ATLANTA -- Most of the victims of last year's epic tornado outbreak in Alabama had at least one thing in common: They knew the storm was coming.

A year after the onslaught of dozens of twisters killed at least 250 people in Alabama and more elsewhere in the South, federal researchers are completing a study of who died and where they were when it happened. Among the conclusions so far: Nearly half of the people who died had been advised to take shelter. Indeed, most of them did.

But many of the tornadoes were so fierce that few structures were able to withstand them.

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These were catastrophic winds that could destroy pretty much anything in its path," Cindy Chiu, an epidemic intelligence service officer, said in reporting preliminary findings this month at a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conference in Atlanta.

Unlike in other tornado outbreaks, the largest group of people who died were in single-family houses — not mobile homes — the CDC analysis found.

The April 27, 2011, outbreak involved 62 tornadoes that stretched along ground-hugging tracks that covered more than 1,000 miles. Fatalities were reported from central Alabama to far north Alabama.

While many who heard the warnings sought shelter, others took their chances and lost.

The American Red Cross shares disaster data with the CDC, including what was gathered in extensive interviews with families of the deceased.

Relatives of an 80-year-old woman from Lawrence County "notified her of impending storm — asked her to go to storm shelter next door. She refused, said if her time to go, she would."

The wife of a 35-year-old man from Franklin County heard the warning on TV, according to another vignette provided by Chiu. "She and sons went to basement of neighbors. He stayed in the home," the vignette states. "Tornado struck (at) 330pm and he was found 30 mins later near a tree. He was badly injured and died in the hospital."

The CDC has been examining reports of 255 deaths, including a few for which no Alabama death certificate has been found yet. It's possible a few people were injured in Alabama but died in hospitals in nearby states, Chiu said.

For 120 of those 255, the CDC determined whether the victims knew of the coming tornadoes ahead of time. And 105 were warned.

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Of those, 70 took some kind of protective action, like covering themselves or going to what they thought was a safer location or room — including 45 who sought proper shelter, like a basement or interior room on the lowest floor possible. Nineteen were in bathrooms, 10 in basements, 10 in bedrooms and 10 in hallways and smaller numbers in other rooms.

The average age of those who died was 50, and a third of the deaths were people 65 and older, the CDC found.

Being elderly is considered one of the greatest risk factors for death and injury in a tornado. Older people may be less mobile and have more difficulty getting to shelter. They may be frail, and more likely to die from an injury that might not kill a healthier and younger person.

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Severe storms overnight in Nebraska, Texas and Ohio damaged homes and tossed rail cars as well as at least one tractor-trailer, and the threat continued Monday with a large part of the central U.S. on alert.

The greatest damage overnight was just outside North Platte, Neb., where two confirmed tornadoes tore roofs off several homes, downed power lines and injured two people.

One twister crossed Interstate 80, flipping a tractor-trailer in its path. The truck's driver was hospitalized.

A rail yard also was hit, with 15 cars derailed or knocked over, the North Platte Telegraph reported. One worker there was hit by flying debris, treated at a hospital and then released.

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In central Ohio, tornado sirens went off as large hail and high winds swept through Sunday night. In Gardendale, Texas, two people were hurt when high winds flipped over their mobile home. No tornadoes were reported in either state.

The mix of warm weather in recent weeks with cold pockets across the Midwest and central U.S. has led to an early start to the tornado season.

"It has been an active season already for tornadoes, and that's part of the reason we've scooched up our siren testing starting in March," Paul Johnson, emergency manager for Douglas County in North Dakota, told KETV.

Tornado watches have been issued for parts of Texas and Oklahoma for Monday, while the rest of the central U.S. is under severe weather warnings that include the possibility of large hail and high winds.

 

The threat will shift slightly to the east on Tuesday, weather.com reported, with parts of Illinois, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas seeing the biggest threat.

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Jamal Stevens, 7, is among the few who can say they survived being picked up and tossed around by a twister -- last Friday he was sucked out of his bed and flung onto a grassy strip along an interstate behind his home. But how could Jamal or anyone survive such an extreme event?

"It is puzzling because one or two people in a place will be killed while others live, and it often seems to be luck," acknowledges Tom Schmidlin, a Kent State University professor who has studied tornado injuries.

Luck does seem to have a lot to do with it, in that one or more factors have to go your way to survive. It can happen, but chances are very, very remote.

"It's a lot like flipping a coin and have it land perfectly on its edge," says Jason Persoff, a University of Colorado doctor and -- on the side -- storm chaser.

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A key survival factor seems to be "an oversized object being thrown with the patient" that actually protects him or her from the other debris flying through the air like missiles, says Persoff, who doesn't know of any specific studies but has treated such victims himself and spoken to peers about it.

"A mattress, a tub, a door, or sometimes another person" can offer that protection, he notes, while emphasizing that those same objects can just as easily become debris that kills.

Other factors that might come into play include one's age, a tornado's speed and where one lands.

"The very old and very young seem to be vulnerable," notes Schmidlin. Moreover, a person flung by a twister will likely also have been hit by debris "so surviving probably depends on those elusive factors of what you were hit with and your ability to survive injuries."

Mark Baker, an emergency room doctor at Children's of Alabama hospital in Birmingham, says children might actually have an advantage compared to adults when it comes to their chests and abdomens. "Their skeletons are a little more pliant," he says.

But the danger for children is the head area. Baker's ER group saw 60 children during the city's deadly twister on April 27, 2011 -- and two thirds had serious or critical injuries, most to the head.

Jamal, who doesn't remember anything about the ordeal, felt sore afterward but otherwise checked out OK after landing on a relatively soft grassy area along that interstate in Charlotte, N.C.

 

As for increasing one's chances of surviving a twister, experts at the University of Alabama at Birmingham recently came out with some straightforward advice: Wear a helmet.

The idea was first proposed in the 1960s, researchers at the university's Injury Control Research Center wrote in an online commentary, and anecdotal evidence includes a boy who survived the deadly 2011 Joplin, Mo., tornado because he was wearing a bike helmet when airborne debris hit him in the head.

Acknowledging the idea "never gained popularity," the team said it was time to raise awareness -- and even chastised federal safety tips as "woefully inadequate."

The tornado safety page at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, the team wrote, does encourage people to protect their head "with anything available -- even your hands" but doesn't specify wearing a helmet.

"From a practical perspective," the team added, using one's hands has "major limitations."

For one, hands can't cover all head, face and neck areas, they stated. And second, using your hands and arms for protection means you can't then use them for other emergency tasks -- "such as keeping young children close by and protected."

Dr. Russ Fine, director of the injury research center, says that since the commentary was published Jan. 12, he's "questioned, publicly and privately, why they have not changed their web-based Emergency Preparedness recommendations to include helmets."

"I'm embarrassed that the nation's prevention agency hasn't modified its recommendations," he adds.

Msnbc.com forwarded the commentary to the CDC and a spokesperson was reviewing it for a response.

Baker, the ER doctor, agrees that helmets, especially with straps, and infant carriers for the youngest should be part of preparing for a tornado.

Children's of Alabama is also informally starting to get the word out, says spokeswoman Kathy Bowers. Efforts include a public service announcement on local TV with a meteorologist who touts the value of having helmets handy.

Fine senses that the helmet idea is slowly getting some traction. He went to a sporting goods store to buy bike helmets for two grandchildren during Birmingham's last bout of bad weather and the clerk realized it was for the storm, not exercise. "She also said she didn't own a helmet but that she and every other clerk" borrowed them from the shelves when bad weather hit, he says.

Fine himself has a helmet at home, as does his wife. "We have helmets in our safe room," he says. "We have our drill, we know what we're planning to do."

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March literally roared in like a lion, bringing the number of tornadoes so far this year to around 210. That's three times the average number of tornadoes for this time period.

According to records kept by severe weather expert Dr. Greg Forbes, the average would be 72 tornadoes. When it comes to these severe weather events, Forbes says you can't predict the future based on past events because there are many ingredients that come together to create severe outbreaks. Still the rising numbers 2012 really grab your attention.

"January was one of the most active we've had, February was above average because of the tornadoes at the end of the month, and March started off with a bang, " said Forbes.

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Tornadoes can occur at any time of year, however the months with the greatest number of tornadoes overall are normally April, May and June. The peak month for tornadoes is May with an average of more than 300 tornadoes. While we're not seeing that high number yet this month or even so far this year, why are we seeing the increased number of tornadoes so early in the year?

Forbes says there are a number of ingredients coming into play.

"La Nina in the January to April time frame tends to often make it more active but not always. Combine that with the fact that we've had very few major Arctic outbreaks where bitter cold air has come out of Canada and blasted all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. Without this Arctic air, conditions over most of the country were well above average this winter. When temperatures are warm it's easier to get tornadoes and this trend may continue," Forbes adds.

Water temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico and along the southeast coast of the Atlantic are above average for this time of year, creating more moisture which helps produce fuel for thunderstorms. Forbes says a major change to the upper air pattern can overwhelm these factors.

More Information: Tornado Safety Checklist
More from weather.com

March may be due for a record-breaking month of tornadoes based on the odds. The existing March record was set back in 1976 with 180 tornadoes. When you look the chart below, all the other months' records were set in the last decade or two.

With so many tornadoes adding up in the beginning of the month and many days left in March, it's very possible that this month's old record could be shattered in 2012.

"It wouldn't surprise me if the March record fell. It's been so long, the record is so low, and we're in a warm pattern with strong jet stream winds. If you wanted to make a wild guess, March 2012 might break the old record," Forbes said. "The record is 180 and we already have over 80 tornadoes."

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From her hospital bed, an Indiana mother who lost both of her legs but saved her two children described the frightening moments when a tornado ripped through the family's home.

"They're screaming, 'Mommy, I can't live without you, I don't want to die, please don't let me die,' and I said, 'You're not going to die. We're going to make it,'" she told NBC's TODAY show in an interview that aired Tuesday.

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Stephanie Decker, 36, lost one leg above the knee and the other above the ankle, and broke seven ribs, but her two children, Dominic, 8, and Reese, 5, were unharmed after a twister with 175 mph winds leveled their house in Marysville, Ind.

"Everything started hitting my back," Decker, now listed in fair condition in a Louisville, Ky., hospital, said. "Beams, pillars, furniture - everything was just slamming into my back, but I had my children and the blanket, and I was on top of them."

Earlier in the day, Stephanie Decker's husband, Joe, had sent his wife a text message from work,  telling her that radar was showing a tornado headed straight for their three-story brick and stone house, reported the Louisville Courier-Journal.

Decker had arrived home minutes before, and she and the kids immediately headed down to the basement. 

Once the funnel cloud passed, the 8,000-square-foot, three-level house -- which the paper reported was the family's dream home -- was destroyed and Decker and her children were buried under rubble. Dominic and Reese, miraculously, didn't even have a scratch on them, but Decker was bleeding profusely.

Ind. mom loses legs but saves kids from tornado

"I looked at my leg and realized either it was cut off, or it was barely attached," she told TODAY. "I took my phone and made a video to my husband telling him I loved him."

Dominic ran next door for help. Neighbor and local sheriff's deputy Brian Lovins came to the rescue, using a belt as a tourniquet to stop the flow of blood from Decker's severed leg.

"She's like, 'I'm dying, I'm dying,'" Lovins told TODAY, his voice breaking with emotion. "Her kids were able to get out and call for help, and her kids saved her life."

Tornado drops boy on highway, 350 ft. from home

Decker said she survived because of her kids.

"I prayed to have the strength to survive," she said. "I wanted these kids to have a mom. I did not want them to have to grow up without me."

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SALEM, Ind -- The toddler found alive in a field but who later died of her tornado injuries was laid to rest along with her parents and siblings on Monday.

Angel Babcock, the 1-year-old who clung to life for two days, was buried with her parents, 2-year-old brother and 2-month-old sister during a private service in Salem, Ind.

The family had huddled in a neighbor's home but were sucked out by a tornado last Friday as it swept through New Pekin, Ind.

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Angel's grandparents and doctors decided Sunday afternoon to remove her from life support after medical staff told them there was nothing more they could do.

"I had my arm around her when she took her last breath," grandmother Kathy Babcock told ABC News. "I sang to her 'Itsy-bitsy spider.'"

When Angel arrived at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Ky., on Friday night, she was opening her eyes — a hopeful sign, Chief Nursing Officer Cis Gruebbel said.

Things turned on Saturday, when the swelling in her brain didn't decrease. As the day went on, her eyes ceased to move and she continued to deteriorate. There was no sign of brain activity.

The family was buried in two caskets in the pauper section at Crown Hill Cemetery in Salem, Police Maj. Scott Ratts said.

At least two banks set up funds to benefit the Babcock family, and Ratts said contributions have come in from all over the country.

"This family had been suffering with the bad economy, and now with the storms ... I mean, they have five burials in one day," Ratts said.

Pansy Branscum, who attended Monday's burial, said she was still stunned by the loss.

"It's a tragedy that we don't understand, but God does," she said as she and her husband, Milton, carried large arrangements of red-and-white carnations to the burial site.

Neighbor talks of twister that killed family
Snow, cold add to misery for tornado victims

The tornado that killed Angel and her family was among an estimated 30 packing winds of more than 110 mph that hit the Midwest and South on Friday, according to the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Okla.

Greg Carbin, warning coordination meteorologist at the center, said the assessment of the storms is still preliminary, and a series of weaker tornadoes that also struck could boost the total number of twisters to 60 or 70.

Carbin said the fact that the outbreak occurred as early in the year as it did was a "once in a decade-type event, maybe once or twice a decade."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Updated at 5:45 p.m. ET
HENRYVILLE, Ind. -- Snow and even colder weather added to the misery across parts of twister-hit Indiana and Kentucky on Monday, where thousands were still without power, hundreds lost their homes and the cleanup was just beginning.

Several inches had fallen by midday, after a Sunday that included a mix of snow and rain.

In Henryville, where a 175 mph tornado ripped through town on a 52-mile-long tear, the snow added "an almost surreal quality to the destruction all around us," NBC's Lester Holt reported.

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Indiana homeland security spokeswoman Emily Norcross said the snow would likely slow the cleanup effort because it covered debris and concealed potential hazards.

"It's slippery and it's hampering visibility on roads, so it's more difficult to see small debris like nails," Norcross said. "It's complicating things."

The fast-moving tornadoes that hit on Friday, numbering at least 30, came on top of severe weather earlier in the week in the Midwest and brought the overall death toll from the unseasonably early and violent storms to at least 52 people. The death toll from Friday's twisters stood at 40 on Monday afternoon.

Related: Tornado drops boy on highway, 350 feet away

Adding to the despair, a toddler who had become a symbol of hope amid destruction after she was found alive in an Indiana field died of her injuries. The tornado that killed Angel Babcock also claimed the lives of her parents and her two siblings.

"Angel has been reunited with her parents," the girl's extended family said in a statement.

A neighbor with whom the family had taken shelter told NBC's TODAY show that both his home and their home were obliterated by the twister.

Weather.com: Tornado outbreak -- As it happened

In Henryville, about 20 miles area north of Louisville, Ky., school was canceled for the week because of heavy damage to the education complex housing elementary through high school students.

Even so, small signs of normalcy slowly began to emerge.

Utility crews replaced downed poles and restrung electrical lines. Portable cell towers went up, and a truck equipped with batteries, cellphone charging stations, computers and even satellite television was headed to Henryville on Monday.

"We're going to keep living," said the Rev. Steve Schaftlein during a Sunday service at St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, where about 100 people gathered under a patched-up six-foot hole in the church's roof to worship and catch up on news of the tornado.

The violent storms raised fears that 2012 would be another bad year for tornadoes after 550 deaths were blamed on twisters last year, the deadliest year in nearly a century, according to the National Weather Service.

In hard-hit areas, National Guard troops manned checkpoints on roads and outside towns, and were inspecting identity documents of those seeking to enter damaged areas in Indiana and Kentucky following reports of looting. Long lines of cars waited at the entrances to some towns.

On Sunday afternoon, police stopped a vehicle on a back road that was trying to leave a home with a load full of stolen copper, said Albert Hale, emergency manager for Kentucky's Laurel County.

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Authorities have also caught people stealing scrap metal and trailers full of animals, and security personnel in Kentucky's Menifee County spent Saturday collecting weapons from destroyed homes to secure them from possible looters, a sheriff's official said.

"I've been through enough disasters to know that people see these situations as an opportunity to come take what they want," said Richard Franklin, chief deputy of the Menifee County sheriff's office. He said looters came from as far away as Ohio.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear urged spectators and unsolicited volunteers to stay out of the way so emergency responders could do their jobs.

Beshear described the scene in the hard-hit town of West Liberty as one of "total devastation" and signed an executive order barring price gouging for food and other necessities.

"It looked like a bomb had been dropped in the middle of town," he said of West Liberty. "Buildings had the walls standing and the roof gone. It was a terrible sight. It's going to be a long, long time to get that town on its feet."

President Barack Obama has called the governors of Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky to offer condolences and assure them the federal government was ready to help if needed.

Even with life upended in so many ways, one family got a reminder that a deadly tornado can't uproot everything.

The home that Shalonda Kerr shares with her husband and Jack Russell terrier outside of Chelsea, Ind., was obliterated: The front wall was ripped clean, leaving the home looking eerily like a shaken dollhouse. An upended couch and a tipped-over fish tank lay in the rubble.

The mailbox was untouched. Its front hatch was tipped open, revealing a white piece of paper.

"Inside was a $300 IRS bill," Kerr said, laughing amid the ruins.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Updated at 5:05 p.m. ET
The 14-month-old girl found in a field after Friday's tornadoes passed away after being taken off life support on Sunday, her grandparents told NBC News.

The grandparents and doctors had earlier decided to remove Angel Babcock from life support due to the severity of her injuries.

Angel was found alive about 150 yards from where her family's home had stood. Her parents, Joe and Moriah Babcock, died instantly; so too did her brother Jaydon, 2 years, and sister Kendall, 2 months.

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Her grandfather Jack Brough on Saturday told the Louisville Courier-Journal that "she’s had a lot of injuries to her head ... I’m just asking everyone to pray for my granddaughter and for my family."

A neighbor said her boyfriend had tried to help the family leave their mobile home in New Pekin, Ind., for his larger one as the tornado bore down on Friday.

The boyfriend, Jason Miller, said he saw Angel's family lying face down in their hallway, holding hands and praying.

Before he could help them out, however, the tornado sucked him and the Babcocks out. Miller survived with several broken bones.

Brough said he waited out the storm at his home, and then headed to his daughter's to see how they were.

"As we got closer and closer, the whole area was flattened," he told the Courier-Journal. "I kept saying, ‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’ I was breathing so hard. I couldn’t see my daughter’s trailer for nothing. It was gone."

Brough was then told of a little boy found in a field and a baby being carried away. He later learned the two were his grandchildren and went to a local hospital to identify them. There he was told that his daughter and her boyfriend were also dead. 

'Total devastation' as cleanup begins
How to help tornado victims

"They wanted me to identify Moriah and Joe, but I just couldn’t do it," he said. 

"She was always happy and loved life," Brough said of his daughter. "Her entire life was about Joe and her children. She loved her kids; she was always with them."

NBC News producers Alan Cohen and Bob Vasilopoulos contributed to this report.

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HENRYVILLE, Ind. -- The search for tornado victims was wrapping up Sunday, but the cleanup was only beginning, especially along a 52-mile-long stretch in Indiana where the scene was best described as "total devastation."

With a light snow and cold temperatures adding to the misery in places like hard-hit Henryville, Indiana officials were able to announce that no one else was still reported missing in the state where 12 died. Kentucky was hardest hit, with 20 deaths.

The next phase -- cleanup and providing security -- is just starting, Indiana State Police Sgt. Jerry Gooden told NBC's TODAY show.

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"We’ve got about a four or five county area here, about a 50-mile stretch of area … that's total destruction," he said, referring to the fact that a twister with 175 mph winds was on the ground for 52 miles. A second, smaller twister on Friday in the area added to the destruction. 

Crews worked to move downed power lines and clear debris, and residents began putting tarps over torn apart homes to prevent further damage.

Meanwhile, the more fortunate brought donations including diapers, blankets and food to area churches.

"That's what people do. It's no biggie. It's because we care. They are our neighbors," said Brenda Parson as she brought a carload of donations to the St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Henryville.

In one sign of hope amid the destruction, a 2-year-old girl, orphaned by the tornado, was found alive but badly hurt in a field in southeast Indiana miles from her home after a twister cut through the area.

How to help tornado victims

The toddler, who remained in critical condition in a Kentucky hospital, was with members of her extended family. But her parents, a 2-month-old sister and a 3-year-old brother, were all killed, said Cis Gruebbel, a spokeswoman for Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville.

The violent storms raised fears that 2012 will be another bad year for tornadoes after 550 deaths were blamed on twisters last year, the deadliest year in nearly a century, according to the National Weather Service.

In the northern Kentucky town of Crittenden, where tornadoes ripped roofs off houses and damaged apartment blocks, low-security prisoners in orange jackets were brought in to help with clean-up efforts.

In another hard-hit Kentucky town, 48-year-old carpenter Kevin Stambaugh described how he survived a twister that killed his two neighbors, who he said were found dead huddled together in their kitchen. He said he also lost 25 horses in the storm.

"The windows were shattered and shards of glass were swirling around near my head," he told Reuters outside a church in the town of Morning View, adding that wind had pushed him down the stairs to his basement and pinned him between a bar and a wall.

At least 300 people came to the Piner Baptist Church, advertised as a relief center, to volunteer after the storm.

"Being from here, born and raised, the hardest thing is knowing that the houses I grew up seeing every day are gone. There are no words," said volunteer Amy Heeger, 38, who works for a car auction company but headed for the church to help out.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Updated at 2:30 p.m. ET: HENRYVILLE, Ind. -- Stories of tragedy and survival were being reported across the Midwest and South on Saturday, but perhaps none as dramatic as those coming from students and school staff in this devastated Indiana town.

A massive twister tore through the area housing Henryville's elementary, middle and high schools just after school was dismissed early due to warnings.

Some buses had to return just after leaving the schools as they saw the twister coming. The 11 children on one of those got off and were ushered into a school building just before the bus was flung into a nearby restaurant.

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The driver of another bus had to stop and ask a homeowner to take the students in. "We got on the buses, we started heading to my house and the tornado was following us," one child recounted. "Luckily this woman was so generous to let us stay in her basement."

Henryville Elementary School Principal Glenn Riggs told NBC's TODAY show that he and some 40 students and staff took shelter in three small offices, lying on the floor.

"There was like a decompression," he said. "It felt almost like your skin was going to be peeled off your face and your ears popped. And of course people were a little upset; some of the children were upset."

2012 tornado disaster relief: How to help

When the twister hit, he added, "it was just crash, bang, break ... we knew the school was going up around us, and then the ceilings began to fall apart," sending dust and other debris to the ground before it finally stopped.

Amazingly, not a single injury was reported at the campus, much of which was destroyed, or among students sent home by bus.

The students still at school after the twister hit were taken to the local community center to reunite with parents -- but only after a round of baseball-sized hail pounded what was left of the schools.

House 'shook once, and it was gone'
In Washington County, Ind., residents described seeing a massive tornado come over a hill and plow through a grove of trees, which looked almost like a line of bulldozers eight wide had rolled through, crushing the land.

When Gene Lewellyn, his son and his son's 7-year-old daughter saw the tornado come over the hill, they rushed to the basement of his one-story brick home and covered themselves with a carpet. Lewellyn's son laid over his daughter to protect her, and then a black cloud enveloped the house.

Twister-hit areas told to expect snow

"It just shook once, and it (the house) was gone," said Lewellyn, 62.

His family was safe, but their home was reduced to a pile of bricks with sheet metal wrapped around splintered trees. Pieces of insulation coated the ground, and across the street a large trailer picked up by the storm had landed on top of a boat. Lewellyn spent Saturday picking through the debris in 38-degree cold.

"Right now, we are not sure what we are going to do," he said. "We will get out what we can get out. Hopefully, we won't have to argue from the insurance company very much."

Child, great grandparents killed
In Chelsea, a man, woman and their 4-year-old great-grandchild died. The child and his mother were huddled in a basement when the storm hit and sucked the child out of her hands.

The mother survived, but her 70-year-old grandparents were upstairs; both died.

"She was in the cellar with the boy when the tornado hit. It blew him right out of her hands," neighbor Tony Williams said. "They found the bodies in the field outside," he added, referring to the boy and his great grandparents.

Williams said 60 local school children took refuge in his store overnight. "The bus drivers did a great job. We had them in a back room with no windows," he said.

In Salem, about 60 miles west of Chelsea, a 2-year-old girl was found alive in a field alone. The girl was in critical condition.

'I just held on to her,' dad says of daughter
In Kentucky, Stephen Burton heard a twister coming in West Liberty and pulled his 23-year-old daughter to safety, just before the tornado destroyed the second story of the family's home.

"I held onto her and made it to the center of the house, next to a closet," Burton said. "I just held onto her, and I felt like I was getting sand-blasted on my back."

At least 75 people were hurt in West Liberty, where the downtown area was "just devastated," said one official.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Updated at 10 p.m. ET: Tornadoes swept across the Midwest and the South on Friday, hitting hardest in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio, where at least 28 people were killed. An entire town was flattened in Indiana, and homes and businesses were destroyed from Ohio to the Gulf Coast.

Fourteen people were killed in Indiana, 12 died in Kentucky and two people were killed in Ohio, said The Weather Channel on its website, weather.com. It wasn't immediately clear how many people were missing.

The town of Marysville, Ind., population about 1,900, was "completely gone," and Henryville Junior-Senior High School was destroyed, Clark County sheriff's Maj. Chuck Adams told NBC News. All the students escaped, some with minor scrapes, Adams said.

"This is no place to be. We've got a terrible tragedy here, and we've got to try and deal with it," Indiana State Police Sgt. Jerry Goodin told NBC station WAVE of Louisville.

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In a statement, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said that despite improvements to disaster preparedness and warning systems "we are no match for Mother Nature at her worst." He said the full extent of the damage will not be known until Saturday.

Multiple tornadoes were still being reported in Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia well into the evening, The Weather Channel and the National Weather Service reported. At 9 p.m. ET, tornadoes were reported near the major cities of Atlanta and Knoxville, Tenn.

In West Liberty, Ky., the Morgan County Courthouse sustained significant damage, and an unknown number of people were injured or trapped in buildings. In Trimble County, Ky., a tornado leveled the Milton fire station.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday would likely end up as one of the five biggest tornado days of the year, with "tornadic activity" leading to watches or warnings in at least 17 states.

msnbc.com: Local updates from affected areas
Why US is seeing such intense tornado activity
Live tornado updates on breakingnews.com
NOAA: See where watches, warnings are active

The tornadoes began when a "very large super-cell" of tornadoes touched down in northern Alabama early in the day, damaging homes and a prison and injuring at least four people. In southern Tennessee, another twister ripped 20 homes off their foundations and submerged boats, officials said.

At least 30 people were injured in Hamilton County, Tenn., authorities told  NBC News, six to 10 of them critically. "Significant damage" was reported to subdivisions along Highway 68 east of Chattanooga.

Amy Maxwell, a spokeswoman for Hamilton County Emergency Services,  said at least 20 homes were destroyed and that several people were trapped beneath downed trees and structures. 

To the east in Cleveland, Tenn., Blaine Lawson and his wife Billie were watching the weather when the power went out, they told The Associated Press. Just as they began to seek shelter, strong winds ripped the roof off their home. Neither was hurt.

"It just hit all at once," said Blaine Lawson, 76. "Didn't have no warning really. The roof, insulation and everything started coming down on us. It just happened so fast that I didn't know what to do. I was going to head to the closet but there was just no way. It just got us."

Two of the three runways at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport were closed, and residents of Kentucky and Ohio were advised to "maintain close awareness."

At least 44 people injured in Laurel County, Ky, were taken to St. Joseph's hospital for treatment, NBC station WLEX-TV reported on its website. Officials reported head injuries, fractures as well as severe cuts. Amputations were also performed, the TV station reported.

"This is a very dangerous situation," said Tom Bradshaw, the National Weather Service's Southeast regional director.

Rare extreme warning
For only the second time, the Weather Channel issued a TORCON warning of 10 as multiple tornado-producing super-cells moved across northern Kentucky — meaning forecasters believed there was a 100 percent chance of a tornado within 50 miles. The TORCON system was developed a few years ago, and the top warning was first used April 27, 2011, during a devastating outbreak of tornadoes across the South.

Paige Colburn, an emergency management officer at the Huntsville-Madison County Emergency Management Agency, told msnbc.com that the damage in Alabama covered a 4- to 5-mile swath in northern Madison County.

"The reason that it is so wide is because we’re not talking about one tornado. We’re talking about a very large super-cell that spawned several smaller tornadoes, and there’s possibly one very large one in there, too," she said.

Buckhorn High School sustained roof and window damage, but no injuries were reported, the state agency said in a statement. Part of the roof of Buckhorn Middle School was blown away, but all children were safe, Geraldine Tibbs, a spokeswoman for the Madison County Board of Education, told NBC News.

Back-to-back tornadoes also struck neighboring Limestone County on Friday morning. A training building at Limestone Correctional Facility, which houses 2,100 inmates, was destroyed, and two dorms and two other buildings suffered roof damage, Brian Corbett, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, told NBC News.

No one was hurt, and the prison was operating on generator power. The state has sent extra security, Corbett added.

March opens tornado season with a bang
A storm system earlier this week killed 13 people in four states in the Midwest and the South.

March is the start of the core of severe weather season over much of the country, said Russell Schneider, head of NOAA's Storm Prediction Center, and the "high risk" alert issued Friday — the weather service's top threat level — was the fifth during the month of March since 2000

"As far as any trends for the season, certainly this has been a very active week or two, but we really can't make any judgment on the full extent of the season at this time."

Ioanna Dafermou, Justin Kirschner, Jessica Prater, Sarah Rosefeldt, Tracy Snyder and Edgar Zuniga of NBC News; and NBC stations WAVE of Louisville, Ky., WLEX of Lexington, Ky., and WTHR of Indianapolis contributed to this report.

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