Strong Tornadoes Strike U.S. Midwest, Killing at Least 27

Powerful tornadoes ripped through the nation's midsection on Friday, killing at least 27 people in Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio as they splintered homes, damaged a prison, and tossed around vehicles.

At least 13 people were killed in southern Indiana, another 12 in neighboring Kentucky, and two more in Ohio from storms that battered a band of states from Ohio to Alabama, officials said.

We are no match for Mother Nature at her worst, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said in a statement, adding he would visit the stricken southeastern corner of the state on Saturday.

Another possible storm-related death occurred in Henryville, Ind., where television images showed homes ripped apart.

Televised video taken from the air showed rescue workers in Indiana picking through one splintered house, residents sifting through the ruins of a home, and a school bus thrown into a building. Several warehouselike structures had their roofs ripped off.

Maj. Chuck Adams of the Clark County Sheriff's office said there was extensive damage to a school in Henryville, but added: All the children are out. No injuries to any of them, just minor scrapes and abrasions.

An Indiana official on Friday confirmed 13 deaths from the tornadoes in four southeastern counties. A representative of Kentucky's Department of Public Health reported a statewide death toll of 12, while Ohio officials said there were two deaths in a single county.

Storm warnings were issued throughout the day from the Midwest to the Southeast. Schools, government offices, and businesses closed before the storms, which came after a series of tornadoes earlier in the week killed 13 people in Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Tennessee.

We may not be done yet, said John Hart, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

As night fell and temperatures cooled, the line of storms appeared to weaken somewhat as they traveled eastward, but the National Weather Service warned of another possible outbreak of tornadic weather later on Friday and in Saturday's early hours.

Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes were likely over an area stretching from Indiana and Ohio into Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Alabama.

This week's violent storms raised fears that 2012 will be another bad year for tornadoes after 550 deaths in the United States were blamed on twisters last year, the deadliest year in nearly a century, according to the National Weather Service.

The highest death tolls were from an April outbreak in Alabama and Mississippi that took 364 lives, and from a May tornado in Joplin, Mo., that killed 161 people. There were two tornado-related deaths earlier this year in Alabama.

Struck for Second Year

Alabama's Madison County, which was struck by a tornado during the April outbreak last year, was hit again on Friday by a tornado that took a similar path. An emergency-management official said seven people had been transported to hospitals.

There were two storms that moved across the area, very close together, almost attached to each other, National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Darden said. The agency said the damage was from an EF-2 tornado with winds of 120 miles per hour that took a similar path to a devastating tornado last April 27.

Authorities said 40 homes were destroyed and 150 damaged in two northern Alabama counties on Friday.

A prison, Limestone Correctional Facility, was in the path of the storm, Alabama officials said. High winds caused roof damage to two dormitories, forcing 300 inmates to be moved elsewhere in the facility.

No one was seriously injured at the prison, and there was no risk of prisoners escaping, although there was damage to some perimeter fencing and a canteen, said Brian Corbett, a representative of the Alabama Department of Corrections.

Multiple tornadoes also struck Tennessee and along the Ohio River valley in Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky.

In Kentucky, a small trailer park, a fire station, and a few homes in Trimble County were destroyed by suspected tornadoes about 40 miles northwest of Louisville, the Kentucky State Police said. The firehouse and trailer park in Milton were down to the ground, said the state police's Kevin Woosley.

Nashville was pounded by rain and hail, and suspected tornadoes struck twice, hours apart, in eastern Tennessee near Chattanooga. Among the places hit was the valley below historic Lookout Mountain.

We've had 29 injuries in the state, but no fatalities, said Dean Flener of the Tennessee emergency-management agency.

Storm damage to transmission lines in Tennessee forced operators to cut the output of the Tennessee Valley Authority's 1,126-megawatt Unit 2 at the Sequoyah nuclear plant to 70 percent from full power, a representative said.

More than 57,000 customers served by providers in the TVA service area were without power in north Alabama, western Kentucky, and southeast Tennessee, the power supplier said.

High winds downed power lines in the Atlanta area, pitching more than a thousand homes into darkness, and officials warned residents about torn lines becoming entangled in trees.

(Reporting by Bruce Olson, Verna Gates, Tim Ghianni, Peggy Gargis, David Bailey, James Kelleher, Joe Wessels, Susan Guyett, Lee Mueller, Ivonne Rovira and Dan Whitcomb; Writing by Andrew Stern; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh)