3 Killed as Two Tornadoes Rip Alabama Area

Two tornadoes ripped across northern Alabama before dawn Thursday, killing at least three people and injuring more than 100. Teams looking for more victims in the rubble found a baby unharmed beneath two wrecked trailers.

About an hour before the first tornado hit, lightning struck the office of the National Weather Service in Huntsville. The service’s Birmingham office was able to issue a warning at 5 a.m., minutes before the deadly wind raced through Arab, but police didn’t have time to warn everyone.

In the aftermath, rescue crews searched for people possibly trapped in the wreckage, rain pounded flattened barns, pink insulation dripped from trees and more wind shook cars creeping over littered roads.

No more victims were found--just one small miracle.

“We found a 1-year-old baby under two trailers,” firefighter Robert Reynolds said. “He was sitting there, not making a sound.”

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Arab (pronounced AY-rab) is 30 miles south of Huntsville and has a population of about 6,300.

The town’s three dead were a girl and two men, all killed in separate locations, Marshall County Coroner Dempsey Hibbs said.

Hospital officials said 66 people were treated Thursday, with 13 admitted and four transferred to Huntsville for additional care, and that they knew of 40 other people treated at two other hospitals.

The first tornado hit a subdivision in Joppa, where about a dozen injuries were reported, and then moved on to Arab, about three miles east, packing winds up to 206 m.p.h. About 30 minutes later, another tornado from the same thunderstorm touched down in Martling, about 15 miles east of Arab.

One twister lifted Ricky and Dianne Fortenberry’s wooden A-frame house from its cement foundation, carried it about 40 feet and dropped it on a trailer--while the couple clung to their bed.

The Fortenberrys escaped serious harm.