Vortex Of Misery

IF A TORNADO IS NATURE'S EQUIVALENT OF A DRIVE-by shooting -- random and deadly -- then the pair of storm systems that spun dozens of deadly twisters across 12 states, killing 25 and injuring hundreds, resembled a devastating artillery barrage. One trailer park in Rankin County, Mississippi, looked every bit the target of a heavy shelling after a twister roared through it. The storm, unleashing winds of more than 200 m.p.h., tossed one trailer 150 yds., wrapped another's heavy steel frame around a tree trunk like a coat hanger, lodged an empty refrigerator high in a pine tree and left the forest strung with the sad confetti of broken lives: blankets, clothes and magazines. Said one Vietnam vet as he surveyed the site: "This looks like Hamburger Hill."

The scene was repeated from Texas to Ohio and Maryland as the freak storms, caused by a southerly dip in the jet stream that slammed cold Canadian air against warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, zigzagged across the Southeast. High winds tossed a school bus full of children off a road in North Carolina (five kids and the driver were admitted to a hospital) and tore the steeple from a Georgia church as the congregation sang Amazing Grace. Still, in Florence, Mississippi, fate smiled on a six-day-old girl, ripped from her father's arms when a twister hit their mobile home. She was found 40 minutes later in the underbrush, wet and scratched -- but alive.