours searching for the bodies of 7-year-old Justin and his visiting friends, brothers Jeremy Chaz Blackwell Warrington, 7, and Joseph Lee Warrington, 10. About 100 searchers combed nearby woods during the night for the young victims. Volunteers poked through brush strewn with stuffed animals, Nintendo games and clothes. Firemen probed the water in a neighbor's swimming pool. Neighbors, including many children, watched the search, hugging and crying. "I've got to go home and tell my 7 1/2-year-old and my fourth-grader that their friends are dead," said Coleen Statum, with tears streaming down her face. "It's just horrifying. I can't believe something like this would happen," said Janet Bankston, an aunt of the Warrington boys. She said Justin's mother, Cecilia Ann Smith, was calling for the children and her husband, Terry Smith, to come downstairs when the tornado hit. Mrs. Smith, who was standing on the stairs, suffered minor injuries; her husband was killed. Neighboring homes in the fashionable Easthaven neighborhood of Brandon, a suburb of Jackson, also were demolished or badly damaged. Just blocks away, the Warrington boys' home was unharmed. After daylight, volunteers wrapped Miss Bankston in a sleeping bag while she sat crying in a driveway as rescuers carried a small body wrapped in an orange blanket from a wooded area. A neighbor, surveying damage around his own home, discovered the body of one of the boys, witnesses said. The body of the third boy was found in a tall tree about a quarter-mile away. "You see these things on TV, and it happens to other people. It doesn't come home until it happens to you," said Brandon Mayor W.L. Whittington. "We're lucky we didn't lose more lives than we did." The tornado roared through Brandon, 15 miles east of Jackson, about midnight. It leveled houses, uprooted trees and downed hundreds of power and telephone poles. "It just whished through here like slicing hot butter," Constable Mann said. "We've got two-story homes not bigger than a bag of firewood. They're wiped out." Larry Tribble looked for things to salvage in the wreckage of the mobile home his daughter and son-in-law had shared since being married in August. "We got most of their clothes, but that's about it," Mr. Tribble said. "All their wedding gifts are gone, and we haven't been able to find photos or any albums." His son-in-law, Corey Adams, was hospitalized with cuts and bruises. A tornado that struck in western Tennessee overturned a mobile home near Toone, killing an 11-year-old boy, officials said. Scattered damage was reported. At the height of the storms, about 16,000 residences in Alabama were without electricity, Alabama Power Co. spokesman Griffin Lassiter said. That number had been reduced to about 8,500 by midafternoon yesterday. High wind caused scattered damage yesterday in five counties of northern Georgia, but only one injury was reported. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM