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From WSMV - Nashville Channel 4 News:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A line of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes marched across the nation’s midsection Friday, pulverizing homes, flipping cars and killing at least 11 people in Tennessee, officials said.

Weather officials said tornadoes were spotted in about 10 Tennessee counties, but the worst damage appeared to be in the suburbs northeast of Nashville.

Eight people died in Sumner County, a suburban area northeast of Nashville, and three deaths were reported in Warren County, about 65 miles southeast of Nashville.

Fire Chief Joe Womack said three bodies were pulled from the wreckage of homes in an upscale subdivision of Gallatin, about 24 miles northeast of the city. Aerial TV footage showed a tornado carved a destructive path through the neighborhood of large, brick buildings.

The storms were moving to the northeast after developing from a low-pressure system in the central Plains.

It was the second wave of violent weather to hit Tennessee in less than a week. Last weekend, thunderstorms and tornadoes killed 24 people in the western part of the state and destroyed more than 1,000 homes and buildings.

Tornadoes were reported Friday in the Nashville suburbs of Goodlettsville, Hendersonville and Ashland City, and in the tiny communities of Holladay and Yuma, about 80-90 miles west of Nashville.

Steven Davis, who lives about a block away from the hard-hit Woodhaven subdivision, said he was at home when he heard the storm was coming. He ran to a neighbor’s home to take shelter in a crawl space.

“When the tornado came through, the roof was off just like that,” Davis said, snapping his fingers. Houses on each side of his street were destroyed.

“Our neighborhood is leveled,” Davis said.

Diane Carrier was in her house in the same subdivision when her boyfriend called to warn her. She got some pillows and bedding and covered herself up in the laundry room.

“The next thing you know, the lights went out and everything started shaking and rumbling,” she said. “I could hear cracking and snapping, and that was the roof coming off. It took seconds, then it was over.”

Hospitals admitted at least 60 people with storm-related injuries and transferred at least nine critically injured patients to Nashville hospitals. Hendersonville Medical Center, south of Gallatin, was running on emergency power after the storm and admitted 20 patients.

Downtown Nashville was spared any damage, but the northern suburb of Goodlettsville took a heavy hit, said Molly Sudderth, spokeswoman for the Nashville Mayor’s Office.

She said there were reports of damage to 55 homes, seven businesses and a church in Goodlettsville.

Nashville Electrical Service reported hundreds of electrical lines down and power outages for 10,000 customers, mostly in Goodlettsville. “We’re telling people in that area that power could be out a week, because we have to rebuild the system,” NES spokeswoman Laurie Parker said.

The number of tornadoes in the United States has jumped dramatically through the first part of 2006 compared with the past few years, according to the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center.

Through the end of March, an estimated 286 tornadoes had hit the United States, compared with an average of 70 for the same three-month period in each of the past three years.

The number of tornado-related deaths was 38 before Friday’s storms. The average number of deaths from 2003 to 2005 was 45 a year, the prediction center said.

Dan McCarthy, with the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla., said the number of storms and deaths this season seems high because the past few years have been unusually mild.

At Volunteer State Community College in the Nashville suburb of Gallatin, several people suffered cuts and scratches, spokesman Eric Melcher said, and two campus buildings were severely damaged.

Three car dealerships near the college were devastated, with 250 cars totaled.

“We got in the back office” during the storm, said John Campbell, parts manager for Nissan of Gallatin. “Everyone is fine, but this is a mess.”

He estimated about 250 cars in the inventory were totaled. The dealership’s windows were blown out and its roof ripped off.

John Stevens, a taxi driver who was visiting Volunteer State, said the building where he was waiting out the storm shook as the tornado passed over.

After the storm he showed where he first parked his minivan. It was thrown about 150 yards away, twisted and smashed to pieces. “It’s like some giant sat on it,” Stevens said.

The Red Cross has set up an emergency shelter at the First Baptist Church in Goodlettsville, Sudderth said.

Four persons were injured, and dozens of buildings were destroyed or damaged in the community of Yuma, about 90 miles west of Nashville. About 10 to 15 houses were destroyed, and as many as 15 to 20 more homes were damaged, The Jackson Sun reported. A community center also was destroyed.

Northwest of Nashville in Ashland City, Cheatham County Mayor Bill Orange was sitting in his office in the county courthouse when the storm hit. He said he saw rotation in the clouds but wasn’t certain if it was a tornado.

“I looked up and saw debris spinning overhead,” Orange said.

The Cumberland Electric Membership Cooperative in the county lost its communications tower, which also housed the area’s tornado siren.

(Copyright WSMV-TV and Associated Press)

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