NASHVILLE, Tenn. (NewsNation) — Central Tennessee residents and emergency crews started cleaning up Sunday from severe storms and tornados that killed six people and sent more than two dozen to the hospital while damaging multiple homes and businesses in multiple cities.
Three people, including a child, were killed after an apparent tornado struck Montgomery County, north of Nashville near the Kentucky state line, county officials said.
The Nashville Emergency Operation Center said in a Facebook post that three people were killed by storms in a neighborhood just north of downtown Nashville.
At least 23 people were treated for injuries at hospitals in Montgomery County. In addition, 13 people were hospitalized following reports of a building collapse at the Community Church along Dickerson Pike, according to Nashville OEM.
Preliminary reports by the Storm Prediction Center indicated 13 tornadoes occurred Saturday, impacting at least 11 Tennessee counties.
A curfew was in effect both Saturday night and Sunday night in Clarksville, where officials on Sunday urged motorists to keep away from the damaged areas so as not to impede the work of first responders and utility crews.
National Weather Service meteorologists said in a post on X that the destructive tornadoes were spawned in the Clarksville and Nashville areas.
At least six tornado tracks were reported on Saturday in central Tennessee, according to the National Weather Service. Agency meteorologist Cory Mueller in Nashville said it was sending out tornado tracking teams on Sunday to attempt to confirm these potential tornadoes and calculate their severity.
An initial survey found Clarksville faced EF-3 tornadoes with winds of 150 mph and Madison, Hendersonville and Gallatin saw EF-2 tornadoes with winds of 125 mph, according to National Weather Service in Nashville. Further surveys will be conducted in the following days.
Mueller said it wasn’t uncommon for tornadoes to be generated during this time of year.
The Metropolitan Nashville Police Department identified the victims killed north of downtown as Joseph Dalton, 37; Floridema Gabriel Perez, 31; and her son, Anthony Elmer Mendez, 2. Dalton was inside his mobile home when the storm tossed it on top of Perez’s residence. Two other children, one in each home, were taken to a hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening, the department said in a statement.
Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell declared a state of emergency for Metro Nashville and Davidson County, allowing the locality to obtain state and federal resources to help in the storm’s aftermath.
The American Red Cross is managing several shelters located in Clarksville, Nashville and Hendersonville.
The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that a tornado touched down around 2 p.m.
Around 5 p.m., cameras caught a confirmed tornado moving through Davidson County. Video shows the storm moving through the area, causing a handful of explosions in its path.
The National Weather Service issued multiple tornado warnings in Tennessee, and said it planned to survey an area where an apparent tornado hit in Kentucky.
The storm came nearly two years to the day after the National Weather Service recorded 41 tornados through a handful of states, including 16 in Tennessee and eight in Kentucky. A total of 81 people died in Kentucky alone.
NewsNation affiliate WKRN and the Associated Press contributed to this report.