TORNADO KILLS 23

EVANSVILLE -- The firefighter sat, head in hands, alone. \nIt was a blindingly sunny Sunday in early November, and he hardly expected to be here, doing this, in what remained of a trailer community nestled alongside a bustling freeway in southwestern Indiana. \nThe grizzled veteran stared straight ahead. His eyes welled with tears. Shook his hands. No interviews. Please.\nHis grief was illustrative of a larger, collective mourning in this community of more than 150,000, wracked by a tornado deemed the worst in state memory Sunday morning.\nAs dawn broke Sunday, more than 400 fire and emergency services personnel from across Indiana descended upon Evansville in Vanderburgh County and Newburgh, Ind., in neighboring Warrick County, to sift through the damage and unearth what remained.\n"I've never seen anything like this, no," said Vanderburgh County Sheriff Brad Ellsworth, standing in Eastbrook Mobile Home Park, where the death toll climbed to 23 Sunday at press time. "I've seen smaller disasters. But like this? Nothing." \nFirst the bodies came, more than a dozen in nearly no time. A family of four. A 2-year-old girl. An 11-year-old boy, his body tossed by the storm's 158-mph winds into a nearby pond. \nBut then rescuers took heart: An 8-year-old girl was pulled from a ditch near the trailer park. Injured but alert, she was transported to an area hospital. \n"We've searched all the standing houses, but because of the extent of the damage, it's difficult to tell in some places where houses actually were," said Chief Deputy Eric Williams of the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office. "It's basically one large debris field. We're trying to move what's left, but it'll be an ongoing job."\nThe Vanderburgh County Coroner's Office reported at least 17 deaths at press time, and five more people, including a family of four, were killed in Degonia Springs, a rural community in Warrick County. Nearly 230 additional victims were treated Sunday at two area hospitals for injuries ranging from mild to critical, and more than 17,000 homes were without power Sunday. Warrick County schools are closed today, and American Red Cross volunteers are continuing to place now-homeless families in local shelters. \nThe storm came virtually without warning, leaving in its frenetic wake destruction spanning more than 20 miles in length and nearly a mile wide. \nIt was, as all twisters are, deliberate in what it chose to take and spare. In the Eastbrook community, washing machines were yanked from walls and tossed carelessly into dense clusters of trees. Baby clothes dangled from the eaves of what was once a home. A child's rocking horse littered an abandoned street. Bits of sheet metal and aluminum siding were flung onto the interstate and into neighboring roadways. \nEmergency sirens sounded throughout the greater Evansville area around 1:30 a.m. Sunday, as residents of both counties slept. But many of the areas wracked hardest by the storms were already without power. \nThe twister touched down in Henderson, Ky., at Ellis Park, a horse racetrack, shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday, damaging barns and killing at least three Thoroughbred racehorses. It then began its 20-mile dance throughout neighboring Evansville and Warrick and Vanderburgh counties, decimating well-established neighborhoods in Newburgh, Ind., and destroying homes and churches in northern Warrick County. \nIndiana Gov. Mitch Daniels toured the disaster area in a Blackhawk helicopter Sunday afternoon.\n"It was a narrow path, a long streak," Daniels said. "It was dots and dashes. You could see where it lifted and touched down multiple times." \nClutching photographs he found lying near a destroyed home in Degonia Springs, Daniels appeared tearful as he spoke to emergency personnel while touring the Eastbrook community. \n"In Indiana, we take care of our own," Daniels said, praising state and local emergency preparedness units for their "unparalleled" skill and steadfastness. "The federal authorities have graciously offered their assistance, but for now, I've told them that we'll look to our own for the moment."\nFederal agencies will step in for reconstruction and rebuilding efforts, Daniels said. State and local authorities will tend to the immediate task of rescue and recovery, however. At least 50 Indiana National Guard troops arrived in Evansville early Sunday to assist emergency personnel, sheriff's deputies and the Evansville Police Department.\nSurvivors in the Eastbrook community described the aftermath as "chaotic," the sounds that followed the twister's deafening winds as haunting.\n"It got to me," said Kenneth Schaefer, 43, a plastics worker from Evansville, who moved to the trailer park three months ago. "Kids were crying, people were hollering and screaming ... seeing that just gets to you."\nSchaefer was among the lucky residents. His trailer, located in the front of the community and nestled near the overpass for Interstate 164, was spared. He left his house with his dogs, but his birds and fish remained in his home. \nStanding near the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Office command post near the community entrance Sunday, Schaefer looked tired, drawn. He blushed when his brother-in-law talked of how Schaefer pulled a family of five, several of whom were pinned beneath a sofa, from a nearby trailer. \n"Ain't nothing," he scoffed, diverting his eyes. "We just didn't have no chance. I didn't even hear the sirens. My brother woke me up. By the time I got my shoes and got to the door, it was on us. We didn't have no time to get anywhere"