Storms rolled across the American South yesterday after tornadoes savaged Nashville and killed at least 11 people caught in a trail of destruction across three states.
Six people were killed in rural areas of Tennessee on Thursday, but there were no fatalities in downtown Nashville, where more than 100 people were injured, said Tennessee Emergency Management Agency spokesman Mr Elgan Usrey.
Three people were killed in Kentucky and three counties declared emergencies with flood warnings issued on two rivers and millions of dollars in damage, said Kentucky Emergency Management Agency spokesman Mr Don Armstrong.
Two children were killed in Arkansas by the same storm that marched eastward into Georgia and Alabama yesterday morning.
High winds and severe thunderstorms overturned mobile homes in Georgia and funnel clouds were spotted, but the area was spared the tornadoes that left more than 40 dead there last week.
Downtown Nashville, which was declared a disaster area, remained closed off by police as the country music capital started cleaning up from its worst storm in a century.
Three hundred buildings were damaged, tall trees uprooted and vehicles and debris scattered over a 10 km swath.
"I've seen tornadoes so I know what they can do, but this one took a wide path and a long path. It stayed on the ground quite a while," said Nashville area fire chief Mr Buck Dozier. Officials estimated the cost of destruction in the city at $100 million. Electric power was restored to 90 per cent of downtown Nashville by yesterday morning after several hours of blackout, but officials said 15,000 people in the metropolitan area remained without power.
Tennessee's governor declared a state of emergency and the Vice President, Mr Al Gore, was expected to visit yesterday to assess the damage, with federal emergency assistance likely to follow, local media reported.
Fierce winds that swept through Nashville on Thursday broke countless windows in parked cars and left streets littered with glass and blocked by fallen trees and telephone poles.
"It came so fast," said Ms Barbara Milligan, a resident of Metro Manor, a high-rise apartment building in the centre of the city. "I gathered up my cat and put him in a cat carrier and ran to the kitchen. I never saw anything this intense, even in Oklahoma," where she used to live, she said.
She said she watched as workers leaving their shift at a nearby office building ran for cover and as part of the deck from a rooftop swimming pool on her building flew away.