A ferocious system of tornado-filled thunderstorms has claimed at least 250 lives in the past few days—with Alabama suffering the worst hit. We've rounded up videos, below, that show the destruction. One video captured by local news channel WBMA's tower shows a large tornado touching down last night near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, where the University of Alabama is located.
"It's been a devastating blow to the people of this community," Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox told ABC, adding that hundreds of businesses and homes were destroyed. "We need men, materials and equipment. Our system is overwhelmed. The tornado took out a major nerve center of city, our environmental services department which is how we pick up debris, trash. It's gone and the fleet that we have, the vehicles are gone." At least fifteen people were killed in the town of 83,000 and about 100 more are in a local hospital, according to the AP.
Including yesterday's storm, there have been a whopping 800 reports of tornadoes in April, easily surpassing April 2003's all-time record of 543 twisters. We rounded up videos of some of this month's twisters here. And check out the New York Times' map of where tornadoes hit here.
You can watch the tornado touching down in Tuscaloosa below:
And this video, shot by storm chasers, shows a tornado barreling through Philadelphia, Mississippi:
See the damage in Northern Georgia after the twisters:
(Tuscaloosa tornado: AP)
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