I saw a storm cloud with a long skinny tornado coming down out of it. It was heading our way.

I told the boys who lived in the building to run into the basement and let the baseball teams and parents into the basement garage.

Then I ran into the building upstairs to alert all the other people that the tornado was coming.

Inside the building, I ran into an apartment where everyone was sleeping.

I ran into the parent's bedroom who had windows facing the storm.

The sun was still shining but the tornado was clearly visible out the window.

I screamed at the parents to wake up and screamed, "Tornado, tornado!" and pointed out the window so they could see it coming.

Then I ran into the children's bedroom. There were twin blonde girls in a crib in the corner and two little boys about 3 or 4 years old in twin beds - all in one room.

I grabbed one little girl in each arm, praying that I could carry both of them and yelled at the boys to get out of bed and go get their parents.

We all ran back to the parent's bedroom who were standing up putting on their bathrobes. The mother was saying, "I don't see a tornado!"

By then, the storm was so close to the building, it was almost to the window and you couldn't see the funnel anymore. All you could was black rain coming down.

I screamed, "RUN!" and the doors and windows started shaking in and out as the storm hit the building.

It didn't take long for the storm to pass and I looked out the window and saw that the tall cedar trees were flat on the ground.

The baseball team was safe in the basement though. I had been able to save them.

A telephone rang in my right ear after I woke up from a dream. I said I was ready for the message and then. I waited for the message to start:

I heard: "I'm taking time off. Now I can watch the laymen. Now I can watch them boogie!"

I then saw a web page title. It was a long word like Beauregard.  At the same time, I heard the word 'boutique'

Beauregard was the hero of Fort Sumter in the Civil War.

NOTE: I asked several people if they thought that was a negative message but nobody knew.  So I looked on the internet for Beauregard and boutique and found that there are businesses ranging from South Carolina all the way to Texas - all below the Mason-Dixon line. If this is connected to the tornados, it will be a relief to those who live above that line.

          Tornados hit US Midwest

• Killer tornado hits US town

• Ivan whips up tornados

Killer tornado hits US

Washington - At least 14 people were killed in Tennessee and other United States Midwestern states after tornadoes swept through the region, said reports on Monday.

Citing emergency officials, the reports said eight deaths were reported late on Sunday in Dyer County and three in neighbouring Gibson County of Tennessee.

According to reports, a woman working in the Dyer County sheriff's office described what happened as "bad" and said the sheriff's department was "still trying to get to the injured people".

It was reported that Dyersburg Regional Medical Centre reported that injured people were being taken to the hospital's emergency room.

In Missouri, strong winds were blamed for the deaths of at least two people.

The paper said that damage and injuries were also reported in Kentucky, with a possible tornado destroying about 15 homes in the Happy Hollow subdivision, north of downtown Hopkinsville.

It was also reported that a man was killed after high winds flattened a clothing store in Fairview Heights, Illinois.

TULSA (AP) — A small tornado touched down in northeast Tulsa, causing damage at Tulsa International Airport, a neighboring hotel and dozens of vehicles, officials said Sunday.

The small twister briefly touched down just south of the airport, near Oklahoma Highway 11. It stayed on the ground for a few seconds, Steve Piltz, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said.

"It damaged some aircraft, and there was some minor damage to the terminal, but the biggest problem was the hotel and the parking lot," airport spokeswoman Mary Smith said of the tornado.

The roof of the Radisson Inn-Tulsa Airport was ripped from several rooms, and as many as 200 guests had to be moved out, said Kevin Roberts, the regional director of operations for Hospitality Management Corp., which operates the hotel.

"We had about three or four rooms that the roof was torn off of," Roberts said. "There were cars in the front parking lot and the back parking lot that were damaged."

Roberts said an entire wing of the hotel and at least 10 vehicles were damaged.

Edmond resident Sheryl Janis, who was staying at the hotel with her daughter and others who were in town for a girls' soccer tournament, said she woke up about an hour after going to bed when she heard what she thought was an airplane crashing into the building.

"We heard a huge boom and saw a flash of light, and I immediately grabbed my daughter and threw her to the floor," Janis said.

Roberts said that after the hotel's guests were accounted for, they were relocated to the Southern Hills Marriott and the Hilton Garden Inn near the airport.

The Radisson has been shut down, and Roberts is unsure when it will reopen.

The storm also damaged at least 75 cars — many with shattered windows — and the canopy over the garage's upper level was ripped apart.

Some terminal windows were cracked on Concourse A, and four regional jets on the ground were whipped around by the winds, Smith said. She could not say how badly the planes were damaged or whether they were occupied.

Weather service officials said Saturday's small tornado developed as fast-moving storms rumbled across the area.

Piltz said no tornado warning was issued because the twister — which he speculated to be an F1 on the intensity scale — didn't necessarily appear on radar as a tornado and vanished before a warning could have been issued.

"It was a really small, brief tornado," he said. "There was no way to know exactly what we had and to give anyone a heads-up with any kind of useful time frame."

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Storms Kill 3 in Missouri • Tennessee Hit Hardest By Storms •

Clouds Reported in Iowa Tornado Threats

Monday, April 03, 2006

DES MOINES, Iowa — For the second time in the past three days, clouds and tornadoes were reported in central, eastern and southern Iowa.

The severe storms late Sunday afternoon, which included high winds, lightning, heavy rain and hail, followed similar weather early Thursday evening.

Large storm outbreaks across Iowa can be common at this time of year, but it is unusual to have two similar severe storm events occurring only a few days apart, said Karl Jungbluth, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Johnston.

warnings were first issued just after 3 p.m. for Warren County in south central Iowa and Davis County in the southeastern part of the state.

Craig Scott, disaster coordinator in Davis County, said spotters reported three funnel clouds with one touching down in a rural area southeast of Bloomfield. No major damage was reported.

By 4 p.m., tornado warnings had been issued for Henry, Mahaska, Marion and Van Buren counties in southeast Iowa, and by 5 p.m. the warnings included Polk County and Cedar, Johnson and Muscatine counties in eastern Iowa.

Jungbluth said weather spotters in Polk County reported brief tornado touch downs east of Des Moines and northwest of the towns of Hartford and Runnells. No significant damage was reported as of 6 p.m., he said.

Pea-sized hail was reported in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale and the central Iowa town of Mitchellville. Due to heavy rain, water puddled across several highways, and drivers pulled over to the side along Interstate 80 to wait out the storms.

Donna Dubberke, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Davenport, said numerous people had reported funnel clouds in eastern Iowa and some had touched down.

In the eastern Iowa town of Washington, a storm destroyed a residential garage and peeled the roof off a furniture store.

"It started to blow, and we kept watching the wind," said Jim Rich of Washington. Rich said he looked outside about 4:45 p.m. to see lawn furniture blowing across his yard. The garage behind his home was blown down, a trailer parked behind the garage was blown about 100 feet, and three 30-foot pine trees in the yard were snapped off. Rich's home was also heavily damage

At Hanson's Home Furnishings, friends and neighbors of co-owner Roger Hanson helped him move mattresses from the building into nearby storage trailers before they were damaged by the rain.

A tornado was reported near Lone Tree, south of Iowa City, about 5 p.m. but no major damage was reported, she said.

Jungbluth said tornado season in Iowa generally starts in March and peaks in May and June in terms of reports of tornadoes.

"We can see a tornado any time the atmospheric conditions are right," he said.

Tornado, hail, gusts reported across state

TORNADOES that ravaged the central United States claimed a 28th victim in Tennessee, state officials said.

Searchers in Dyer County found the body yesterday, bringing to 16 the number of people killed in the northwestern county, according to Kurt Pickering, spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency.

Another eight died in neighbouring Gibson County in last weekend's storms, and there were four other fatalities in Missouri and Illinois.

Mr Pickering said no one was now missing in the region, though 17 survivors suffered critical injuries.

The tornado outbreak - which produced 64 unconfirmed reports of twisters across the central United States - was the deadliest since November, when 23 people died in southern Indiana.

The Tennessee storms left 40km path of destruction, demolishing houses, stripping the bark off trees and hurling people into the air.

Survivors told of desperately trying to hold onto one another as the storms sucked them into swirling debris.

One family of four - the parents in their 20s and two sons age five and three - were killed, their bodies found later in fields near what had been their home.  [They were the family of the local undertaker]

US tornadoes kill 14

9.55AM, Mon Apr 3 2006

Storms and tornadoes have killed at least 14 people in the United States.

Most of the deaths occurred in the Dyersburg area of northwest Tennessee. Two people were also killed in St Louis.

Witnesses in Dyer County said there were at least two storms, possibly tornadoes, about 90 minutes apart on Sunday evening.

Most of the damage took place in a rural area called Mills Field where the local fire station was also destroyed.

Many residents were attending Sunday evening services at local churches when the storms hit.

The worst damage appeared to be in Gallatin, Tennessee

Emergency teams in Tennessee checked damaged houses for survivors and bodies as crews moved in dump trucks to haul away the wreckage caused by tornadoes blamed for 12 deaths.

Bystanders were warned not to smoke because of leaking gas while police on Saturday patrolled to ensure there was no looting in Gallatin, Tennessee.

Emergency officials implemented a dusk-to-dawn curfew for the worst-hit areas, and National Guard soldiers were brought in to patrol.

Last weekend, thunderstorms spinning out dozens of tornadoes killed 24 people in western Tennessee and four others in Missouri and Illinois.

Later on Friday and into Saturday, another line of severe thunderstorms rolled through Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

In Tennessee alone, tornadoes were spotted in about 10 counties on Friday, weather officials said.

The worst damage appeared to be in Gallatin and other suburbs northeast of Nashville.

More deaths

Nine people were killed in Sumner County and three were killed in Warren County, about 105km southeast of Nashville, Randy Harris, the state Emergency Management Agency spokesman, said on Saturday.

Hospitals admitted at least 60 people with storm-related injuries.

Phil Bredesen, Tennessee's governor, toured the destruction on Saturday.

Tornadoes were reported in 10 Tennessee counties on Friday

Nashville Electrical Service reported hundreds of electrical lines down and power outages affecting up to 16,000 customers.

The number of customers blacked out was down to 1,100 by Saturday, but some people might have to wait a week for their service to be restored, the power company said.

The National Weather Service said four tornadoes swept through Georgia. The twisters destroyed businesses, homes and at least one church in the Atlanta area and knocked out power to tens of thousands, authorities said. No deaths or serious injuries were reported.

Several people were injured in Alabama, two by falling trees, but no deaths were reported, officials said on Saturday.

Homes damaged

A store was destroyed in Ohatchee, near Anniston, and homes and apartments were damaged in the Birmingham area. Storms also pounded southern West Virginia, blacking out more than 16,000 customers, utilities said.

One person was injured in South Carolina as three tornadoes touched down around Charleston, the weather service said.

One tornado touched down at the Family Circle Cup tennis facility at Daniel Island, damaging banners and a score board and interrupting the tournament's qualifying rounds.

The weather service confirmed that a tornado touched down in southern Kentucky on Friday, destroying or damaging dozens of mobile homes. Four people suffered minor injuries.

Tornadoes Rip Through Eastern Iowa, Killing One  

IOWA CITY, Iowa (April 14, 2006) -- Tornadoes tore across a university campus overnight, ripping walls off a church and sorority house, crushing houses and cars, and killing a woman in a mobile home southeast of town.

University of Iowa sophomore Melissa Fortman huddled with friends in the basement their sorority as the sirens sounded, then decided to run upstairs for her homework just as the tornado hit.

"There was debris flying everywhere inside the house," Fortman told ABC's "Good Morning America" Friday. "I couldn't go down stairs because there was debris and glass flying up the stairs, so I just hid in a telephone booth we have in our house and I just hid there crying."

As talked outside the Alpha Chi Omega house early Friday, entire walls were gone and the interior of several rooms were visible from the street. Two cars had been tossed into a nearby ravine, and glass, debris and tree limbs littered the neighborhood.

The twisters swept across eastern Iowa, with the worst damage in a path from Iowa City southeast through the small town of Nichols, about 20 miles away, the National Weather Service said.

"We have a path in the Nichols area that's four to five miles long," said Maj. Dave White of the Muscatine County sheriff's office.

He said the tornado hits farms, knocked a tractor-trailer off a road, then hit the mobile home with a man and woman inside.

"It blew it off the foundation and the trailer rolled and basically disintegrated," White said. He said the man was "banged up" but he refused medical attention. The woman, whose identify was not released, died in the storm.

Gov. Tom Vilsack declared a state of emergency for Johnson, Jones and Muscatine counties.

In Iowa City, 21 people were reported treated at hospitals for storm-related injuries, none believed to be life-threatening.

"We don't have any reports of serious injuries, which is short of miraculous considering what some of the damage appears to be," University of Iowa spokesman Steve Parrot said.

As many as three tornados touched down in Iowa City. Downtown half the roof of St. Patrick's Catholic Church was torn off. Store windows were shattered, some buildings were partially collapsed and homes and apartments were heavily damaged. Thousands of homes were without power Friday morning.

Parrot said the university opened the Iowa Memorial Union and brought in mattresses for students needing a place to stay and canceled class on Friday.

Ryan Gibney just felt lucky to be alive Friday morning. His distressed call to 911 after a tornado hit an Iowa City shop captured the moments of chaos in the storm's immediate aftermath.

"Please. I'm underneath a wall, the whole building collapsed," Gibney can be heard telling the dispatcher. "I didn't know what happened. I opened the door right before it ripped the ceiling right off the side of the shop. I can't get the door off me, I'm pinned right now. Please help me."

His leg was injured, but he was able to walk and help with the cleanup the next morning.

"I thought that was going to be the end of it for me for sure," Gibney told "Good Morning America."

The storm system knocked down trees and power lines in northwest Illinois communities as well after crossing the Mississippi River around 10 p.m.

In neighborhoods across Iowa City, people pilled up tree limbs, splintered wood, brick and roofing materials as they cleared streets and yards.

In a downtown parking lot, cars sat amid broken glass and metal parts, with one vehicle overturned and others blown several feet from their original parking spots. Police said a roof collapsed at a pedestrian mall. A water line broke and there were concerns about gas lines.

Firefighter Darrall Brick looked on with dismay after the storm as he watched some people walking around downed power lines.

"These students just don't realize how dangerous it is," he said, noting how the crowds have prevented emergency crews from traveling to disaster sites.

The Iowa National Guard deployed 25 soldiers early Friday morning to provide security, keep people away from danger spots and help assess damage, said spokesman Lt. Col. Greg Hapgood.

MidAmerican Energy reported early Friday morning that about 7,000 homes and businesses in eastern Iowa were without power -- including 6,200 in Iowa City. Officials said crews would work through the night but could not say when the power would be restored.

4/14/2006 11:24 EST