Eyewitnesses: Shaken by the storm

The Reverend James C. Lovette-Black, USA:

"My mother's house was horribly damaged in Carbon Hill, Alabama. The nine-mile road from her house to the nearest town was impassable because of fallen trees and enormous pieces of houses that blocked the road. Fortunately, they were not injured, but several people in the little town of Carbon Hill were killed.

"Having grown up with the terror of tornadoes, there is almost no way to describe the roaring sound, the altered sensations because of static electricity all around, the sudden drop in air pressure, etc, all combined to powerfully change the way that one feels.

"The response is a primal, get-the-hell-out-of-here instinct."

Heidi S, Ohio, USA:

"We weren't too worried at first. The weather channel kept saying that we were going to get severe storms but they usually break up in western Ohio before they get to our county.

"I was washing the dishes when the first storm hit. My sister was in her room studying. I had a CD player on so I didn't hear much at first. Then the wind started getting so loud that I turned the music off.

"I went around the house shutting all the doors to the bedrooms so that the dogs would be in the living-room should I need to find them in a hurry. It turned out to be a good decision.

"About ten minutes later I heard this low continuous rumble accompanied by an unbelievable amount of lightning and hail. My sister ran out of her room, we looked at each other, grabbed the two dogs, and went straight for the basement.

"One of the dogs started shaking a lot, almost like she was shivering. That scared me because I had always heard that animals can sense things before humans can.

"The 'tornado' turned out to be a microburst but still not something I care to experience again."

Kate, UK:

"I was staying in a hotel in Warren, north-east Ohio when the storm warnings were first issued. I gathered with some other guests in the hotel lobby, watching the TV weather continuously for three hours.

"Fortunately we missed the worst of the storms, but we saw the lightning from our vantage point in the hotel and it was amazing, I have never seen so much lightning across a night sky.

"Even after the Tornado Warnings for the county had expired, the thunder was at times so loud that all the hotel walls vibrated."