The 23 people confirmed to have been killed by the deadliest US tornado in nearly six years have come into focus after a coroner finished identifying them and released their names.
By Kim Chandler and Jeff Martin, Associated Press
March 5 2019 5:38 PM
The 23 people confirmed to have been killed by the deadliest US tornado in nearly six years have come into focus after a coroner finished identifying them and released their names.
The youngest victim was six and the oldest was 93, while one family lost seven members.
“Just keep those families in your prayers,” Lee County coroner Bill Harris said, two days after the disaster. “It’s a tragic situation.”
The search for victims in and around the devastated rural community of Beauregard continued, with crews using heavy equipment to lift large chunks of wreckage.
Sheriff Jay Jones said the list of missing people had shrunk from dozens to just seven or eight.
“We are still conducting some searches, sifting through piles of debris where there may be people or animals,” said Opelika Fire Chief Byron Prather. “We haven’t given up hope.”
The dead included 53-year-old David Wayne Dean, whose body was found in a neighbour’s yard after the twister demolished his mobile home on Sunday afternoon.
He was known as Roaddog for his love of Harley-Davidson motorcycles.
“Our son found him,” his widow Carol Dean said between sobs. “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 tornado passed, she rushed home from work at Walmart and pushed past sheriff’s deputies to be with her husband one last time.
Picking through the ruins of their home, she found her wedding dress and a Father’s Day note to her husband that read: “Daddy, I love you to pieces.”
The tornado packed winds estimated at 170mph and chewed a path of destruction almost a mile wide in Alabama for nearly 27 miles, the National Weather Service said.
