Alabama search and rescue teams on Tuesday were combing through the wreckage of houses flatted by weekend tornadoes, looking for seven or eight people who remained unaccounted for in the wake of the deadliest US tornado outbreak since 2013.
The tiny community of Beauregard, near the Alabama-Georgia border, was beginning to mourn the 23 people confirmed killed by the storms, which included four children and seven people from one family, officials said on Tuesday.
The victims ranged in age from 6 to 93 years old, Bill Harris, coroner for storm-ravaged Lee County, told a morning news conference.
Shannon Kelley talks on the phone as she walks down her street after a tornado struck in Beauregard, Alabama. Source: Getty
"Just keep these families in your prayers," Mr Harris said.
Most of the deceased were found in close proximity to their homes. The four children were age 6, 8, 9 and 10, officials said.
County Sheriff Jay Jones said on Tuesday that search crews had narrowed their scope down to "the most affected areas" after scouring much of the county on Monday. He said he hoped the search and rescue effort would become a recovery effort by the end of the day.
David McBride, owner of Buck Wild Saloon, talks on the phone in front of his bar after it was destroyed. Source: Getty
The tornadoes, stirred up by a late-winter "supercell" thunderstorm, toppled mobile homes and uprooted massive trees on Sunday with 274 km per hour winds.
Forecasters ranked the worst of the outbreak at step four of the six-step Enhanced Fujita scale of tornado strength. The Beauregard community in the tornado's path might have had as few as eight or nine minutes to seek shelter from the time the warning was issued, National Weather Service chief meteorologist Chris Darden said.
In addition to 23 confirmed deaths, more than 50 people were reported injured, authorities said, making this the deadliest tornado outbreak since a massive tornado struck Oklahoma in May 2013, killing 24 people and injuring 375 others.
Wrecked houses, fallen trees
The swath of destruction left by the storm was 0.4 kilometres wide and stretched for the "several miles that it travelled on the ground," according to Jones.
Still and video images showed trees that had been snapped in two, debris-strewn roads and wrecked houses in the wake of the storm.
More than 6,000 homes were left without power in Alabama, according to PowerOutage.US, while 16,000 suffered outages in neighbouring Georgia.
Damaged trees and property. Source: Getty
Many roads in the worst-hit areas were left littered with debris and unpassable.
Residents in the town of Smith Station told local TV news crews of their shock at turning up to work to find their businesses destroyed and seeing crying co-workers comforting one another.
