[JonInMiddleGA]

8 of the fatalities in TN were in my wife's hometown (or out in the county a few miles away).

Meanwhile one of the hardest hit parts of GA was Ringgold, where a three-story motel collapsed, every restaurant in town has been destroyed, and both their HS & MS were heavily damaged (students weren't in the bldg thankfully). That's along the route she drove home from TN yesterday, more than a close call for this husband.

There's up to 100k chickens abruptly free-ranging in the county where I grew up (somehow several chicken houses were destroyed but much of the poultry reportedly survived). Sounds funny but not the guy who had his livelihood destroyed. Nearby rescue workers finally made it into a ruined street & successfully rescued an elderly woman trapped in her home after several hours (and at least one, possibly two more storms passed over the rubble while she was still inside).

In Tuscaloosa, a former co-worker's college student son dropped his car off at the local tire shop for service. Luckily he ducked into a friend's off-campus apartment on the next block to wait out the storm. Minutes later the tire shop was leveled, still not sure where the car ended up. Another former co-worker is in Birmingham, she ducked inside a restaurant to dodge the debris raining down on the parking lot.