A Look At The First Major Storm Outbreak Of 2007

Scenes from Enterprise, Alabama, where the worst of Thursday's storm damage was experienced. The above picture shows a damaged classroom in the Enterprise High School, where five people lost their lives. In the bottom picture, one of the town's streets is shown to be clogged with power lines, trees and other debris. Pictures courtesy of WTVF-TV, Nashville, Tennessee

The major dangers of the storm outbreak seem to be over, but not before leaving a trail of devastation and death.

In Kansas, Linn County suffered some damage to a power substation and several houses and barns on Wednesday night. I understand that several injuries were reported here.

Missouri bore the brunt early. A portion of Interstate 35 in Kansas City was down to one lane Wednesday because of flooding problems. A seven-year-old girl was killed early Thursday in near the southeastern Missouri town of West Plains. Three other members of her family were injured when their mobile home was shredded by a twister. In the state's southwestern area, the town of Caulfield was hit as well. Mobile homes, houses and service stations were among the structures damaged by possibly three tornadoes that touched down early Thursday morning.

Alabama was far and away the worst hit by the outbreak. Two different towns saw large amounts of damage. The hardest hit was the town of Enterprise, where six people were killed. Five of those deaths were at Enterprise High School, which was right in the crosshairs of the funnel. The school was about to let out because of the weather, but as one newsman put it the tornado got there first. The high school was the most noted building destroyed, but a large part of the town of 20,000 was damaged by the storms. One other death in Alabama was reported in Wilcox County, where a lot of buildings were damaged as well. Tornadic thunderstorms pushed through Birmingham and Tuscaloosa in the afternoon, but no notable damage seems to have been reported from these.

In Georgia, the death toll has reached three as the storms that brought havoc to Alabama advanced eastward. The Sumter Regional Medical Center in Americus was blasted by the storm, killing two people in the process there. The town lost all its ambulances in the damage, and the city of Albany, which is 35 miles away, sent some that way. It is not yet known whether the fatalities were hospital patients. This all happened around 9 PM CT. A tornado blew through Taylor County, near Albany, killing one and injuring at least four.

Please keep all the people affected in your thoughts and be sure to say a prayer or two for them. They are going through very difficult times and they need all the help they can get. My God bless all these people who have lost loved ones and livelihoods. The Conservative Statesman wants to let the people affected in Alabama, Georgia, Missouri and Kansas know that we stand with you in your time of heavy trial.

The Weather Channel and CNN are thanked for providing information used in this report.