Crews Seek More Survivors of Deadly Tornado

Searchers spent Easter Sunday carefully moving debris from piles of wreckage, hoping to find more survivors of a tornado that carved a 3 1/2-mile swath through Bossier Parish and killed six people

“If you would’ve dropped a 747 and a B-52 on these areas, and they had exploded, it wouldn’t have done this much damage,” Bossier Parish Sheriff Larry Deen said. “This is just a twisted mass of debris where people used to live.”

Teams with dogs had searched through the night, looking for spots where survivors might be hidden. Their work was slowed because many power lines were down, and there were several gas leaks in the areas flattened by the twister.

And in some places, officers had to carry their dogs through the jagged wreckage.

By afternoon, no more bodies had been found.

The tornado, believed to be about half a mile wide at its base, curved through farm and rural land Saturday and hit two mobile home parks in this northwest Louisiana community, as well as the upscale subdivision of Palmetto Park.

“I heard it coming. It was roaring,” said Benny Ferguson, 43, who lived in the Hay Meadow Trailer Park, where three people died. “I went outside and looked, and then I could see it. I went back in the house to find a place to hide, but there’s nowhere to hide in a trailer.”

His roof was stripped off and a shed was gone, but he was in better shape than many of his neighbors.

Ferguson said neighbors Darlene and Crystal Gregrich were baby-sitting three children when the tornado picked up their trailer and dropped it across the road. None was seriously hurt.

One trailer, still mostly standing, was topped at one end by the black rectangular frame of a second mobile home and at the other by a tree.

Six people were known dead, and hospitals had treated and released 100, Sheriff Deen said. He didn’t know how many were hospitalized; Bossier Parish hospitals overflowed, and some people were taken to Shreveport, 16 miles south.

At least nine people were hospitalized in critical or guarded condition, hospital officials said.

“Six people dead is terrible. But when you look at it, it’s hard to believe there were that few,” said Ed Baswell, spokesman for the sheriff’s office.

Oaks were toppled and pines snapped. Cars and trucks lay crushed. Roofing tin was wrapped around giant pecan trees, and fences were festooned with tufts of insulation. A horse lay dead in one field.

“Basically, I have half a house. The west side walls and roof are gone,” said Don Vallery, 50. “My neighbor’s camper is on top of my truck and his stove is in my living room.”

Vallery and his wife and two daughters were away when the twister struck.

A separate tornado destroyed a church in Logansport, a DeSoto Parish town southwest of Shreveport near the Texas border. And a tornado or severe wind downed trees, damaged some homes and caused minor injuries in a Shreveport neighborhood.

The same mass of storms caused flooding in southern Missouri. Fifty people were moved to emergency shelters after flash floods struck Fredericktown, and some had to be rescued from their roofs. A 12-year-old boy was found dead.

About 6 p.m. Sunday in Louisiana, another tornado uprooted trees in a rural part of Taylortown, about 20 miles southeast of Benton, said Chuck Mazziotti, director of the Bossier Parish Office of Emergency Preparedness. There were no reports of injuries or damaged property, Mazziotti said.