Tornadoes ripped across Tennessee early Tuesday, shredding at least 40 buildings and killing at least 25 people. One of the twisters caused severe damage across downtown Nashville, destroying the stained glass in a historic church and leaving hundreds of people homeless.
Daybreak revealed a landscape littered with blown-down walls and roofs, snapped power lines and huge broken trees, leaving city streets in gridlock. Schools, courts, transit lines, an airport and the state Capitol were closed, and some damaged polling stations had to be moved only hours before Super Tuesday voting began.
A television broadcast showed cars piled up, hangars destroyed and what appeared to be dozens of aircraft smashed into each other at Nashville's John C. Tune Airport.
The Nashville Police Department circulated aerial photographs of many buildings missing roofs and homes destroyed -- standing next to houses that escaped damage.
"In the hours ahead, we will continue deploying search and rescue teams, opening shelters across the state, and sending emergency personnel to our communities hit hardest," Governor Bill Lee wrote on Twitter.
Lee said late Tuesday that the toll had risen to 25 during the day.
Among the victims were two people in Nashville killed after being struck by debris, police said.
Mayor John Cooper said around 150 people had been transported to medical facilities while nearly 50 buildings had collapsed in the city, the hub of the U.S. country music scene.
US President Donald Trump said that he would visit the stricken areas Friday.
"We send our love and our prayers of the nation to every family that was affected, and we will get there and we will recover and we will rebuild and we will help them," Trump said.
"Last night was a reminder about how fragile life is," Nashville Mayor John Cooper said at a Tuesday morning news conference.
The tornadoes were spawned by a line of severe storms with a line of storms that stretched from near Montgomery, Alabama, into western Pennsylvania.
In Nashville, it tore through areas transformed by a recent building boom. Germantown and East Nashville are two of the city's trendiest neighborhoods, with restaurants, music venues, high-end apartment complexes and rising home prices threatening to drive out longtime residents.
The disaster affected voting in Tennessee, one of 14 Super Tuesday states. Some polling sites in Nashville were moved, and sites across Davidson and county and Wilson counties were opening an hour late but still closing at the same time, Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett announced.
A reported gas leak forced an evacuation of the IMT building in Germantown, according to WSMV-TV. Dozens of people, suddenly homeless, were seen carrying their belongings through garbage-strewn streets after the tornado blew through.
Nashville Electric tweeted that four of its substations were damaged in the tornado. Power outages were affecting more than 44,000 customers early Tuesday, the utility company said.
