The number of missing decreased dramatically over 24 hours, as many were initially unreachable due to power outage and cellphone coverage issues.

Nashville authorities said there were no missing people within its city limits.

Some of the search areas were difficult to traverse, said Putnam Sheriff Eddie Farris, including a 10-hectare field with marshy vegetation reaching heights of two metres. Officials are also concerned about the forecast, with rain a possibility for Thursday.

Twisters struck after midnight Tuesday

People across Nashville were awakened by outdoor sirens alerting them to the tornado danger early Tuesday, and sirens also sounded in parts of Putnam County. In the Double Springs community of resident Bill Dyer, deep in the Tennessee countryside, no such systems exist.

«If the cellphones didn’t have the emergency call, it wouldn’t have been good,» Dyer said.

The twisters that struck across Tennessee after midnight Tuesday ripped off brick facades, bent metal poles and shredded more than 140 buildings while burying people in piles of rubble and wrecked basements.

Dyer’s own 34-year-old daughter, Brooke, managed to take shelter in the basement of the house he grew up in next door, and then «called me screaming and crying.» Moments after the tornado passed, he ventured out into the darkness and freed her from the wreckage.

«Thank God my mother had a basement, a very small basement,» the 64-year-old Dyer said. «She was standing there between the crack of the door screaming and crying, top of the house gone.»

The governor declared an emergency and sent the National Guard to help with search-and-rescue efforts. Police kept parts of Putnam County cordoned off, and imposed an 8 p.m.-8 a.m. curfew as the grim search continued into Wednesday.

One tornado had wind speeds of 265 km/h

National Weather Service survey teams indicated that the damage in Nashville and Wilson County to the east was inflicted by a tornado of at least EF-3 intensity, with wind speeds up to 265 kilometres per hour, the agency said. One twister wrecked homes and businesses across a 16-kilometre stretch of Nashville that included parts of downtown.

The tornado that struck Putnam County damaged more than 100 structures along a 3.2-kilometre path that wiped some homes from their foundations and scattered wreckage. The garage Dyer’s father used as an auto mechanic was scraped off its concrete slab, with metal rafters crushing the front and rear of his red Mustang with an Elvis Presley licence plate.

Terry Cooler, an elder at the Double Springs Church of Christ, found only a hole in his roof, which he thinks was caused by flying debris. Much worse was the fate of the mother of a deacon at his church, who lost her home in the storm and then was rushed to a hospital for angioplasty and a stent.

«I’m sure the stress didn’t help her,» Cooler said. «She’s 86 and lost everything.»

Dyer and his neighbours spent Tuesday picking through shattered glass, busted walls and drenched belongings trying to salvage anything possible.

‘We’re going to go help’

After surveying the damage on Tuesday, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee marvelled at people’s resilience.

«In the worst of circumstances, the best of people comes out, and that’s what we’re seeing,» he said.

Justin Douglas, 22, was one of them. He’s a native of Mt. Juliet outside Nashville, and recently graduated from Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville — both places hit hard by the tornadoes. He said he knew some of the victims.

«Back home, there were some family friends that they found laying in the bed with the house collapsed on top of them, and then a guy I went to church with growing up, his daughter passed and I don’t know how him and his wife are,» Douglas said. «I heard they were in the hospital in rough shape.»

Douglas moved his skid-steer loader to the Double Springs area Tuesday night, ready to help clean up Wednesday.

«Well, we need to go help because these are our friends, our neighbours, our family,» Douglas said. «We’re going to go help.»