Excerpted from: ERRI EMERGENCY SERVICES REPORT-EmergencyNet NEWS Service-Thursday, April 16, 1998 Vol. 2 - 106

FLORA, ILLINOIS (EmergencyNet News) - Only minor injuries were reported when a strong band of storms moved across southern Illinois late on Wednesday, spawning tornadoes that damaged homes and businesses in at least three counties. In the town of Flora, located about 90 miles east of St. Louis, the most severe damage was reported after a tornado hit an industrial park. Clay County authorities said there were reports of minor injuries and businesses were damaged.

In an odd twist to the story, the twister hit a moving freight train outside of Flora. CSX Railway said that 65 of the 79 cars on the train were derailed. The two-man crew was not hurt.

Tornadoes or high winds were blamed for damaging homes in Marion and Jefferson counties, southwest of Flora. Several homes were damaged or destroyed in Marion County. There were also reports of tornadoes in St. Clair and Monroe counties.

ESR CLOSE UP

NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE (EmergencyNet News) - Tornadoes left blocks of downtown Nashville devastated and a trail of death across the states of Arkansas, Kentucky and Tennessee on Thursday. No one was killed, but at least 100 people were reported injured in Nashville when twin tornadoes destroyed large downtown buildings, uprooted tall trees and scattered vehicles and debris over several miles in the country music capital's worst storm in a 100 years.

The Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said the twisters damaged at least 300 buildings along a six-mile path. City officials estimated the cost of the destruction at $100 million. The first tornado hit the city about 1530 hours local time.

On Friday, rescue teams continued searching through the wreckage as city schools, offices and stores planned to be closed for the day. The governor of the state of Tennessee declared a state of emergency.

In other areas of Tennessee and Kentucky, six people were reported killed as severe weather damage was reported in ten counties in Tennessee alone.

Early on Thursday, tornadoes swept along the Arkansas-Tennessee border, killing four people, including a couple sucked out of their mobile home and tossed into a field.

Tornado watches and warnings were posted into the night as the storm system crossed into Georgia and Alabama. The watches were lifted by early Friday morning.

The fierce winds that swept through Nashville on Thursday broke countless windows and left streets littered with glass and blocked by fallen trees and telephone poles. An elevated, glass-enclosed pedestrian crosswalk linking a downtown hotel and a shopping center was ripped apart and left dangling above the sidewalk. The force of the storm peeled a mural off the side of the Hard Rock Cafe in the city's entertainment district and the tops of a number of buildings were blown off. Buildings housing the police and fire department headquarters were also extensively damaged.

The severe weather cropped up in the Midwest late Wednesday, sweeping from Illinois into Arkansas and Tennessee. About 24 hours later, tornadoes had caused damage from Michigan to Alabama; more than a dozen tornado warnings were issued in Alabama, where 33 were killed by a massive twister 8 April.

The victims in Arkansas were two young children, a 2-year-old boy and his 5-year-old sister. They were killed in the town of Manila, located about 30 miles east of Jonesboro, where a schoolyard ambush left five people dead last month. An hour after the children were killed, two more people died in rural Tennessee. After the tornadoes rolled through Nashville, three more people were killed in Wayne County, near the Alabama state line.