Tuscaloosa, which has a population of about 90,000, was by a massive tornado directly through the heart of the city, which cut devastated the tornado tore through Tuscaloosa on Wednesday was a fickle beast.It completely flattened some districts but spared other, dozens of houses on a street razed to the ground in the leave a few standing and destroyed some homes save each room where a family took refuge.
Since excavated the city from the ruins on Friday, described this luck enough with their lives and their homes intact survival a different kind of heartbreak of those forced to rebuild.
"It is almost a survivor guilt," said Donny Selman, 33, who crouched under a mattress in a corridor with his pregnant wife during the tornado trees in almost every house on the block, but his thrown.
"I feel blessed and grateful, but the loss of life was great." It's almost like, why us? "Why were we spared?"
Unimaginable destructionChris Rhodes, 22 year old student at the University of Alabama, took refuge devastated with three friends in his bathroom as the Twister the neighborhood.
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Chris Rhodes, 22, was used for tornado warnings and said he was not inclined to take it seriously.
But on Wednesday, he and three friends in his home a more dire warning - the Twister heard even as it approached.
He said "This sound, as if they were 1,000 mph in a car with all Windows would open that". "It was the most horrible, explain what - you can not it - the sound of Windows breaking and click trees."
Refuge in the bathroom as the tornado took a pass through the garden, spinning the friends brick by a wall in the House and move a tree on to Mr Rhodes Honda pick-up truck.
"We thought that covered the roof on the head," he said.
Three young students in the House across the street were killed, and Mr. Rhodes said is he not sleep disturbed by the fact that he during the neighbors survived not less than 100 ft but removed.
"they were concerned about the same thing to hear the same thing." "And then they're gone."
On the other side of the street, three fellow students were killed when a tree on her house fell."I still what you think do not know", he said as he and his father downed trees from the street with a chainsaw losgesagt stop.
"I have slept not too well." I games due to the circumstances, the ", what ifs". "
Mile long loop of the city under to pile of twisted metal, shingles, and wood cutting the Twister through Tuscaloosa as a lawn mower with a.
It was tree branches and poured concrete utility pole with ease, uprooted centuries-old trees, and turned over such as Matchbox toy cars.
The tornado tore down house walls, offers spectators, not workers and news crews embarrassingly intimate insight into the people once private material lives - bedrooms and bathrooms revealed to the outside, a student's library of theology texts scattered across a parking lot, a collection from a distance (30 cm) record albums for decades only for lie forgiven Alabama under the hot sun stored.
In a flattened apartments, rain sodden smoke howled as if warning of danger, which already passed had.
While survivors which collected save things could and praised God they for sparing worse, the search and rescue effort continued continued.
Search for deadTuscaloosa is under virtual police rule. Movement in the disaster zone is strictly limited to prevent looting, although almost none have been reported, and keep roads clear for emergency vehicles. The Mayor imposed a curfew from 2000 local time (0100 GMT) for Friday night.
The city of the dead was on Friday at 42 dead and more than 900 injured, with both figures expected to rise.
"In the cadaver dogs today we bring are", said Heather McCollum, Assistant to the Mayor of Tuscaloosa.
Nearly two days after the storm, a woman with cerebral palsy was found left behind in the wreckage of block of flats and carried out in apparent health of volunteers.
Emergency workers have started with dogs to help, put in the ruins in Tuscaloosa findA group of young people from a church, a storm damaged area offers food and to survivor patrols were water had, heard dogs barking in an abandoned house. She released half a dozen pit bulls, promised that hungry, but playful turn around a shelter dogs.
Chris Nicholson, a 23-year-old engineer, hid with his fiancée in the bath at the heart of their small apartment.
The tornado roared overhead and sucked all the water from the toilet how huddled the couple together and prayed.
"I can describe it not really." It was not a cry, only a constant rumble such as an aircraft engine, "said Mr Nicholson."
Their apartment was largely undamaged. But three people in the two-storey block of flats remained on Friday is missing, and one twisted metal structure, either a crane or a lighthouse that had crushed their upstairs neighbors apartment.
"We were one of the luckiest," he said.
Brane Marion, a 24 year old student in psychology, hunkered down in an unsealed concrete protection in the garden behind the House with her brother and spiffy, a 12-year-old African Grey parrot, as the tornado approached.The nerve shaken bird began beeping noise - imitating the alarm system on their House, said Mrs Marion.
As the tornado passed overhead, she and her brother the bird cage tight to hold spiffy from the is sucked away keep.
"It was a bit of humour," she said of the bird's not cry. "Inappropriate humor, perhaps."
The temperature topped on Friday 24 ° C under bright, sunny skies and Alabamans that were able to aid and comfort to their offered neighbours of the way they knew how - through their churches with grills.
"It's a shame it appears, people together", Dan Williams, Harvest Church, said the 700 people fed on Thursday.
On Friday said residents they were disoriented walking and driving through neighborhoods, where she had lived for decades. The storm had flattened all the sights - the dentist's Office, which store car parts, debris left Boy Scout Club House - uniform pile.
"It looks like the bomber have come through,", said John Duckworth, 78.
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