‘Like a giant knife scraped the ground’: Aerial photographs reveal the utter devastation caused by the 170mph Alabama tornadoes as they razed homes to the ground, killing 23 including three children, as rescuers say the death toll will rise

Stunning aerial photographs reveal extent of the destruction caused by tornadoes in Lee County, Alabama
Among the dead were Armando Hernandez, six, and Taylor Thornton, ten, both from Beauregard, Alabama
David Wayne Dean, 53, was killed when his double wide trailer was ripped apart Sunday by a twister
Vicki Braswell, 69, was killed when the wall of her mobile home collapsed on her as she and her family sought shelter
Felicia Renee Woodall and her boyfriend, Ryan Pence, were also identified as two of the 23 fatalities
Lee County Coroner Brian Harris said at a press briefing Monday 17 of the 23 victims have been identified
Sheriff Jay Jones said rescue crews canvassed areas with the worst damage, but the search is ongoing
The twister has been classified as an F4 on the Fujita scale as early assessments indicate winds hit 170mph
Officials say it carved a path of destruction 24 miles long and nearly a mile wide along Alabama Highway 51
It was the deadliest tornado in the US since 2013, when an F5 tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, killed 24 people
At least a dozen tornadoes were reported Sunday as a massive storm system tore across parts of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, leaving more than 40,000 people without power

By Ariel Zilber and Megan Sheets For Dailymail.com and Associated Press

Dramatic aerial photographs show the scale of the destruction left behind by massive tornadoes that ripped through communities of mobile homes in Alabama on Sunday.

Roofs were torn off homes, debris was scattered all around, and communities looked from above as if they had been hit by a bomb.

Rescue crews using dogs and drones searched for victims amid splintered lumber and twisted metal on Monday after the deadliest U.S. tornado in nearly six years ripped through a rural Alabama community.

At least 23 people were killed, some of them children.

Dozens were missing in Lee County nearly a day after the twister struck, according to the sheriff, who said that crews had combed the hardest-hit areas but that other places had yet to be searched.

The scale of the devastation caused by tornadoes which blasted through communities in Lee County, Alabama on Monday is seen in the photo above

The aerial photo above shows debris from the destruction caused by tornadoes that killed at least 23 people in Lee County, Alabama on Sunday

Communities of mobile homes were destroyed as tornadoes packing 170mph winds ripped through the area on Sunday-

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The winds Sunday afternoon obliterated numerous homes, leaving huge, jumbled piles of wood and household belongings.

Some homes were reduced to concrete slabs. Debris was scattered across the countryside, with shredded metal hanging from the pine trees.

‘I’m not going to be surprised if we don’t come up with some more deceased. Hopefully we won’t,’ Coroner Bill Harris said.

He said the dead included almost entire families and at least three children, ages 6, 9 and 10.

A post on the Lee-Scott Academy’s Facebook page said fourth-grader Taylor Thornton was among those killed.

On the day after the disaster, volunteers used chain saws to clear paths for emergency workers. Neighbors and friends helped one another find some of their belongings in the ruins.

Carol Dean found her wedding dress among the wreckage of her mobile home. She also found a Father’s Day note to her husband reading, ‘Daddy, I love you to pieces.’

But the storm took her 53-year-old husband.

She said David Wayne Dean was at home Sunday afternoon and had texted a friend to beware when the tornado hit.

‘He didn’t make it out,’ she said.

Dean said she rushed home from her job at Walmart when she couldn’t reach her husband on the phone.

She pushed her way past sheriff’s deputies who tried to keep her out of the damaged area. Her children had found David Dean’s body in a neighbor’s yard.

‘Our son found him,’ Dean said between sobs Monday.

‘He was done and gone before we got to him. My life is gone. He was the reason I lived, the reason that I got up.’

After the storm, Dean rushed home from work in time to say goodbye to the husband others called Roaddog, for his love of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. She pushed past sheriff’s deputies who tried to keep people from the area and went to where her husband’s body lay.

‘They took me down to him,’ Dean said, ‘and I got to spend a little time with him before they took him away.’

At the R&D Grocery, rattled residents asked one another if they were OK.

This home appears to have been ripped from its foundation by the fierce tornadoes which rolled through the area on Sunday

The home is seen above from a different angle in this aerial shot. The winds Sunday afternoon obliterated numerous homes, leaving huge, jumbled piles of wood and household belongings

Authorities are using drones and rescue dogs in an attempt to search for possible survivors under the rubble

Some homes were reduced to concrete slabs. Debris was scattered across the countryside, with shredded metal hanging from the pine trees

Authorities expect to find more bodies and the death toll to rise as search and rescue efforts continue

The aerial photograph above shows damage to at least four homes as well as uprooted trees in Lee County

On the day after the disaster, volunteers used chain saws to clear paths for emergency workers. Neighbors and friends helped one another find some of their belongings in the ruins

Satellite trucks from news media organizations are seen parked on the side of the road as debris is scattered all about on Monday in Lee County

The National Weather Service said one and possibly two tornadoes struck the area, with a powerful EF-4 twister with winds estimated at 170 mph blamed for most of the destruction

The remains of five homes are seen above as debris is scattered all about in Lee County, Alabama on Monday

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And a big banner that read ‘#BEAUREGARDSTRONG’ was hung on a fence at Beauregard High School.

The National Weather Service said one and possibly two tornadoes struck the area, with a powerful EF-4 twister with winds estimated at 170 mph blamed for most of the destruction.

It carved a path nearly a mile wide and 24 miles long, said meteorologist Chris Darden.

Darden said the ‘monster tornado’ was the deadliest twister to hit the U.S. since May 2013, when an EF-5 killed 24 people in Moore, Oklahoma.

‘It looks like someone almost just took a giant knife and scraped the ground,’ Sheriff Jay Jones said.

County Emergency Management Director Kathy Carson said she was ‘pretty sure’ that tornado sirens in Beauregard sounded warnings but that authorities were busy with the search-and-rescue and had not yet looked into the question.

Crews searching door-to-door used dogs as well as drones that can detect heat from a body.

‘We’re basically using everything we can get our hands on,’ the sheriff said.

President Donald Trump tweeted that he told the Federal Emergency Management Agency to give Alabama ‘the A Plus treatment.’

Carol Dean found her wedding dress among the wreckage of her mobile home. But the storm took her 53-year-old husband, David Wayne Dean

Carol Dean holds up her wedding photo to show family members after finding it in the rubble of the home she shared with her husband

The photo is seen next to a pile of personal items near what was left of the couple’s home in Beauregard, Alabama on Monday

Carol Dean (right) cries while embraced by Megan Anderson and her 18-month-old daughter Madilyn, as Dean sifts through the debris of the home she shared with her husband

Carol Dean is embraced by her son, David Theo Dean, near the rubble of the home she shared with her husband and David’s father, David Wayne Dean

Carol Dean and her son, David Theo Dean, embrace on Monday. ‘He was my wedding gift,’ Carol Dean says of her late husband

Carol Dean holds a Father’s Day note to her husband, David Wayne Dean, which she pulled out of the rubble. The note was written to David Wayne Dean by his daughter

Dean was known affectionately by his friends as ‘Roaddog Daddy’ because of his love for Harley Davidson motorcycles. He is seen left and right with his wife—

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The twister was part of a powerful storm system that slashed its way across the Deep South, spawning numerous tornado warnings in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida.

‘All we could do is just hold on for life and pray,’ said Jonathan Clardy, who huddled with his family inside their Beauregard trailer as the tornado ripped the roof off.

‘It’s a blessing from God that me and my young’uns are alive.’

Beauregard, named for a Confederate general, is an unincorporated community of roughly 10,000 people near the Georgia state line.

The community is in the same county as Auburn University and has a few small stores, two schools and a volunteer fire department dotting the main highway.

‘Everybody in Beauregard is a real close-knit family,’ Clardy said.

‘Everybody knows everybody around here. Everybody is heartbroken.’

Julie Morrison and her daughter-in-law picked through the remnants of Morrison’s home, looking for keys and a wallet.

They managed to salvage the couple’s safe, her husband’s motorcycle boots and her embossed Bible.

Morrison said she and her husband took shelter in the bathtub as the twister lifted their house off the ground and swept it into the woods.

‘We knew we were flying because it picked the house up,’ Morrison said, figuring that the shower’s fiberglass enclosure helped them survive.

She said her son-in-law later dug them out.

Along one hard-hit country road, giant pieces of metal from a farm building dangled from pine branches 20 feet in the air, making loud creaking sounds as the wind blew.

For an entire mile down the road, pines were snapped in half. A mobile home crushed by two trees marked the end of the path of destruction.

Granadas Baker retrieves personal items from his home after a tornado caused extensive damage to a neighborhood a day earlier in Beauregard

Storm damage litters trees on Lee County Road 11 near the intersection of Lee County Road 39 on Monday in Beauregard

This photo shows tangled wreckage of a cell tower left by US-280 in Smiths Station, Alabama on Monday

Emergency personnel clear storm damage on Lee County Road 11 near the intersection of Lee County Road 39

The twister was part of a powerful storm system that slashed its way across the Deep South, spawning numerous tornado warnings in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida

Lawanda Anderson holds her 18-month-old granddaughter, Madilyn, as family members sift through the debris of the home belonging to David Wayne Dean

A damaged home sits along a road lined with downed trees the day after a tornado hit Beauregard on Monday

Dorothy Gubich, left, helps Carol Dean sift through the rubble of the home she shared with her husband

A toy truck is seen amongst the debris left behind by a tornado in Beauregard, Alabama on Monday

A red Ford truck is crushed underneath downed trees after a tornado ripped through the area in Beauregard, Alabama on Monday

What was once a community of homes in Lee County, Alabama has now been reduced to rubble and debris

Shaun Capps sifts through the rubble of his parents’ home and the house where he grew up the day after a tornado hit Beauregard on Monday

Trey Capps looks over the rubble of his parents’ home and the house where he grew up in Beauregard, Alabama on Monday

A television news reporter stands in the distance of a debris field the day after a tornado hit Beauregard on Monday

An early March tornado outbreak in the Alabama-Mississippi area is not unusual, tornado experts said.

The weather service’s Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, posted forecasts for higher tornado activity in the region on Thursday, three days before the disaster.

University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd said government forecasters ‘were all over it.’

An EF-5 tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, in May 2011 killed 158 people.

And an outbreak of tornadoes in the Southeast a month before that left an estimated 316 people dead, including at least 250 in Alabama.

Earlier on Monday, a six-year-old boy and ten-year-old girl were identified as two of the 23 people killed by the tornadoes.

Armando Hernandez, known as AJ, became separated from his mother in Beauregard when a tornado struck and was later found dead.

His mother, Kayla Melton, had earlier appealed for information on his whereabouts on Facebook, writing: ‘Please look for my baby he’s 6 years old his name is Armando Hernandez he goes by AJ last seen on lee road 38. Anyone in the area please help me find him please!!!!!’

His death was later confirmed by friends and family on social media.

Relative Tina Melton wrote on Facebook: ‘Little AJ didn’t make it. He was found but he didn’t survive… He was always eager to give hugs and loved his family. They are headed to the children’s hospital with his brother. They also lost their home in the tornado with all belongings. Fly high AJ. You have your wings!’

A GoFundMe campaign to raise money for his funeral costs has raised more than $1,100 as of Monday afternoon.

A second victim was identified as Beauregard fourth grader Taylor Thornton, the daughter of Ashley and David Thornton.

A description on her GoFundMe page, which has raised more than $23,000 for her funeral costs, says: ‘Taylor was an amazing example of a child of God. She brought so much joy to all that knew her. She was loved dearly and will forever be missed.

‘Our hearts are mourning with you Ashley and David. You raised an amazing daughter that fulfilled her purpose on this earth and it now with her creator. This community loves you both, and baby McCrae so much and will continue to walk through this by your side.’ …..more here

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‘Like a giant knife scraped the ground’: Aerial photographs reveal the utter devastation caused by the 170mph Alabama tornadoes as they razed homes to the ground, killing 23 including three children, as rescuers say the death toll will rise